Maria Shinkai appeared in the sunlit courtyard, like a slow breath that comes after a sudden gunshot—graceful and calming in manner, yet unmistakably impossible to ignore. Her clinic coat, a crisp white, stuck to her body like background hum, quietly emphasizing the curves she never directly acknowledged but always appeared to have with an unspoken confidence. Underneath the coat, her attire was demure only in shape; it had a sense of whispered subtlety, fully cognizant of the fact that it did not have to yell for attention to be noticed. Her violet-colored hair flowed around her like silk in the light breeze, while her amethyst-colored eyes contained the deep weight of a thousand healing stares, infusing a motherly tone and a maternal presence—ultimately having a matriarchal influence on those blessed enough to be in her company.
The students stood up straight involuntarily at that time, although their actions were not the product of strict discipline. Unlike Principal Sakura, who ruled with her commanding presence, Maria did not rule with an iron fist or overpowering sense of dominance. No, she had a disarming presence that attracted people. Even the toughest delinquents, with their rebel hearts, temporarily laid aside their rebellion as she walked by, blinking in wonder and awe like startled deer in the glare of an oncoming automobile. If the school had a goddess, she would not be one worshiped in the official corridors of control or power, but here—in this marvelous masterpiece of a human being who moved slowly through the hallways, clipboard held low and pen poised, radiating grace and kindness.
But the actual spectacle? The manner in which silence trailed behind her. Awed. Thick. The sort of silence that trailed behind divine intervention or scandal. Students, teachers, and even the crows on the fences stopped—not out of lust, though that was definitely there—but out of bewildered reverence, as if they weren't certain if they were looking at a doctor or a dream made flesh.
.
Captain Akira Shinkai's wife is married to a man whose long, dark black hair, stunningly streaked with gold at the temples, had the habit of attracting the attention of others within his reach. Even Shotaro, watching, couldn't help but lift an eyebrow in astonishment and swear in a soft tone, "Bro looks like a xianxia hero who abandoned his sword cultivation life to become a law enforcement officer."
Akira stood tall, with gravity surrounding him, and carried the heaviness of fatigue in the way he held himself. Parenting's long years of battle and defeat had left their indelible mark on him, etched along his spine like delicate lettering on an ancient scroll. All his vast power and jurisdiction over law were powerless against one solitary, baffling, and unsolvable case: his son, Kenshiro.
Sixteen-year-old Kenshiro Shinkai. Delicate. White. Sobbing over something constantly. A walking shame in designer knee-highs. The type of boy who winced at butterflies and required three hugs to make it through homeroom. He clung to his mother like a vine—psychologically, emotionally, and physically. He was reputed to have turned down going on a school field trip once because Maria couldn't accompany him as the clinic supervisor.
Akira, a giant of a man whose mythic reputation had accumulated over the years and whose seven commendations were evidence of his success, had long since accepted defeat in the domestic arena. At dinner, he glared down the table at his son, pensive, as he grumbled under his breath, "He's still on the damn tits."
Maria herself, naturally, was completely oblivious to this fact. Or, if she did know it, she went out of her way to conceal her responses and emotions from view. Her love was far from normal affection; more, it was like a terminal disease that could not be ignored or dismissed. It was absolute in its intensity, all-consuming in its scope, and all-devouring in its effect on those around her. Similar to radiation, which isn't always apparent to the naked eye, her love had the strong effect of changing people. It distorted their perception and remade their very nature. It softened their marrow while simultaneously sharpening their attachments to one another. She cared about and loved other people with such an unyielding, enveloping tenderness that even the most hardened instructors found themselves dropping their voices when they dared to mock her son, only to then go ahead and pen sincere apologies that, for all their sincerity, were never actually sent. As a matter of fact, she was not merely a woman among many; she was a gravitational constant, an emotional mass that emitted the type of sympathy so powerful it was capable of distorting light itself.
No one was safe from her grip. Not even her husband. Not even the child she never bore.
"Mommm!" Kenshiro's whimper sliced through the stale air of the house, ripping the silence asunder with as much tact as a boiling kettle.
Maria moved back from the stove, her own face aglow with a grin that widened even further. "What is it, my honey bear?" She smiled happily, playfully pinching his cheek lightly with two fingers, as if he were still only four years old and made of fragile, sweet marshmallow.
"You noticed the ranks," Kenshiro announced with pride, puffing out his chest as if to highlight his accomplishment. "I was able to get to the fourth rank in the whole grade! Now, just as we previously agreed on, you have to make good on your promise and get that PC."
Maria blinked in amazement, as if the sun itself had just addressed her in a soft tone. "Yes, my dear. I would do anything for you, my sweet sonny."
