Inconclusive
dark heroThe first test began the following morning, when Nezu discovered that the bathroom scale was wrong.
He stepped off, waited for the numbers to disappear, and stepped onto it again.
The result remained the same.
Nezu moved the scale to another part of the floor, reasoning that one of the tiles might be uneven, and repeated the process. When that failed to correct the result, he replaced the batteries. When that also failed, he carried the scale downstairs and placed a bag of rice on it to confirm that it could still measure a known weight accurately.
Only then did he accept that he had gained nearly a kilogram overnight.
He recorded the number in a spreadsheet.
Kuro sat beside the bathroom door throughout the entire investigation, watching with the patient superiority of someone who had known from the beginning that the scale was functioning correctly.
“You should be tested too.”
Kuro immediately walked away.
Testing himself was considerably easier. Nezu measured his height, the circumference of his arms, legs and chest, his resting heart rate and the number of push-ups he could perform before his muscles began to fail. He timed how long he could hold his breath, how quickly he could climb the main staircase and how long it took his pulse to return to normal afterward.
The results were strange but not yet impossible. He was stronger than he remembered being, his balance had improved, and exercises that should have exhausted him merely left him warm. Still, the differences were small enough that they could have been explained by inaccurate memories or the unusual amount of sleep he had gotten.
The following morning, none of those explanations remained convincing.
His weight had increased again.
So had his height.
Nezu stood with his back against the bathroom wall, placed a book flat against the top of his head and carefully marked the position with a pencil. He then measured the distance between the new line and the one he had made the previous day.
Four millimetres.
He stared at the ruler for a while, repeated the measurement and added another column to the spreadsheet.
Kuro proved more difficult to evaluate, primarily because Kuro did not recognize Nezu’s authority to conduct an evaluation.
The cat ignored direct instructions, refused to remain on the scale and abandoned the hallway whenever Nezu appeared with a stopwatch. Placing food at the opposite end produced movement, but not urgency. Kuro simply looked from the bowl to Nezu until Nezu began to feel as if he were the one being tested.
The laser pointer was more successful.
Nezu moved the red dot across the floor. Kuro followed it with his eyes but made no attempt to chase it.
Nezu increased the speed.
Kuro’s head turned smoothly.
He moved it faster still, sending the dot racing along the wall, over the curtains and onto the ceiling.
Kuro continued following it without moving anything except his eyes.
Nezu stopped.
Kuro looked directly at the hand holding the laser pointer.
“Your reflexes have improved.”
Kuro yawned.
The jumping test produced clearer results. Nezu placed one of Kuro’s treats on top of a cabinet that the cat had previously required several intermediate surfaces to reach. Kuro examined the distance, lowered himself slightly and jumped from the floor to the top in a single effortless movement.
He ate the treat, looked down at Nezu and appeared satisfied with the outcome.
Nezu moved the next treat to a higher shelf.
Kuro reached that too.
By the fifth attempt, Nezu had run out of furniture tall enough to make the experiment useful. Kuro had also realized that demonstrating greater ability resulted in progressively more food, which compromised the reliability of every subsequent test.
The strength test failed for similar reasons.
Nezu tied a toy to a small luggage scale and attempted to measure how hard Kuro could pull. Kuro ignored it. Nezu replaced the toy with a strip of fabric. Kuro ignored that too. Only when Nezu attached one of his own socks did Kuro seize it and pull hard enough to drag the scale out of Nezu’s hand.
Kuro fled with the sock.
Nezu recorded the result as inconclusive.
Over the following days, their experiments developed into a quiet competition neither of them acknowledged. Nezu increased his exercises each morning, and Kuro observed from nearby, occasionally imitating the stretches before pretending the resemblance was accidental. Nezu measured how far Kuro could jump; Kuro began occupying places that forced Nezu to climb in order to retrieve him. Nezu tested Kuro’s hearing by opening food containers at increasing distances; Kuro tested Nezu’s hearing by knocking small objects from shelves in distant rooms.
They both improved.
The changes in Nezu’s body were the easiest to document because they refused to slow down. Every morning brought another increase on the scale and another slight shift in his measurements. The narrow shoulders that had made his clothes hang loosely began to broaden. His arms and legs lost their frail appearance, gaining definition despite exercises that should not have produced visible results so quickly. Even his posture changed as muscles strengthened around a frame that had spent years looking as though it were struggling to hold itself upright.
His appetite changed with it.
At first, Nezu added an extra portion to each meal. Then two. By the end of the first week, he had begun eating between meals and waking during the night with an empty stomach.
His mother watched him finish a third serving at dinner with an expression that moved gradually from delight to concern.
“Are you still hungry?”
“Yes.”
