Beige
dark heroThe conspiracy began three days before Nezu’s birthday.
Segu stopped talking when he entered the kitchen.
This alone would not have been suspicious. Segu frequently stopped talking when he entered rooms, usually because whatever she had been saying concerned him and was not intended to survive his arrival. The problem was that Akane stopped at exactly the same moment.
They sat beside each other at the kitchen table, surrounded by several sheets of paper which Segu immediately covered with both arms. Akane had been holding a pen. Upon seeing him, she placed it on the table and attempted to look innocent.
She failed.
“What are you doing?” Nezu asked.
“Nothing,” Segu answered.
Akane glanced at her.
“Birthday preparations,” she corrected.
Segu stared at her.
“What?”
“He already knows his birthday is approaching.”
“That wasn’t the secret part.”
“What was the secret part?”
“I’m not telling you in front of him.”
Akane considered that before nodding.
“That makes sense.”
Segu released a long breath and gathered the papers against her chest before Nezu could see them. The uppermost page contained what appeared to be a list, though he only managed to read the words cake, candles, and do not allow Nezu to— before she turned it over.
“Leave,” Segu ordered.
“I came here for water.”
“You can have water somewhere else.”
“The kitchen is where we keep it.”
“There are bathrooms.”
Akane looked between them.
“Drinking from the bathroom tap is perfectly safe.”
“You’re not helping,” Segu told her.
“I was supporting your argument.”
Nezu crossed the kitchen, took a glass from the cupboard, and filled it while they watched him with unnecessary vigilance. Segu shifted the papers every time he moved, keeping her body between them and him. Akane attempted to assist by leaning sideways, though this only created a gap on the opposite side.
The final page had a drawing of the dining-room table with several circles around it. One was marked with his name. Two others were marked Segu and Akane. There were additional places, but he could not see their labels.
It appeared to be a seating plan.
That meant Segu expected enough people to attend for assigned positions to become necessary.
“I don’t want a large party,” he said.
“It isn’t large.”
“You made a seating plan.”
“She made three,” Akane said.
Segu struck Akane lightly with the papers.
“We are still deciding.”
“There are forty-seven possible arrangements.”
“There are not forty-seven.”
“You numbered the discarded ones.”
Segu looked down at the papers as though betrayed by her own organisational system.
Nezu drank the water.
“You placed me beside the window.”
“That is not the final arrangement.”
“You’re planning an evacuation route.”
“That is also not the final arrangement.”
“Why does my birthday require an evacuation route?”
“Because you’re you.”
That was not an explanation, but it was consistent with most of Segu’s decisions concerning him.
Nezu set the empty glass beside the sink.
“I’ll leave you to your nothing.”
“Thank you.”
“Birthday preparations,” Akane corrected again.
Segu waited until he reached the door.
“And don’t try to investigate.”
Nezu stopped.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You are now.”
“Yes.”
“I knew it.”
She threw one of the folded napkins at him. Nezu caught it before it reached his face, placed it neatly on the counter and left.
Kuro was waiting in the corridor.
He sat in the centre of the carpet, staring towards the kitchen with his ears raised. A thin strip of silver ribbon hung from his mouth.
Nezu crouched in front of him.
“Where did you get that?”
Kuro turned his head away.
Nezu reached for the ribbon. The cat retreated, keeping it firmly between his teeth.
“That belongs to Segu.”
His tail moved once.
“Give it to me.”
Kuro ran.
Nezu followed him into the sitting room, around one of the sofas and beneath the table. Kuro emerged on the opposite side without the ribbon. By the time Nezu looked underneath, it had disappeared.
The cat sat beside his foot and began washing one paw.
“You swallowed it?”
Kuro continued washing.
“Kuro.”
The cat looked at him.
There was no evidence that Kuro had swallowed the ribbon, but there was equally no evidence that he had not. Nezu picked him up and checked his mouth. Kuro tolerated this for four seconds before biting his thumb.
The bite barely hurt.
That was becoming a problem.
Kuro released him and stared at the finger as though personally offended by its continued existence.
“You’re not assisting the investigation.”
The cat bit him again, apparently determined to correct the failure.
Nezu released him.
Kuro disappeared beneath the sofa, bringing their partnership to an end before it had formally begun.
