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 - August 44th — The Bow of Light and the Family's Awakening
The cold sensation of the floor woke Tsubasa.
His body ached. A chill that seemed to reach the marrow of his bones. Only the wooden flooring pressed against his cheek felt strangely lukewarm. A puddle of tears still lingered there.
How long had he been like that?
His sense of time was completely paralyzed. Outside the window was the same unchanging gray, morning and night alike, everything smeared over with the same lifeless emptiness.
(I…)
Only a heaviness like swallowing molten lead—guilt—sank deep in the pit of his stomach.
"I'm sorry… I'm sorry…"
He could hear a voice.
From the floor. From the walls. From the ceiling. As if the very air was trembling, Hanyii's crying filled the entire house. It was a voice he had been hearing for days, for dozens of days, without end.
But now.
Tsubasa slowly lifted his head.
The direction of the voice was different.
It wasn't coming from Hanyii's room.
It was coming from the center of the living room.
Tsubasa pushed himself up with trembling arms and stood. His knees were shaking. He couldn't walk straight. Placing a hand on the wall, he crawled toward the living room entrance.
There, a giant calendar hung.
Yellowed paper covering the entire wall. August 39th. 40th. 41st. An endless, distorted sequence of numbers.
And the voice was coming from that calendar.
From the square marked August 32nd.
From behind that handwritten, trembling number.
"I'm sorry… Tsubasa big brother…"
It wasn't just Hanyii's voice.
"…I'm sorry, Tsubasa…"
Rieru's voice was layered over it too.
"…Big brother…"
Fuuto's voice as well.
The true voices of his entire family were crying, small but unmistakably, from behind the date August 32nd—a date that shouldn't exist—on the calendar.
Tsubasa's feet stopped.
His breath stopped.
(No.)
(They aren't dolls here.)
(Everyone's souls are here… trapped by my sin.)
Tsubasa reached a trembling finger toward the calendar. August 32nd. The first day the world began to warp.
His fingertip touched the paper.
In that instant.
Something burst deep inside his eardrums.
Images came flooding into his mind.
A summer night when he was ten.
Futons in a Japanese-style room. The smell of rain. The distant sound of a door closing. His parents arguing. And a warmth that would never return.
——If only summer vacation could last forever.
——Please don't let our family fall apart.
That night, a selfish wish screamed from the bottom of his heart. That wish had created this cage.
"Ah… aah…"
Tsubasa clung to the calendar.
He pressed his forehead against the paper.
Tears soaked in, blurring the numbers of August.
"It's my… it's my fault…"
His voice was hoarse. His throat felt like it would tear apart.
"I turned everyone into dolls. I trapped everyone with my ego! I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…!"
Even as Tsubasa cried out, the dry metallic sound of an empty pot being stirred still echoed from the kitchen as always.
That was when it happened.
*Crackle.*
A small sound, like static electricity, echoed from the second floor.
He looked up.
From the darkness at the top of the stairs.
A golden light was leaking out.
A thin, thin light like a thread of gold. It was spilling from the gap in the door to Tsubasa and Fuuto's room.
Tsubasa raced up the stairs.
He stumbled again and again, banging his knees, striking his shins. But he no longer felt any pain.
He threw open the door to the room.
The air had changed.
The smell of blood and paint was being overwritten by something else. A warm scent, like a sunny spot.
In the center of the room, Fuuto was standing.
His blue-haired younger brother stood with his back turned, facing the canvas. Blood still dripped from the fingertips of his left hand, forming small black stains on the floor.
But the canvas he was gazing at—
It was glowing.
The canvas that until yesterday had been blank, nothing but seeping blood. On it was painted a single sunflower, just the stem.
That painting of a mere stem, without a flower—
Was emitting a golden light.
The thin lines transformed into a thick, powerful radiance. The paint slowly rose from the canvas. Golden droplets gathered in the air.
(What… is this?)
It solidified into the shape of a single bow.
A bow made of light.
Faint golden particles constantly scattering around it, yet it existed there with undeniable mass. The string was a line of light itself.
The bow of light settled into Tsubasa's right hand as if drawn into it.
A solid weight.
Neither cold nor hot. Just a nostalgic heaviness.
Fuuto slowly turned around.
For the first time, light dwelled in his vacant blue eyes. A flame of the soul. They were the eyes of someone just now awakening from a long, long nightmare.
Fuuto opened his trembling lips.
"…This is…"
His voice was hoarse, like scraping glass.
"What I… always wanted to paint…"
He stared at his own blood-smeared hands. At his wounded fingers, as if seeing them for the first time.
"I never understood. What I should paint. All I could do was watch the petals disappear. But… that wasn't it."
Fuuto raised his head and looked straight at Tsubasa.
"This is to save you, big brother… to save you."
His younger brother's words spread warmly through the center of his chest.
(To save…)
(Me.)
"Fuuto… you've been, all this time, for that…"
"Shut up."
Fuuto smiled, his face on the verge of tears.
"…It's nothing. It's obvious. Because you're my big brother I'm proud of."
That was when it happened.
A noise came from the first floor.
A *clank*, the sound of metal dropping.
Tsubasa and Fuuto exchanged glances and burst out of the room simultaneously.
They raced down the stairs.
To the living room.
At the kitchen entrance, Rieru was sitting on the floor.
The cooking chopsticks she always held had rolled to her feet. The white fabric of her apron spread across the floor, and she had collapsed on top of it.
"Tsubasa…"
Rieru raised her head.
The perfect mask of a smile.
It was gone now.
With a face drenched in tears, the older sister looked up at her younger brother.