Diana glanced at the empty dishes in front of him and then toward Steve, as if expecting him to provide a reasonable explanation. Steve studied Nezu more carefully before looking down at his own unfinished meal.
“You’ve been exercising again?”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t explain all of that.”
“It may explain part of it.”
His mother narrowed her eyes. “And what explains the rest?”
“I don’t know.”
It was an honest answer, although not a particularly reassuring one.
Later that night, Nezu searched whether rapid muscle growth could cause excessive hunger.
The results told him that it could.
They also told him that rapid unexplained muscle growth required medical attention.
He closed the page.
Kuro’s appetite had increased as well, although Kuro expressed this by sitting beside his empty bowl and staring at Nezu as if the food shortage were a deliberate betrayal.
After ten days, Nezu’s push-up test became impractical. His muscles no longer failed within a reasonable amount of time, and continuing until they did would have consumed most of the morning. The staircase test suffered the same problem. He could climb it repeatedly without becoming breathless, while attempting to increase his speed created too much risk of Steve or his mother seeing him.
He replaced both tests with heavier objects.
When those became too light, he added more objects.
On the twelfth day, the handle of an old travel bag tore before Nezu’s arm began to strain. He looked at the broken handle, then at the weights packed inside it, and added another note to the spreadsheet.
Kuro, who had been watching from the bed, placed one paw over the sock he had stolen several days earlier.
Neither of them mentioned their respective property damage.
Exactly two weeks after the first measurement, Nezu returned to the bathroom scale. He removed his shirt, emptied his pockets and stepped onto it under the same conditions he had used each morning.
The number had increased by more than ten kilograms.
He stepped off and checked his reflection.
Most of the added weight had settled across his body as muscle, filling out a frame that no longer looked delicate. He was still lean, but the unhealthy thinness had disappeared. His shoulders were wider, his chest more defined, and the clothes that had once hidden how frail he was now pulled tightly in places they had never touched before.
The marks on the wall confirmed that he had also grown several centimetres.
Nezu studied the two-week record. None of the numbers made sense, but the pattern was undeniable. His growth had been fastest during the first few days and had begun to slow, suggesting that his body was not changing without limit.
It appeared to be correcting something.
Beside him, Kuro jumped onto the sink without making a sound.
The cat looked much the same at first glance. His fur was still black, his size had barely changed, and his expression retained the same judgmental displeasure with the world. Only Nezu, after two weeks of observation, knew how misleading that appearance had become.
Kuro met his eyes in the mirror.
Nezu looked down at the spreadsheet.
“I gained ten point eight kilograms and grew three point four centimetres.”
Kuro blinked once.
“You broke three objects, stole four socks and can now reach every shelf in the mansion.”
Kuro looked pleased.
Nezu added one final observation to the spreadsheet.
Subject K appears to consider all changes improvements.
Despite the gaps in their research, Nezu had recovered enough to return to school.
That was the official conclusion, at least.
The explanation given to the school had been simple: Nezu Brown was sick.
No details had been provided, but an absence lasting two weeks encouraged speculation. By the end of the first week, the illness had become severe. By the second, depending on which classroom the story had passed through, Nezu was either confined to bed, recovering from surgery or suffering from something his family was deliberately keeping secret.
The truth mattered less than the one detail every version shared.
Nezu was weakened.
On the morning of his return, a small group gathered behind the gym before the beginning of the first lesson, speaking quietly enough that passing students would not hear them. Each of them had a different reason to dislike Nezu, although most of those reasons began with him appearing where he had not been invited and preventing them from doing something they had every intention of finishing.
“He comes back today,” one of them said.
“You’re sure?”
“My cousin’s in his class. The teacher told them yesterday.”
Another boy leaned against the wall and folded his arms. “Then it has to be today.”
There was immediate agreement from most of the group. Nezu had embarrassed too many of them, interrupted too many fights and somehow developed the irritating habit of being nearby whenever they found someone weaker and alone.
None of them had managed to corner him properly before. He was difficult to predict, and even when they outnumbered him, he never reacted the way he was supposed to. Threats did not frighten him, insults did not anger him, and hitting him only seemed to convince him that he had been correct to interfere.
But this time, he had spent two weeks in bed.
Even if he had recovered enough to return, he could not have recovered completely.
“It’s now or never,” the boy against the wall said. “We deal with him before he gets his strength back.”
One of the younger members shifted uncomfortably.
The others looked at him.
“What?”
He hesitated, aware that everyone was waiting and already regretting having drawn their attention.
“Isn’t that a little low?”
No one answered.
“He was sick,” the boy continued. “We’d be attacking someone who’s still recovering.”
The silence lasted another second before someone laughed.
“That’s the point.”
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