Fourteen Years Ago
The boy was crying in the hospital corridor.
Kael Memoriam had been hunting for three days, following the scent of fresh trauma through Tokyo's
labyrinthine streets. Human suffering had a particular flavor—sharp and metallic, like copper pennies
dissolving on the tongue. But this boy's pain was different. Richer. More complex. It called to him with
an intensity that made his demonic nature sing.
Eight years old, maybe nine. Dark hair falling across his face as he hugged his knees to his chest, small
body shaking with sobs that echoed off the sterile walls. The fluorescent lights above flickered in
rhythm with his breathing, as if the building itself was responding to his distress.
Perfect.
Kael materialized from the shadows, his form shifting between demon and human as he approached.
To mortal eyes, he appeared as nothing more than a concerned doctor—tall, dark-haired, with kind
eyes that had fooled thousands of victims over the centuries. The boy looked up, tears streaming down
his cheeks.
"Are you lost?" Kael asked, his voice gentle. It was always easier when they spoke first.
"My dad," the boy whispered. "He's... they said he's not going to wake up."
Kael knelt beside him, close enough to smell the salt of tears and the underlying sweetness of
childhood innocence. "What's your name?"
"Akira." The boy wiped his nose with his sleeve. "Akira Sato."
"That's a strong name." Kael extended his hand. "I'm a doctor here. Would you like me to help you
feel
better?"
Akira stared at the offered hand with wide, dark eyes. In their depths, Kael saw layers of pain—the
fresh wound of his father's accident, the deeper ache of his parents' recent divorce, the conf
usion of
being shuttled between relatives who whispered about him when they thought he wasn't listening. So
much su
ffering for such a small vessel.
"Will it hurt?" Akira asked.
"No," Kael lied smoothly. "You
won't feel anything at all."
The boy's small hand slipped into his.
The connection was immediate and overwhelming. Kael gasped as Akira's memories flooded through
him—the screech of
brakes, the sickening crunch of metal, the moment eight-year-old Akira realizedhis father might die. The raw terror of a child who had already lost so much, now
of losing everything.
facing the possibility
But underneath the fresh trauma lay something else. Something that made Kael's breath catch.
Love.
Pure, unconditional love for a father who had been trying his best despite everything. Love for a mother
who was struggling with her own demons. Love for a broken family that this boy still believed could be
fixed. The emotion was so bright, so genuine, that it burned through Kael's demonic essence like
sunlight through shadow.
He should have taken it all. That was the nature of his kind—to consume, to devour, to leave nothing
behind but blessed emptiness. But as he touched the edges of that love, something inside him
recoiled.
Instead, he took only the pain.
The accident. The divorce. The fear. The loneliness. Every sharp-edged memory that had been cutting
this boy apart from the inside. Kael drew them into himself, feeling them settle into his consciousness
like drops of poison in clear water. But he left the love untouched.
When he released Akira's hand, the boy blinked up at him in conf
usion.
"I feel... better," Akira said, wonder in his voice. "Why do I feel better?"
Kael stood quickly, his form already beginning to fade back into shadow. "Sometimes we just need
someone to share the burden."
As he dissolved into the darkness, Kael carried with him the weight of Akira Sato's su
ffering. The boy's
pain nestled against his heart like a warm coal, and for the first time in three centuries, Kael felt
something other than hunger.
He felt... human.
Present Day
Kael woke, as he did every morning, with the taste of an eight-year-old's tears on his lips.
Fourteen years, and Akira's memories were still the strongest in his collection. Not because they were
the most traumatic—he had devoured centuries of human agony, after all. But because they were the
most complete. Every stolen moment came with its own context, its own web of relationships and meaning.
He knew that Akira had grown up to work at a Memory Recovery Center, though the boy—man, now—
had no idea why he was drawn to helping people piece together their fractured lives. He knew that Akira lived alone in a small apartment, that he made tea every morning at exactly 7:15, that he still visited his father's grave every month even though he couldn't remember why it made him feel sad.
Kael knew all of this because he had been watching. Protecting. Ensuring that no other demon discovered the treasure trove of pure emotion that Akira Sato represented.
But last night, something had changed.
For the first time in fourteen years, Akira had experienced a memory echo—a ghostly glimpse of something that had been stolen from him. The psychic resonance had been so strong that Kael had felt it from across the city, a sudden sharp pain that had driven him to his knees.
The boy was remembering.
And if Akira was remembering, then other demons would soon catch his scent. The very memories that had made Kael more human would make every other demon in Tokyo hungrier than they had ever been.
Kael rose from his bed, his decision already made. He had spent fourteen years carrying Akira's pain, living with the boy's stolen childhood nestled against his heart. He had become something neither fully demon nor human, sustained by memories of love he had never experienced himself.
Now it was time to give them back.
Even if it killed him.
Especially if it killed him.
Because after fourteen years of carrying someone else's pain, Kael had learned something that no demon was supposed to understand: Some things were worth dying for.
And Akira Sato was one of them.