On the final night of summer vacation, August 31st, Tsubasa falls asleep feeling a little sad that the fun is ending. But when he wakes up, his sister Riel tells him something impossible: 'Today is August 32nd.' His brothers, sister, and even his brother's girlfriend all accept this non-existent date as perfectly normal.
At first, Tsubasa is thrilled that summer vacation has been extended. But soon, he's the only one who notices the strange changes creeping into his home. Riel's cooking gradual
August 32nd - The Closed Door and the Seven Petals
The events of the previous night wouldn't leave his mind.
Rieru's eyes, as he'd seen them in the living room. Those eyes that weren't smiling.
Tsubasa tossed and turned in his bed countless times. From the lower bunk beside him, he could hear Fuuto's sleeping breaths. The sound of that steady, rhythmic breathing was the only thing that seemed to tell him this room was still reality.
Outside the window, the sky began to lighten.
He closed his eyes, then opened them.
He picked up his phone. The screen clearly displayed: August 34th.
Another day had advanced since yesterday.
August 34th. A date like that really didn't exist anywhere.
Tsubasa quietly slipped out of bed. Carefully, so as not to wake Fuuto. The coldness of the floor seeped into the soles of his feet. On the wall, four pictures were pinned up with thumbtacks.
Yesterday, there had been three.
The fourth one was pale in color. The yellow was dull, as if something had drained it away.
Sunflower petals. He counted them.
Seven.
His fingertips trembled.
He quietly left the room.
He descended the stairs. Each step echoed strangely loud. Even though he'd lived in this house for years, it felt like a stranger's home.
At the end of the hallway, a wall calendar caught his eye.
August. And the 34th.
The numbers in black ink stared back at him.
"...It'll work out somehow."
His habitual phrase slipped out. But his voice was shaking.
Tsubasa stood at the front door. The brown wooden door. The familiar face of his home.
He placed his hand on the knob. It was cold to the touch.
Yesterday, he had been afraid to open it.
But today, he had to make sure.
(Can I... go outside?)
He took a breath. He turned the knob in one swift motion and pushed the door open.
"...Huh?"
What spread out before him was an unfamiliar corridor.
Dim fluorescent lights flickered with a buzzing, crackling sound. The walls were an inorganic gray, stretching endlessly to the left and right. No end in sight.
It wasn't the usual garden. No Fuuto's easel, no Rieru's flower bed.
Tsubasa slammed the door shut.
His heart pounded loudly. Sweat beaded on his palms.
A deep breath. Just one more time.
This time, he opened the door slowly.
It was the same. The endless corridor. The inorganic gray walls.
"No good..."
He couldn't go outside.
Was it just the front door? Tsubasa jogged toward the living room. On the south side of the twenty-mat hall, there was a large sliding glass door. He should be able to get out into the garden from there.
He opened the curtains.
He could see the garden. The sunflowers were standing. Fuuto's easel was there too, just as it was.
Summer sunlight poured down onto the grass.
But.
He tried the lock on the window. It rattled noisily, but the window wouldn't budge. Even though the lock was open, it was fixed in place, as if something was holding it, refusing to move an inch.
"Why..."
Tsubasa pressed himself against the window and stared at the garden.
Rieru's flower bed. Marigolds and morning glories lined up. Orange and blue flowers.
The colors were still there. Just like yesterday, the colors, at least, were.
But even though the wind was blowing, the flowers didn't sway.
They were frozen, like paper crafts. The leaves, the stems—they didn't move a millimeter.
Tsubasa swallowed hard.
It wasn't his imagination. Something was definitely wrong.
The smell of miso soup drifted from the kitchen.
Rieru was preparing breakfast.
Tsubasa broke into a run. He pushed open the door leading to the kitchen with force.
Rieru turned around. Today, instead of her yellow headband, she had tied her hair back with a light blue ribbon. Wearing a white apron and holding cooking chopsticks, she looked slightly surprised.
"Sis!"
"What's wrong, Tsubasa? You're in such a panic."
"I can't get outside! Not through the front door, not through the windows! And the flowers in the garden are weird! The wind is blowing, but they aren't swaying at all, it's like they're made of paper..."
He said it all in a rush.
Rieru's movements stopped for a moment.
Just for a brief moment.
But immediately, she smiled gently. It was the same perfect smile as always.
"What are you talking about? There's no way you can't go outside."
"But it's true! I need you to check, come with me!"
Tsubasa tried to take Rieru's hand.
Rieru gently placed her hand on Tsubasa's head.
"It's okay. Nothing has changed. It's just a fun summer vacation, right?"
Her voice sounded as if she was trying to convince herself.
Rieru slowly stroked Tsubasa's head. It was a gentle touch. She had petted him like this countless times since he was little.
But.
Tsubasa looked up into Rieru's eyes.
Her light brown eyes.
They weren't smiling.
Though her mouth was certainly shaped into a smile, her eyes alone were expressionless, as if they belonged to a different creature entirely.
There was something deep within them.
Duty, resignation, or perhaps—madness.
(It's not right.)
A chill ran from the nape of Tsubasa's neck down to his waist.
This person knows something.
And she's turning her eyes away from that something.
"...Sis, don't you think this is strange?"
His voice trembled.
Rieru didn't answer. She just stared at Tsubasa for a few seconds, then smiled again.
