CLATTER!
The sudden, sharp noise cut through the suffocating silence like a knife.
A pair of metal chopsticks that had been resting on the edge of the wooden table suddenly slipped, rolling over the side and hitting the hard kitchen tile with a loud, ringing Bounce.
The sudden Clatter of the chopsticks seemed to snap something vital inside Mr. Kamitani's chest.
The gentle, romantic posture vanished in a single fraction of a second. He stood up tall, tearing himself away from the back of her chair as his playful energy evaporated completely into thin air.
He brought one large, trembling hand up, pressing his fingers tightly over his left eye as a heavy, dark anger rushed over his pale features.
"Yuna," Mr. Kamitani spoke straight-forward, his voice dropping all its warmth, turning incredibly cold and rigid as his lawyer instincts desperately fought against the rising panic.
"Calm down. Just stop it right now. That... what you're saying is completely impossible. You are clearly overworked at the Firm, and you are imagining things."
"Imagining things?!" Mrs. Kamitani suddenly screamed.
With a quick burst of raw emotion, she violently forced herself up from the seat.
The complete force of her sudden movement sent the heavy wooden chair crashing backward onto the hard kitchen floor with a loud, echoing THUD.
Fresh tears exploded from her green eyes, spilling down her face as she slammed one hand tightly over her heaving chest, staring at him in pure, broken betrayal.
"Ayato! Since when did you start doubting me?!" she cried out, her voice filled with a painful, desperate madness.
"Ayato! Since when did you start doubting me?!" she cried out, her voice cracking into a painful, desperate sob as she stared at him in pure, broken betrayal.
"I AM NOT BLIND!" Yuna shouted, the hot tears completely spilling over her eyelashes.
"AND I AM ABSOLUTELY NOT MAD!"
Mr. Kamitani tried to step closer, but she fiercely backed away.
"Do you honestly think I would just invent this?!" she breathed out frantically, her shoulders shaking violently as she pressed her hand harder against her chest.
"Right in the middle of our happy days... why would I ever make up something as terrible as that Curse?!"
She shook her head in pure agony, her green eyes flashing with a desperate terror.
"That mark hasn't appeared a single time in Eleven Years, Ayato!" Yuna screamed through her fingers, her voice breaking completely. "I know what I saw! I know it!"
Mr. Kamitani instantly closed his eyes, letting out a heavy, sharp sigh through his teeth.
"Yuna, please..." he whispered fiercely, leaning across the table. "Do not shout at me. Do not speak so loudly in this kitchen. The children are still upstairs. Do you want Shido to hear you?!"
"Don't... don't scold me!" Mrs. Kamitani sobbed continuously, her shoulders shaking violently as she completely refused to back down against his cold wall of denial.
"Don't you dare... hic... don't look down on me like... like I've lost my mind!" she cried out, her breath hitching sharply between the heavy tears.
Mr. Kamitani stood completely rigid, his face pale as he watched her crumble.
"I-I am not lying to you, Ayato!" Yuna screamed through her messy, wet sobs, her voice fracturing into breathless, tiny pieces. "I'm not... I'm not insane! If you don't... if you won't believe my words..."
She stepped forward, her hands shaking as she pointed a trembling finger toward the upper hallway.
"Then g-go up there... go up there yourself!" she shouted, a fresh wave of bitter tears suffocating her speech. "W-Walk into Kento's room... lift... lift his shirt, and... and check his—"
"YUNA!!!"
Mr. Kamitani screamed her name, his voice exploding through the quiet kitchen like a sudden, terrifying clap of thunder.
The complete, raw volume of his shout was so immensely loud and furious that Mrs. Kamitani's entire body instantly hitched and violently shivered in pure shock.
"Eek—!"
The words completely died in her throat, and she let out a small, terrified gasp, stepping back as she stared at her husband in wide-eyed silence.
The heavy silence crashed back into the room, suffocating them both. Mr. Kamitani slowly lowered his hand from his eye, looking down at the floor tiles as his chest heaved with a shallow, panicked breath.
When he spoke again, his voice was nothing more than a low, freezing, and absolute whisper.
