06 / 03 / 2019, 07:24 – Wednesday, Minami Ward, Sakai, Osaka.
The air that morning carried a faint chill.
The kind of breeze that whispered of winter's remnants, yet softened by the sunlight of early March. The sky was pale, almost translucent, and the streets glistened faintly from dew that had not yet evaporated.
Spring had begun its quiet intrusion, trees budding timidly, the smell of damp earth blending with the faint perfume of sakura not yet in full bloom.
It had been two weeks since Akane settled in his new home.
Those fourteen days passed not with excitement, but with a tranquil rhythm: eat, rest, read, and train.
Nothing extraordinary, only a quiet repetition of effort and adjustment.
Each day he woke up, his body ached, not from pain, but from unfamiliarity.
The movements he once took for granted now demanded effort.
His muscles trembled from even simple push-ups, and sometimes, standing too quickly would blur his vision.
But instead of discouragement, he found fuel in that weakness.
He began to hate that fragile version of himself, the one who had once lost, once been helpless.
Now that he had been "reborn," even in a quiet suburban neighborhood, his goal remained unshaken: to become stronger, to protect what mattered, regardless of the price.
And so, he returned to what he knew best, knowledge.
If his body couldn't catch up yet, then his mind would lead the way. Books became his company.
He gathered, summarized, and categorized every bit of information he could find — science, physics, philosophy, and even psychology.
He devoured them all.
To him, learning wasn't a chore; it was a way to breathe.
He could sit in silence for hours, losing track of time, drowning in words and theories.
Yet, as his collection of notes grew thicker, Akane realized the flaw in his method.
Knowledge wasn't omnipotence; it was chaos, unless structured properly. He recalled once believing, perhaps too literally, a line from a comic:
"Gather all knowledge in your mind, and you can become omniscient."
How naïve, he thought now.
The first problem — knowledge without order was useless.
To know everything was to know nothing unless it was organized.
Only by starting small and expanding outward could one truly master a field.
The second problem — the mind forgets.
To remember everything was impossible. Even if he memorized entire books, the retrieval, the recall in moments of need, was unpredictable.
The third — perhaps the greatest — was the gap between knowing and doing.
Knowledge without practice was empty; practice without theory was blind.
He understood much, yet could do so little. His body was still too frail, too limited.
Still, the realization didn't crush him; it refined him.
Challenges were nothing new; helplessness was something he had met before.
And so, for now, he decided to shift focus: from books to motion.
By the end of those two weeks, he could already walk without assistance.
Another week later, he could run.
Push-ups, pull-ups, squats, his routine grew stricter each morning.
When his siblings left for school, Akane would jog through the park nearby, the morning mist wrapping around him like a veil of quiet purpose.
He didn't attend school, unlike Ayato and Irina.
He saw no need to.
With only one year left before graduation for Ayato, he believed he could learn much more independently. Books served as his teachers, and discipline became his curriculum.
---
April came and went.
By May, the season had fully turned. The morning air was warmer, the days longer.
"See you later!"
"See you later, Aka-nii!"
The cheerful voices of Ayato and Irina echoed as they left for school, their footsteps tapping against the pavement.
Akane stood at the door, waving calmly.
Once the door closed, he sighed, stretched his arms, and collapsed onto the sofa, remote in hand.
The morning news flickered on the television, mundane, almost comforting in its normalcy.
From the second floor, the sound of footsteps and light humming emerged.
Riscia descended the stairs, already dressed in her suit, adjusting her earrings as she passed the mirror.
Her perfume lingered in the air, faint citrus and vanilla.
She was halfway to the door when she paused, her eyes catching sight of Akane sprawled on the sofa like a cat basking in the sunlight.
A small smile tugged at her lips.
"Akane-kun," she said, her tone half-teasing, half-gentle, "rather than lazing around doing nothing, why don't you come with me to work today?"
Akane tilted his head slightly without looking away from the TV.
"Why, though? I don't wanna meet a bunch of old, pedantic people talking about boring stuff all day."
Her eyebrow twitched, but her smile stayed. "You know, you could at least pretend to sound polite."
He finally glanced at her, face straight and unbothered.
"I'm ten, nee-chan. Pretending is still an optional skill."
Riscia laughed softly, shaking her head. "You really are something."
Over these past two months, her understanding of Akane had changed drastically.
At first, she thought him merely clever, the kind of precocious intelligence children sometimes had.
But watching him, talking with him, and sometimes, just seeing the books scattered across his room, she realized it wasn't "cleverness."
It was something deeper, sharper, the mind of someone who thought like an adult, and yet not bound by one.
There were moments he seemed immature, complaining about dinner, making sarcastic comments about commercials, but beneath it, his thoughts ran far, far ahead.
Once, out of curiosity, she had asked him about a business problem her company faced, a stagnating product line.
He didn't laugh it off or dismiss it.
He treated it like a puzzle.
Within minutes, he was asking her questions, not about profit or marketing, but about structure, incentives, patterns of employee motivation.
Angles that even her colleagues hadn't considered.
And by the end of that night, she had the solution, simple, elegant, and oddly practical.
She had told his sister about it later, and Irina had only smiled knowingly.
"That's just how he is,"
"When he finds something interesting, he'll give it his all." She said smugly, but then, as if reminded of something, a shiver ran down her spine as she hugged her body,
"Even if the purpose is mischievous or whimsical, he will do it and is committed to his action. Nee-chan, you should be careful, you know!"
And that was exactly it.
For Akane, the world was divided neatly into two categories, "obligation" and "interest."
If it were an obligation, he would do it without question, as a necessity.
If it interested him, he would dive into it fully, losing himself in it completely.
There was no middle ground.
Riscia often wondered which side she stood on for him.
Now, watching him lie there lazily with half-lidded eyes, she chuckled quietly.
Maybe boredom itself would eventually drive him into something new.
"Alright then," she said, grabbing her purse. "I'm heading out. Don't burn the house down."
"I'll try not to," he murmured.
As the door clicked shut, the morning sunlight filled the room again.
Akane turned off the TV, staring blankly at his reflection in the black screen.
His mind, despite its calm, was always moving, thinking, calculating, planning.
Outside, the wind carried the faint scent of sakura once more.
The world was in motion, and so was he, even if, for now, it looked like stillness.