“Stupid brother!”

Thunderous banging on his door made Yuzuru jump. His knee smacked against the underside of his desk so hard it caused his computer screen to shake.

“Open the door, right now!”

More banging, louder.

Pushing back from his cheap chair, Yuzuru swiped a dozen keys on his keyboard. On the screen, his character moved behind an outcrop of rock, safe from view of other players.

Hopefully.

“I said open up.”

“It’s not locked,” Yuzuru said, marching over. “You know, there’s this thing called a doorknob. It does this wondrous thing known as opening a door?”

On the other side, Sara stood with her arms crossed and fury written on every inch of her narrow face. Her usually pristine golden hair was plastered to her cheeks like she’d been running, which she probably had been given her tracksuit attire.

Yuzuru checked his watch. It was 6 in the evening, which meant their parents were out on their daily walks right about now, or doing whatever new health thing Mother was into at the moment.

Which meant…

Sara could be as obnoxious as she wanted to be. And judging by her glare, it was going to be a lot.

“Care to come in?” Yuzuru asked.

“No,” Sara said.

Yuzuru leaned on the door frame and tried his best to smile like a rogue, or a jester, or something that wasn’t what he was, which was nothing, really. “And they say siblings eventually grow apart.”

Sara started to respond but that was when Yuzuru noticed something on her cheek. It was a fresh cut, nothing major that ruined her looks or whatever, but ran along her jawline in one easy stroke.

“Who did you piss off this time?” he asked, reaching forward to wipe his thumb over the injury.

Sara slapped his hand away. “Don’t pretend like you care.” She turned her head away and stuck out her hand. “I’m not here to chat. Where are my cue cards? I have a test next Monday and I need them to study over the weekend.”

Yuzuru let his hand drop to his side. “I don’t have them.”

“I know you took them,” Sara insisted. “I have cameras set up all in my room.”

“Hurtful,” said Yuzuru. “Also creepy.”

Sara’s cheeks darkened from pink to red. “I put them on my dresser before I went jogging and now they’re gone.”

“Maybe Ned ate them. Why don’t you check his bed?” Yuzuru sniffed, and added, “After you shower?”

“How dare you!” Sara clenched her fists and came at Yuzuru, looking for one ugly second like she’d really hit him this time, but by some twist of fate, he was saved.

From the stairway, Sara’s chubby corgi heaved himself up the last step, tiny claws scritch-scratching all over the floorboards as he hurtled towards her.

Sara’s face changed immediately. She scooped up the corgi, who waggled his stumpy legs like he was swimming then proceeded to slobber all over her face.

“Stop it, Ned,” Sara giggled.

Yuzuru watched the exchange wryly. Of course, the only being powerful enough in this world to quell his sister’s wrath was a dog.

Maybe he should try acting like one, just to see how she’ll react.

He shook that idea quickly out of his head.

She’d probably euthanize me on the spot.

“Who am I kidding.” Sara stood with the corgi hugged to her chest. “Even if you took them you wouldn’t just give them to me.”

It was actually remarkable how quickly her attitude could change.

Yuzuru glanced behind him. The room was dark, save for the gray glow of his monitor. On it, his character lay in a puddle of blood, with the words ‘You have died’ hovering over his head.

Yuzuru sighed. “Are you done berating me for today? I’m quite busy.”

“With what?”

“Things.”

Sara huffed, then finally seemed to give up. She spun on her heels, the ends of her hair nearly whipping Yuzuru across the face. She marched down the hallway, making it three feet before turning back. “Sometimes I wonder if you’ve been put on this planet just to spite me, and I look forward to the day when I leave this place and never have to see you again.”

Yuzuru felt the back of his neck stiffen. “You got it, boss,” he said, then closed the door before he could say anything that he might regret.

Once back in the darkness of his room, Yuzuru took a second just to breathe. The familiar smells of instant noodles and his own musk confronted him. This was the only place he could be safe, where he could think and plan out his next move, but that didn’t mean it was a comfortable place to be. He went over to his desk. The game was still going, life in the game world continuing despite his avatar having already been slain.

He closed the game. Behind it was the online article spouting nonsense about quantum physics and parallel worlds. He closed that too, then shut the computer down. Darkness encroached.

He was hungry. He missed both breakfast and lunch, having gone to the library once more to shuffle through their newspaper archives again. He thought he was onto something this time, but it turned out to be nothing in the end.

Yuzuru pushed his knuckles into his eyes. He was near the end of his search. He could feel it. Every possible route of research, every shred of evidence he could find, he poured over. Yet, after three years, he still could not find Honoka.

He went back to the door. He tried not to look, but passing the board on the wall he couldn’t help seeing what was on it.

It was a bad idea to stop, but he did. He couldn’t help it.

In front of him was a cork board, one of those cheap ones made of more wood than cork. He used tape rather than pushpins to hold up the newspaper clippings and threads, which made everything look even worse.

And there was a lot of crazy here. As Yuzuru stared at the web of red threads, their outlines faint in the dim light seeping from under his door, he wondered what his family would think if they saw just how far down the rabbit hole he had fallen.

