Chapter 18: The Mirror’s Reflection
The room was still, the heavy air of the mansion finally settling into a hollow, fragile peace.
Kyle sat beside her, silent, his presence a steady, grounding weight on the edge of the mattress. Kotomi’s breathing had finally slowed, though her eyes remained open, rimmed red and unfocused, staring into the distance. She hadn’t let go of the blanket—or his sleeve. Her grip was a silent, desperate prayer for him not to vanish back into the shadows.
A soft knock broke the quiet, the sound of wood on wood echoing like a heartbeat.
Kyle turned his head, his gaze sharp and calculating even in the dim light. “Yeah?”
The door opened a crack, casting a narrow bar of gold across the floorboards. Kotaro stepped in, his arms full—folded pajamas, a clean towel, and a pair of thick, fuzzy socks dangling from one hand. His hair was tousled and his hoodie was only half-zipped, looking like he’d scrambled out of bed the moment the psychic weight of the house shifted.
“I figured she might need these,” he said, his voice a cautious whisper that respected the room's fragility. “I didn’t know what size, so I grabbed a few of Kokoro’s and mine.”
Kyle nodded, a flicker of soldierly respect passing between them. “Thanks.”
Kotaro crossed the room and set the bundle gently on the mahogany dresser. He didn’t look at Kotomi directly; he knew the weight of shame she was carrying and didn't want to add his gaze to it. Instead, he kept his voice soft and practical.
“There’s a spare toothbrush. And, uh… the socks are mine, but they’re clean. I haven't even worn them yet.”
Still no response. Kotomi remained a statue of wool and trauma.
He turned to go, then paused at the door, glancing back at the small silhouette. He looked like he wanted to offer a joke to break the tension, but he caught Kyle’s eye and thought better of it. He slipped out, the door clicking shut behind him with a soft, final thud.
Kotomi stared at the bundle on the dresser. Slowly, as if the physical presence of the gifts gave her permission to return to the world, her fingers loosened around Kyle’s sleeve.
He stood slowly, his joints popping in the silence. “I’ll give you some space. I'll be leaning against the wall right outside.”
She didn’t reach out to stop him this time. The panic had receded, replaced by a weary, hollowed-out resignation.
But as he reached the door, she whispered, “Thank you.”
He paused, his hand on the brass handle. He looked back, seeing her small face peeking out from the wool.
“You don’t have to thank me,” he said, his voice steady as iron. “Just… sleep, okay?”
She nodded once, a tiny, jerky motion.
He left, and the click of the lock provided the final seal of safety. The room was quiet again, but it didn't feel empty. It felt inhabited by the small kindnesses of the last hour.
Kotomi reached for the towel with shaking hands. The socks were impossibly soft. The pajamas smelled faintly of laundry detergent and something warmer—like cedar and the faintest, lingering trace of citrus.
She changed slowly, wiping the cold sweat from her skin. She folded her soiled clothes into a neat, shamed pile and tucked them into the bottom of the closet where no one would see. She stripped the damp top sheet, laid down the fresh blanket Kotaro had brought, and curled beneath it.
The photo of her mother rested beside her pillow.
She didn’t sleep. Her mind was still a theater of salt and rust. But she didn't cry either. And when the heater kicked on again, vibrating with its steady, mechanical hum, she let the sound carry her somewhere quieter—somewhere far away from the harbor, and far away from the man named Shiraishi.
***
The door clicked shut behind him with a soft, echoing finality.
Kotaro stood in the hallway for a moment, his hand still lingering on the brass knob, the cold metal seeping into his skin. The weight of the night felt like a physical burden pressing against his shoulders. The air out here was sharper, touched by the draft that always slipped through the old, lead-paned window at the end of the corridor. The mansion had gone quiet again—too quiet. It was the kind of silence that felt like a predator holding its breath.
He exhaled a long, shaky breath and looked down at the pile of Kotomi’s used clothes in his arms. They were damp and smelled faintly of sea-salt and terror. He turned toward the laundry room, his steps slow and deliberate, his socked feet whispering against the polished floorboards like a secret.
Halfway down the hall, he froze.
A silhouette was framed against the tall arched window at the far end of the corridor.
Minami.
She was barefoot, her long sleeves draping past her hands like a funeral shroud. Her hair was loose, cascading over her shoulders and masking her face in the moonlight. She didn’t move as he approached, staring out at the garden as if she could see the invisible lines of fate connecting the house to the city beyond.
He hesitated, the laundry bundle crinkling in his grip. “Minami? What are you doing up?”
She tilted her head slightly, but she didn’t look at him. Her voice, when it came, was a low, melodic hum that seemed to vibrate in the very floorboards.
“A maiden’s heart,” she said softly, “is a mirror. It reflects what it cannot hold.”
Kotaro blinked, his brow furrowing. “Minami, it’s three in the morning.”
She turned then, just enough for the silver light to catch her eyes. They weren't their usual sharp, calculating self. They were distant, clouded with a strange, ancestral dread. She looked past him, her gaze lingering on the door he had just exited.
“And when the mirror cracks,” she continued, her voice dropping to a whisper, “it shows you what you were never meant to see.”
He opened his mouth to ask what she meant, but she was already moving. She walked past him—barefoot, silent, and smelling of old paper and incense. She vanished down the grand staircase like a ghost that had finished its haunting, leaving the hallway feeling several degrees colder.
Kotaro stood there, unsettled. The shadows in the corners of the ceiling seemed to stretch, reaching toward him. He gripped the laundry tighter and hurried toward his room, the "Mirror" metaphor rattling around his brain like a loose marble.
