The chipped paint on the windowsill felt rough beneath Akari's fingers as she stared out at the meticulously manicured lawn. The late afternoon sun cast long shadows, stretching the familiar landscape into something unfamiliar, distorted by the grief that clawed at her throat. Hana. Her sister. Gone. The word echoed in the empty space of her suburban home, a space that now felt suffocatingly vast and silent. The police had ruled it an accident – a fall from a hiking trail, a misstep on a treacherous slope. A simple, tragic accident. But Akari felt a cold knot of unease twisting in her stomach, a dissonance between the official narrative and the unsettling emptiness that had settled over her.