đ©ž CRIMSON GLASS
Chapter 1 â The Girl Who Smiled in Glass
"She smiled like nothing had ever been broken... and like she didn't care if it broke again."
â Ren Kisaragi
đ Setting: Tokyo, Present Day.
Themes: Psychological horror, high society masks, foreshadowed trauma, inner collapse.
[1] â The Funeral That Didn't Mourn
The sky was gray. Too gray, like someone had painted over the world with ash and then forgotten to finish.
Ren Kisaragi stood beneath a canopy of scarlet sakura trees, dressed in the black suit his father had ordered from Italy a year ago. He hadn't grown into it yet. The sleeves hung loose. The cuffs swallowed his wrists.
In front of him was a silver casket â polished, reflective, clinical.
Aika Kurozawa was inside.
Or at least, that's what they said.
She had jumped, they claimed. Leapt from the 18th floor of the Kurozawa estate's eastern balcony â the one with the view of the koi pond and the private tea garden, the place where she once said she liked to "feel like a bird in a cage with windows."
Ren stared at the casket.
He didn't cry.
He couldn't.
Not because he didn't feel anything â but because what he felt didn't have a name. It was like holding a scream in your throat for hours, days, years. And still not letting it out. Not because you're strong, but because no one would believe it came from you.
A priest was speaking.
"Aika was a bright and disciplined young woman. She brought honor to the Kurozawa name, and grace to her classmatesâŠ"
Ren tuned it out. Words like that meant nothing. They were default funeral settings. He wondered if there was a button somewhere on the priest's robe â Insert Obituary Text Here.
He looked sideways.
Aika's father stood five feet away. Lord Hiroto Kurozawa. Stoic. Powerful. Cold.
He wasn't mourning. He was watching. Measuring everyone's expressions. Judging the angles of sorrow. His wife â Aika's mother â was seated, hands folded, eyes dry.
Behind them, rows of Tokyo's elite were lined like mannequins: political families, CEOs, old-money wives in black lace hats. And still⊠not a single tear.
Not for Aika.
The girl who used to hum in the school library when she thought no one was listening.
[2] â Flash Memory: "Don't Speak When He's Here"
The ceremony ended in polite silence. No sobs. No collapsing to the ground. No chaos.
Just the slow, clicking footsteps of designer shoes.
Ren walked away before anyone could speak to him.
As he moved through the garden, a single memory stabbed through his mind.
They were 15. Sitting at a long table in the Kurozawa dining room. Twelve seats. Only three used.
Ren had said something â a joke, maybe. Aika laughed.
Then her father looked up.
The laughter stopped. Instantly.
Under the table, Aika's fingers gripped his â hard. Fingernails digging in. Eyes forward. Lips still curved in a smile.
"Don't speak when he's here," she had whispered.
"Even if you think you can. You can't."
The pain in his hand had lingered for days.
He had told himself back then it was just a weird family thing.
He was wrong.
[3] â The House of Cracks
Ren's own house was bigger than it needed to be.
Seven rooms. Two floors. Barely anyone inside.
His father was in Geneva, negotiating something about currency realignment.
His mother was in her room, as always. Half-conscious on a blend of anti-anxiety pills and sleeping medication.
Ren stepped into his bedroom. It was too clean. The maids always made sure of that.
He hated it.
He sat down at his desk and pulled open the drawer.
Inside was a photo.
Aika â smiling at the school gates, hair shining in spring light, uniform pressed.
The "perfect girl."
He turned the photo over.
There was writing.
Faint pencil. The kind Aika used when she didn't want people to see what she was really thinking.
"When glass breaks, you bleed. But it still reflects your face."
Ren stared at it.
Then at the mirror across from his desk.
He walked to it.
Stared.
And punched it.
Glass cracked.
Not out of rage. Not even grief.
Just⊠because he had to.
Because nothing else felt real anymore.
[4] â The Pendant That Shouldn't Be
The next morning, school looked exactly the same.
That's what unnerved him the most.
Aika's desk was still there â perfectly clean. A single white flower placed in the center.
People were whispering.
"Did she really jump?"
"Her dad's covering something up, I swear."
"She never looked unhappy thoughâŠ"
He tuned it out.
But when he sat at his own desk, something glinted beneath Aika's seat.
He bent down.
Reached.
Pulled out something small, red, and cold.
A cracked glass pendant.
Ren held it up to the light. The chain was snapped. A thin fracture ran through the center, like lightning frozen mid-strike.
He recognized it.
Aika had worn this every day for two years.
She told people it was "just decorative."
But once, alone, she told him:
"It's not glass. It's a listening device."
He thought she was joking.
Now he wasn't sure.
[5] â The Crooked Frame
That afternoon, he was called to the school counselor's office.
Miss Takami. Late 30s. Soft-voiced. Fragile in a deliberate way.
She offered tea. He declined.
"Ren. I just wanted to check on you after the funeral."
"I'm fine."
"Grief doesn't have to be loud, you know."
He didn't respond.
He was staring at the wall behind her â where her counseling certifications were displayed.
All perfectly lined.
Except one. The top-left.
It was slightly crooked.
That shouldn't mean anything.
But Aika once told him:
"They train you to make things look perfect. But if it's too perfect, people suspect it's fake. So they tilt one thing. A single flaw. Intentional."
Was this it?
Ren's eyes narrowed.
"Did Aika ever talk to you?"
Takami blinked.
"She came in for stress. Said she felt pressure. Wanted help with breathing exercises."
"Did she mention her father?"
"âŠNo. Why?"
There was something strange in her tone. A slight pause before 'no'. A twitch in her finger as she answered.
Ren leaned back.
"You're being watched, aren't you?"
Takami's face froze.
For a moment â just one second â her entire expression collapsed.
Then reassembled.
"I'm sorry, Ren. I think we're done here."
He left.
But as the door clicked shut behind him, he heard something terrifying.
Takami whispering to herself.
"They're watching me too."
[6] â Glass That Remembers
That night, Ren sat at his desk with the pendant in his hand.
He turned it over and over.
Aika's voice echoed in his mind.
"If I disappear⊠don't look for me."
"If you find me⊠you'll be next."
He examined the pendant more closely.
There was a tiny latch.
He clicked it.
Nothing happened.
But the moment he did â he felt cold. Like the temperature in the room had dropped by ten degrees.
Then he heard it.
Glass cracking.
Not from the pendant.
From the mirror across the room.
He stood. Walked to it.
The glass looked normal. Whole.
But when he touched it â
A memory slammed into his head.
Aika. At a grand piano. Fingers trembling.
Her mother behind her, voice saccharine sweet:
"Again, Aika. Play until your mistakes disappear."
Aika's hands were bleeding.
But she played anyway. Smile perfect. Back straight.
Ren stumbled backward.
The pendant pulsed red. Just once.
Then stopped.
[7] â The Wrong Kind of Goodbye
His phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
Message received.
He opened it.
A photo.
Same one as before â Aika in front of the school gates.
But now, her eyes were scratched out.
Underneath, one line of text.
"You were never supposed to fall in love with me."
Ren looked up.
Out his window, through the rainy nightâŠ
He saw someone standing at the school gates.
Wearing their uniform.
Still. Unmoving.
Holding a phone.
đ©ž END OF CHAPTER 1