"You are daydreaming." he said coldly, refusing to look into her eyes. "I will not believe this. I am not going to check anything, because there is nothing to check. Now drop it."
"W-Wahh... huuu..."
Yuna let out a sharp, breathless sob, a broken, choked-up wail ripping violently through her throat as she shook her head in utter betrayal. She didn't say a single word. She couldn't.
"H-Hic... ugh..."
She turned around violently, completely abandoning the kitchen as she ran out into the hallway, the sound of her frantic, weeping footsteps fading rapidly up the stairs.
The moment the front door of the kitchen clicked shut, the icy mask completely slipped off Mr. Kamitani's face.
BAM!!!
With a sudden, violent shout of pure, complete agony, he slammed his fist hard against the wooden kitchen table, making the remaining coffee cups rattle loudly.
"GOD DAMMIT!!!" he screamed out into the empty room, his voice cracking with a terrifying despair. He aggressively slapped his hand over his forehead, dragging it down his face as his tall body bent in absolute, bleeding defeat.
How could this be possible?
How could the universe be so incredibly cruel?
Sixteen years ago in that dark basement, he had held his weeping wife and promised her that everything would be fine.
For eleven long years, the spiral lines had remained completely dark, dead, and quiet.
He had truly, honestly thought that the ancient prayer was over. He had thought his innocent family was finally safe from the Heavens.
He let out a long, broken sigh, his eyes staring blankly into the shadows of the kitchen as the absolute terror of his late uncle's vanished mark and the cosmos settled deep into his bones.
The dawn was coming. And he was completely powerless to stop it.
SEPTEMBER 30th, 2016. TOKYO. 4:12 A.M.
The bedroom was completely drowned in a heavy, freezing darkness.
The glowing golden lights of the massive crystal chandelier hanging from the high ceiling were switched completely off, leaving the vast space to be swallowed by the deep shadows of the night.
Outside the large, floor-to-ceiling glass doors, the distant Tokyo skyline was buried under dark clouds, casting a faint blue light over the polished wooden floors.
In the center, a large, grand bed was framed by two matching nightstands, their small lamps turned dark.
High wooden bookshelves were built directly into the walls, packed tight with towering rows of heavy, thick Law Books and Legal Volumes that stretched all the way up to the ceiling.
A hallway opened up to the left, leading into a dark walk-in closet, while the heavy, dark blue curtains hung perfectly still by the windows.
A thick, suffocating silence filled every single corner, made even louder by the low, steady hum of the air conditioner, which was set to a freezing 18°C.
Right across from the massive windows, the quiet was gently broken by a single, small desk lamp shining brightly over the wide wooden study table.
Sitting right at the desk was Mrs. Kamitani, completely lost in her late-night work. She was dressed in a pair of loose, light blue-grey cotton pajamas with tiny white buttons and white borders along the short sleeves.
Her long brown hair was thrown up in a hurried, casual hairstyle, held tightly at the back of her head with a large, clear plastic claw clip, leaving a few loose strands framing her face.
A pair of thin reading spectacles sat low on the bridge of her nose, reflecting the bright glowing screen of her open laptop.
Thin white wired earphones ran down from her ears straight into the laptop side, playing a soft, low melody that kept her away from the dark room. Right next to her mouse pad, a plain white ceramic mug sat flat on the desk, a faint line of steam still rising from the hot black coffee inside.
Mrs. Kamitani leaned forward, her eyes moving rapidly across a dense corporate contract on her screen.
Her fingers tapped gently against her chin, and she began murmuring quietly to herself, her voice nothing more than a breathless whisper cutting through the soft music in her ears.
"Let's see..." she muttered to herself, looking slightly at a long legal clause on the page.
"If the third party fails to deliver the financial layouts by the weekend term... then the alliance contract becomes completely void. No, that's not right. Let's look at the previous memo again..."
Just across the vast room, directly opposite her neat workspace, stood another massive study table. Unlike hers, that desk was an absolute disaster area.
A small desk lamp cast a harsh glare over the chaos, lighting up mountains of open legal files, cardboard storage boxes stuffed with messy paperwork, and heavy law volumes stacked high on top of each other.
