Sparkboy

~~~🛠️~~~

Click!

Catastrophes don’t always arrive with a bang. Hearing the roar of an avalanche or the blast of an explosion can be terrifying, but it doesn’t take that much for everything to fall apart.

Sometimes all it takes is a small bolt slipping out of place. A tiny sound, and yet enough to ruin the assembly of a machine, and a young man’s illusion.

“Damn it!”

Rei clenched his teeth while bending down quickly, picked up the bolt with soot-stained fingers, and tried to place it back in position with surgical care. The metal body of the lock was hot, and steam still hissed softly between the seams.

“Almost,” he murmured. “Just a little more…”

PSSHH!

A tiny burst of pressure suddenly escaped, and the main latch snapped backward, dismantling the entire assembly into a set of broken dominoes. Rei had no choice but to watch helplessly as his security box project crumbled across the worktable.

“Not again!” Rei shouted, dropping his tools with a clatter. He slumped onto the bench, hunched over with his face buried in his arms.

From the other end of the workshop, enveloped in a cloud of welding smoke, his mentor barely flinched.

“You hurt yourself?”

“Just my soul.”

“Good. Souls heal. Hands are harder.”

Rei couldn’t help but grin, though his frustration still simmered beneath the surface. He was so consumed by it that he didn’t even notice the man approach until he was only two steps away.

The tall man, arms thick like iron pipes and with a nearly bald head, stood at his side. He looked over the scattered parts as if they were part of the usual landscape. They were, after all. For an inventor, explosions were as common as sighs.

“What happened?” he asked Rei.

Rei knew the question wasn’t out of curiosity, but to test if he had learned.

“The secondary cylinder of the latch didn’t fit right. It was misaligned by half a degree. Pressure built up without me noticing, and the cam burst the internal axis. I assembled it correctly, but I didn’t factor in the heat.”

The man gave a slow nod, barely changing his expression.

“You’re getting better at diagnosing your failures,” he said, then turned back to his station. “Try again. And this time, don’t rush to deliver it early. The man can wait one more day for his box.”

Rei ran a hand through his messy hair, sighed, and sat back in front of the disassembled lock.

It was a custom order from a client at the port, someone who wanted a security box with a system “impossible to crack.”

So Rei had designed a pneumatic lock powered by a steam chamber. The latch would only engage when three valves were pressed simultaneously in a specific sequence.

A simple invention, but exquisite in its precision. Unique. Thought up, designed, and tested by him.

And Rei loved that.

He loved how every piece fit together, how metal had a voice if you knew how to listen, and a heart and soul if you were respectful enough to acknowledge it.

He never got bored. Especially not since he started working for Shiba Gorō, the man of steel skin and will, who never stopped giving him tasks.

“By the way, the adaptive fire detector is due tomorrow! So clean it up properly, I want it spotless.”

“Yes, Gorō!” Rei barked back, exhaling with tiredness as he sat again.

It was exhausting, no doubt. Gorō had him working from sunrise to long past dinner, just like now.

But Rei never even considered complaining. Not when the man had taken him into his home. Him...

“Gorō! Dinner’s here!” came a chorus of high-pitched voices, followed by hurried footsteps and innocent giggles, stampeding toward the shop like a horde of mischief.

...and those little demons.

Rei’s four younger siblings burst into the workshop, jumping over tools and boxes, their shoes still dusted with street grime.

“Hey, hold it right there!” Rei held out his palm like a traffic officer stopping cars. “Did you all wash up?” he asked with arched brows.

“Yes!” they shouted in unison, though Rei could clearly see Kaede, the oldest, still had paint on her fingers, and Haruto, the youngest, reeked of candy.

Rei squinted at them, arms crossed.

“Aha...” His eyes darted to the bag of rice balls Mei, the second child, was holding. “I told you to bring two bags of those. Have you been sneaking treats again?”

Kaede, only eleven, puffed out her cheeks.

“That’s not fair, Rei! There wasn’t enough! And the market man said he wouldn’t give us more for that price!”