The conspiracy expanded the following morning.
Segu informed Nezu during breakfast that she and Akane were going shopping and that he was not permitted to accompany them. She made the announcement while spreading jam over a slice of toast, giving it the tone of an ordinary fact rather than a restriction requiring justification.
“Why?”
“Because we’re buying your present.”
“You could buy it without announcing it.”
“I’m announcing why you can’t come.”
“I didn’t ask to come.”
“You would have.”
“I wouldn’t.”
Segu looked at him over the toast.
“You followed me into three shops before Christmas because you thought I was behaving suspiciously.”
“You were behaving suspiciously.”
“I was buying you a scarf.”
“You told me you needed batteries.”
“I panicked.”
Akane sat opposite them with a cup of tea held between both hands. She had arrived less than ten minutes earlier and had already been given breakfast by Diana despite insisting that she had eaten. A second plate now sat in front of her, almost empty.
“We also need to buy decorations,” Akane said.
Segu closed her eyes.
“And food.”
“Akane.”
“And the cake.”
“Why don’t you simply give him the list?”
Akane considered that.
“Would that save time?”
“Not in the way I meant.”
“I already know there will be a cake,” Nezu said. “I saw the list.”
Segu slowly placed the toast on her plate.
“You read the list?”
“Only part of it.”
“How much?”
“Enough to know that I’m not allowed to do something.”
“That could apply to most of the list.”
“I assumed so.”
Diana concealed a smile behind her coffee. She had contributed nothing to the discussion, but her silence did not make her neutral. She had known about the planning from the beginning. Nezu had found a receipt for candles in her coat pocket the previous evening, although there had been only twelve of them.
Either the candles were decorative, or his family had lost count of his age.
“You are staying here,” Segu said.
“Why?”
“Because Diana needs your help.”
Nezu looked towards his mother.
Diana paused with the cup halfway to her mouth.
“I do?”
“Yes.”
She slowly lowered it.
“With what?”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
“You planned an entire operation to keep him inside the mansion but forgot to give him a task?”
“I had more important things to organise.”
“Such as?”
Segu pointed at Nezu.
“He’s still here.”
Akane finished her tea and rose from the table.
“We should leave before he determines where we are going.”
“I already know where you’re going,” Nezu said.
Both girls stopped.
“Where?” Segu asked.
“Shopping.”
Akane looked at Segu.
“He knows.”
“He heard us discussing it five minutes ago.”
“That explains it.”
Segu caught Akane by the arm and pulled her towards the door.
“Keep him here,” she told Diana.
Diana watched them disappear into the corridor before looking at Nezu.
“I suppose you could help me choose new curtains.”
Nezu stood.
“I’ll remain in my room.”
“Excellent. That was easier than expected.”
Before disappearing through the doorway, Akane looked back at him.
“Is there anything you want?”
“You told me you were buying my present.”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m not supposed to choose it.”
“That does seem to be the custom.”
Segu pulled her out of sight before the conversation could continue.
Their voices remained audible until the front door closed.
“You cannot ask him what present he wants directly.”
“Why not?”
“Because then it isn’t a surprise.”
“What if I buy him something different?”
“Then why ask?”
“To establish what he wants.”
“That defeats the entire—”
The door shut.
Silence settled over the dining room.
Diana took another drink of coffee.
“You could simply allow them to surprise you.”
“I am allowing them.”
“You searched my coat.”
“I was looking for my keys.”
“You don’t have keys to anything in my coat.”
“That’s why I stopped looking.”
Her smile widened.
Nezu left before she could ask further questions.
He intended to return to his room as promised. Diana intercepted him at the foot of the stairs with two thick books filled with fabric samples.
“You said you would remain in your room,” Nezu reminded her.
“And you believed me when I accepted that?”
“You agreed.”
“I agreed that keeping you here was easier than expected. I said nothing about leaving you alone.”
She handed him one of the books.
Nezu looked down at it.
There were hundreds of samples divided into shades that appeared almost identical.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Choose curtains.”
“I thought you invented that.”
“I did. Then I realised the curtains in the west sitting room genuinely need replacing.”
“They’re beige.”
“They were ivory.”
“They’re still approximately ivory.”
“That attitude is why nobody asks men for help with curtains.”
