REN TAKAHASHI
The fist connected with Ren's jaw before he even registered his father's movement.
He tasted copper immediately, felt the hot bloom of pain radiating through his skull. The world tilted sideways as he stumbled, catching himself against the wall of their pristine suburban home—the one with the perfect lawn and the two luxury cars parked in the driveway.
"You think you're better than me?" His father's voice was low, dangerous. The kind of quiet that preceded violence. Ren had learned to read those tones before he'd learned to read books. "Student council president. Perfect grades. Everyone thinks you're so special."
Ren straightened slowly, carefully. His younger sister Yui was upstairs. He needed to keep his father focused on him. Always on him.
"I'm sorry, Father," he said, keeping his voice even, submissive. Submission sometimes shortened these sessions. Sometimes.
"Sorry?" Another hit, this time to the ribs. Ren's breath left in a whoosh, but he didn't cry out. Never cry out. That only made it worse. "You embarrassed me at that school function. Standing up there, giving speeches, acting like you're somebody."
I am somebody, Ren thought but didn't say. I'm the best student in my year. I've already been accepted to Tokyo University. I'm everything you always said you wanted me to be.
But that was the trap, wasn't it? His father didn't actually want him to succeed. He wanted him to try and fail, so he could have an excuse for the beatings. Ren's success was an accusation, a mirror showing his father's own failures.
"Where's Yui?" his father demanded suddenly, eyes darting toward the stairs.
Ice flooded Ren's veins. "She's at a friend's house. Study group."
A lie. She was upstairs, hopefully hiding in her closet with her headphones on like Ren had taught her. The closet in the back corner where the sound didn't carry.
His father's eyes narrowed. "You're lying."
"I'm not—"
The backhand caught him across the face, rings cutting into his cheek. Ren's vision blurred momentarily. When it cleared, his father was moving toward the stairs.
No.
"Wait!" Ren grabbed his father's arm without thinking. "She's not—"
His father whirled, and Ren saw the rage fully ignited now. This was going to be bad. But if it kept him away from Yui, it was worth it.
"You dare touch me?" His father's voice rose to a roar. "You DARE?"
The beating that followed was methodical. Practiced. Careful not to leave marks where teachers might see. Ren had gotten good at hiding the rest—long sleeves in summer, carefully applied makeup for his face, excuses about sports injuries.
At eighteen years old, Ren Takahashi was the perfect student. Perfect athlete. Perfect son to the outside world. Perfect victim in private.
He didn't fight back. He'd learned not to years ago. Fighting back only made his father hurt Yui instead. So Ren endured, dissociated, went somewhere else in his mind while his body absorbed the punishment.
Five more months, he told himself as a kick caught his kidney. Five more months until university. Then I can take Yui away from here. Just survive five more months.
Finally, his father stopped, breathing hard. "Clean yourself up. Your mother will be home soon."
His mother. Who knew. Who saw. Who never intervened.
Ren waited until he heard his father's footsteps retreat to the home office, heard the door slam and lock. Then he lay on the polished hardwood floor of their perfect home, staring at the ceiling, counting his breaths.
One. Two. Three.
Small footsteps on the stairs.
"Ren?" Yui's voice, small and terrified.
"Stay there," he managed to say. "Don't come down."
But of course she didn't listen. Twelve years old, still believing she could fix things. She knelt beside him, tears streaming down her face.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I should have stayed quiet—"
"Not your fault," Ren said, forcing a smile despite the blood in his mouth. "Never your fault."
She helped him to his feet, small hands supporting his weight as much as she could. They made it to the bathroom. Ren caught sight of himself in the mirror—split lip, bruising already forming on his jaw and cheek, blood trickling from his nose.
Perfect, he thought bitterly. Absolutely perfect.
Yui handed him a washcloth, and Ren began the familiar ritual of making himself presentable again. Foundation over the bruises. Ice for the swelling. Careful, practiced movements.
"I hate him," Yui whispered.
"Don't," Ren said automatically. Then, softer: "He's sick. He can't help it."
A lie. Their father could absolutely help it. He chose this. But Ren couldn't let Yui grow up with hate in her heart. One of them needed to come out of this intact.
