Chapter 9: The First Crack

Kei woke up determined to fix things. He didn’t know how to undo the tension that had settled across the house, but he knew he had to try. Maybe he’d made mistakes. Maybe he’d let his nerves twist normal behavior into something sinister. Children were unpredictable. Sensitive. They reacted to stress in strange ways. He repeated that to himself as he made breakfast.

Yui had already left for her shift. Touko sat at the table with her hands folded neatly, watching the steam rise from her bowl. She always sat too still. Kei reminded himself not to think like that.

He cleared his throat. “Morning, Touko.”

She looked up. Her smile was small, polite. Too polite. “Good morning.”

He tried again. “About yesterday… I’m sorry I raised my voice. I shouldn’t have done that.”

Touko blinked slowly, as if processing the words one at a time. Then she slid off her chair and walked toward him. Kei expected a nod or a simple thank you. Instead, she stepped right up to him and wrapped her arms around his waist.

The hug was tight. Too tight. Her fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, holding on with surprising strength.

“It’s okay, Papa,” she whispered into his stomach.

Kei’s shoulders stiffened. That name again. He didn’t know how to address it without making things worse. He placed a careful hand on her back. “Touko… you don’t have to call me that.”

She didn’t respond. She only squeezed him harder. The pressure grew uncomfortable, then painful.

“Touko,” Kei said softly. “Let go.”

She didn’t.

Her cheek was pressed against him, cold against his skin even through his shirt. She breathed slowly, evenly. She didn’t feel like a child hugging him. More like someone clinging to territory.

“Touko,” he tried again, firmer this time. “That’s enough.”

Still nothing.

He tried to gently pry her arms away, but her grip tightened. Kei’s pulse jumped. “Touko. Let go.”

A moment passed. Then another.

Finally, she released him, but not naturally. Her hands slid away with a slow reluctance, as if she were peeling herself off him piece by piece. She stepped back and looked up at him.

Her face was blank. Not sad. Not angry.

Empty.

“Are you mad again?” she asked.

“No,” he said too quickly. His voice cracked. “No, I’m not mad.”

She smiled. Not wide. Not warm. Just a small upward curve, like someone mimicking a smile they’d seen once but didn’t quite understand.

“Good,” she said. She went back to her seat and ate without another word.

Kei sat down, but he didn’t touch his food. His hands shook slightly. Maybe she was emotional. Maybe the transition was too much for her. Maybe—maybe—maybe.

Excuses spun through his head like insects.

He needed clarity. Something to anchor him. Something to mark what he saw and felt in a way he could look back on and judge honestly. Journaling had helped him in the past. The thought steadied him.

He spent most of the afternoon writing.

He recorded the way Touko appeared in doorways without warning. The things she said. The things she didn’t. The strange silence she kept around Yui, and the way she seemed to bloom the moment Yui wasn’t looking. The note she had slipped under his door. The hug that didn’t feel like affection.

He wrote everything in careful, rational detail. Not accusations. Observations. He needed to separate fear from fact.

By the time he finished, three pages sat filled with tight, uneven handwriting. Kei stared at the words, trying to reassure himself he wasn’t imagining things. Writing them down made the events feel more real, but it also held a mirror to his own unraveling nerves.

Was he being paranoid?

Was he reading too much into her behavior?

He didn’t know. That was the problem.

He tucked the journal under a stack of sweaters in his dresser. Not because he thought Touko would look for it—she was just a child—but because he didn’t want Yui to worry if she happened to find it. He’d show her only if things got worse. If he had proof. If he needed help.

He kept repeating that plan in his head until it felt reasonable.

That night, Yui came home tired. Kei wanted to talk, but she was quiet during dinner and went to bed early. Touko followed her without comment, though she paused at the bedroom door to look back at Kei.

Her eyes lingered a little too long. Long enough to make him shift in his chair.

When the house finally fell silent, Kei checked again that the journal was hidden where he’d left it. He touched the sweaters, felt the solid rectangular pressure beneath them, and nodded to himself.

He slept better that night.

Until morning.

He woke to sunlight pressing through the curtains. Yui was already up, humming softly in the kitchen. Kei stretched, feeling a rare moment of calm. He opened his dresser to grab a shirt.

The sweaters were there.

The journal wasn’t.

His stomach dropped so fast it made him dizzy. He rummaged through the drawer. Then the next. Then the closet. The bedside table. The laundry hamper. Nowhere. It was nowhere.

Someone had taken it.

Yui would never dig around his clothes. She respected boundaries almost to a fault.

Touko, though…

He heard soft footsteps in the hall.

When he turned, Touko stood in the doorway with a small bowl of cereal in her hands. Her hair was tied neatly. Her pajamas were clean and crisp. She looked like the picture of an ordinary child starting an ordinary day.

“Good morning,” she said.

Her voice was sweet. Almost sing-song.

But her eyes drifted toward the dresser drawer he hadn’t closed yet.

Kei swallowed. “Morning.”

Touko took a bite of cereal. The spoon clicked gently against her teeth. Her eyes stayed on him the whole time.

Then, slowly, she smiled.

A quiet, knowing smile.

The kind that didn’t belong on any child’s face.

Kei felt something inside him shift. A small fracture. Not quite panic. Not quite certainty.

Just the first crack.