“You just asked me.”
“I was desperate.”
Diana guided him towards the west sitting room before he could escape. Several additional sample books were already arranged across the table, suggesting that her newly discovered need for curtains had required remarkably fast preparation.
Nezu sat on the sofa and opened the book.
Diana pointed towards three samples.
“Which one?”
“They’re the same.”
“They are absolutely not the same.”
Nezu examined them more closely.
“One reflects slightly more yellow light.”
“That one is cream.”
“The second is darker.”
“Champagne.”
“The third is beige.”
“Oatmeal.”
“Oatmeal is beige.”
Diana looked personally wounded.
For the next hour, Nezu learned that there were at least thirty names for colours he would previously have classified as white. Diana rejected eleven of his selections, reconsidered four of her own and eventually chose a fabric nearly identical to the curtains already hanging from the windows.
“You could have done this without me,” he said.
“Of course.”
“Then why did I need to be here?”
Diana turned another page.
“You didn’t. You needed to not be wherever Segu and Akane are.”
Nezu looked towards the window.
He could leave whenever he wanted. Nobody in the mansion could physically stop him, and that fact had become more dangerous with every passing day.
Steve had stopped training against him after the first time one of Nezu’s restrained blows had thrown him several metres across the training room. He had not been seriously injured, but the possibility had been enough. There was no safe way for Nezu to test how much stronger he had become when his strength changed faster than he could measure it.
Even ordinary movements required more attention now. Doors opened too quickly. Glasses felt fragile in his hands. Objects that should have been heavy no longer provided enough resistance for him to judge how much force he was using.
If Segu attempted to block the front door, Nezu would never push past her.
Not because she could stop him.
Because she could not.
“I wasn’t going to follow them,” he said.
Diana looked at him over the book.
“I know.”
“Segu didn’t.”
“Segu knows too.”
“Then why arrange this?”
“Because she wanted you to know she was trying to protect the surprise.”
“That’s inefficient.”
“She’s your sister. Inefficiency is one of the ways she demonstrates affection.”
Nezu considered that.
“What does making me choose curtains demonstrate?”
“That I’m willing to suffer with you.”
“You chose this task.”
“And I regret it.”
Diana closed the book.
“Go upstairs. I’ll tell Segu you spent the entire morning staring at oatmeal.”
“It was beige.”
“Get out.”
Nezu left the sitting room and returned to his bedroom.
Kuro was lying across the pillow, surrounded by the remains of another silver ribbon.
Nezu stood beside the bed.
“Kuro.”
One dark eye opened.
“Where are you finding those?”
The eye closed again.
Nezu searched the room, but found no bags, boxes or other evidence that Kuro had entered Segu’s hidden supplies. The ribbon appeared to have materialised around him through a process known only to cats and criminals.
Nezu removed the pieces from the bed and sat at his desk.
The house was quiet enough for him to hear Diana speaking with someone two floors below. Outside, one of the gardeners moved a metal ladder. A delivery vehicle passed the front gates without stopping.
He attempted to read.
Twenty-three minutes later, another engine approached the mansion.
This one slowed at the gates.
Nezu closed the book.
By the time he reached the entrance hall, the front door had not yet opened. Diana emerged from the sitting room a few seconds later and found him waiting beside it.
“How did you know they were back?”
“I heard the car.”
“From upstairs?”
“Yes.”
Diana studied him for a moment, but the door opened before she could respond.
Segu entered carrying three bags. Akane followed with four more, while the driver began removing several larger boxes from the boot.
“That is excessive,” Nezu said.
Segu nearly dropped one of the bags.
“What are you doing here?”
“I live here.”
“You were supposed to be choosing curtains.”
“We finished.”
“That was fast.”
“It took over an hour.”
“That is fast for your mother.”
Diana appeared behind Nezu.
“We chose oatmeal.”
“Beige,” Nezu corrected.
Segu pushed two of her bags into Diana’s arms and moved between Nezu and the rest.
“Go back upstairs.”
“You need help.”
“We don’t.”
“Akane is carrying four bags.”
“One of which she refused to let me see,” Segu said.
Akane pulled a small, unmarked bag closer to her side.
“It is private.”
“You disappeared for twenty minutes and came back with it.”
