The First Stroke
The first thing your mother remembered wasn’t your first cry.
It was the silence.
The delivery room had erupted into confused murmurs as the doctor lifted you into the light. Every newborn was expected to cry.
You didn’t.
Instead, your tiny hand slowly lifted into the air.
Your fingers curled delicately around something no one else could see. Then your wrist moved.
Back and forth.
As though holding an invisible paintbrush.
“...Doctor?” your father asked, panic creeping into his voice.
Before anyone could answer-
“Waaah!” Your cry finally echoed through the room.
The nurses sighed with relief.
The strange moment was forgotten.
At least...
They thought it was.
Three years later.
Your mother found you sitting on the living room floor surrounded by crayons.
She smiled. “So pretty!”
Colour covered nearly every page in your sketchbook.Flowers.Birds.Trees.Children.
Then she reached the final drawing.Her smile vanished.
A black-and-white charcoal drawing depicted an elderly man kneeling beside a broken bicycle.
A young girl lay motionless beside him.Blood spread across the road.
Police tape fluttered in the wind.
Your mother immediately shut the sketchbook. “You shouldn’t draw things like this.”
You blinked. “But Grandpa cried.”
“...What?”
“The old man.”You pointed at the drawing. “He was crying.”
Your mother frowned.“You’ve never met him.”
“I watched him.”
“...Watched?”
“He dropped oranges.”Your tiny finger tapped the page. “They rolled everywhere.”
Silence.
Your mother assumed it was childish imagination.
Until that evening.
The television interrupted the news.“Today marks the twentieth anniversary of the Higashimachi traffic accident, where seven-year-old Aiko Tanaka lost her life...”
The screen showed an old photograph.An elderly man.A broken bicycle.Oranges scattered across the road.Exactly like your drawing.
Your mother dropped the remote.
After that...
The drawings never stopped.
Sometimes they showed yesterday.
Sometimes decades ago.
Sometimes tomorrow.
No one could predict which.
When teachers asked where you found inspiration...
“I saw it.”
When classmates asked why you drew strangers...
“They haven’t met me yet.”
People laughed.
Adults exchanged worried glances.
Children whispered.“She’s creepy.”
By age seven...Your parents stopped throwing away your artwork.
Instead...
They dated every drawing.
Stored every sketch.
Compared them with newspapers.
The match rate became impossible to ignore.
Missing persons.
House fires.
Train delays.
Lost pets.
Even weather.
Everything appeared first inside your sketchbooks.
Never perfectly.
Never with explanations.
Only moments.
Frozen forever in paint.
Word spread.
Neighbors visited.
Then reporters.
Then researchers.
Then self-proclaimed psychics.
“The Miracle Child.”“The Oracle.”“The Witch.”“The Prophet.”
You hated every nickname.Your paintings weren’t magic tricks.You didn’t choose what appeared.You simply...Painted.
Age ten.
Your father installed heavy curtains over every window.
“No more interviews.”“No more photographs.”“No more strangers.”
The family moved.
Twice.
Still...
People found you.
Some begged.
“Please tell me if my husband is alive.”
Others demanded.
“Draw tomorrow’s lottery numbers.”
Some cried.
“Can you paint my daughter one last time?”
You couldn’t.
The gift ignored requests.
The brush decided.
Not you.
Age twelve.You learned another rule.An unfinished painting...
Never meant certainty.
One afternoon you began painting a smiling boy wearing a baseball cap.
Halfway through-
You froze.The image blurred.The smile changed.The cap disappeared.
The canvas remained incomplete.
The next morning your class learned that a transfer student had changed schools before arriving.
You never met him.
His future...
Had changed.
That discovery became your greatest comfort.
The future wasn’t fixed.
Only possible.
Age fifteen.
You painted your own bedroom.Nothing unusual.
Books.
Canvas.
Window.
Desk.
Except...
Someone stood outside.
Watching.
The face remained hidden beneath a shadow.
Three days later...
A journalist climbed your apartment building’s fire escape hoping to photograph you through the window.
Police arrested him before he succeeded.
You stopped doubting your gift.
Instead...
You feared it.
Because every year...
The paintings grew clearer. More detailed.More personal.
Age eighteen.
Tokyo.
Your acceptance letter rested on your desk.
Tokyo University of the Arts.
Your dream.
Your parents exchanged worried looks.
“It’s dangerous.”
“I know.”
“What if people recognise you?”
“They won’t.”
“You can’t hide forever.”
You smiled softly. “I don’t want to.”
Silence lingered.
Finally your father laughed. “You’ve always been braver than us.”
Your mother hugged you tightly.“Promise you’ll call.”
“I promise.”
“And don’t tell anyone about your paintings.”
“...I know.”
Tokyo welcomed you with crowded trains.
Towering buildings.
Coffee shops.
Neon lights.
The city felt alive.
No one stared. No one whispered.
You were just another art student carrying far too many supplies.
It felt...
Wonderful.
For the first time in years...
You were ordinary.
Your apartment wasn’t large. One bedroom. A tiny kitchen. A narrow balcony overlooking neighboring rooftops.
Perfect.
You arranged your brushes.
Opened the windows.
Placed a blank canvas onto the easel.
A fresh beginning.
You dipped your brush into blue paint.
No plan.
No subject.
Just instinct.
The familiar warmth spread through your fingertips.
Your breathing slowed.
The world disappeared.
Colour flowed effortlessly across the canvas.
Silver.
White.
Deep sapphire.
A flowing cape.
A top hat.
A monocle.
A confident grin.
You blinked. “...Who are you?”
The stranger seemed almost alive.
Moonlight surrounded him.
Playing cards floated through the air.
White doves burst into flight behind him.
He looked directly at you.
As though he knew you.
The painting finished itself.
You stared for several long moments.
Then carefully wrote today’s date beneath it.
Just like always.
Across Tokyo...
A young man wearing a school uniform sneezed.
“Huh?”
Kuroba Kaito rubbed his nose.“A bad omen?”
His childhood friend, Aoko Nakamori, sighed. “Maybe someone finally got tired of your magic tricks.”
“They’re illusions.”
“They’re still annoying.”
Kaito laughed.
“Impossible.”
He had no idea...
Someone he’d never met had already painted his face.
Weeks...
Before his next appearance as Kaito Kid.
Elsewhere in Beika...
Another teenager walked home carrying detective novels beneath one arm.
Shinichi Kudo paused outside his house. A strange chill ran down his spine. He looked around. “...Weird.”
Nothing.
No clues.
No danger.
Just the feeling...
That somewhere...
Someone had already witnessed a future he hadn’t lived yet.
Back in your apartment...
You leaned the finished painting against the wall.
It should have been enough for one day.
Yet...
Your hand moved again.
Without permission.
You reached for another blank canvas.
This time...
Black paint.
A crowded amusement park.
A roller coaster.
A man dressed in black.
Another.
A terrified expression.
Someone collapsing.
A high school detective reaching toward the sky-
The brush slipped from your fingers.
Clatter.
Your heartbeat thundered inside your ears.“...No...”
The boy’s face stared back from the unfinished canvas.
Sharp blue eyes.
Messy dark hair.
A determined expression.
You had never met him.
Yet somehow...
You already knew his name.
Shinichi Kudo.
And according to your painting...
Something terrible was about to happen.
Far away, hidden in the darkness of Tokyo, unseen eyes had already begun searching for impossible things.
They did not yet know your name.But they would soon.
And once they discovered the girl whose paintings never lied...
The race against fate would begin.
