“Two Things Instead of One”

“Ah, the rain. Nature’s applause when tragedy refuses to wait for the stage.” –kagame Jin 

The sky looked normal. 
 That’s how I knew something was wrong.

She said it was criminal not to enjoy a day like this—sunlight, blue skies, people pretending the world hasn’t ended yet.
So I followed. That’s my crime, I guess.

Then it started raining.
Hard. The kind that soaks your bones before it hits your skin.

She laughed and said I must be cursed.
“Like one of those yokai—Ameonna, the rain woman?”

I think she mispronounced it. Ameonna brings sorrow in the form of endless rain.
What she meant was Ameotoko. Rain man.
A rotted soul dragging storms behind it.
A curse that curses the world back.

What a joke.
If I didn’t know myself better, I would’ve laughed.

We stopped in front of a dead store—glass door, lights off.

The street was thinning out. Less light ahead.
And when you can’t see far, you start staring at what’s right in front of you.
Maybe that’s why I saw it.

My reflection.
Drenched. Pale.
Skin clinging like wet fabric left to rot.

A corpse?
No.
Something worse.
A ghost pretending to still wear its skin.

The rain didn't stop.

It felt like we were trapped in a picture frame the sky refused to hang. Something half-alive. Something half-forgotten.

Our breath fogged the air between us.
Like lies that couldn’t hide anymore.

The streetlamp above kept flickering.
Like a clock hand stuck between seconds.
Not ticking forward. Just… judging.

“This reminds me of that storm back in high school,” she offered, arms stretching toward the clouds.
She tilted her head left, eyes closed, soft—nostalgic.
“We got stuck there overnight, remember?”

She said it like it was a happy memory.
Her shirt clung to her skin.

The light made it all obvious.

This wasn’t the first time this had happened either.
Back then, I made a joke—something about transparency.
Got accused of being a pervert and took a slap across the face for it.

Lesson learned.

“Oh yeah. Something like that happened.”

I looked away.
Not because I was shy.
Just… awkward.

At her bra showing?
Or at the fact I couldn’t remember a single second of the story she thought we shared?

Maybe both.

“You’ve got ‘I forgot everything you just said’ written all over your face,” she teased, grinning as she nudged my arm with her elbow.
“You still haven’t fixed that habit—spacing out like the world’s not real.”

She wasn’t wrong.
Digging into my past always felt like crawling through broken glass.
You don’t get answers. Just more cuts.

The chill from my soaked collarbone crept inward—sharp, ghostly.

“At least you’re not that terrifying yankee anymore. You actually talk now. What a glow-up.”

So that’s how she saw me.

Like some delinquent who scared people off with a glare?

I wasn’t a fighter. And I wasn’t a Yankee either, for what it’s worth.
Nor did I enjoy hurting people like some psycho.

People mistook my dead eyes for a glare and picked fights I never wanted.
My personality just poured salt on the wound.

I didn’t choose violence.
I just never figured out how to end things peacefully.

“There was this cute girl back then who liked you, you know.
But she said your stare made her too nervous to confess. What a waste.”

“You’ll be single forever. My condolences~” she said, pressing both hands together like she was praying at a funeral.

I didn’t argue.
What’s the point?
Why drag someone else into a corpse’s shadow?

The glass beside us caught a silver glint.
The shadows froze.
The rain fell slower—
or maybe just quieter.

Something about the way it echoed—
It remindended of her.
That smile.
Those silver strands.
That one moment where the world didn’t feel like it hated me yet.

Emiha.

Her smile stitched something back into me.
A thread I’ve been following ever since.
A vow I can’t bury:

if she’s in trouble, I owe her the kind of help I never knew how to ask for.

A raindrop hit the roof above.
Sharp. Louder than it should’ve been.

The sound echoed in my ear—like the world froze just long enough to warn me.

At the end of the street, something flickered.
Silver.
A silhouette turned the corner.
Gone before my brain caught up.

But there—trailing behind it like a whisper—was a thin crimson thread.

I didn’t think.
My body moved on its own.
Following the shadow of a forgotten light.

I heard my neighbor say something behind me.
Didn’t catch the words. Didn’t care.

There weren’t many people with silver hair in this part of town.
Maybe my memory was playing tricks on me.
Maybe it was just the rain. Or guilt.  

