Chapter 1
Volume 1 - "The Time of Rebirth, the Year of Sorrow"
Chapter 1
The restaurant looked different in the morning than it did at noon or in the evening.
Not in the sense that anything had changed — the furniture stood where it always stood, the same worn marks on the counter, the same cracked tile on the wall that Teach had been meaning to have fixed for three years now and somehow always put off. It was simply the light that was different in the morning. The shutters were half-drawn, and the late-morning sun pressed through the glass in thin, slanted strips, those strips slowly drifting across the floor as time passed, like some quiet, unceasing measuring device.
Teach was usually the first to sit down in the morning.
This was neither habit nor intention — it simply always worked out that way. He woke up, showered, came downstairs, made coffee, and sat on one of the bar stools at the counter, staying there for a while before anything else began. This was the time he shared with no one, not deliberately — it was just that quiet at the start of the day, before a person is obligated to play any kind of role.
He sat there now. White-framed glasses on his nose, coffee mug in his hand. His black locs pulled back, a few loose strands falling over his shoulder. His green eyes rested somewhere on the opposite wall — on that spot where the wallpaper had discoloured slightly from an old damp stain, where the morning light reflected back in a way that, if you stared long enough, you almost saw something in it.
Fifita stood on the other side of the counter, washing up. Her long blonde hair was loosely gathered at the nape of her neck, a few strands had come free and fallen across her face — but she didn’t notice, or if she did, she didn’t consider it worth her attention. Her pink-framed glasses sat on her nose, and the simple black apron was tied over her sweater, neat and precise, just as it was every morning.
The late-night closing always left work behind — glasses, cutlery, the remnants from the last guests that hadn’t made it into the evening clean-up. Fifita did it regularly and methodically. She turned the unwashed items with her left hand, holding the brush with her right, and all the while hummed some faint, barely perceptible melody to herself. She wasn’t humming consciously — it was the kind of humming a person doesn’t notice they’re doing, and if someone points it out, they stop, surprised, because they hadn’t known they were doing it.
Meanwhile the coffee machine dripped quietly on.
Fifita reached out, took her mug from the machine, took a sip, and set it on the edge of the counter.
— Did you sleep? — she asked, not looking up, her hands still moving through the washing up.
Teach lifted his mug.
— Enough.
Fifita looked at him now — just a quick, sideways glance, then her eyes went back to the half-washed mug in her hand. At that moment Teach also looked at her for a second, their gazes meeting for a brief instant, and that one glance was enough — between them it meant: no, but I’m not going to talk about it, and don’t ask.
Fifita didn’t ask. She just kept washing up.
The silence between them was not uncomfortable — it never was. There is one kind of silence between people that is empty and one kind that is full, and theirs was the last one. That kind of silence that develops between two people who have spent so much time in each other’s company that they don’t need to fill everything with words, because the other already knows. Teach slowly drank his coffee. Fifita washed up. The morning light strips drifted slowly across the floor.
About fifteen minutes passed this way.
Not far from the stairs, a door opened on the upper floor.
Not forcefully and not carefully — only as much as a door opens when someone pulls it without any particular intent. Then footsteps on the stairs, and the rhythm of those footsteps said everything: not hurried, not lively, but that slow, slightly dragging rhythm that means the body is upright but the mind hasn’t yet decided whether to fully enter the day or crawl back into the world of sleep.
Chisato appeared at the bottom of the stairs.
The white pyjamas patterned with tiny pink hearts had slipped slightly off her shoulder — she kept trying to pull the strap back up with one hand, only for it to slide back down immediately after. The blue streaks on the left side and red on the right of her medium-length white hair hung in her face in the tangled, thrown-together way that a night and a pillow leave hair. Around her neck was a thin leather strap — the grayish-white letter ‘I’ on it was the Institute’s logo, and Chisato couldn’t take it off even once since Tessa’s disappearance. Her light blue eyes were narrowed to slits against the light, and her face wore that expression a person carries in the morning when they’re living with the full consequences of the decisions they made against their own best interests the night before.
