8:24 A.M.

Hope, despair, joy, grief, love, hatred, ecstasy, loathing, heaven, hell, the past, the future, yesterday, today, tomorrow, dreams, nightmares and the world…

All made by man.

And what man made, man can destroy.

—Kirima Seiichi, Sickness in the Air

This day will last
A thousand years
If you want it to

—Moody Blues, Days of Future Passed

8:24 A.M.

 

Sunday, February 14th.

It was going to be a beautiful day. The morning sky was so clear it seemed to stretch on forever.

“Mom, I have to pee,” Hashizaka Makoto said, tugging at his mother’s skirt.

“Oh, no. Can’t you hold it?” Shizuka asked crossly. She and her son were waiting in line together.

He shook his head. “I’m gonna burst,” he said, pouting.

Shizuka opened her mouth to scold him, but he cut her off.

“I can go alone. Okay? I’ll come right back.”

“Fine. You know where it is?”

“We passed it on the way.” Makoto nodded. “I’ll be fine.”

“Make it snappy!” Shizuka said.

Makoto pretended not to hear this.

The Moon Temple loomed behind them, and would open its doors today at ten.

This veritable Tower of Babylon was the last project left behind by Teratsuki Kyoichiro, a legend in his time. The self-made billionaire made significant contributions to all kinds of fields. But now that he was dead, he’d left behind a mountain of debt, and no one wanted to inherit the maintenance fees to keep this building going. It was scheduled for demolition in a month. Until then, it was briefly open to the public, and charging admission.

“………”

Makoto looked up at it through the public toilet’s window. The Moon Temple didn’t have a single window anywhere.

“It’s weird,” he decided. He was eight, and not one to hide his true feelings.

His mother Shizuka had brought him here, but not by choice. Normally, she would never take him anywhere no matter how much he begged her to, but here they were on the first day, waiting in line. He was vaguely aware that some twisted emotion brought her here, and he found it suffocating. He’d used the bathroom visit as an excuse to get away.

Makoto left the bathroom. He didn’t want to go back, but if he didn’t, Shizuka would be mad at him.

“Argh… I don’t wanna be here,” he muttered, glaring up at the building.

He hoped a giant monster would show up and smash the building to pieces.

A man standing near him chuckled. “You get dragged here against your will, kid?”

Makoto looked up at the speaker, baffled.

He seemed like a young man, but reminded Makoto of an important older man from a TV show. At his age, even junior high school students looked super old, but this man was far more mature and comfortable in his own skin than any of them.

Staring at the man, he felt like the noise of the crowd was fading away. Like the space a few meters around Makoto and this man had been sliced off from the world, sent into its own pocket dimension. The best comparison his eight-year-old mind could come up with was like when you were playing hide-and-seek and found a great hiding spot—so good that no one could find you no matter how long you waited.

“Who are you, old man?”

He had no idea how old this man was, so he swung for the fences.

“Old? I’m still young!”

“But you’re older than me.”

The man laughed. Even the way he laughed made him seem like someone “important.”

“Well, I may look old. But I’ve actually only just been born.”

“That’s dumb. There’s no way!” Makoto scoffed.

The man laughed again. “Hehe…but nothing in this world is guaranteed to be what it seems, kid. Everything is distorted or twisted somehow.”

That was a strange thing to say.

Makoto was losing interest fast. This was one of those adults who liked to make fun of kids, he decided. He turned his back and started walking towards his mother.

That’s weird…

He turned back, but there was no sign of the man.

There were clouds filling the sky; what had been clear and blue a few minutes earlier now had a shadow cast upon it.

“…?”

Makoto frowned. He felt like there’d been something weird about that man’s eyes. It was like they didn’t react to the light at all. Like there was nothing reflected in them.

Hashizaka Makoto had been the first person to meet the King of Distortion.