Chapter 7 : Ashes and Truth

Chapter 7 : Ashes and Truth
“Every monster was once a child who loved too much and bled too long.” — Adam

The storm hadn’t let up.

 Outside, the night sky was a living thing, roaring with thunder and flashing like the world was tearing at its own seams. Inside Adam’s apartment, shadows shifted gently along the wooden floor as the storm's tantrum continued. The warm glow of a single lamp painted the room in golden hush. Akane sat on the edge of his bed, legs tucked under the oversized hoodie he’d lent her, still faintly carrying the scent of his cologne, cedar, smoke, and something almost cinnamon-sweet.

She wasn’t sleepy.

 Or rather, sleep didn’t want her.

Not after what she saw

Not after that glimpse of his back, the roadmap of cruelty etched into skin, cigarette burns like constellations, jagged lines like rivers of pain.

Adam lay a few feet away, on the futon he’d unrolled beside the bed. Eyes closed. Breathing steady. But she knew he was awake.

 The rain pattered against the window like anxious fingertips.

“…Adam,” she whispered.

 His eyes opened. He turned his head, met her gaze in the dimness. “Hm?”

“I can’t sleep,” she said quietly. “There’s… a lot on my mind.”

 He didn’t reply immediately. Just watched her, as if measuring whether to stay silent or slice open the past.

Akane hesitated, then asked the question that had been gnawing at her since she first stepped into his world.

“Will you tell me… everything?”

 He didn’t ask what she meant. He knew.

He sighed softly, almost as if bracing himself against old ghosts.

 “Alright,” he said. “But once I start, I won’t stop. You sure you’re ready?”

She nodded.

 He sat up slowly, leaning back against the foot of the bed. For a long moment, he looked at the floor, then at the ceiling, as if the words were nailed up there and he had to pry them down.

“My family…” he began, voice low. “Used to be normal, I think. My mom, my dad, and my little sister. Her name was Mina. She was four . She used to follow me around like a duckling, holding onto my sleeve, sneaking into my room, stealing my snacks.” 

Akane saw it — that faint smile tugging at his lips. So rare. So real

“She’d beg me to play house with her. Or doctor. Or pretend we were spies on some grand mission. And I’d complain, act annoyed… but I always gave in. She was the only one who could make me laugh without trying.”

“What about your mom?” Akane asked, her voice soft, threading into the hush of the room.

 Adam’s expression shifted, something tender, something broken

“She was… warm. That’s the only word that fits. Always smiling, even when she was tired. She had this way of humming while cooking, some lullaby she used to sing to Mina. I’d wake up to the smell of pancakes every Sunday. And every time I scraped my knee or failed a test, she’d say the same thing: ‘It’s okay, darling. The world spins for people like you,  the stubborn, the kind.’” 

His voice cracked at that last part

“And then she got sick. I didn’t understand it at first. She said it was a cold. But then the hospital visits started. The hair started falling. The voice got weaker. The warmth… started to disappear.”

Akane’s chest tightened. She could see it, the quiet decay of joy, the unraveling of a family

“She died when I was six. One night, just… gone. No goodbye. Just silence.”

He paused. His fingers curled into the blanket.

 “That’s when everything changed.”

He didn’t need to say it. She already knew

“My dad,” Adam said finally, “used to be decent. Not warm like her, but he smiled sometimes. He worked construction. Came home tired, but he’d carry Mina on his shoulders and tell her she was the queen of the moon.” 

Akane could hardly reconcile that image with what came next.

“But after Mom died, he snapped. Started drinking. Started yelling. At first it was just words, loud, mean, endless. Then it became hands. Then fists. He didn’t know what to do with his grief, so he handed it to us.” 

A long silence passed.

 Akane wanted to reach for his hand. She didn’t. Not yet.

“I was seven when he first burned me,” Adam said. “I remember every second of it. He was drunk, holding a cigarette, and I asked him what we were going to eat for dinner because Mina was hungry. He pressed the lit end against my arm and said, ‘That’s what you get for asking stupid questions."

Akane’s stomach twisted. Her breath caught in her throat. 

“There were days we didn’t eat. Nights we slept under the table while he broke dishes above us. I used to cover Mina’s ears and whisper stories to her. Made-up ones. About a prince and his little sister trying to escape a monster in a castle.”

 Tears welled in her eyes. She saw him now, a little boy with scraped knuckles and a trembling voice, pretending to be brave for a girl who was all he had left.

“She was sick too. Congenital heart disease. It made her weak. Sometimes she’d faint. Sometimes her lips would turn blue. We didn’t have money for treatment. Hospitals turned us away. My dad… didn’t care. He blamed her for being born broken.”

Adam’s voice broke.

“She died in my arms,” he whispered. “She said she was cold. I held her as tight as I could. I told her a story about how the moon was coming to take her to a kingdom of stars.”

Akane covered her mouth. The tears were rolling freely now

“They buried her in a cheap grave. No one came. Not even him. A week later, the police showed up. A neighbor had reported the bruises on me. They found evidence. Photos. Burnt clothes. Mina’s medical files. My dad was arrested. Charged with abuse and negligence. He didn’t even fight it.”

 Adam exhaled, like a man letting go of something poisonous.

“My uncle, my mom’s brother, took me in. Changed my surname to hers. Moved me to this city

He’s… the kind of man who calls obedience love…and silence respect

“He keeps his house spotless and his family speechless, calls it discipline”

“And since then?” Akane asked softly.

“I survive,” Adam said. “I study. I play the role. I smile when I need to. But I never forgot what it’s like to be powerless. So now… I make sure no one can put me in a cage again.”

 There was silence

Not heavy. Not awkward.

 Just silence. Like the world had paused to let them breathe.

Akane crawled off the bed. Sat beside him on the futon. Without a word, she reached out and took his hand.

She didn’t flinch at the scars.

She brought her forehead to his shoulder and whispered, “I’m sorry you went through all of that.”

 He didn’t say thank you. But she felt his hand tighten around hers.

“I don’t know if this is pity or something else,” she murmured, “but I want to know more. I want to stay. I want… you.”

He turned to her, those dark, storm-hardened eyes melting, just a little

She leaned in closer, her breath soft against his skin, her heart pounding like it was trying to speak in a language only scars could understand. The silence between them had stretched, become its own living thing, thick with memory, with vulnerability, with everything Adam had laid bare. 

Akane touched his cheek gently, her fingers brushing the edge of an old burn. He flinched, not out of pain, but instinct. And still… he didn’t pull away

Her eyes met his

 There was no fear there anymore.

No disgust

Just a question she couldn’t put into words

And a feeling she couldn’t run from

So she kissed him

Not out of hate. Not to prove a point. Not to soothe his pain

She kissed him because something inside her ached to, because this strange, damaged, terrifying boy had shown her more truth in one night than the world had in years. Because the warmth between them, however sharp, was real. 

Because she couldn’t explain it

Couldn’t name it.

But it was his.

And as her lips touched his, trembling but sure, Adam didn’t move for a moment, like he’d forgotten how

Then his hand rose, slowly, ghost-like, to rest on her waist.

 And in that stolen, quiet second, beneath the dim light and the howling storm outside, two broken worlds brushed against each other

Not to heal

But to simply exist

Together....