"After graduation," Ren promised, meeting her eyes in the mirror. "After graduation, I'll have my scholarship money. We'll get an apartment. Just you and me. I promise."
She nodded, wanting to believe.
Ren wanted to believe too.
The front door opened downstairs. "I'm home!" Their mother's cheerful voice echoed through the house.
"Stay up here," Ren told Yui. "Homework time."
She fled back upstairs without argument. Ren finished applying the foundation, adjusting his collar to hide the marks on his neck, then descended to greet his mother with a perfect smile.
"Welcome home, Mom. How was work?"
"Exhausting! Is your father home?"
"In his office."
"And dinner?"
"I'll start it right away."
Perfect son. Perfect family. Perfect lie.
Ren cooked dinner—his father's favorite, hoping to keep the peace—and set the table. His ribs ached with every movement, but he kept the smile fixed in place. His mother complimented his efficiency. His father ate in silence. Yui pushed food around her plate.
After dinner, Ren retreated to his room and sat at his desk, staring at his computer screen. He had homework. He had student council reports. He had scholarship applications to finalize.
Instead, he pulled up a blank document and typed:
"What would it be like to have the power to make people do what you say? To command them to be better? To force them to stop hurting others?"
He stared at the words for a long time, then deleted them. Dangerous thoughts. Wishful thinking.
The house was quiet when it happened.
Ren had fallen asleep at his desk, exhausted from pain and stress. He woke to shouting—his parents arguing about something. His mother's voice, unusually sharp. His father's, escalating.
Then a scream. Yui's scream.
Ren was moving before conscious thought, throwing open his door, racing toward Yui's room. He found his father in the hallway, dragging his sister by her arm. She must have tried to intervene in the argument.
"Let her go!" Ren shouted, all pretense of submission evaporating.
His father turned, and Ren saw something new in his eyes. Not just anger. Murder.
"You've poisoned her against me," his father snarled. "Both of you, ungrateful—"
He raised his hand to strike Yui.
Time crystallized.
Ren saw it clearly: his father's fist coming down, Yui's terrified face, the trajectory that would catch her temple. Dangerous. Potentially fatal.
His body moved on instinct, throwing himself between them.
The blow caught Ren in the side of the head, and the world exploded into stars. He felt himself falling, heard Yui screaming, distantly registered the sickening crack as his skull met the corner of the hallway table.
Pain. Immense, overwhelming pain.
Then nothing.
Ren Takahashi died on the floor of his childhood home at 11:47 PM on a Tuesday in April. The paramedics arrived within eight minutes. His mother told them he'd fallen down the stairs. His father confirmed it, tears in his eyes, the picture of a devastated parent.
Yui said nothing, because no one asked her.
The hospital declared it a tragic accident. The funeral was beautiful. Teachers spoke about what a remarkable young man he'd been. How bright his future had looked. What a terrible waste.
They were right about that part, at least.
YUKI SHIMIZU
The notification blinked in the corner of Yuki's screen: Your account has been credited with $50,000.
She stared at it for a moment, then clicked back to her code editor. The money meant nothing. Just numbers in a database, changing from one value to another. She'd finish this contract job, accept payment, then move on to the next.
Coding was simple. Logical. Unlike her body, which had decided to betray her in the most illogical way possible.
"Yuki-chan?" Her mother's voice drifted through the closed door. "Are you eating?"
"Yes, Mom!" she called back, eyeing the untouched bowl of soup beside her keyboard. It had gone cold hours ago. She'd eat it later. Maybe. Food seemed less important lately.
At sixteen, Yuki Shimizu was one of the most sought-after freelance programmers in the underground tech scene. She'd built her first game at twelve, hacked her first corporate database at thirteen (ethically, for bug bounties), and established her reputation at fourteen. She worked under the handle "Ghost_Code" and had never met any of her clients in person.
Most of them assumed she was a man. She'd never corrected them.
Her fingers flew across the keyboard, losing herself in the elegant dance of functions and loops, of problems that could be solved with logic and persistence. In code, there were right answers. In code, she had control.
Unlike the terminal illness slowly eating her from the inside out.
"Six months," the doctor had said three months ago. "Perhaps less. The cancer is aggressive and resistant to treatment. I'm sorry."
