He was younger. Smaller. Just a boy.
A cracked mirror reflected his face—bruised, hollow, too old for fifteen. The name echoing in his head felt foreign now but once was everything.
Yuki Hara.
"Yuki!" a slurred voice roared from the living room. "Where the hell's my drink?!"
He flinched.
The apartment was a decaying cage. Cigarette smoke curled like ghosts in the air. The fridge buzzed weakly—empty, like him.
He shuffled toward the living room.
His father was sprawled on the couch, shirt stained with sweat and liquor. The man didn't look at him, just jabbed a finger toward the kitchen.
"Fucking useless. Just like your whore of a mother."
Yuki bit his tongue. He'd learned long ago that words were traps. Silent obedience was the only shield.
As he poured cheap alcohol into the chipped glass, he felt her behind him.
Perfume. Slippery hands.
His stepmother leaned close, lips brushing his ear. "Don't forget who makes you feel wanted, Yuki."
He didn't respond.
She laughed. Soft. Controlling.
"You should be grateful. No one else in this world wants you."
Later that night, after his father passed out and the silence returned, she entered his room again.
Yuki curled up on the mattress, facing the wall.
"Don't," he said, quietly. "Please…"
She crawled into the bed beside him. "Say no again," she whispered, "and I'll tell him you tried to touch me first."
Yuki's eyes stung. His voice cracked. "I want to die."
Her hand slid over his chest.
"Then die after you make me feel good."
The memory snapped like a whip.
More came. Like a flood.
His father had found them one night. Walked in. Saw everything.
There was no trial. No screaming. Just fire in the man's eyes. A metal pipe in his hands. And the last sound Yuki ever heard—
—his own ribs cracking.
Gold—no, Yuki—jerked awake, gasping, clawing at his chest.
The cavern around him was cold. His body drenched in sweat. He curled forward, dry heaving.
The stranger didn't move from where he knelt, drawing sigils into the dirt.
"Why?" Gold croaked. "Why… did I have to remember that?"
"Because you were forgetting what pain made you," the stranger said, not looking up. "And what you paid before the pact."
Gold's voice trembled. "That wasn't a life… I was already dead."
The man looked up. His eyes were calm. But not cruel.
"Your name was Yuki Hara."
Gold froze.
"You were alone. Abused. Forgotten. And yet," the stranger said slowly, "you still endured."
Gold laughed bitterly. "I didn't endure. I gave up. I let her use me. I let him beat me."
"You survived," the man said simply. "And then you chose to live again. That's strength."
Gold's voice was hollow. "Why tell me this now?"
"Because if you don't face your past, you'll never control your present."
Later that night, Gold stood by the fire beside Kane. She was still unconscious, her breath steady. The moonlight painted her face in silver. And the pain inside him—the pain of Yuki Hara—still throbbed like a wound under his skin.
But now… he understood.
He remembered his current mother—not the one who died when he was two, but the one from this life.
Hair like fallen leaves. Eyes soft and sad. She'd always been quiet, often humming lullabies when she thought no one was listening. Her love was warm. Gentle.
His father here was a village blacksmith. Calloused hands. Steady strength. The kind of man who didn't speak unless it mattered—but when he did, it was always kind.
Gold clenched his fists.
Two lives.
One born from torment.
One forged in quiet peace.
And both were his.
"I won't be Yuki anymore," he whispered.
The stranger beside him looked up. "No," he agreed. "You'll be something greater."