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On the day he turned five, the world fractured. Before that, it had been whole, warm, and had belonged to him entirely, just as the interior of a paper lantern belongs to the light of the candle. He had been the emperor of this little world, woven from the scent of tatami, the creak of floorboards, and the quiet voice of his mother humming a lullaby. Everything around him was an extension of himself: a ray of sunlight on the wall, an ant crawling along the veranda, the taste of a rice cake on his tongue →