She shuffled over to the counter.
She climbed onto one of the bar stools — next to Teach, but leaving an empty stool between them, not consciously, just because that was the nearest one and required the least effort. She put her elbows on the counter, laid her face in both palms, and closed her eyes with that measured, self-assured movement a person makes when they know they’d like to be quiet for a while and aren’t trying to hide it from the world.
Fifita looked up and studied Chisato — the pyjamas, the tangled hair, the closed eyes, the dropped shoulders — and her face didn’t change much, only the corner of her mouth moved slightly upward. Not mockingly. More with the expression of knowing recognition that says: I can see what happened, and I’m not letting this pass without comment.
— Well, what is it, — she said — was it a long night by any chance?
Chisato didn’t lift her face from her palms.
— Yes — she said. Her voice was hoarse, and that yes was the kind a person says when they don’t want to say a longer word. A concise, precise, all-encompassing yes.
— Do you want coffee?
Chisato nodded, but didn’t lift her face from her palms, just nodded, slowly, as if even nodding required energy she was currently short of and whatever she had she needed to ration carefully.
Fifita put down the brush in the sink, wiped her hands on her apron, and began making coffee. Meanwhile Teach looked at Chisato. This Chisato — the pyjamas, the tangled streaks, the palms covering her face — was so unlike the Chisato who greeted guests and knew everyone’s name and could recite everyone’s regular order purely from memory. Teach never said anything about this, but he always noticed. Morning was the only time when Chisato wasn’t doing anything — she was simply there, quietly.
— What were you doing all night? — Teach asked.
Chisato slowly lifted her face from her palms, then tried to squint, but the brightness hurt her eyes, so she gave up and just kept them half-open.
— Watching series — she said.
— How much?
— A lot…
Teach said nothing, so after a moment Chisato continued:
— I kept telling myself just one more episode... Then one more episode... Then I started the next season too, because the cliffhanger meant I wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway.
— What time did you go to bed?
Chisato looked at the ceiling for a brief moment.
— Around four, I think… or half past four…
— Chisato.
— I know — said Chisato, and in her voice was that self-critical, slightly resigned tone that addresses the person asking just as much as it addresses herself. — I already regret it. That’s for sure…
Fifita from behind the counter, without looking over:
— Then you’re getting double black coffee. No sugar.
Chisato let out a small whimpering sound but didn’t protest.
— You deserve it — said Teach, his voice was neutral.
The coffee machine started up, and its steady, quiet hum filled the space. Chisato put her elbows back on the counter and laid her face in her palms again, this time a little less completely — her fingers were looser, as if her feeling of shame had eased a fraction now that she’d said it out loud.
— Are you angry? — she asked, muffled, from behind her palms.
Teach gave her a sideways glance.
— Why would I be angry.
— Because I did the same thing again.
— Yes — said Teach. — Next time don’t stay up so late if there’s work the next day.
— I promise it won’t happen again — said Chisato automatically, from behind her palms, with her usual urgent sincerity.
Fifita from beside the coffee machine:
— You said that last month too.
— I promised then as well and I kept it — said Chisato, and now she lifted her head, firmly, as a sign of protest, which was somewhat undermined by the fact that a blue streak of hair was falling into her face as she did it. — It didn’t happen for three weeks.
— Two and a half — said Fifita, and put the coffee in front of Chisato. — But who’s counting.
Chisato reached for her mug and held it in both hands. She felt its warmth, lifted it, and after the first sip — slowly, almost ceremonially — something shifted slightly in her face. Not completely, not immediately, but that coffee somehow reached a place that promises and reproaches couldn’t: it drew her eyelids a little higher, straightened her shoulders a little.
— Good — she said, satisfied, to herself.
— Double black — said Fifita drily, going back to the washing up. — Don’t mention it.
