The Monster
"Children fear monsters in the dark.
Adults create them in broad daylight."
Rain fell over the city like a silent confession.
Neon lights shimmered through the wet streets.
Cars hurried home.
Restaurants overflowed with laughter.
Television anchors smiled behind polished desks.
The city looked alive.
No one noticed it was slowly rotting from within.
A man burst onto the rooftop of the National Bureau of Investigation.
His breathing was ragged.
Blood dripped from a wound across his arm.
His polished shoes scraped against the soaked concrete as he desperately searched behind him.
Nothing.
Only rain.
Only silence.
His trembling hand tightened around a small black flash drive.
A piece of plastic no larger than a thumb.
Yet inside it...
...were enough secrets to destroy an entire nation.
Corrupt politicians.
Judges.
Police commissioners.
Media executives.
Business tycoons.
Every smiling face the country trusted...
...buried inside a single encrypted file.
The man closed his eyes.
Kaito Ishida.
Senior Anti-Corruption Officer.
Twenty-six years of service.
Thousands of investigations.
One final truth.
The rooftop door slowly creaked open.
Kaito looked up.
A silhouette stood motionless beneath the rain.
Its face disappeared into darkness.
It didn't move.
It didn't speak.
It simply watched.
For a brief second...
Kaito couldn't tell whether he was looking at a human...
...or something far worse.
"...So."
A weak smile crossed his face.
"You finally found me."
No response.
Only rain striking concrete.
Kaito looked down at the flash drive.
His hands shook.
Not from fear.
From regret.
"I used to think..."
"...evil wore a face."
He laughed quietly.
"I was wrong."
"It wears a smile."
He hurried toward an old ventilation unit.
One cracked concrete tile sat slightly higher than the others.
Almost invisible.
He knelt.
Lifted it.
Beneath the hollow...
He carefully placed the flash drive inside.
The tile slid back into place.
The city's most dangerous secret disappeared beneath ordinary concrete.
Across the street...
Inside a tiny apartment...
A little boy sat cross-legged in front of the television.
An old black-and-white monster movie played.
A towering shadow stood beneath a full moon.
Its face couldn't be seen.
Only its silhouette.
The boy pointed excitedly.
"Mom!"
"The monster looks scary!"
His mother smiled while washing dishes.
"It's only a movie."
"Monsters aren't real."
The boy nodded.
"...Yeah."
Outside his apartment window...
On the rooftop across the street...
Another silhouette stood beneath the rain.
For one fleeting moment...
The monster on the television...
...and the figure on the rooftop...
stood in exactly the same posture.
Then the curtains slowly drifted shut.
A gunshot echoed through the night.
Then another.
Silence returned.
The city kept moving.
Traffic lights changed.
People laughed.
Somebody ordered another cup of coffee.
Nobody looked toward the rooftop.
Nobody asked questions.
The next morning...
Every television channel carried the same headline.
SENIOR ANTI-CORRUPTION OFFICER COMMITS SUICIDE
The investigation ended before it truly began.
The city accepted the lie.
Because lies are easier to live with...
...than truths that demand courage.
Years later...
That little boy would remember only one thing about that night.
Not the rain.
Not the gunshots.
Not the news.
Only the monster.
He searched for its identity for years.
Until one day...
Standing beneath the same rain...
On the same rooftop...
He whispered—
"So... that monster was..."
YOU ARE READING
LIVING DESIRE
Action> "Children fear monsters in the dark. Adults create them in broad daylight." A forgotten flash drive. A buried truth. A shadow that never disappeared. As Ren Akira follows a trail no one was meant to uncover, he realizes that monsters aren't bor...
