The house is finally quiet.
Kiyomi's soft, congested breathing drifts down the hallway like a lullaby.
The clock in the living room ticks past one in the morning.
I can't sleep.
My feet carry me back to the ruined room that is supposedly mine.
The door creaks when I push it open.
Moonlight cuts through the half-closed blinds in pale silver stripes.
Everything is exactly as I left it days ago: papers ankle-deep, punching bag leaking sand, pillow gutted like a murder victim.
I step carefully over the debris and stop in front of the desk.
The computer tower sits there, red LED blinking slow and steady, like a heartbeat.
I sit.
The chair groans under me.
The monitor wakes with a flicker.
Password prompt.
White box.
Cursor pulsing.
Waiting.
I try the first thing that comes to mind.
Kiyomi
Wrong.
Kiyomi0703 (our birthday)
Wrong.
Kiyoshi
Wrong.
Tanabata
Wrong.
RedTablecloth
Wrong.
Every childhood memory Kiyomi ever fed me (real or fake) turns to ash the moment I type it.
I try book titles.
CrimeAndPunishment
NorwegianWood
NoLongerHuman
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
I try dates.
The day we started high school.
The day the Literature Club was founded.
The day I collapsed.
All wrong.
The computer doesn't even pretend to think anymore.
Just instant rejection.
I lean back, exhale through my teeth.
That's when the moonlight shifts and something glints under a stack of crumpled notes.
I push the papers aside.
My breath stops.
A handgun.
Matte black.
Heavy.
Real.
It's just sitting there like it belongs, next to a half-empty box of 9 mm rounds.
I pick it up with two fingers, like it might bite.
The grip is worn smooth in places (someone held this a lot).
I set it down exactly where it was.
Next to it: a leather wallet folded open.
Inside, two badges catch the moonlight.
One is police (silver shield, the kanji for the prefectural force carved deep).
The other is military: ADT (Armed Detective Taskforce), the special unit everyone whispers about.
The ones who disappear people in the night when the regular police can't or won't.
Both badges have the same name etched in tiny, perfect letters.
Kiyoshi.
There's a photo slot in the wallet.
A younger me (no, not me) stares out.
Hair shorter, eyes flat and empty.
Uniform crisp.
No smile.
I close the wallet like it burned me.
The desk drawer is half-open.
I pull it the rest of the way.
Inside: spare magazines, zip-ties, a suppressor still in plastic, a folded knife with a blade that looks like it's tasted bone.
My hands start shaking.
This isn't a depressed high-school boy's room.
This is a killer's room.
Or a soldier's.
Or both.
I stare at the gun, at the badges, at the computer that still refuses to recognize me.
The password box blinks, patient and cruel.
I type one last thing (slow, deliberate).
WhoAmIEnter.
Wrong.
Of course, it is.
The room is still bathed in that sickly red glow from the computer tower.
The gun, the badges, the suppressor, everything sits exactly where I found it, accusing me in the dark.
I can't sit still anymore.
My gaze drags across the chaos until it lands on a small, leather-bound notebook half-buried under a stack of ammunition receipts.
It's smaller than my palm, edges worn soft, the kind of thing you could slip into a pocket and forget was there.
I pull it free.
The cover is black, no title, no name.
A thin elastic band keeps it shut.
Inside, every page is filled with handwriting (Kiyoshi's handwriting), but none of it makes sense.
Four different ciphers, mixed line by line, sometimes word by word.
First layer: looks like a simple substitution cipher, letters replaced by numbers and symbols.
Second layer: the numbers themselves are shifted by a running key that seems to change every seven characters.
Third layer: every fifth word is written backwards and in hiragana disguised as katakana.
Fourth layer: certain kanji are replaced by their radical components rearranged into nonsense shapes.
I flip through slowly.
Page after page of perfect, tiny, ice-cold calculation.
Mission dates.
Wind speed corrections.
Names (some crossed out in red, some circled twice).
Coordinates.
Safe-house addresses written as book page numbers from six different novels.
A list of "acceptable collateral percentages" that makes my stomach fold in on itself.
There is no emotion anywhere.
No "I was scared."
No "I miss her."
Just data.
Just angles.
Just body counts written like grocery lists.
One page near the end has a single line repeated over and over in all four ciphers, like a prayer or a curse:
Target acquired.
Neutralize on sight.
No second chances.
I don't know if it's about someone else… or about himself.
I want to scream.
I want to tear the pages out.
I want to understand why this body, why this life, why me.
But the code is unbreakable.
Even if I sat here for years I wouldn't crack it.
It wasn't meant to be read by anyone still breathing.
I close the diary and press it against my forehead, trying to force something (anything) to make sense.