Chisato gave a tired laugh. Not the big, usual, energetic laugh that fills the whole restaurant — just a small, genuine laugh, the kind that isn’t deliberate.
Teach’s phone suddenly buzzed.
Not strongly and not for long — just the single ordinary vibration that a notification makes. Teach reached into his pocket, took it out, and looked at it. He only looked at the screen, and his eyes stopped on it for a moment.
He said nothing.
Fifita didn’t look up, but her hand slowed in the sink.
Chisato looked sideways at him, mug in hand, and saw his face. She couldn’t tell exactly what she read in it — Teach wasn’t the kind of person whose face gives much away; years and practice had seen to it that what he showed was only what he chose to let others see — but the silence now was different from before… noticeably heavier.
— What is it? — asked Chisato.
Fifita’s phone buzzed a second later, as if the two had been coordinated. Fifita put down the brush, wiped her hands, and pulled her phone from the apron pocket, then looked at the screen with the same silence as Teach.
— The Institute — Teach said finally, and put his phone down on the counter. — They’ve called us in.
The words were free of emotion, not loud, not dramatic — this was how Teach said important things, always at the same volume, whether he was saying it would rain tomorrow or something that would change the course of a day.
Chisato slowly put her mug back on the counter.
— You too? — she asked, looking at Fifita.
— Me too — said Fifita, and put her phone back in her apron pocket. — Same message.
Chisato’s gaze moved between the two of them. Teach was looking at the dark screen of his phone. Fifita was looking at the sink, but her hand wasn’t moving.
— Why? — asked Chisato, curious.
— It doesn’t say — said Teach.
— Just that you should come in? — she asked in a tone of incomprehension.
— Just that…
Chisato pressed her lips together, looked ahead for a moment, then at Teach.
— Why are you looking at Fifita?
Teach was indeed looking at Fifita at that moment — a longer glance, questioning, restrained.
— I wasn’t looking at her — said Teach, then looked back at his phone.
— You were! — said Chisato firmly. — That’s how you look at her when she knows something she’s not saying. Fifita! What do you know?
Fifita looked up and then at Teach.
— They didn’t write anything else to me either — said Fifita, emphatically but without offense. — Just to come in. If something happened, it’s not related to me.
Teach was quiet for a moment.
— Alright — he said, then stood up from the bar stool.
Chisato immediately:
— Can I come too?
Teach looked at her.
— Stay.
— But…
— Chisato. — Not loudly, not sharply, just like that, her name, which was enough between them. — Please stay here and finish the washing up, tidy the place, and get the ingredients ready for opening. — A brief pause. — Please.
Chisato looked at her mug. She pressed her lips together again — not sulking, more the mixture of suppressed protest and acceptance, that expression she wore when she knew there was nothing to be done and accepted it, but her body hadn’t quite yet.
— Alright — she said finally. Quietly. A little sadly.
Teach stepped toward her. He leaned forward and kissed the top of Chisato’s head — simply, briefly, the way you do something that is natural and requires no comment.
— Thank you — she said.
Chisato was completely still for a moment. Then her face — the sleepy, dishevelled, tired face — lit up. Not the version meant for guests, which is always a little rounded and always a little wider than it needs to be — this smile was uneven and a little wild and so much more real, and her voice took on the energy that she hadn’t shown in the previous half hour.
— You’re welcome!
Fifita had already begun taking off her apron.
She put down the washing-up brush, wiped her hands on the inside of the apron before taking it off, and hung it on the hook carefully, not just tossing it there. She picked up her bag from the corner and the car keys from the small dish on the edge of the counter, and headed for the entrance.
She stopped when she passed Chisato.
She hugged her from behind — not for long, and not tightly, just enough for the kind of hug that suffices when there’s no time for more, but the intention is the same. She kissed the top of her head, and held her face there for a moment in her hair.
— Thank you, sweetheart — she said quietly.