He reached his door and stopped dead.
The door was ajar—just a sliver of darkness where he was certain he’d left it shut. And from the blackness inside, he heard the faint, rhythmic sound of a breath that wasn't his own.
Kotaro stepped inside, his heart thudding against his ribs. He didn't reach for the light. He knew this room by touch, and he knew the shape of the figure sitting on the edge of his bed.
The figure was hunched, hoodie up, hands clasped tightly between their knees. The only light came from the blue, ghostly glow of his digital alarm clock, casting long, distorted shadows across the ceiling.
“Kotaro?” he asked, his voice barely a breath.
The figure turned.
His own face stared back at him. It was a sight he should have been used to, but in the dead of night, it felt like looking at a stranger wearing his skin.
Kokoro blinked, her eyes wide and rimmed with an exhaustion that matched his own.
“Oh. You’re awake,” she said.
She didn't sound surprised.
“I was just... checking,” she said, her voice hollow. She stood up, pulling her hood lower to hide her eyes, and tried to brush past him.
He caught her wrist.
“Kokoro,” he stepped closer, refusing to let go. “You always do this.”
She froze. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, her words tumbling out with a practiced, defensive speed.
She didn’t answer. She just stared at his hand on her wrist—his hand, with its delicate feminine touch.
He let go and sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress sighing under him. He felt the residual warmth from where she had been sitting. “You didn’t have to pretend to be me.”
“I don’t want to talk about this, Kotaro.”
She hesitated, her fingers twisting the hem of her hoodie—the one she had borrowed from his closet.
“I don't know,” she said, her voice cracking. “Maybe I just felt like being someone else today.”
He looked at her, really looked at her. He saw the way her shoulders were curled inward, trying to occupy as little space as possible.
“You’re not okay,” he said.
She laughed, a jagged, dry sound. “No kidding. Did you see her, Kotaro? Did you see Kotomi? She looked... she looked the way I used to feel.”
She didn't move to leave this time. Slowly, as if her bones had turned to lead, she sat back down beside him.
The silence stretched, a taut wire between them.
Kokoro sat beside him, her shoulders hunched so high they looked like they might snap. Her hoodie sleeves were pulled completely over her hands, her fingers twisting the fabric into slow, anxious knots inside the darkness of the cloth. She wouldn't look at him; her gaze was fixed on the blue numbers of the alarm clock as they ticked toward morning.
Kotaro didn’t push. He knew the rhythm of her breaks. He just waited.
“You always do that,” he said softly, nodding toward her hands. “When you’re nervous. You pull your sleeves until the seams look like they’re going to give out.”
She stilled instantly.
Then she let out a laugh—sharp, bitter, and jagged. “You notice everything, don’t you? It’s a curse, Kotaro.”
“Only when it’s you.”
She turned her head away, her jaw tightening until the bone stood out. “Don’t do that. Don’t be the 'good little brother' right now.”
“I’m not playing a role, Kokoro. I’m just here.”
“I said don’t!”
Her voice cracked on the last syllable, the sound echoing like a physical fracture in the quiet room. She pressed a hand to her mouth, her eyes wide, trying to shove the emotion back down into the dark. But the pressure of the night—the way Kyle looked at her—had been too much. It was rising now, hot and fast.
“Why is she here?” she whispered, her voice trembling.
Kotaro blinked, caught off guard. “Kotomi? She’s in trouble. Like we were.”
“She’s not like us,” Kokoro said, her voice dropping into a terrifyingly vulnerable place. “She’s perfect. She’s soft and scared and beautiful, and he looks at her like she’s made of glass. Like she’s something precious that needs to be sheltered from the wind.”
Kotaro didn’t answer. He knew exactly who "he" was.
“I loved him,” she said, the confession finally tearing free. “I loved Kyle. Before. Back when we were Isekai’d and in trouble.”
She looked down at her hands—his hands—the blunt fingernails and the broader palms. Her face twisted into a mask of pure, existential agony.
“But now I’m in this,” she said, gesturing violently to the boy’s body she inhabited. “And I can’t tell him. I can’t even look at him without wondering if he sees me...”
“Kokoro—”
“I’m still here!” she said, her voice rising, desperate to be heard. “I’m still me inside this skin. But no one sees me anymore. Not really. Not unless I'm playing the part of the 'hero party’s companion'. I’m trapped in a mirror that won't show my real face.”
Her voice broke, a jagged sob escaping her lips.
“I hate it. I hate that I have to lie just to be near him. I hate that I’m jealous of a girl who’s lost her father and her home, just because she gets to be seen. I hate that I’m scared he’ll never know who I am because I’m wearing your face as a mask.”
Tears spilled down her cheeks, glistening like mercury in the blue light.
“I hate that I’m not allowed to want anything. Not a look. Not a touch. Nothing.”
Kotaro reached for her, his heart shattering for her, but she flinched away, a reflex born of weeks of hiding.
Then, slowly, as the weight of her confession finally exhausted her, she leaned into him. The resistance vanished. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her with a fierce, protective grip—holding her like she might literally fall apart into dust if he didn’t keep her together.
“You’re allowed,” he whispered into her hair. “You’re allowed to want, Kokoro. You’re allowed to be angry. I see you. I’ve always seen you.”
She buried her face in his shoulder, her tears soaking into his hoodie.
The first grey light of dawn began to bleed through the curtains, signaling the end of the night. But as they sat there, two souls in the wrong bodies, the silence of the room was no longer cold.