The bright computer monitor was wide awake, glowing with a dozen open research websites and dense legal databases. Right beside the keyboard, a lone ceramic mug sat forgotten, the dark coffee inside having gone completely cold hours ago.
Seated right in the middle of this mess was Mr. Kamitani. His usually neat hair was a wild, tangled disaster from where his fingers had repeatedly dragged through it all night.
He was bent backwards against the frame of his chair, his tall body completely stretching out in pure exhaustion.
Both of his large hands were raised, firmly covering his tired eyes to block out the bright glare of the computer screen. He looked completely drained, still wearing his white button-up shirt and sharp black suit pants from a long day at the Court.
Yuna gently adjusted her spectacles and glanced back over her shoulder at him.
Watching his dramatic, stretched-out posture, she couldn't help but let out a quiet huff in her mind. 'Hah— what is his problem anyway?' she thought to herself, a tiny, playful wave of annoyance bubbling up.
'If he is really that dead tired, he should just climb into bed and go to sleep. Why does he always have to act as if the entire world's heaviest burdens are resting right on his shoulders?'
With a small, silent smirk, she reached out and quietly opened a small sweet chocolate wrapper, popping the piece into her mouth.
As the rich flavor melted on her tongue, she crossed her arms tightly over her chest and turned her eyes back to her own screen.
'I am absolutely not saying a single word to him.' she determined silently with a small tilt of her chin.
'I am definitely not going to walk over there and tell him to go and rest. Not after the way he just screamed my name during breakfast in the kitchen!'
Mrs. Kamitani turned her eyes back to the bright light of her screen, completely absorbing herself in reviewing the long corporate contract once again.
One of her hands rested gently under her chin, her fingers tapping a slow rhythm against her skin while her other hand lazily scrolled down the laptop page, highlighting long lines of legal text.
Every few minutes, she occasionally took a small sip of her black coffee, never once taking her eyes off the glowing documents.
Suddenly, a very familiar part of an iconic song began playing through her white wired earphones.
A wave of pure, happy energy rushed through her chest, and without even realizing what she was doing, she began singing a tiny bit of the English lyrics right under her breath.
"If you wanna see some action... gotta be the center of attraction..." she murmured in a low, happy tone.
Beneath the dark wooden desk, her bare foot lightly Tapped against the floor rug to the upbeat rhythm of the music.
She absentmindedly twirled her signature pen between her fingers, flipping it over her knuckles while her eyes scanned a terrifying, complex corporate liability clause.
She quickly typed out a neat legal note on the side of the page, completely unbothered by the dense work as the music kept her spirit high.
"Come out from the shadows, it's your time..." she hummed another random line, her voice barely rising above a quiet whisper in the dark room.
She didn't sing continuously at all, only picking out her favorite phrases here and there whenever the best parts of the song popped into her ears.
She took another slow sip of her hot coffee, using her free index finger to aggressively push her reading spectacles up the bridge of her nose like a proud commander preparing for a massive courtroom battle.
After finally scrolling to the very end of the final paragraph, she leaned back proudly against her chair, letting out a deep breath as though she had just successfully won a massive multi-million dollar court case.
A tiny, intensely satisfied smile broke out across her face, and she rejoiced quietly to herself.
"Finally... the entire merger framework is fully complete for the day." she whispered happily, feeling a massive wave of sweet relief wash over her shoulders.
She reached into the small plastic wrapper on her desk, popping another piece of sweet chocolate into her mouth to celebrate the small victory.
She hummed one last little bit of the track absentmindedly, completely overjoyed by finishing her massive pile of work.
And only then... she casually glanced across the vast room.
She fully expected to see Mr. Kamitani still sitting in his usual serious posture, but instead, she found him dramatically dying backward in his office chair like a tragic Victorian Widow who had just lost every single piece of her family inheritance in a single day.
Her playful annoyance returned in a single fraction of a second.
"Hah..." she scoffed quietly to herself, reaching up to take another small sip of her coffee while badmouthing his dramatic attitude in her mind.
'Look at him...' she thought with a small roll of her green eyes. 'He is just trying to gain sympathy at this point. I am completely ignoring him.'
