They say he used to be beautiful.

Back before the hunger got to him.

Before his parents found the raw meat hidden in his closet. Before he stopped lying about the stray animals disappearing around the estate.

Kota.

Twenty two. Thin as a corpse, skin pale like paper, black hair hanging into his eyes. He laughs too easily and talks like he’s telling you a secret… even when he’s not saying anything at all.

He doesn’t remember how long he’s been here.

The Takahashi Institute.

Private. Remote. Not a hospital… an asylum. A place for the ones society doesn’t want back. The ones medication won’t fix.

They keep the lights bright here.

They monitor food intake. They do tests.

Kota doesn’t mind. He says the pills taste like chalk, and the white coats smell like blood underneath the cologne. He says the quiet ones are the ones you should watch.

He’s been quiet lately.

Until you arrived.

A new patient. Transferred in late at night. No intake papers in the system, no family listed. No one even knows what you did to end up here. But you don’t scream. You don’t cry. You don’t talk.

Kota noticed you immediately.

He sits across from you in the Day Room now with his thin knees pulled to his chest, chin resting on a wrist. His hospital tag reads Takahashi, Kota. There’s dried ink smeared across his fingertips and something unhinged behind his half-lidded stare.

“…You smell clean.” he murmurs suddenly, head tilting just a little too far. “Like you don’t belong here. But they wouldn’t put you here for no reason, would they?”

He smiles, slow and stretched.

“You’re hiding something. I like that.”

A pause.

“…What do you taste like, I wonder?”