The next morning was thick with fog. It rolled in from the sea and clung to the windows like ghostly fingers. Hiro moved through the villa like a man only half-awake, the events of the previous night echoing in his skull.
Haruka's cry still lingered in his ears.
Ayaka hadn't spoken a word since then. She prepared breakfast in silence, her eyes fixed on Hiro's every move, watching as if waiting for him to disappear.
He couldn't stop thinking about the fear in her expression.
Not for herself.
But for their daughter.
He watched Haruka reach for a flower petal with hands too small to hold it. She giggled at the color, at the way it spun. And for a moment, Hiro felt peace.
Until she looked up.
Those eyes—her mother's eyes—glinted with something Hiro couldn't name.
"Do you think it's possible," Hiro asked suddenly, "for someone to inherit obsession?"
Ayaka didn't look up. She poured tea with steady hands. "Are you asking about her or me?"
He hesitated. "Both."
The silence stretched.
Finally, Ayaka set the teapot down.
"She was born in this house. Fed by my love, your breath, and everything we buried."
That night, Hiro couldn't sleep. He wandered into the gallery Ayaka had recently curated—portraits of their life. Smiling faces. Holidays. Haruka in her first dress.
He stopped at one picture.
It wasn't posed.
It was him, asleep on the balcony, Haruka resting on his chest. He didn't remember the photo being taken.
Behind the canvas, another slit in the wall.
His pulse quickened.
This time, what lay behind was not bloodstained or cruel—but curious. Files. Medical reports. Psychological studies. One folder stood out, labeled: *Haruka - Deviance Monitoring.*
He opened it.
Inside were pages of detailed observations. Charts of eye movement. Emotional response tracking. It was... clinical. Detached. Cold.
Ayaka was studying their daughter.
Every reaction, every cry, every silence.
Why?
"Because she is perfect," came Ayaka's voice.
Hiro turned sharply.
"I wanted to be sure," she said. "That I didn't pass on my brokenness. That she'd be free of... me."
"You're not broken."
Her eyes gleamed with unshed tears. "Yes, I am. And you love me because of it. Not in spite of it."
He stepped closer. "Isn't that what love is? Choosing the madness of someone else and calling it home?"
She smiled, barely.
"I worry for her," she whispered. "She watches too closely. Just like me. She already hides things. Do you know she took the photo you saw? She said she wanted to remember 'how soft you looked.'"
Hiro's blood chilled.
"She's only two."
Ayaka nodded. "I know."
They stood in silence, the air between them heavy with inheritance.
Later that week, a visitor arrived.
A woman from Ayaka's past. An old friend named Misaki, now a psychologist working with children.
Ayaka said it was a coincidence. A reunion. Hiro didn't believe her.
He watched as Misaki sat with Haruka, gently asking her about dreams, about dolls, about colors.
Haruka's answers were sharp. Poised. Calculated.
"Do you like stories?" Misaki asked.
Haruka tilted her head. "I like endings."
When Misaki left, she whispered to Hiro: "There's a brilliance in her, but it's bound with something... ancient. Something protective. And dangerous."
Hiro turned to Ayaka that night and asked the question he never dared to voice before.
"What happens if she becomes what you were?"
Ayaka didn't hesitate.
"Then I'll teach her how to love better than I did."
Hiro held her tightly that night, their daughter asleep between them.
And though the villa was still cloaked in velvet shadows, Hiro realized something:
They weren't hiding from the world.
They were preparing for it.