Volume 2 Prologue: 19 Hz

The rain hadn’t let up all night.

Detective Ishii Tsubaki stood outside the old townhouse in the Shina district, water dripping from the brim of her hat. Police tape flapped in the wind. The front door was wide open, revealing a mess inside—furniture overturned, blood smeared across the floor, a woman in a blue dress lying still.

The uniformed officers were already whispering.

“Double homicide.”

“Kid survived.”

“No sign of forced entry.”

“Maybe it was a break-in…”

Tsubaki ignored them. She stepped past the threshold and into the home.

The energy hit her like a wall.

Malevolence. Heavy and lingering, like burnt incense and rotting meat. Ordinary people couldn’t sense it, but she could feel it in her spine.

Specter.

She didn’t say it aloud. Couldn’t. Not in front of the others. Her double life wasn’t for public knowledge.

And then she saw him.

A boy, barely eleven, sitting on the living room floor with his back against the wall. Drenched in blood—not his. Face pale, expression frozen. But his eyes…

They weren’t blank.

They were burning.

The kid was soon taken to the police station for further procedures. He was sat in a chair, staring into nothing.

Tsubaki stepped forward, slowly.

“What’s your name?” she asked softly.

He didn’t answer.

“I’m Ishii Tsubaki. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Still no answer.

Then his eyes flicked up to meet hers.

And she felt it.

The mark of a contract. The weight of a soul already claimed.

Tsubaki straightened slightly. Her breath caught. There was no exorcist registry for this kid. No lineage. No known rites performed. So how the hell—

Her thoughts were interrupted when another officer approached.

“Kid’s mother is hospitalized. We couldn’t come into contact with any other relatives. We’re transferring him to protective custody.”

Tsubaki’s gut churned.

“No,” she said, a little too quickly.

“Huh?”

“I’ll take him.”

The man blinked. “You’re… volunteering?”

Tsubaki glanced back at the boy, whose eyes hadn’t moved from the floor. “Yeah,” she said. “I am.”

⌁◉⌁

The first few days, he didn’t speak. Not at the station. Not in the car. Not when she brought him to her apartment. He ate in silence. Slept with his back to the wall. Spent hours staring out the window, unmoving. His eyes were bloodshot, itchy, but not from crying.

Eiji was like a ghost trapped in his own skin.

Tsubaki didn’t try to mother him. Didn’t press. She cooked, she cleaned, she gave him space. If she were honest with herself, sometimes she didn’t even know WHY she had taken him in in the first place. That kid wasn’t hers. And as much as she would have liked to have had one of her own with the man she once loved, she knew that time couldn’t rewind and change that.

Nevertheless Tsubaki kept caring for the boy.

Yet he didn’t soften. And Tsubaki wouldn’t let him in. They barely even talked to each other. It was like a limbo of silence.

One night, she came home to find his window open and his bed empty. Panic threatened to rise—but she swallowed it down, She had to find him. Talk to him, finally. The stalemate couldn’t go on like this any longer.

She searched the streets for nearly three hours before she found Eiji.

He was sitting on a high ledge overlooking the city, legs dangling off the edge, face expressionless. The wind tugged at his clothes, but he didn’t flinch. He didn’t seem afraid of falling.

Tsubaki approached slowly and stood beside him, silent for a while.

Finally, she spoke.

“So this is where you’ve been?” Tsubaki sighed, while Eiji did his best at ignoring her.

Tsubaki exhaled, trying to find the right words. She wasn’t the best at doing that, nor was she the best at heartfelt conversations. But her sorry excuse for consoling had to do.

“…I know I’m not your mother. Or your sister. I’m not trying to be either.”

Eiji finally replied, but didn’t look at her. “Then why’d you take me in?”

She paused, the rain soft against her coat.

“…I wonder why indeed. It was like an impulse… or more like, a moment I didn’t have to think long and hard about. Like this was how it was meant to be.”

To Eiji, Tsubaki seemed like she always knew what to say, or not to say. But at that moment she relied oddly on intuition and vagueness. That baffled the boy.

“That makes no sense.”

“Yeah, it doesn’t…” She smiled faintly. “But I know I did the right thing.”

He didn’t respond.

“I don’t expect you to trust me. Or understand. I know I won’t regret my decision..”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because you’re still here.”

The boy’s shoulders tensed. His voice cracked.

“Everyone around me leaves eventually. My father. My sister. Asahi. They all—”

“I won’t.”

That made him turn, at long last.. His eyes met hers again. This time, they weren’t angry. They were simply… tired

“Eh? How can you—”

“I mean it,” Tsubaki said. “I won’t leave you.”

He didn’t believe her. Not then. But he wanted to. She could see it.

“I can’t be sure. For all I know you’re just trying to change my mind.”

Tsubaki sighed. It was tough seeing such a young kid so afraid to trust an adult. Yet Eiji seemed ready to listen to things beyond his years. And so, she spoke.

“It’s hard losing someone. It truly is. It gets you questioning everything you ever lived for. A notion like death which seemed so far away is suddenly rearing its head and the storm it stirs is so vague you don’t know what might get caught up in it.”

Eiji didn’t respond. He simply stared at her, and then to the city lights.

“I won’t claim to know exactly how you feel. Pain and suffering is different for everyone. But at least I won’t let you bear it alone.”

“You… won’t?” For the first time, Eiji’s eyes seemed to hold back a sense of trust, as hard as he tried to suppress it.

There was silence before Tsubaki spoke again.

“I see them too, you know,” she added.

Eiji blinked. “...What?”

She pointed to the dark silhouettes drifting in the air around them. Spirits. Specters. The lost.

“You see them, don’t you?”

“…Yeah.”

“I’ve been seeing them for years. Since I was your age.”

“Why…?” The boy’s voice sounded perplexed as he muttered.

“Because we’re not like the others.” Tsubaki smiled, but it wasn’t exactly one of pride. There was something beneath it. Bitterness perhaps.

“And I’ll tell you everything about what that means… if you’ll let me.”

He looked away again.

Tsubaki held out her hand, “Will you come home with me?”

Home. The word rang true as it came out of her lips. She had decided, perhaps subconsciously, that her home would be his as well.

Then, finally, he muttered: “I… guess I will.”

Just like that, the boy stretched out his hand, and clasped firmly onto hers.

⌁◉⌁