Maybe they already saw. Maybe they were just waiting for him to give up first.

Downstairs, the living room was devoid of life. Their parents were still out, and the Lord of Winterfell was upstairs with his sister.

Yuzuru shuddered. What a terrible image. He couldn’t understand why Sara chose such an ill-fated name for her pet.

I mean, it’s a corgi, for starters.

The fridge was empty. A bit of digging around the pantry reminded Yuzuru he’d eaten the last bowl of ramen this morning. He looked around the deserted couch, the spotless dining table, and his stomach growled.

He should go out to buy something.

Gravel popped in the driveway.

Or not. He could hide instead.

A second later, the lock on the front door turned. He heard his parents’ voices echoing from the other side.

Yuzuru turned for the stairs, but as he passed by Ned’s doggy bed he stopped.

It was a usual mess of chewy toys and dog fur, but there was something else too, wedged in the corner between the pillow and the soft wall. Getting on his hands and knees, he reached in and felt around.

The door opened. Light flooded the entryway as their parents entered, both carrying armfuls of grocery bags.

“Sa-chan?” Mother called out as she stepped into the foyer. She hadn’t seen Yuzuru in the corner by the stairs yet. If she did, she was pretending not to.

Yuzuru couldn’t tell which one he preferred. He felt something sharp and grabbed for it, pulling out a highlighter.

“Yea?”

“Come help.”

Soft-spoken and not particularly tall, their mother exuded an air of carefreeness. She looked like the kind of mother who let her kids run bare feet through the streets, the kind who rewarded good behavior with fresh-backed cookies and disciplined with a tap on the wrist.

Oh, how looks deceive.

As Mother slipped off her trainers, she glanced in the direction of the stairs. When she did, her eyes caught Yuzuru’s, and then carried on right past him.

Oof.

Yuzuru wanted to disappear. He had something to do first, though. Fishing out two more highlighters and a chewed-up pen, he found a stack of wrinkled cards, tied together by a soggy rubber band.

He turned the stack over. On the face of the first card was an equation of sorts he couldn’t decipher.

Was this what middle school kids were learning these days?

The door closed, followed by the boom of their father’s deep voice.

“Hey, Yuzuru.”

Yuzuru turned, unsure of how to react except in the most awkward way possible. “Yea,” he said, giving his step-dad the weakest wave. “Hi.”

“This was on the doorstep,” Father said, maneuvering his muscled body around the expensive furniture. He handed Yuzuru a crisp white envelope. “Fancy. No stamp, though.”

Yuzuru took the envelope. He didn’t look at it, because at that moment Sara was bounding down the stairs, calling out,

“Daddy!”

Yuzuru flattened himself against the wall as Sara threw herself into Father’s waiting arms. Following right behind was Ned, wagging his stump of a tail. Together, dad and daughter and dog spun in a circle, laughing as if they’d been reunited after years apart.

It was amazing how similar they all looked. It wasn’t just the gold hair and blue eyes, either. It was their smiles, the way the bridge of their noses wrinkled. And when they spoke, their voices seemed to curl around their words so that, even though Sara was born in Japan, her tongue seemed to naturally favor her father’s language.

“Sa-chan?” Mother asked from the kitchen. “Could you refill the spice rack, please?”

Sara hopped from her dad’s arms. “Right away,” she said, then disappeared around the wall.

Yuzuru heard snippets of their conversation as he went up the stairs.

“What happened to your cheek?”

“It’s nothing. Kendo practice.”

Only when he made it to his room, did Yuzuru realize he was still clutching the cue cards.

Great. Now Sara would really think he stole them. He couldn’t go downstairs though, and ruin their time with quiet awkwardness and conflicted stares. He tossed the cards onto the desk. Oh, well. He’ll think of some non-incriminating way to slip it to her later.

There was something else that had his attention.

Turning the envelope over, Yuzuru saw his name printed clearly on the wax seal. But that wasn’t all. In a lighter pen and under his name, was Sara’s.

Yuzuru turned the envelope back around. Something was inside it. Sugar cubes, judging by the subtle swell of the paper. But that was stupid. Why would anyone throw two sugar cubes into an envelope and leave it on their doorstep?

Maybe it was a bomb.

Yuzuru felt uneasy. Could he somehow have pissed off the wrong people by looking into the disappearances in his town? Surely not, especially when one of those disappearances was his own girlfriend’s. He had every right to try and get to the bottom of it all.

Besides, so what if he died? He doubted his mother would care much. Sara and her father probably wouldn’t either.

And what was it that girl said before? I can’t wait to never see you again?

“Well, let me get on that then.”

Slipping his thumb under the seal, Yuzuru popped it open. Two black cubes tumbled out, bouncing off his hands and clattering to the floor. Lunging for the nearest one, he swiped it up before it could escape under his bed.

The moment his fingers touched the metal, the world vanished.

It turned out that the envelope was not the bomb.

The cube was.