"Come on, let's have breakfast. I made your favorite rolled omelet today."
She turned on her heel and went back to the stove.
The cooking chopsticks rolled the egg. A sizzling sound.
Rieru's lips moved faintly.
"...It's still okay. Still..."
A tiny, tiny voice, barely audible.
But it definitely reached Tsubasa's ears.
August 35th.
Tsubasa steeled his resolve and headed for the second floor. He stood before the door to his and Fuuto's room.
Without knocking, he opened the door.
The room was quiet.
Fuuto was sitting at his desk on the lower bunk. He held a paintbrush in his left hand, drawing something in his sketchbook.
Beside him, a bucket of water and scattered tubes of paint.
And the wall.
Tsubasa gasped.
The pictures that had numbered three until yesterday morning had increased to four.
All four were sunflowers.
The first one drawn.
The next one drawn, with slightly fewer petals.
The third one, with even fewer petals and faded colors.
And the fourth one.
"...What the hell is this?"
Tsubasa approached the fourth picture.
The yellow paint was faint. The number of petals was only seven. And they were so thin, almost transparent at the tips, that they seemed like they'd vanish if the wind blew.
Fuuto's fingers were caked with a mixture of paint and dark reddish blood.
"Don't look."
Fuuto's voice resonated lowly.
"Why, Fuuto?! These pictures, the flowers are decreasing more and more! At first there were seventeen petals, and now there are seven! All you do is draw these pictures—what do you know?!"
Tsubasa grabbed Fuuto's shoulder.
That was the moment.
"Shut up!!"
Fuuto suddenly stood up. He hurled the paintbrush in his hand to the floor.
A dry clatter echoed, and red paint splattered from the brush tip.
His blue eyes wavered with anger, sadness, and some deeper pain.
"Leave it alone! It's my business, isn't it?!"
"Fuuto..."
"Get out!"
Fuuto shoved Tsubasa, pushing him out of the room.
The door slammed shut with a loud bang. The sound of the lock clicking into place.
"Fuuto! Open up!"
No matter how many times he turned the knob, it wouldn't open.
From beyond the closed door, he heard a voice.
It was a stifled sob.
Fuuto was crying.
Tsubasa stood frozen in place.
(Fuuto... you knew, didn't you. All along, you knew better than anyone that the world was wrong, and you kept putting it into these pictures...)
His chest tightened painfully.
Seven petals.
It felt like his brother's heart was peeling away, petal by petal.
That night.
Tsubasa couldn't sleep. In the darkened room, he lay with his eyes open, staring at the ceiling.
From the lower bunk, Fuuto's crying could no longer be heard. Instead, only irregular sleeping breaths reached him.
He was thirsty.
Tsubasa quietly slipped out of bed and went down to the first floor.
The hallway was dark. Not even moonlight entered tonight.
He was about to head for the kitchen when it happened.
There was a figure in front of the living room.
Tsubasa stopped and held his breath.
It was Rieru. She stood before the living room's sliding glass door, the curtain slightly open, gazing outside.
She was in her nightclothes, her hair down.
Her profile was strangely clear, even without moonlight.
She opened her mouth.
"Not yet... mustn't let it end..."
Rieru's voice dissolved into the air, addressed to no one.
"Not yet... not yet... summer vacation... continues..."
An eerie monologue, repeated.
Tsubasa couldn't move a single step.
"It's okay. It's still okay. Because Tsubasa is smiling. So, not yet..."
When she said Tsubasa's name, her voice was filled with affection and deep sorrow.
(Sis knows.)
(She knows everything, and even so, for my sake, she's trying to protect this distorted world.)
Rieru's kindness felt terrifying.
It wasn't to protect Tsubasa. It was a gentle prison, meant to isolate him from reality and keep him locked away.
Suddenly, a voice echoed in his head.
——I wish it could be summer vacation forever.
The words he had wished for on the night of August 31st.
(Is this anomaly my fault?)
(Because I wished for it, is my family trapped here, falling apart?)
The center of his chest grew hot, gradually. No, it wasn't hot. It hurt. A heat named guilt throbbed and seared his heart.
Tsubasa put a hand against the wall. He slid down into a crouch.
It was hard to breathe.
Rieru was still repeating the same words, like a broken music box.
"Not yet... mustn't let it end. Not yet..."
Listening to that voice, Tsubasa stared at his own two hands.
(My hands broke my family.)
(My wish distorted the world.)
In a dark corner of the hallway, Tsubasa stifled his voice and cried.
He couldn't think "it'll work out somehow" anymore.
How long had he been like that?
Rieru's voice had disappeared before he knew it. She seemed to have returned to her room.
Silence returned to the hallway, leaving Tsubasa alone in the darkness.
He clenched his hands, wet with tears.
(If this is my fault...)
(Then I have to be the one to end it.)
He raised his head.
Beyond the wall, in the living room, the false daily life was surely still continuing.
Tomorrow, Fuuto's sunflowers might have even fewer petals. Rieru's smile might become even emptier.
He was the one who had to end this closed-in summer.
He still didn't know how.
But he could no longer keep looking away.
Tsubasa stood up.
His legs were trembling. Deep in his gut, a cold, heavy guilt remained like a lump.
Even so, he had to start walking.
To save his family.
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