And just like that, a sense of warmth began to envelop the living room, spreading throughout the space with the same gentle embrace as a sunrise on a beautiful morning. Kenshiro, filled with joy and a sense of victory, bounced excitedly on his heels, exuding triumph, while golden rays of sunlight filtered softly through the curtains, casting a warm glow that fell gracefully upon Maria's radiant smile, as if some divine presence had just lent its approval to the purchase order in a celestial manner.
At the dinner table, Captain Akira Shinkai munched in silence, his eye flicking with a slight twitch. His chopsticks froze in mid-air. "Let me guess," he said cynically. "Mugyiwara arrived first."
It was not a matter of choice. It was unavoidable.
He wasn't bitter at all, which was, in a sense, the most discouraging aspect of the entire affair—he wasn't bitter, not anymore, anyway. He'd long since forgiven everything. Shotaro Mugyiwara was more than the top student in his class; much more. He wasn't just some silver-haired freak who roamed around with a katana clutched in his hand as if it were an extension of himself and grinned like he'd already forgiven the world for all of its transgressions. He was part of this family, part of its center.
At the tender age of nine, Shotaro had intervened fearlessly to save Kenshiro from a merciless and savage beating, a predicament in which the young boy had been pinned down and under attack by bigger kids at the edge of the building complex. The stark vision of Shotaro that day had burned itself into Akira's mind; there he was—bloodied and battered, his shirt in shreds and tattered, yet still sporting a smile as he chivalrously bore Kenshiro on his back, looking like some kind of mythological creature cut out of flesh and battle wounds. Since that turning point, Shotaro had been a common presence in their household, coming and going as he would without interference. He would help himself freely to whatever he could find in their fridge, lounge around on their couch, and get on with solving police cold cases at their dinner table, playing it like an extra credit project that he was happy to be working on.
Maria loved him. Hugged him. Praised him. At times, Kenshiro held on to her with one hand and to Shotaro with the other, like a boy in fear of drowning between two islands of love.
Akira drank his tea in silence.
Shotaro Mugyiwara, the unofficial third member of his household.
The second tit Kenny clung to.
In addition, the only other man who was in Akira's house whom he could not arrest or hold was that. Akira didn't mind. He respected the boy. He feared the world more than he feared Shotaro. And he was smart enough to know this—if the world ever came for his family, Mugyiwara Shotaro would bleed before he let harm through the door. He had seen that look in that boy's eyes before. That look of emotion and depth was not one that would be typically seen in a student. It belonged to the Child who changes lives.
.
"Kenny!" was the gentle, melodic voice of Maria Shinkai—soft and calming, yet unmistakably resolute, like the first ring of a bell foretelling a reckoning in a still, consecrated chapel.
As she entered the small break room at the clinic, she was carefully holding a boxy, sleek monolith wrapped in plastic and layers of foam for protection. Her bright violet hair softly brushed the soft light spilling in as she turned her head, creating an almost otherworldly halo around her. The sunlight reflected off her clinic badge, making it shine brightly, and her amethyst-colored eyes glowed with a deep sense of maternal love that comforted and warmed. Behind her, in the background, was a faint but unmistakable scent of antiseptic that clung to her coat—a blend of cleanliness, comfort, and authority all tied up in one very warm and slightly intimidating presence. It was clear that no one could get past her watchful eye without being enveloped in some sort of love and care that was almost overwhelming.
"I got you a personal computer!"
Kenshiro blinked in astonishment, pushing his glasses askew with a habitual touch, and his countenance lit up with a choking feeling of relief that was close to tears. "Is this really true?" he repeated, his voice trembling on the brink of a sob and a goggling gasp of incredulity. "You really did get it? These things are so costly, I mean—
"I know," she said softly and sweetly, pushing his hair gently back with her fingers, her voice sugared and firm. "It doesn't matter."
He blinked once more, struggling to form and mold the words rushing through his head. His mother, that constant well of warmth and comfort, had, as always, taken charge first to remake and reorient the material conditions surrounding him to respond and adapt to his mood.
"Damn." he said to himself, his voice in a half-laugh and a hint of wistfulness, ".you know, when I was a little kid, personal computers were very rare and elusive. They were these mythical magic boxes with lots of promise. But now, it seems like they've become so ubiquitous that they're as expensive as a human soul."
She softly kissed him on the forehead, as if to transmit gentleness and love, totally not minding the fact that he had just descended into an economic abyss.