But my feet didn’t slow.

I ran.
Toward a ghost I wasn’t even sure existed.

When I reached the corner—
Absent.
Just wind. Rain. A silence that hurt my ears.

Still, I kept going.
Because if I stopped, it would mean admitting I was chasing nothing.
And I wasn’t ready to be that honest with myself.

Eventually, I stopped.
Breathing hard.
Drenched again.

A shattered mirror leaned against a wall nearby.
I couldn’t see my whole face.
Just my eyes.
Empty. Hollow. Gray.

A ghost chasing a ghost.
A truth rotting inside its own lie.

“What a joke. Not even one worth laughing at.”
The words slipped out like a curse I didn’t remember casting.

What was I expecting? That she’d just… be there?
And if she was—what would I even say?
“Hi. Sorry I turned into a corpse.”

I stood still.
Long enough that time began to lose shape.

The rain rang in my ears—
a hollow percussion I couldn’t shut off.

I turned my head to leave.
Then—crack.
Too loud.

My eyes snapped back to the mirror.
Instinct. Mistake.

And there it was.

My reflection caught me.
Eyes glowing scarlet, fractured with too many cracks.
A smile that didn’t belong to me.
Mocking. Taunting.
As if the mirror itself had decided to laugh at my ghost.

A fracture split across the glass.
I blinked. My reflection didn’t.

And a scream tore through the street.
I ran—toward the voice, away from myself.

My neighbor stumbled into view from the alley—panting like she’d outrun hell.

“We have to go. Now. I screamed—they’ll be here soon!”

Her body shook. Her voice trembled. I could tell from the way she looked—this wasn’t a prank. It was real.

“I—I saw them. A body. A dead body. And the next—”

I reached out—too slow.

She was two things instead of one.

Blood sprayed through the rain.
Her head hit the pavement beside me with a wet sound.
A blade arced through the space she used to be.

I stumbled back.
Not far enough. But not dead.
Not yet.

My breath caught.
I wasn’t alone.

Seven—maybe eight—stood around her.
Black clothes. Clean lines. Calm like corpses in suits.

These weren’t thugs.

I froze.
They didn’t.

I stepped forward anyway.
“What… What the hell did you do?”
My voice cracked. Good. That’s what normal voices do.

One of them turned. Tall. Lean. Mask hanging from one ear like he didn’t even care who saw him. He looked straight at me.

“He saw,” he said.

Another nodded.

“We can’t let him leave.”
He reached for his knife and began walking slowly toward me.

My hand moved to the knife tucked in my coat.
 Habit. Instinct. I didn’t draw it.

They began to move.

Then—

A voice. Playful. Mocking. Like a nursery rhyme rewritten by someone with too much time and not enough sanity.

“Oh my… bad children. Didn’t your parents teach you that killing is wrong?”

It didn’t come from ahead. Or behind.
It came from outside the moment. Like someone skipped ahead in the script just to interrupt.

I turned.

He was already there.

Tall. Lean. Dressed like a fashion mistake that forgot to be ashamed.
His coat looked expensive—and guilty.
A cane spun from his fingers like it didn’t want to leave.
His grin was wide. Wrong. Twisted.
And his eyes—orange embers like cracked glass reflecting too many truths at once.

The alley seemed to warp around him. Even the shadows weren’t sure how to react.

One of the blackcoats stepped forward.

“Who the hell are you?”

He tilted his head. Then struck a ridiculous pose—hand to chin like a parody of thought.

“Who am I?”

He gestured around the scene—to the corpse, the killers, and me.

“Based on this plot development, I would say… I’m your enemy. Probably.”

He let the silence hold, savoring it like an actor waiting for applause.

Then the grin cracked wider.

“But I don’t care about roles.”

He bowed like he’d just taken the stage.

“People call me the Mad Hatter.

The Glitch in the script.

The Wrong Note.”

Tap.

The cane struck the pavement.

Then, softer than breath:

“But for now, you can call me—”

“Kyoshin.”

When he said his name, something inside me flinched—like an old wound I forgot to bandage just tore open again.

—

🎤 Kagame Jin's Host Commentary:

> "And there we have it, folks. A twist that leaves more questions than answers. Our protagonist finds himself at the mercy of a world that doesn't play by the rules. What does this encounter mean for him? And what does it reveal about the forces at play?

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