“I had something else to buy.”
“For Nezu?”
Akane hesitated.
Segu’s eyes narrowed.
“That hesitation answered me.”
“It answered nothing.”
“It answered enough.”
Nezu reached for one of the other bags. Akane immediately pulled all four away from him.
“You cannot see these.”
“I was going to carry them.”
“I can carry them.”
“You have four.”
“I am stronger than you.”
“That is currently debatable.”
Her eyes moved briefly across him before returning to his face.
“I can carry four bags,” she repeated.
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
“I know.”
She walked past him, keeping the small bag carefully hidden between the others.
She walked past him.
Segu watched her go, then looked at Nezu with open suspicion.
“What was that?”
“A discussion about bags.”
“That was not a discussion about bags.”
“No?”
She pushed another bag into Diana’s arms.
“Take him somewhere.”
Diana stared down at the collection she had been given.
“I’m carrying your shopping.”
“I’ll take that.”
Nezu reached for the bags.
“No,” Segu said immediately.
“You just said she shouldn’t carry them.”
“That doesn’t mean you can.”
“This plan has several contradictions.”
“The contradictions are necessary because you keep interfering.”
“I was standing here.”
“Suspiciously.”
He stepped aside and allowed them to pass.
From the corridor beside the sitting room, Nezu watched Segu direct the boxes towards different parts of the mansion. Two went to the kitchen. One was taken into the dining room. The smallest disappeared upstairs with Akane.
That was unusual.
The celebration would take place downstairs. There was no reason for any decoration, food or shared present to be taken to the upper floor.
Unless it required concealment somewhere he would not search.
Or unless it was not intended for the celebration.
Kuro appeared beside him. The cat watched the staircase for several seconds, then looked up at Nezu.
“You saw it too.”
Kuro walked away.
Their investigative partnership remained unreliable.
By late afternoon, Segu had transformed the dining room into a restricted area. The doors were locked, the curtains were closed, and she had threatened to hold Nezu personally responsible if Kuro entered.
This was unreasonable. Kuro recognised no authority, accepted no restrictions and possessed a greater talent for entering closed rooms than several criminals Nezu had read about.
Nezu found him inside twenty minutes later.
Kuro sat in the middle of the dining table, surrounded by folded paper decorations. A torn ribbon lay between his paws. Behind him, several chairs had been moved into a semicircle, and a long object covered by a white sheet rested against the wall.
Kuro looked at Nezu.
Nezu looked at Kuro.
“You understand that she’ll blame me.”
The cat struck the ribbon with one paw.
Nezu removed him from the table, returned the damaged decorations to approximately their original arrangement and carried him out beneath one arm. He had just closed the door when Segu appeared at the end of the corridor.
She stopped.
Nezu stopped.
Kuro hung quietly against his side.
“What were you doing?” she asked.
“Removing Kuro from the dining room.”
“How did he get inside?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did you get inside?”
“The window.”
Her expression changed.
“You climbed through the window?”
“No. Kuro entered through the window. He opened the door when I knocked.”
Segu stared at the cat.
Kuro stared back.
“That is not possible.”
“He may have had assistance.”
“From whom?”
Neither of them looked towards the doorway behind her, where Akane had appeared with a roll of tape in her hand.
Akane slowly hid the tape behind her back.
Segu turned.
“Did you open the window for Kuro?”
“He wanted to enter.”
“He’s a cat.”
“He was very persuasive.”
“He scratched the glass.”
“Yes.”
“That is not persuasion.”
“It worked.”
Segu pressed both hands against her face.
Nezu placed Kuro on the floor. The cat passed beside Segu and entered the dining room again before the door closed completely.
Segu made a sound that contained no recognisable words and chased him.
Akane remained beside Nezu.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. Without Segu between them, the house felt strangely quiet despite the noise coming from the dining room.
Akane watched Nezu instead of the doorway.
“What food do you like most?” she asked.
“You bought the food already.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you asking?”
She lowered her gaze to the tape.
“I wanted to know.”
“You’ve eaten with me hundreds of times.”
“That does not mean I know which meal you would choose.”
Nezu considered the question.
“I don’t have one.”
“You must.”
“Why?”
“Everyone has something they would want if they could choose anything.”
