The Smiling Shadow.

They say that in every city, there is a place not marked on any map —A street that leads nowhere.A door with no handle.A shadow that waits.

Kurohana City breathes like a living thing: neon lights flicker like nerves, and its heart beats somewhere deep beneath the asphalt. Most people never notice the cracks in its surface — the gaps in time, the places where silence feels… wrong.

Rei Kazuki noticed.

It started the night of his seventeenth birthday. The power went out for three minutes. When the lights returned, his mirror was smiling.

Not his reflection.Just the smile.

And then came the whispers — soft, playful, like lullabies sung in reverse.

Every legend he'd laughed off suddenly grew teeth. Strange symbols etched into walls only he could see. Friends forgetting things that happened only yesterday. And that name… one he was warned never to say aloud:

The Smiling Shadow.

They say it's not a person, but a memory that remembers you.A forgotten god with no worshippers — only victims.And once it smiles at you…you were always meant to belong to it.