Rei narrowed his eyes. Gorō also looked up from his bench.

“That old guy again?”

“He probably gave you half and kept the change,” Rei muttered with a sigh. “The shop’s probably still open. I’m going to talk to him.”

As soon as he said that, the kids panicked as if someone had shut off the sun.

“We’ll go! Let us come too! Let’s all go! Please!”

“No,” the young inventor snapped. “You still have to bathe and clean up your room.”

“Ehh?” they whined in unison, still pleading. “Come on, Rei! I wanna go with big bro!”

“How many times have I told you, kids. House chores come first…” Rei turned away, hiding a sly smile.

Calmly, he reached for a prototype pocket launcher and the rubber ball he used to test it. Then, he spun around and pointed at the ceiling.

“Let’s see who’s coming!” he shouted, and fired.

The ball shot out with a dry _pop_, bounced off a beam, then a wall, then the self-calibrating scale he was developing, and finally sailed toward the stairs.

“Rei!” Gorō growled without even lifting his head. “Be careful shooting that thing inside!”

“I aimed it away, relax! No one’s disturbing your work!” Rei laughed as the kids scattered.

One of the little ones caught the ball with both hands and dodged his siblings, hopping in glee.

“All right! Then today’s Yūta’s turn,” Rei announced solemnly, smiling at the third sibling. “The rest, get to your duties.”

“That’s not fair! I almost got it!” Mei protested, half-laughing.

“You heard your big brother,” Gorō interjected with firm but patient authority. “Time to get to work, all of you.”

“Fiiine…” they groaned together.

Despite their disappointment, the unlucky three climbed the stairs without further protest. But not without offering overly polite goodnights, as if it would make up for their daily chaos.

“Good night, Rei. Good night, Gorō. Good night, world,” they said in perfect form, just as their guardian had taught them.

“Hey, it’s not even bedtime yet,” Rei squinted at them.

When silence finally returned, Rei exhaled. He picked up a rag, carefully wiped down the fire detector casing, and held it up to the lamp for inspection.

“I don’t know if this shop’s more alive with them… or closer to exploding,” murmured Gorō.

“Both. But admit it, you couldn’t live without that noise,” Rei replied, winking at little Yūta, who stared at him with that mix of innate admiration and desperate eagerness to imitate.

Gorō said nothing. But he smiled—just slightly. Rei didn’t need to see his face to know he had.

Carefully, he placed the final lid on the cylinder, tightened the last screw, and stroked the metal with a creator’s affection.

“All right. Fire detector’s ready. Now let’s go deal with that grump at the market or we won’t have dinner.”

Rei unhooked his toolbelt and hung it on the small wall rack, the same from where he grabbed a gadget that made him smile as he strapped it to his waist.

Gorō glanced sideways and stood up as he saw Rei heading for the main door, Yūta trailing behind him like a spellbound mouse.

“I’ll stay working a bit more. Please... treat the guy with respect.”

“But of course!” Rei exclaimed with feigned nobility. “Who do you take me for, a street rat?”

Gorō let out a low, honest chuckle. In his language, that meant he’d really found it funny.

“Even when you were one, you kept your manners. I never met a beggar so polite.”

Rei had a flash in that moment. He saw Gorō standing in the rain, extending his hand toward him. Muddy and soaked, his siblings behind him, and yet... that hand had changed his life.

“If you’d seen Yūta back then, you wouldn’t have let us in,” Rei laughed. “He used to spit on anyone who offered him soup.”

“Hey!” Yūta giggled and tried to hit him with his tiny hand.

Rei crouched to his level and ruffled his hair, a shade darker and less red than his own.

“Look what I brought.”

As soon as he showed the grappling gun he’d taken, Yūta’s eyes bulged with wonder, and he began squealing with excitement.

“All right. You ready, rascal? Let’s fly.”

And they stepped out into the cool night air, beneath the dim lamps of the street, off to the market to fetch those rice balls.

As if it were just another night in colorful Gorō’s workshop.

And not the night when everything would be painted tragedy red again.