Chisato smiled and put both hands on Fifita’s arms.
— Take care of yourselves — she said.
— As always — said Fifita, and let go.
Teach was already at the door, and turned back.
— Chisato — he said — get dressed before you start. Don’t ruin your pyjamas.
Chisato raised an eyebrow, and her voice recovered that light, teasing edge that had been dormant until eight in the morning:
— I never get my pyjamas dirty.
— I can think of at least a few times — said Teach, but Fifita had grabbed him by the arm at the same moment and was pulling him toward the entrance, decisively, like someone who knows this sentence would otherwise have lasted another five minutes.
— Come on already — said Fifita.
— We’ll be back! — said Teach, already halfway through the door.
— Bye! — called Chisato, and her voice bounced slightly off the walls of the empty restaurant.
The door closed, the bell gave a quiet ring, and silence returned.
Chisato stared at her mug for a while.
Then she sighed — not dramatically, more with that measured acceptance a person makes when they’ve already come to terms with a situation — and stood up from the bar stool. She pulled the slipped shoulder strap of her pyjama top back into place and headed for the stairs.
Ten minutes later she came back down.
She’d put on jeans, a plain grey t-shirt, pulled her hair quickly into a low side bun, with the blue and red streaks hanging out untidily. Not perfect, but at least neat — the kind of morning neatness a person manages when they know they’re going to do work and their appearance isn’t the primary concern.
She put on her apron and tied it, then went back to the sink.
The brush was still where Fifita had left it. Chisato picked it up and got on with what Fifita had left off — the other half of the night’s glasses, the tall-stemmed wine glasses that always end up at the end of the line because they need more care. She did it methodically, the way Fifita did it, concentrating hard to make sure everything was properly clean.
Glass after glass onto the shelf.
The cutlery, each piece into the right holder.
The morning coffee cups, where residue always builds up around the handle if they aren’t rinsed properly.
When the water in the sink was no longer usable, she drained it and ran fresh. The hot water steamed, and Chisato held her face back for the first moment, then reached in and carried on.
All the while she hummed something quietly — not the same tune as Fifita, a different one, unrecognisable, perhaps from the series whose music was still stuck in her head.
When she finished the washing up, she put the brush in its holder and glanced at the clock on the wall.
Quarter to nine.
Opening was at ten. She had plenty of time, though not unlimited.
Chisato leaned against the counter for a moment and looked around the restaurant. A few chairs were at the wrong angle — the previous evening’s guests might have shifted them and not set them back. On one of the tables the salt shaker had slid slightly out of place. Near the entrance, small traces of sand on the floor from someone’s shoes.
She got out a cloth and started wiping.
The tables in order — not rushing, but not slowly either, with that work rhythm that comes to a person when their hands have known for a long time what to do and how. From the middle of the tabletop outward, gathering at the edges so nothing fell to the floor. The salt and pepper shakers back to the centre. Checking the napkin holders — if there weren’t enough, she refilled them.
Then she straightened the chairs where they needed it.
This was precise work, because Teach had a specific vision of how the chairs should stand, and Chisato had learned it over six years. This wasn’t perfect symmetry — the restaurant wasn’t shaped for that — it was a kind of balance that, when it’s right, no one notices, but when it’s missing, something bothers them.
Chair after chair.
The table by the window, preferred by certain regulars. The corner table, where Teach sometimes sits when he has nothing else to do. The long table along the wall, that straightened too.
After all that she got out the broom and swept the floor last — not the whole surface, Fifita had already done that in the morning, just the area near the entrance and in front of the counter where the prep work and movement could leave a mark. The broom made a quiet swishing sound across the floor tiles, and when she was finished she put the broom back in its place.
The prep work, now that was different.
The washing up and the cleaning were mechanical — the hands do it, the mind can rest alongside, and Chisato had spent most of that half hour thinking about the unresolved threads of the series, or about the morning’s conversation, or about why the Institute might have called Teach and Fifita in.
