Shinkai - The Eyes That Shouldn't Exist

"What do you mean?" Kazuo asked.

His voice echoed softly against the stone. The torchlight flickered.

The old woman didn't move. Not at first.

Then, slowly, she raised her head beneath the veil — just enough that he felt her eyes, though he couldn't see them.

"I mean," she rasped, "you don't belong."

Kazuo blinked, thrown off by the certainty in her tone.

"Yeah, I know," he muttered, gesturing vaguely behind him.

"I came from the surface. I'm not—"

"No," she interrupted, firmer this time. "You don't understand."

Kazuo frowned. "Understand what?"

The woman rose — barely — and reached out.

Her hand gripped his wrist.

Her skin was cold. Too cold.Like it hadn't touched warmth in years.

"You don't belong," she said again, voice brittle and cutting.

"Not up there. Not down here. Not anywhere."

Kazuo's breath caught. A chill spread through his chest. He tried to step back, but her grip tightened for just a second longer — long enough for her words to land.

Then she let go.

Kazuo stumbled, the world swaying around him. His back hit the wall. His torch nearly dropped.

He blinked hard.

"What in riddles' name are you talking about…?"

But the woman was gone.

No footsteps. No cloth shifting. Just empty stone where she had been.

Like a ghost.

Kazuo stood in silence for a long moment, breathing. The torch in his hand trembled slightly, casting stretched shadows across the wall.

He didn't like riddles. He didn't like being seen.

And yet… something about her voice stayed.

As if she hadn't told him something.

As if she'd reminded him of something he wasn't ready to remember.

He stood there a moment longer, shaken. Then he gritted his teeth, turned, and made his way toward the lights.

The space opened wide, held up by massive stone ribs and ancient beams. Makeshift stalls lined both sides of a split canal where faint water still trickled. Vendors called in low tones, flashing odd trinkets and charms. The light came from spirit jars — glass canisters where tiny firefly-like beings floated in lazy spirals, each glowing a different hue.

Kazuo blinked.

He had expected shadows and bones.He hadn't expected life.

A three-eyed beastman with bark-colored skin bartered with a wingless fairy over the price of salted mushrooms. A pale elf boy polished crystal shards that hummed with latent heat. A cloaked woman nursed a baby in one hand and levitated glowing herbs with the other.

No one looked twice at him.Not even at his scarf or sword.Here, he was just another shadow among many.

He passed a stall where a hunched old woman sat surrounded by dozens of spirit jars.Each contained a single firefly spirit — delicate creatures with glowing threads trailing behind them like silk in water. One was blue, another gold, another pulsed in slow green rhythms.

Kazuo paused.

The woman looked up. Her eyes were clouded.

"They're not pets," she said.

"I wasn't—" he began.

"They're company," she added. "We who are forgotten must find our own ways to remember. These ones were born of warmth — of places where laughter used to live. So I keep them. So I don't forget."

Kazuo lowered his voice.

"You caught them?"

She smiled, barely.

"No one catches spirits. We just listen better than most."

A dog-headed child ran past him laughing, chased by something that might have been a floating broomstick.

This world was absurd. Cracked. Glowing. Breathing.

Kazuo moved through it slowly, watching — learning.

No one used paper money. Trades were done in coin, sure — but also in favors, in scraps of enchantment, in old books, sometimes even in promises whispered into small bones.

A man offered Kazuo a "blessing of flame" in exchange for three hours of sleep. Kazuo declined.

He followed the canal deeper.

The glow of the Flicker Market faded behind him, swallowed by tunnels that curved like veins through the bones of the city. The torch in his hand hissed softly, burning low.

The stone underfoot grew colder. The air, thinner.

As he passed a narrow archway draped in smoke-black cloth, a figure brushed by him.

Kazuo turned instinctively.

The man wore a long, hooded cloak — simple, travel-worn. He moved without sound, without pause, as though the ground remembered his steps.

Only a silhouette, backlit by fire jars.

But as he passed, he murmured — not loud, not slow — just enough for Kazuo to hear:

"You shouldn't exist."

Kazuo froze mid-step.

The man vanished into the dark.

Kazuo turned. Looked behind him.

There was nothing there.

No footsteps. No trail. No echo.

Nothing.

"…What the hell," he muttered.

He turned again. Then again.

Still nothing.

A weight settled in his stomach.

Was he even real? AM I LOSING MY MIND??

First that Old Woman now that. Whispers. Figures seen from the corner of the eye. The Hollow Veins did that to people, they said. Played with your head. Turned your own breath against you.

The voice still rang too clearly. It didn't feel like a hallucination. But maybe that made it worse.

Kazuo kept walking.

The torch had long since died. He didn't bother lighting another.

He just moved, one foot in front of the other, not caring where he ended up.

Eventually, he stopped.

A wide, empty tunnel yawned before him — and suddenly it all felt too heavy.

He sank down against the wall.

The stone pressed cold into his spine, into his palms, into the back of his neck.

You don't belong.

The old woman's voice. Still in his ears.

At first, it had confused him.

Now it just hurt.

Kazuo leaned back against the wall. The silence was unbearable.

He whispered, "Yeah. I know."

He had always known. Even in the Lower Crescent, where everyone had to scrape by… they never truly accepted him. Not really. They tolerated him. They nodded at him in the streets. Sold him fruit. Gave him a place in the queue.

But never in the heart.

He was the boy with the strange eyes.

A green one too noble. A black one too low.

No home above. No welcome below.

His fingers trembled slightly as they reached for his necklace — the old medallion Gramps gave him. Cold metal met his skin. Familiar, but it didn't help.

"What should I even do with you" he asked talking to the medaillon.

His chest clenched.

He slid down the wall, legs folding beneath him.

He didn't want this.

He didn't ask for any of this.

All he ever wanted was a quiet life. A little house. Gramps safe. Rei nearby. A cat or two.

Was that too much?

His vision blurred.

He pressed a hand to his face and let it happen.

He cried.

No hero's cry. No rage. Just tired, silent tears in a forgotten tunnel — one more shadow that didn't fit the world it was born into.

Kazuo felt… truly alone.

Somewhere deeper — beneath stone roots and broken seals — a faint lotus sigil pulsed on a dust-covered wall of iron.

Then it flickered.

Then it opened.

A soft hiss escaped the seal as ancient air bled out. The entrance slid aside with a grinding sigh.

A cloaked figure stepped inside, boots tapping lightly on the old stone.

Dust rose. The space smelled of ash and forgotten blood.

A voice greeted him — low, sharp, familiar.

"Took you long enough. I still hate this place."

The first figure shrugged off his hood, brushing soot from his shoulder.

"You know it's only temporary," he said. "But I'm leaving again."

A pause. A shift in the silence.

"You're leaving? Where?"

I need to contact the leader."

The second figure turned sharply.

"What? That wasn't part of the plan."

A beat.

"Why now?"

A pause.

Something shifted in the air — not quite tension, but something older. Older than orders. Older than trust.

"Our situation changed," the first figure said quietly.

The second frowned.

"What do you mean by our situation changed?"

The first figure turned, already walking toward the exit.

"Someone unheard of appeared."

That stopped the second cold.

"Who?"

No answer.

"Who appeared?"

Still nothing. Just footsteps receding into shadow.

"Hey—who!?"

The first figure stopped at the edge of the veil, his back to the room.

Then he vanished.

The lotus seal pulsed once more.

And closed.

The second figure stood there, jaw tight, arms still folded.

Then, to the empty room:

"Great. You only come back to leave me with more questions."

A beat.

"Partners. Sure."