Chapter 8: The Mistake

Kei hadn’t meant to raise his voice. The whole day had been a slow grind of nerves. Every time he turned around, Touko was there. At the end of the hall. By the kitchen doorway. Half-hidden behind the staircase railing. Silent. Watching.

He tried to tell himself she was just a child going through a difficult transition. Moving houses. Losing routines. Adjusting to a new adult in her space. He repeated that excuse enough that it began sounding like something true.

But when it happened this time, he reacted before he could stop himself.

He had been working at the dining table, trying to focus on a simple task for longer than five minutes, when he caught the faint scrape of wood behind him. A chair shifting. Kei looked over his shoulder and froze. Touko was crouched beside the leg of the chair nearest to him, her small hands holding onto the crossbar. Her face was inches from the floor, eyes shining up at him through the strands of her dark fringe.

He hadn’t heard her come in. He never heard her come in.

“Please don’t do that,” he said, trying to keep calm.

She didn’t blink. She didn’t even straighten up. She just stared at him, breathing softly, her shoulders barely moving as if she were trying to keep her presence quiet.

“Touko,” he tried again. “You can’t sneak around like that.”

Still nothing.

She stayed in that oddly twisted posture, clinging to the furniture like something nesting there. Something waiting.

His chest tightened. He pushed back his chair. “Touko. Stop.”

Maybe it was the lingering tension of the past days. Maybe it was sleep deprivation. Maybe it was the way she always appeared in places no child should think to be. But when she suddenly crawled closer and put her hand on his ankle, he flinched hard and his voice snapped before he could catch it.

“Enough. Touko, stop it!”

The words were sharp. Louder than he intended. The sound echoed off the dining room walls like a crack.

Touko jerked back as though he had physically struck her. Her mouth opened in a brittle little gasp, and then the tears started. Not loud sobs. No. Soft ones. Controlled. Almost practiced. Her shoulders trembled in small careful shakes.

And then she ran.

Straight to the bedroom. Straight to Yui.

Kei heard the muffled sound of Yui’s surprise, followed by Touko crying, “Mama… Kei… shouted… I didn’t… I didn’t do anything…”

Kei sank into his chair, pressing his palms over his face. He wanted to scream, to kick something, to justify himself, but shame settled in first, heavy and choking. He hadn’t wanted to yell. He hadn’t wanted to make her cry. And yet she had chosen the perfect moment to run to Yui, the perfect phrasing to make him sound irrational.

He waited a moment before heading down the hall. When he reached the bedroom doorway, Yui was holding Touko on her lap. Touko peeked over Yui’s shoulder, her eyes red and glimmering. The moment she saw Kei, she buried her face into Yui’s collarbone and whimpered.

Yui sighed, tired and worn down. “Kei… what happened?”

Her voice wasn’t angry. Just weary. But that was somehow worse.

Kei explained what he could. He tried not to sound defensive, but every sentence felt like an excuse. Yui listened in silence, rubbing Touko’s back. Touko made small, pitiful sounds at key moments, perfectly timed. Kei didn’t know if she was doing it on purpose. He didn’t want to think a child could manipulate so precisely. But the suspicion was there, and it hollowed out his stomach.

“I’ll talk to her,” Yui said at last. “But you need to be patient. She’s scared of losing stability. She’s acting out because she’s confused.”

Touko lifted her face just enough for Kei to see a tear glide down her cheek. Her eyes met his. The sadness there looked too perfect. Too neat. As if arranged deliberately.

Yui stroked Touko’s hair. “We’ll figure this out. Just… please try to be gentle with her.”

Kei nodded, but a quiet dread curled inside him. Yui wasn’t angry with him, but she was further away tonight than she had been in a long time. There was a small distancing in her eyes, a guardedness that hadn’t been there before. Touko clung to her, and Yui held her a little tighter, as if Kei were something they both needed protection from.

He went to bed early, hoping sleep would settle the weight inside him, but it didn’t. He lay awake listening to faint footsteps padding around the living room past midnight. Slow. Unhurried. And completely unafraid of being heard.

Touko couldn’t still be awake. She shouldn’t be.

He sat up and listened harder. The footsteps stopped. Then, after a long moment, he heard a whisper. No words. Just the sound of breath against a wall.

Kei stared into the dark until his vision fuzzed. Eventually he forced himself back down, though sleep didn’t come.

In the morning, Yui was quiet with him. Not cold. Just distant. She made breakfast without their usual small talk. Touko sat at the table with her hands folded, smiling, humming softly. She didn’t look at him once.

Kei left his plate half-finished.

That night, after brushing his teeth and trying to convince himself he was imagining things, he noticed something lying on the floor outside his bedroom door. A folded sheet of paper. Thin. Childlike.

He picked it up.

The handwriting was neat, too neat for her age. The letters were tall and careful. The message was short.

Papa, don’t get mad again. I don’t want to hurt Mama.

Kei stood in the hallway, staring at the words until his hands shook.

She had called him Papa.

But the part that chilled him wasn’t the title.

It was the promise slipped under it.

A calm, quiet threat dressed as concern.

A warning from a child who shouldn’t understand what warning means.

And the feeling that crept down Kei’s spine was simple:

She wasn’t afraid of him.

She was preparing him.