The prep work needed concentration.
Chisato went to the storeroom.
The storeroom was at the back of the restaurant, opening from the kitchen, and every morning Chisato went in and checked what was in stock — she’d been the one tracking the storeroom inventory for years, flagging to Teach when something was running low, and those years had built a kind of precise internal stocktaking in her. Now as always she ran her eyes over the shelves: dry goods, spices, preserves, oils and vinegars. Nothing critical was missing, but the garlic was starting to run low, and the rosemary was nearly at the end. She made a mental note — she’d tell Teach in the evening.
She took out what was needed for today.
The vegetables were in the cold store. The cold store was directly next to the storeroom, and everything in it was properly wrapped and labelled — this was Fifita’s system, which Chisato happily maintained because the prep work went so much more smoothly when everything had its place and its time.
Peppers, tomatoes, onions, celery.
The salad leaves, still fresh, they’ll do well.
Chisato took everything out and brought it to the kitchen prep counter. She washed the vegetables under the tap, one by one, carefully and thoroughly — Teach had once said that washing the ingredients isn’t a formality, it’s the first step in cooking, and that was the sentence that burned itself into Chisato’s memory when she was only thirteen years old, and she had never forgotten it.
When she finished washing the ingredients she let them drip dry.
The boards came out — green for vegetables, red for meat, blue for fish, this was an ironclad rule in the restaurant. Chisato put the green board down on the counter and got out the knife.
The onion went first.
She sliced it, not finely but into strips — because that was what today’s use required, and Chisato knew what went with what. The knife moved steadily and safely, and the onion fell into neat, even, regular strips on the surface of the board. Her eyes slowly started to sting from the onion, and Chisato wiped her nose with the back of her wrist without stopping for long.
Then came the peppers.
She enjoyed cutting peppers — the colour, the smell, that crunch when the knife goes in, there was something pleasurable about it that she could never explain but always felt. Into strips, then smaller cubes, then she set one whole red one aside because Teach would want that for garnish later.
The tomatoes were a little slower — soft, and she had to be careful they didn’t fall apart.
The celery she cut into neat, even pieces.
When she was done she put the cut vegetables into separate containers, covered them carefully and labelled each one, then put them all back in the cold store — because better they don’t warm up while they’re not being used.
Then she took out the meat.
The meat was different — it wasn’t Chisato’s job to prepare it, Teach did that because he’d said meat prep required knowledge Chisato hadn’t fully acquired yet, and Chisato accepted this, though she sometimes argued with Teach about it. Now she simply took the meats out of their packaging, let them drip dry, then placed them on trays, labelled them, and put them back in the appropriate fridge in the kitchen — so the meats were ready for Teach to continue the prep work when he got back.
Now that she’d successfully prepared the ingredients, Chisato wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, then checked the wall clock.
Quarter to ten.
She pushed her bun back a little, and came back from the kitchen into the restaurant. She looked around it — clean tables, chairs standing in order, behind the counter the coffee machine standing quietly waiting, the morning light coming in now at a higher angle through the shutters.
The restaurant was quiet and tidy.
Chisato sat on one of the bar stools, picked up her half-finished coffee, and was surprised that it was still warm. She tried a sip.
And it really was still warm.
She was barely tired anymore — the movement had revived her a little, and the double black coffee had done its work.
She drank another sip, looked at the restaurant, and all the while was thinking about what that message from the Institute might have been.
Nothing good, probably, she thought, because messages from the Institute in the morning didn’t usually mean something good.
But she wasn’t particularly worried, because it was Teach and Fifita.
She finished the rest of her coffee.
Ten minutes before opening she stood up, got the coffee machine on the counter ready, set out the cups, checked the daily menu board to see if it was written out correctly.
She looked around the restaurant one last time and noted with satisfaction that everything was in its place.
She opened the front door, and the morning air flowed in — not cold, not warm, just fresh, the kind of late-morning air not yet burdened with the smell of the city.