Behind them, by the kitchen door, Captain Akira Shinkai stood motionless and exhausted, his arms crossed tightly in front of his chest. The fluorescent light above reflected on his black hair, rimmed with marginally golden streaks that glowed weakly in the manufactured light. He looked like a cultivator who had been dragged unwillingly into a crazy and ridiculous sitcom hell. Distant, he perceived the glowing family moment before him, much like a man condemned to watch the same tragicomedy for the twentieth year consecutively, unable to escape the cyclical pattern of the same.
So," Akira growled. "Let me try.".
Maria arched an eyebrow, holding Kenny respectfully in her arms as if he were a delicate porcelain egg, a valuable and fragile something.
She didn't respond. She didn't have to.
Kenny sniffled and rubbed his nose on the sleeve of his hood. "Shotaro's so cool…." he muttered as a prayer. "He kept the bullies away from me, he let me see him in sword form once, he always listens. he even knows what JavaScript is…."
Akira let out a deep sigh, one that reverberated with the burden of age and legacy. "Of course, he does. Absolutely, he's perfect in all ways. Absolutely, he's memorized the entire goddamn syllabus."
Maria only flashed a warm, sincere smile, her face softening, and then continued speaking in love, "He's a sweet boy."
And there it was once more, that subtle and familiar change in the actual weight of the room. Shotaro Mugiwara, although not present physically, appeared to have some type of otherworldly presence that lingered on. He haunted this house not in the flesh, but in the spirit, through each sincere compliment ever offered, each cherished memory ever remembered, and each computer ever bought and brought into this house.
.
The lid swung open—and to their dismay, instead of revealing a glistening, pre-built personal computer that emitted brightly with radiant RGB lights like the cyber altar that Kenshiro had fantasized about for years in his sleep, they were greeted instead by a tangled and disorganized mess of knotted wires, scattered steel components, puffy foam inserts, and enigmatic silicon fragments, all of which greeted them like the bizarre wreckage of a crashed extraterrestrial probe from another world.
What in the world is this supposed to be?" Akira grumbled to himself, his suspicious eyes squinting and edging in closer warily, as if the contents actually did have teeth.
The PC, Maria declared with motherly assurance, pushing a wayward curl behind her ear as she spoke. "It's unfortunately not working properly; it's broken.".
Kenshiro adjusted his glasses, grimacing. "Mom… I don't believe it's broken. I believe we need to… construct it.".
"Ohhh my precious, smart boy!" exclaimed Maria, her palms on his cheeks as if he had just accomplished the unbelievable task of cracking cold fusion. "Do you see? He does understand, really! He knows exactly what I'm telling him!"
She looked at her husband with beaming expectation. "Honey, go on. Build it!"
Akira's eyelid twitched involuntarily, revealing his increasing rage. "Build it? Maria, I'm still working out how to disable subtitles on this Smart TV that I'm struggling to comprehend." He waved a finger at the motherboard with emphasis, as if it were a person who owed him a lot of money. "This device looks like nothing short of a bomb diagram from a high-octane spy novel.".
Maria stooped, studying the box closely, drinking in its messiness with an air of detached objectivity one might expect of a doctor of medicine. "You see, I can fix an open lung with tweezers and the tip of a pen in a jiffy—but this stuff. this is like black magic. Can someone explain to me where all these wires are meant to go?
Kenshiro had already pulled out the manual, flipping through its pages in a systematic manner that resembled a priest reciting ritual and sacred practices. "Okay, let's start with step one… we have to install the CPU. That's the little square piece of stuff with a reflective top surface. It has… pins, if I remember correctly?"
Akira folded his arms, the past intruding like an old acquaintance. "I promise you, PCs weren't this complicated when we were kids. My old man brought home one in '86. Commodore. Beige as all get out. I played Mario on it for hours. No RAM arguments. No graphics cards. Just floppy disks and magic."
They didn't succeed. Spectacularly. The motherboards were bent. Thermal paste was somehow on Kenshiro's eyebrow. Akira attempted to force a RAM stick into a GPU slot in reverse and almost broke both. The break room in the clinic resembled a silicon war zone.
Call Shotaro, Akira complained, utterly defeated.
"No problem, I'll do it," replied Kenshiro promptly and called the number without the slightest hesitation.
.....
Shotaro Mugiwara was enjoying a rich matcha swirl cone, his tongue almost not touching its smooth surface, when the call came in unexpectedly. He was taking a break beneath the awning of an old, rusting bus stop, half of which was lined by the Red-Eye Ronins—his crew, his brothers, and the real spiritual heirs of all the punks who had ever had a sense of honor well embedded in their very bones.
Hiroki Mazino, color-bleached-blond threat whose ice blue eyes are too lovely for his face, poked his finger at his phone screen. "Aniki, did you catch that the main XRabbit site has been unavailable all day?"