Sorry. As if apologies could rewrite reality's source code.
Yuki had considered chemotherapy for approximately forty-eight seconds before declining. She'd run the numbers, analyzed the survival rates, calculated the cost-benefit ratio of spending her remaining time sick from treatment versus spending it doing what she loved.
Logic dictated her choice.
Her mother had begged. Her father had shouted. Yuki had shown them the spreadsheets, the research papers, the statistical models. In the end, they'd given up, which hurt more than she'd expected.
So I'll die, she thought, fingers still typing. Everyone dies eventually. I'm just... ahead of schedule.
She'd made peace with it, mostly. Had her affairs in order—will written, passwords documented, final messages prepared for her online friends. She'd never met them in person either, but they felt more real than most physical people in her life.
The code on her screen was for a virtual reality game—something beautiful and impossible, full of magic and adventure. Yuki poured herself into it, creating the world she'd never get to explore in reality.
A coughing fit seized her suddenly. She leaned away from the keyboard, pressing a tissue to her mouth. When she pulled it away, there were flecks of red.
Getting worse, she noted clinically. Progression ahead of projections.
She dropped the tissue in the wastebasket, which was already half-full of similar evidence. Her mother would find it eventually and cry. Yuki felt guilty about that but not guilty enough to stop working.
Time was the only resource she couldn't buy, steal, or code more of.
Another notification: Ghost_Code, you there? Got a rush job if you're interested. Five figures for three days work.
Yuki smiled faintly and typed back: Send specs.
She worked through the night. Then the next day. Then the next night. Sleep was negotiable. Food was optional. Her body was failing anyway—might as well use it while it still functioned.
On the third day, she finished the contract, tested it thoroughly, and submitted it with her usual perfectionism intact. Payment confirmed instantly. She barely registered it.
Her vision was getting blurry.
"Yuki?" Her mother knocked. "I'm bringing in dinner."
"Okay."
The door opened. Her mother gasped.
Yuki glanced down and realized she'd been bleeding from her nose without noticing. Blood had dripped onto her keyboard, her desk, her lap.
"Oh," she said. "Sorry. I'll clean it up."
"We're going to the hospital." Her mother's voice was firm, scared.
"Mom, we've talked about this—"
"NOW, Yuki!"
But when Yuki tried to stand, her legs buckled. The world tilted sideways. She caught a glimpse of her mother's terrified face, registered being caught before hitting the floor, felt herself being carried.
Interesting, she thought distantly. Terminal phase arriving earlier than predicted. Should have factored in stress from overwork.
The ambulance ride was a blur. Lights and sounds that seemed far away. She kept trying to focus, to observe, to catalogue her symptoms for later analysis.
Then she remembered: there wouldn't be a later.
Oh.
The hospital room was white and sterile and smelled like antiseptic. Machines beeped around her. Her parents sat on either side of the bed, holding her hands.
"I'm sorry," Yuki whispered. "I wanted to finish my game."
Her mother sobbed. Her father squeezed her hand.
The doctor entered, spoke words Yuki's failing brain couldn't quite process. Something about organ failure. About hours, not days. About making her comfortable.
Six months, Yuki thought with dark humor. You were off by three months. Should have coded a better model.
But as consciousness began to fade, she found herself thinking not about her unfinished projects or her unused money. She thought about her online friends—CrimsonKnight88, who always made terrible puns. DragonSlayer_TX, who'd taught her advanced encryption techniques. MoonlightBard, who'd shared their poetry and asked for nothing in return.
I never met any of them in person, she realized. I spent sixteen years alive and never really connected with anyone face-to-face.
Too late for regrets now.
The machines' beeping slowed. Her parents' faces blurred. The white ceiling faded to gray, then to black.
Yuki Shimizu's heart stopped at 3:47 AM on a Wednesday in April. The death certificate listed cause as "complications from metastatic cancer." Her parents held a small funeral. Her online friends, not knowing her real identity, wondered why Ghost_Code had gone silent.
Her unfinished game—the beautiful impossible world—remained locked on a hard drive in her bedroom, its code waiting for a creator who would never return.
Unless, of course, she was given another world to code.