Chisato stood in the doorway for a few more moments, then turned back inside, picked up the order pad from beside the counter, sat back down on the bar stool, and waited for Teach and the others to return from the Institute.
Teach and Fifita, meanwhile, were on their way.
Fifita drove — this had been the way it was before too, back when they sometimes worked together at the Institute, and it hadn’t changed over the years. Teach sat in the passenger seat, his arm resting out the lowered window, looking out at the late-morning city rolling past: shops, people, a school group with a teacher, a café terrace where the first morning customers were already seated.
They drove in silence for a while.
— Did you send in the weekly reports? — Teach asked suddenly, no longer looking at the city but ahead, through the windscreen.
Fifita glanced sideways at him. The glance wasn’t offended, but wasn’t free of a certain are-you-seriously-that-dense look either.
— Do you think I’m an amateur? — she said.
The corner of Teach’s mouth moved. Not quite a smile — more the seedling of one.
— No.
— Then don’t ask. Of course I sent them.
— Alright.
— Alright — Fifita echoed, but her emphasis made clear: and you shouldn’t have needed to ask.
Silence again. Traffic moved slowly, the morning bottlenecks were building up, but Fifita waited patiently for a while, then cut through the side streets as she always did. Teach didn’t comment — he didn’t need to; Fifita knew the city at least as well as he did, if not better.
— It wasn’t you who did something? — asked Fifita a few corners later.
Teach looked out the window.
— I don’t know of anything — he said. His voice was sombre, the kind of sombre that doesn’t mask uncertainty, only acknowledges it.
Fifita didn’t respond to that right away. She let the sentence hang in the air a little longer.
— The weekly reports were accurate — she said finally. — I uploaded everything on time, especially the report on Chisato, because I know that’s what they latch onto. So the problem definitely isn’t with me.
— I know — said Teach.
— Then why are they calling us both in at the same time? — asked Fifita, a little irritated.
— I have a feeling we’ll find that out soon enough.
Fifita nodded in agreement. She had no more questions for now — at least not any that could be answered at this moment.
The Institute’s building was on the other side of the district, and as they got closer, the neighbourhood slowly changed — office buildings, larger car parks, fewer small shops and more multinational logos. The Institute wasn’t conspicuous among them: glass and concrete, exactly like the others, built to exactly the height that was standard in the district. The silver I above the entrance gleamed faintly in the sunlight.
Fifita pulled into the car park and switched off the engine.
The car park was quiet — it wasn’t crowded in the late morning because the midday rush hadn’t started yet. A few cars scattered across the rows, the spaces near the entrance empty.
They just sat… not for long, but they sat for a brief moment — that short pause a person needs before stepping out of a car and walking into a building they have mixed feelings about.
Teach reached over and took the key from the ignition. Meanwhile Fifita was adjusting the strap of her bag on her shoulder — she looked slightly tense.
— Right, let’s go — said Teach, and they got out.
On the pavement in front of the building the morning air was cooler than in the car. Teach took a long breath of it — nothing deliberate, just a simple breath, the kind a person takes before walking into somewhere not a single part of him wants to go — and headed for the entrance. Fifita fell into step beside him, half a beat behind but not far back.
The large entrance door slid open automatically in front of them. Inside, the air of the entrance hall was cool and steady — air conditioning that never rests, never changes, exactly the way it was six years ago and ten years ago and would most likely be ten years from now. The Institute’s emblem on the reception desk. The armed security guard in uniform who looked up when Teach and Fifita walked in and he immediately recognised them, and nodded.
Teach didn’t nod back. He just walked in.
Fifita, however, paused for a moment and looked toward the reception area — not back at the guard, but toward the part of the building where the white corridor led to the lifts. On the wall, the Institute’s motto stood in silver letters behind a large pane of glass.
Then she walked in too, and the automatic door closed behind them.