Huh?" Shotaro raised an eyebrow and took a nonchalant lick out of his cone. "Oh. Yeah. it's not openeing nowdays."
"In fact, and what about the second one?" Zenkichi "Bird" Gojo, whose sharp jawline was as unique as his voice, which was as rough as gravel, interrupted the conversation. "It has descended into nothing less than. hardcore gay pornography at this point. There was absolutely no warning of any kind given. It's just this total onslaught of an active sausage buffet."
Hiroki, contributing his part, said, "There's a third place as well."
Don't, Shotaro said, his tone falling into a low and acidic one, as if he had just remembered something bad from the past and would rather forget it, something like a war atrocity. "Don't say anything about the third one at all.".
He turned away, obviously tormented by disturbing thoughts.
"There are completely no standards whatsoever. None. It appears that everybody is posting whatever they feel like—horrible lighting, horrible angles, and a jerky camera that makes viewing unbearable. There are individuals who simply shouldn't be filming themselves on camera at all. It makes the experience practically the opposite of erotic. In fact, my gut hurts so badly that it feels as though it's actually rejecting."
He shuddered, the trauma returning.
"Last week," Shotaro remembered, his voice eerily hollow and burdened by the weight of religious trauma that he had endured, "I came across a video—there was this grandma in it, and she had to be around fifty-five years old. She was sort of big. Sweaty, as well. She was built, in a sense, like a bakery that had been subject to such tremendous stress. Her boyfriend, however, looked like he had not eaten in what felt like months consecutively. He seemed malnourished, with a face so pale it was almost possible to call it ghostly. His legs were skinny, more like chopsticks than anything else. What I saw was not pornographic. Rather, it was more akin to a punishment. It was a display of artillery-grade birth control. I swear, I was one frame away from deciding that maybe this world… just needs to go."
He blinked. Twice. Then wiped at his mouth, although the ice cream in his hand had melted hours before. The cone sagged, as if it too had seen the video and lost the will to live.
"There's only so much a human being can take and bear."
Then--buzz.
His shining red eyes moved their gaze downward to the screen before him. The Caller ID read unmistakably: Mrs. Shinkai.
He took a deep breath, let it out, then hit the green button with his thumb, and lastly brought the phone to his ear.
"Mrs. Shinkai?" he asked, bracing himself for what she might say.
.....
Within the walls of the Shinkai residence, the living room was the chaotic scene of the aftermath of a small but confusing war. There were boxes strewn about the room, torn open to reveal the mangled contents like pieces of some battlefield wreckage, and wires laid out on the floor, knotted together like entrails from some monstrous, invisible creature. Instruction manuals, untouched and unopened, lined the edges, appearing like forbidden books chock-full of secrets never to be unraveled. At the very center of this chaos maelstrom stood Akira Shinkai, swearing his zillionth obscenity under his breath, the embodiment of the deep frustration of the man completely duped by the very progress that was to make his life easier.
What is wrong with this place?" he growled angrily, waving his arms wildly over the disorganized and partially assembled mess in front of him. "I know what a motherboard is, woman, but can you tell me what a GPU is? And RAM?" He waved his hands angrily. "Do we mean a video card or a graphic card? Are we building a PC here, or are we actually going to send a goddamn satellite into space?
Maria, ever serene in crisis, cupped his cheeks and smiled like a saint married to a lunatic. "Oh, honey… I know it's hard for you. Just hang in there. Shotaro's on his way."
Akira gestured with his hand more forcefully, showing his frustration. "He'd better. Because if this machine is not functioning the way it is meant to function tonight, you will owe me the the most brain siezoring head in this world. This is the most unprofessional experience I have ever had."
"Promise," Maria panted seductively, her eyes glinting with just the hint of mischief as their lips edged incrementally closer, the space between them pulsating with an almost tangible rising tension—
—until reality folded.
Space rippled like silk, and Shotaro Mugyiwara teleported directly between them, his silver hair still fluttering as if the wind obeyed his personal drama. Both their lips landed—awkwardly, tenderly—against his cheeks. The boy stood firm without blinking or showing any sign of fear. He simply raised an eyebrow in a questioning manner, his scarlet eyes as calm and unrough as glass that had been polished, before he began to speak, his voice having an otherworldly pitch as if he had just emerged from an interdimensional cab. I have always known that I was loved by you in this home," he said with a touch of dryness in his tone.
"but perhaps one day someone might give me a warning next time before you decide to go and blow raspberries right into my face."
"Sho---"
[Shotaro: Journey Of A Hero That Kept Moving Forward]