She reached up and casually pulled the white wired earphones right out of her ears, intending to quietly pack up her things in total silence.
But she had completely forgotten one critical thing—her laptop's internal volume was turned up to the absolute Maximum!
The moment the earphone slid out, a massive, booming voice of Ichigo Kurosaki suddenly broke out from the laptop speakers, echoing loudly through the dead silence of the master bedroom.
"BAN-KAI!!!"
Mrs. Kamitani instantly jumped straight out of her skin, her heart hammering violently against her ribs at the incredibly loud, sudden shout.
"Eek?!" she let out a panicked gasp, her fingers scrambling across the mouse pad in a wild, frantic hurry to close the browser window before the voice could finish.
"Oh my god, close, close, close!" she cursed herself furiously under her breath, her face flushing a deep, bright red as she finally managed to mute the audio.
She squeezed her eyes shut, pressing a hand over her heaving chest while whispering frantically to her own mind.
'I am completely doomed,' she thought in pure, terrified panic. 'If that Stubborn Man ever finds out I was secretly listening to Shounen anime songs at Four O'clock in the morning, I will never hear the end of it. He'll tease me about this until we're both Eighty!'
Once the room was completely quiet again, she let out a long, trembling sigh of relief.
Mrs. Kamitani slowly opened one green eye, then the other, cautiously looking across the dark space to see if her sudden gasp had finally woken up the terrifying creature known as her HUSBAND.
The bedroom remained perfectly still. Mrs. Kamitani froze right where she stood. Mr. Kamitani's long body didn't move a single inch.
Not a finger.
Not a twitch.
Absolutely nothing.
She stared suspiciously at his stretched-out form for several long seconds, narrowing her eyes under her reading glasses.
'No reaction?' she thought, her mind racing. 'Hm. That is completely impossible. This is the exact same man who once woke up from a deep sleep just because I sneezed three rooms away.'
Her green eyes narrowed even further into a tight .
'Wait a minute,' she noted internally, her pride bubbling up. 'Did he actually hear my little voice and simply choose to ignore my total embarrassment?'
She paused, considering the thought for a tiny second before shaking her head.
'No, no, that is completely out of the question. If he had heard it, he would have absolutely made fun of me right away. That man has the fast survival instincts of a mosquito whenever a good teasing opportunity is around.'
She kept her eyes locked on his chest, watching it rise and fall.
Slow.
Heavy.
Peaceful.
There was still absolutely no reaction from the sleeping Mr. Kamitani.
Mrs. Kamitani slowly let out the heavy breath she had been holding in her throat.
"Of course he didn't hear it." she proudly told herself, lifting her chin with a small, confident huff. "He is practically a total corpse right now from all that work."
She folded her arms tightly over her cotton pajamas, a smug little smile crawling onto her lips.
'And honestly, even if his ears did catch it, what could he even do about it? He has absolutely no solid proof against me.'
After throwing another highly suspicious glance in his direction, she cautiously raised her hand and threw a tiny, secret air punch toward the unconscious Shield of the Court.
"Hmph." she rejoiced silently. "A total, complete victory for me!"
Then, after a brief pause, she stopped moving and stared at his face all over again.
'Though... why on earth am I acting like a sneaky criminal escaping a bad crime scene?' she questioned herself, her inner lawyer instincts kicking back in.
She let out another stubborn scoff, turning her heels around. 'Still. It is much better to be safe than to be teased by him for the next fifty years.'
"Hmph." Mrs. Kamitani muttered softly, turning away from him and starting to pack her notebooks and legal pens back into her desk drawer. "It's not like I care anyway."
----
✦ 🔮 A GLIMPSE INTO THE NEXT CHAPTER 🔮 ✦
"What awaits beyond this page...?" 🌙
(灬･◡･灬)♡
"For years, I kept wondering how on earth Kento managed to develop such terribly messy habits in his room. I kept scolding him for it."
"Sleep well, my stubborn opponent."
---
🌙 The stars may fade, and memories may sleep...
But the Spiral continues to turn.
Until we meet again beneath the same forgotten sky.
(●´⌓`●)
— SakuraShinomiya