📘 2007: A Girl with No Tomorrow

✦ Chapter 8: The Stranger I Called Brother

> “I didn’t save him because I cared.

I saved him because I couldn’t watch death take someone else before me.”

— Aki Hoshino

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The shrine was nearly forgotten by the city.

Overgrown steps. Cracked stone gates. Moss covering the fox statues that once protected it. Aki walked the long path slowly, her hoodie up, hands in pockets. She came not to pray — but to listen.

Listen for the quiet voice of death.

The one she kept trying to hear.

She sat on the temple steps, staring at the sky through the bare trees. Her mind wandered:

> “What would it feel like to die here?

Would the leaves fall differently?

Would the wind pause to watch?”

Then — a sound broke the silence.

A scream. A choked grunt. Something hit the ground hard.

Aki turned her head.

Beyond the rear wall of the shrine, past the fox statue, movement — fast, messy, violent.

She stood and walked toward it.

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Behind the shrine, near the bamboo thicket, a boy was being beaten.

Maybe seventeen. Shirt torn, tattoos visible down one arm. Blood oozed from a deep stab wound in his stomach. He staggered, then fell to his knees.

Two older boys stood over him.

One had a knife. The other was kicking him over and over.

“You don’t just walk out on us!” the one with the blade snarled.

“You bleed for this name!” the other spat. “Nobody leaves the Red Dogs!”

The boy on the ground tried to speak. Coughed blood.

They hit him again.

Aki didn’t move for a moment. Just watched.

She didn’t feel panic.

She felt… still.

And then, quietly, she stepped forward and said:

“Stop.”

The attackers turned.

A girl in a hoodie. Thin. Pale. Empty-eyed.

“What the hell—? Get lost.”

But she didn’t.

She walked toward them with a calm that made them hesitate.

Her voice was quiet. “If you keep going, you’ll kill him.”

“So?” the knife-boy smirked. “What’s he to you?”

Aki paused.

Then said something even she didn’t expect.

“He’s my brother.”

They blinked. Hesitated. Then laughed.

“Your what?”

But her expression didn’t change. She didn’t blink.

And something about that — something about how real she made the lie sound — unsettled them.

The boy on the ground wheezed.

Sirens in the far distance.

The gang members cursed, shoved him down one more time, then ran.

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Aki knelt.

His face was pale, eyes barely open.

She looked at the blood on her hands. At the life seeping out of him.

“I don't know you,” she whispered. “But I can't let you die here.”

---

Fifteen minutes later, Aki walked into the nearest emergency hospital.

Her gray hoodie was stained with red.

Behind her, on a rolling stretcher, was the boy — barely conscious, breathing ragged.

The nurses rushed toward them.

“What happened? Who is he?” one asked.

Aki looked them dead in the eyes.

“My brother.”

“He's been stabbed. Did you call the police?”

“I didn’t see who did it,” she said calmly. “He needs help. Now.”

They nodded, wheeled him away.

As the front desk started paperwork, Aki pulled an envelope from her bag — one of many.

Unopened contest prize money. Still sealed.

She handed it to the nurse.

“Use this for his treatment.”

“Miss—”

But she was already turning to leave.

“Tell him,” she paused at the door, “he doesn’t owe me anything.”

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She walked home slowly, the blood drying on her sleeves.

No fear. No pride. Just silence.

In her notebook that night, she wrote:

> Date: October 22, 2007

I told them he was my brother.

He wasn’t.

I don’t save people. I don’t even save myself.

But something in me didn’t want death to win today.

I used money meant to prove I’m worth something —

to save someone who might not remember me.

That feels more human than anything I’ve done in years.

She closed the notebook.

For the first time in a long time…

she didn’t feel dead inside.

Just tired. Quiet. Real.

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End of Chapter 8 

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