Burying Lies

The door creaked open with a mechanical hiss.

Haruto didn’t lift his head. Not immediately.

Heavy boots echoed across the sterile floor, until they stopped in front of him. The silence was different today. Not tense, but empty. The presence loomed with something more… cracked.

It was the first interrogator. But along with him, was the second interrogator, seated at the corner of the room.

Haruto lifted his gaze.

The man who’d previously been all fury, all aggression, now stood in hollow silence. His eyes were no longer burning with hatred. They stared through Haruto, as if unsure whether the person in chains was still real – or if he was.

Haruto let the silence hang.

“You’re awfully quiet today… Kurosawa,” he finally said. “Did the weight of being Yukawa’s pet finally sink in?”

He didn’t move. Didn’t blink.

Haruto leaned forward slightly. “Or was it the memory of Emi’s voice that silenced you?”

A muscle twitched in Kurosawa’s cheek.

Haruto smiled. He pressed on. “You loved her, didn’t you? As your daughter. The one bright spot left in your life. The only thing that made breathing bearable.”

Still, nothing.

“But here’s the thing,” Haruto murmured. “She was never yours. She was the result of your wife’s affair with Yukawa. And you knew, didn’t you? Somewhere deep down, you knew. That’s why her smile never looked like yours. Why her hands never curled like yours. Why you always wondered.”

Kurosawa’s fist clenched.

“You tried to ignore it. To love her anyway. To pretend. Because that’s what you do when you’ve got nothing left to hold onto. And yet, the whole world fell apart. Your wife turned on you. Society turned on you. Yukawa – he didn’t just steal your family. He rewrote your story. And now, look at you.”

Finally, Kurosawa spoke. “Shut your goddamn mouth!”

Haruto’s grin widened. “Why? Afraid the truth might make you remember how it felt? To be nothing but a broken man with a leash around your neck, begging for scraps of love from a woman who had already given her heart to another man?”

The silence broke like glass.

With trembling rage, he said: “Why… How…?”

Haruto didn’t flinch.

Memories started flowing in. The bitter glow of a phone screen in a darkened kitchen.

Kurosawa had only returned to grab his badge, but the silence in his house felt wrong. His wife’s laughter echoed faintly from the study. She was texting.

Curiosity gnawed at him. She had left her phone on the counter. He shouldn’t have looked. But he did.

The messages were unmistakable.

To Yukawa:

“He still doesn’t suspect a thing.”

“Once I get the custody ruling, we’ll finally be free.”

Kurosawa scrolled up. And then – images.

Intimate, graphic. Her body, posed in ways he’d never seen before with playful captions beneath them.

“Did you like last night, Doc?”

“I sent this pic from Emi’s room while he was in the bathroom – just to see how far I could push it.”

Kurosawa’s stomach twisted violently.

He confronted her last night. Trembling, not in rage, but in disbelief.

“…All this time?” he’d whispered.

She didn’t deny it.

Instead, she looked at him with a smirk.

“You know… if you breathe a word of this,” she said coldly, “I’ll ruin you. You so much as raise your voice at me, and I’ll say you hit me. Assault and abuse me. After all, they’ll believe me. They always will.”

He tried to call her bluff.

And she followed through.

The headlines that week had been merciless. “A RENOWNED SCIENTIST UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR DOMESTIC ABUSE.”

She wept on camera. Showed faint bruises on her arms. Told stories that never happened.

The trial was a blur. His pleas meant nothing. The forged evidence, the tampered DNA report – everything was stacked against him. They gave her full custody. And he was separated from the daughter he loved, Emi. He never even got to say goodbye.”

He remembered sitting on the edge of a rusted bridge weeks later, ready to give everything up and finally be freed from this life of misery.

And that’s when he appeared. Director Naomi, the head of the Sanctuary.

A man in a pristine suit with a half-smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“You’ve lost everything,” he said. “But I can help you get it back.”

Kurosawa had barely looked at him.

“I know where Emi is. I know what Yukawa did. The injustice you suffered. And if you want revenge… if you want to see your daughter again… come with me.”

Kurosawa didn’t say a word.

He simply stood and followed.

“But let me tell you something your boss never did,” Haruto whispered, forcing Kurosawa to the present. “Emi died a long time ago. He’s bene using your love for her to keep you in line. To make you obedient.”

Kurosawa stepped back like he’d been shot.

Haruto chuckled, low and maniacal. “It’s amazing how easily a man breaks when you take away the only lie keeping him alive.”

The second interrogator, seated at the corner of the room, suddenly shifted. His eyes flickered. “Is this… true?”

Kurosawa said nothing. His hands were shaking.

Haruto looked over at the second man. “You also had no idea, huh? The precious Director? But I bet you’re curious now. I bet you’re wondering how much more I know. About Emi. About you.”

The second interrogator blinked. “What do you mean?”

Haruto tilted his head. “You’re not just here to observe, are you? You’ve got orders. But deep down, you want answers. And I can give you something your handlers can never will. You just have to ask.”

The two interrogators looked at each other, but only briefly.

Haruto continued. “You think this is about me, but I’m not the threat. I’m just the match. The whole place is the powder keg. And I can light it if I want to. All I need is a spark.”

A long pause.

Then, Haruto whispered. “I’ll make a deal.”

The second interrogator narrowed his eyes, shifting the focus of the camera beside him away. “What kind of deal?”

“I talk. I’ll tell you everything. Not just about Yukawa. About Sanctuary 7. About the veil. About what’s coming. But in exchange – “

Haruto’s gaze turned towards Kurosawa, then back. “I want access to the old research wing. I want to see the files Yukawa tried to erase. And I want the boy.”

The second interrogator scoffed. “You think we’re that stupid?”

Haruto smiled. “No. I think you’re desperate.”

The second interrogator glanced again at Kurosawa, but Haruto cut him off. “Ask him. Ask Kurosawa what Yukawa promised him in exchange for silence.”

“He said I could see her again,” he whispered. “He said she was alive. That she was waiting.”

Haruto turned his head. “She’s not.”

Kurosawa stared at the floor with hollow eyes.

Haruto pressed the advantage. “But I know where he took her. I know the truth. Help me escape, and you get to bury her properly. Not as a tool, not as a lie—but as the girl you loved.”

A pause.

The second interrogator stood. “We’ll… think about it.”

Haruto leaned back, chains clinking, and closed his eyes.

The game had started.