Her voice had changed slightly. It was not really about the following day’s meal anymore, although Nezu could not determine what else she was asking.
“What would you choose?” he asked.
She thought for a while.
“Something I could share.”
“That isn’t a meal.”
“It is the important part.”
Nezu looked at her. Akane turned the roll of tape between her fingers, avoiding his eyes now that she had his attention.
“You’ve been asking Segu questions about me,” he said.
Her hands became still.
“She tells you everything.”
“Not intentionally.”
“What did she say?”
“That you asked whether I had ever enjoyed a birthday. Whether I preferred large rooms or small ones. Whether I liked having people nearby when I slept.”
A faint colour appeared across Akane’s cheeks.
“The last question was unrelated.”
“I assumed that.”
The colour deepened.
Nezu waited for an explanation. None came.
“You already knew the answers to the first two,” he said.
“I wanted to be certain.”
“Before you leave.”
Akane lowered her gaze.
There was no surprise in the silence that followed. No revelation. They had already discussed what would happen, even if none of them knew precisely when it would happen or where Akane would go.
The previous day at the fair had felt normal because they had all silently agreed to pretend it was. They had eaten too much, wasted money on games designed to make them lose and allowed Segu to find them in the horror maze much sooner than Akane expected. For several hours, there had been no cages, no keys and no people waiting to decide their future.
But normality had an ending.
“How long do you have?” Nezu asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You must know something.”
“Only that it will be soon.”
The answer was almost identical to what she had already told them. Hearing it again should not have changed anything.
It did.
The pressure that formed beneath Nezu’s ribs had no practical purpose, offered no solution, and disappeared whenever he attempted to examine it directly.
Emotions continued to be deeply inefficient.
Akane turned the roll of tape between her fingers.
“I keep thinking of things I never asked,” she said. “Things I should know.”
“You can ask them now.”
“There are too many.”
“Then ask the important ones.”
She looked up at him.
“What would you choose if you could have anything?”
“For my birthday?”
“For anything.”
Nezu considered the question, but no answer came. There were things he wanted to understand and people he wanted to protect, but those were problems to solve, not wishes that could be placed inside a box.
“What would you choose?” he asked.
Akane’s expression softened.
“More time.”
Before Nezu could respond, the dining-room door opened, and Segu emerged carrying Kuro at arm’s length. A paper flower hung from one of his claws.
“This animal is banned from your birthday.”
“He lives here,” Nezu said.
“So do you, and I banned you from the room.”
Kuro twisted free, landed on the carpet, and fled upstairs with the flower.
Segu pointed after him.
“Get it back.”
“You banned me from helping.”
“The conditions have changed.”
Nezu moved to follow Kuro, but Akane caught his wrist before he passed her.
“Wait one more day,” she said quietly.
He looked down at her hand and then at her.
“For what?”
Some of the sadness disappeared from her expression.
“For your surprise.”
Segu looked between them.
“What surprise?”
Akane released him.
“The birthday.”
Segu narrowed her eyes.
“That did not sound like the birthday.”
“It is on his birthday.”
“That also did not answer me.”
Akane retreated towards the dining room. Segu followed immediately, abandoning Kuro and demanding an explanation she was unlikely to receive.
Nezu remained at the foot of the staircase.
Above him, Kuro tore the paper flower apart.
By evening, the dining-room doors were locked again. Segu inspected every window twice and made Nezu promise not to enter. Akane left shortly after dinner with the same small bag she had carried upstairs earlier, refusing to tell Segu what was inside.
When Nezu went to bed, the mansion had finally become quiet.
In a few minutes, it would be midnight.
He had never understood why people waited for birthdays. Nothing changed merely because one date became another. He would not become wiser when the clock moved forward, nor would the future become clearer because he was officially one year older.
Tomorrow, Segu would force him into the dining room she had spent all day defending. Diana would pretend she had not helped organise everything. Steve would give him something practical. Kuro would destroy at least one decoration.
And Akane would give him her surprise.
After that, she might leave.
Nezu watched the numbers on the clock change.
There was nothing he could do to slow them and no reason he should have wanted to.
For the first time he could remember, Nezu found himself impatient for a birthday to arrive and, at the same time, wishing it could remain one more day away.
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