The police called it a disappearance. Her family called it a tragedy. Kaito called it his fault .
He went. Of course he went. That’s the trap of the guilty circle—you keep stepping back into the ring, because leaving feels like forgetting, and forgetting feels like betrayal.
He’d read the message a hundred times. No sender ID. No timestamp that made sense. Just those seven words, arriving exactly one year after the accident.
And then, her voice, recorded: “I forgave you a year ago, Kaito. But you never forgave yourself. So you built this prison. You sent the messages. You became your own accuser.”
Rain. A dark mountain road. Saki laughing in the passenger seat, drunk on cheap wine and youth. Kaito’s hands gripping the wheel. A deer—or was it a shadow?—a swerve, a scrape of metal, then silence. When he woke up, Saki was gone. Not dead. Gone. She’d walked away into the storm and never come back.
He dropped the phone. The tunnel was cold. The guilt was heavier than ever—but now, for the first time, it had a shape.