Masahiro stood still, his gaze fixed on the devastated living room of the house where he had grown up. The place now looked like the distorted echo of a nightmare. Every shifted piece of furniture, every object on the floor, spoke of something that didn't want to be understood. Behind him, Lisa's light footsteps were approaching. She was returning from the back of the house.
Her voice echoed down the hallway, still unaware:
"You were right, Masu, all it took was restarting the breaker. Where are you? Are you dusting off old family memori—"
Her sentence broke off, swallowed by a thick silence.
As Lisa stepped into the living room, she stopped in her tracks. Her eyes locked onto the scene, and a shiver ran down her spine. She took a few hesitant steps, then, with a slowness that felt almost ceremonial, she gently placed a hand on Masahiro's shoulder, as if afraid a firmer touch might shatter him.
"What happened here…?" she whispered.
"I... I don't know. But it definitely wasn't my father."
Lisa remained silent for a moment, as if trying to interpret what she was seeing.
"Maybe it was a break-in, Masu," she finally said, gently stroking his shoulder. "They probably knew the house was empty."
"Mmh…"
Masahiro barely nodded, but the idea didn't convince him. Burglars? In such a safe prefecture, in an old man's house? Without anyone noticing? Something didn't add up.
He slowly shook his head.
Maybe it was just the shock, or maybe he simply didn't want to admit that someone could have defiled that place. Or worse, that something else had happened.
Lisa's voice broke through his heavy stream of thoughts once again:
"How about we tidy up a bit and fix something to eat? It might do us good."
"Sounds like a good idea," he murmured, managing a faint but genuine smile.
They began straightening up the living room, just enough to make it look less like a crime scene. Then they headed toward the kitchen.
As soon as they crossed the threshold — the door had remained shut until then — a nauseating stench hit them, thick and heavy like a wave of tar.
"Good Lord… it must be from the power being off," Lisa said, her voice strained as she opened the fridge.
Inside, rotting, blackened food covered in mold. It looked like it had been there far longer than just a few days. The smell was unbearable, almost tangible, as if it clung to their skin.
"But that's impossible, Lisa. My father died only a week ago. How can the food already be this... decomposed?"
Lisa stared at him, uneasy.
"Maybe we should talk to the neighbors more directly. They were the ones who found you and told you what had happened."
Masahiro nodded slowly, his eyes still lost in the void. As he thought about what to do next, a deep sense of guilt began to surface within him. He began to doubt himself. Maybe his father really had needed help — help that he, as a son, should have given him. Maybe the resentment that had built up over the years had blinded him so much that he hadn't seen the fragility of an old man who needed his son's care.
"You're right. That's the best thing to do. But first, let's eat something. I left some food in the car, just in case."
They retrieved some instant ramen and a few dried sausages, and with that stash, they improvised a lunch in the broken heart of the Kuni house.