"I… was wrong…"
Rieru's voice trembled, broken and halting, yet it was her true voice.
"I wanted to grant your wish. I thought if summer vacation lasted forever, Tsubasa could keep smiling. That I could protect you from the painful reality. But… this isn't a family. It's just a sham."
She stared at her own hands.
"Tasteless cooking. Days spent just stirring an empty pot. What was I doing? Thinking I loved you, I locked you in a prison…"
Tsubasa knelt in front of Rieru.
"Sis… no. It's not your fault. It's all my fault."
"No."
Rieru shook her head.
"It's what I wished for. If your wish was going to warp the world, then I decided, myself, to protect you within that distortion. So… so, Tsubasa."
Rieru placed her own hand over Tsubasa's hand gripping the bow of light.
Her fingers were cold. But a human warmth was definitely beginning to return.
"End… summer vacation. My beloved little brother. Return everyone to reality."
Another set of footsteps echoed in the living room.
It was Hanyii.
The youngest sister had burst out of her room. Her blonde twintails were disheveled, and the flame ribbon on the left side flickered faintly, as if about to go out at any moment. Her large purple eyes overflowed with tears, shining like jewels.
She clung to Rieru sitting on the floor, then looked up at Tsubasa.
"Tsubasa big brother!"
Hanyii squeezed out her voice.
"I… was scared, the whole time. Ever since August 32nd, the whole time… I could see the world breaking more and more. The colors disappearing, the sounds vanishing, everyone's hearts cracking and shattering like glass, I could tell…"
She tightly gripped the hem of Tsubasa's clothes with her slender fingers.
"But no one believed me. Rieru big sister and Fuuto big brother gradually became different people… and I… because of me… I'm sorry, I'm sorry…!"
"No, Hanyii, that's not true."
"It is true!"
Hanyii raised her voice for the first time.
"Tsubasa big brother loved our family more than anyone! He was always, always smiling. He just wished that summer vacation wouldn't end, that's all! But no one could protect Tsubasa big brother, and I… I couldn't do anything!"
As she shouted, Hanyii shed large, streaming tears. Her small body trembled as if pleading her grief with her entire being.
"So, don't cry anymore, Tsubasa big brother. I love Tsubasa big brother's smile the most."
Tsubasa's vision blurred with tears.
Fuuto placed a hand on Tsubasa's shoulder.
"…You heard her, big brother."
His hand was still trembling. But his voice held a firm resolve.
"We're not your dolls. We're family. We're going back together, right? To September 1st."
Rieru placed her hand over Fuuto's.
"Let's return to reality together, Tsubasa."
Hanyii pressed her small body tightly against Tsubasa's back.
"It's okay now, Tsubasa big brother. You're not alone anymore."
The warmth of the three seeped into Tsubasa's frozen heart.
(What a fool I was.)
(Even though I'm loved this much.)
(Trying to protect them, I ended up hurting my family the most.)
Tsubasa roughly wiped his tears with his left hand.
"…Thank you."
And then, he stood up.
"I… did this to everyone. I'm truly sorry. I know an apology isn't enough. So… I'll definitely end it. My summer vacation. We'll all go back to September 1st together!"
Tsubasa aimed the bow of light at the giant calendar and drew it taut.
He focused his mind into his right hand.
The bow's radiance intensified, as if responding to Tsubasa's will. An arrow of golden light was born on the string. His target was the center of the calendar—August 47th. The final date that would end everything.
"Uoooooooh!!"
The moment he put all his feelings into releasing the arrow—
The world groaned.
From every date square on the calendar—something like pitch-black mud erupted.
The thick darkness fell to the floor and sluggishly, sluggishly rose up.
It had the shape of a person.
No face. It had limbs, but their outlines were blurred, constantly wavering.
Shadows.
Countless shadows that had lurked in the darkness until now overflowed throughout the living room.
"No! Let go!"
First, a shadow coiled around Fuuto's legs.
Its warped, twisted arms grabbed both his ankles, trying to drag him down to the floor. Fuuto desperately resisted, but the shadow mercilessly tried to pull his body into the void of darkness.
"Stop it!"
Tsubasa shouted, but his bow remained aimed at the calendar. He couldn't lose his aim.
Next, darkness wrapped around Rieru's pale feet.
"…This is…"
The light began to fade from Rieru's eyes again. The shadow's tendrils reached up to her neck, gently but ruthlessly trying to pull her consciousness back into the void.
"Tsubasa… hurry…"
In her fading consciousness, she called her brother's name.
"Noooooo!"
Hanyii's scream.
Her small body was embraced from behind by a shadow. Her blonde twintails were stained with darkness, and the flame ribbon went out with a snap. Cold shadows entwined both her arms.
"Tsubasa big brother…!"
Moment by moment, his family was being swallowed by the darkness.
In Tsubasa's hand, the bow of light trembled. His fingers couldn't release the string.
(At this rate, everyone will turn back into dolls.)
"Fuuto! Rieru sis! Hanyii!"
That was when it happened.
Even as Fuuto was pulled down by the shadow, collapsing to the floor, he raised his head and shouted at Tsubasa with all his might.
"Big brother!!"
It was a roar from the soul, unlike anything he had ever heard before.
"That bow isn't just my feelings! It's the feelings of all of us who love you! So, absolutely… absolutely, don't miss!!"
His younger brother's wholehearted trust.
"Tsubasa… it's not your fault… because it's what I wished for…"
Even as she sank up to her neck in shadow, Rieru showed a gentle smile. It was more genuine than any smile he had seen in this distorted world—the true face of his sister.
"I was watching all along… that Tsubas
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