Snowfall in the Alps didn't whisper—it screamed.
The wind didn't glide or gently whistle between the peaks. It howled. Violent. Wild. Angry. It charged down the ridgelines like a beast hunting something it lost long ago. Beneath the wind, the snow held a silence that felt anything but still. Powder shifted under Takeshi Morin's boots with a memory all its own. He could feel the ghosts in it. Names of skiers who once carved these slopes with pride, their edges slicing through snow like blades through silk. His name used to be one of them—etched into the mountain like a signature. Now, it barely stirred the frost.
He stood at the edge of the slope, tall and narrow-shouldered, the cold digging under his collar. Six-foot-five and still growing, he looked like he belonged in motion—on skis, at speed. But he hadn't moved in a long time. Not really. He was a statue now. A monument to someone who used to be.
At sixteen, Takeshi Laurent Morin had already lived two lifetimes. He was born in a chalet not far from Chamonix, where snowdrifts reached the windows and the air always smelled faintly of pine smoke and waxed skis. His mother, Emiko Takahashi, was a legend on the slopes—once a world champion, always untouchable. His father, Henri, was the quiet, solid type, content to let Emiko shine while he kept the house warm and the equipment ready.
Takeshi didn't learn to walk. He learned to ski. His first real memory wasn't of toys or books—it was of catching an edge on a blue run and tumbling into his mother's arms, laughing, breathless, feeling the sting of snow on his cheeks and the strength of her hands pulling him up again. By ten, he was outrunning instructors. By thirteen, he was podium-hopping past athletes five years older. By fourteen, he stood at the top of the world rankings for his age in alpine skiing—slalom, giant slalom, downhill. He was supposed to be the next great name.
But the future never came. Not the one they all expected.
It happened on a clear day on the Italian side of Mont Blanc. No storms. No avalanche warnings. Just a training run, a routine descent. His mother had gone up ahead to scout the line. Takeshi remembered watching her disappear into the white, smooth as always, like water over ice. Fast. Fearless. Fluid. Then came the radio static. A flurry of shouting. The moment stretched. Broke. When they reached her, she was already gone. A helmet split down the middle. A spine that didn't bend any more.
They said it was a freak accident. Equipment failure. A hidden fault in the boot binding or a misjudged patch of black ice. But none of that mattered. She didn't come back.
Something inside him cracked that day. Not cleanly. Not like a break that could be cast and healed. It was deeper. A fracture in the rhythm of who he was. Skiing had always felt like flight—now it felt like falling. Every slope looked like the one she died on. Every time he stepped into his bindings, he imagined them failing. Imagined the snap. The twist. Her face.
He tried. God, he tried.
He would stand in the start gate, heart pounding, poles tight in his fists, every part of him screaming to push forward—but his body wouldn't move. The cold seized him. The mountain loomed. His breath came short and fast, like drowning on dry land. The only thing louder than the wind was the echo of her name in his head.
Three days after her funeral, he found his father in the barn. Henri had said almost nothing since the accident—just drifted from room to room, eyes hollow, like he'd already left. That morning, Takeshi had gone looking for him, hoping to offer coffee. Something normal. Something to say, we're still here. But the barn was cold and still, and Henri was hanging from a crossbeam, suspended in silence. A rope looped cleanly. No note. No final words.
The scream that tore from Takeshi's throat didn't sound human.
From that point on, nothing mattered. Competitions came and went. Invitations. Sponsorships. Magazine covers. Coaches begged him to return. Officials called nonstop. Fans filled forums with speculation: Where was Takeshi Morin? What had happened to the Alpine Ghost?
He ignored them all.
Instead, he moved into his grandmother's home. A modest chalet nestled in the shadows of the treeline, where the snow piled high in winter and the floors always creaked. Mamie Yuki, his bachan, barely spoke French. Her Japanese was soft and measured, but her presence was sharp, deliberate. She didn't ask him to ski. She didn't ask him to talk. Every evening, she lit incense before the kamidana and whispered prayers to Emiko's spirit. She cooked miso soup and made sure there was always rice in the cooker. She folded his laundry, even when he didn't ask. Sometimes, late at night, he would wake up to find a light on in the kitchen and her sitting silently at the table with his mother's photo in front of her.
She was the only thing anchoring him.
And then even that began to slip.
Takeshi still trained, but in secret. At dawn, when no one was watching, he'd hike deep into the forest with ankle weights in his pack, running the old trail he and his mother used to use for hill intervals. He carved invisible gates between trees. Tuned and re-tuned his gear with obsessive precision. He wasn't training to return. He was training because it was the only thing he still knew how to do.
But it wasn't enough.
When the email from the Fédération Française de Ski arrived, he stared at it for hours. Just one line: "Due to prolonged inactivity and withdrawal from all official competitions, Takeshi Morin has been removed from the National Youth Alpine Development roster." That was it. No call. No meeting. No chance to explain. No one wanted to know that he still skied in his sleep. That he still ached for the gates. That he still shook every time he watched the World Cup and recognized moves he used to make himself.
He lost it.
The chair hit the wall with a splintering crack. His phone landed in the fire. He punched the plaster until his knuckles split open. Bachan stood in the doorway, her eyes wide but her voice still calm.
"Yamero," she said softly. Enough.
But Takeshi didn't hear her. Or maybe he didn't want to. Rage and grief flooded out of him like floodwater through a broken dam. He screamed in French, cursed in Japanese, threw everything he had at the only person who hadn't left him.
"You don't know anything!"
"You're not my mother!"
"I hate this place!"
"I hate you!"
He slammed the door and ran into the woods, heart pounding, vision blurred. He camped alone for three nights beneath the canopy of trees where he used to train. The cold bit into his bones. He drank snowmelt. Didn't eat. The guilt gnawed at him, chewing its way through his skin and into his chest.
When he finally returned, ready to apologize, ready to drop to his knees if he had to—he found her.
The chalet was silent. No incense. No clatter of dishes. He called out, voice cracking. And then he saw her—collapsed in the kitchen. Her eyes open. Her lips blue.
Gone.
The doctors said it was her heart. The neighbours said she was old, it was her time. But Takeshi knew it was him. His words. His rage. His fault.
It had only been a year since his parents had died, and now his grandmother too. At the funeral, he didn't cry. He didn't speak. He stood in the back with his hood pulled over his head while the priest read prayers in French and Japanese. But nothing could reach what was buried inside him now. Not any more.
He didn't go back to school. Didn't touch his skis. He buried them under an old pine at the edge of the training trail. Wrapped the bindings in heavy chain. Tied them off with the same knot his father used.
As if sealing a coffin.
A month later, a man in a pressed suit arrived from the court. A family liaison. Japanese. Efficient. He spoke of legal guardianship, paperwork, responsibility. He spoke of a woman named Kaori Satō—Takeshi's maternal aunt. A headmistress in Tokyo. She ran one of the world's most prestigious international schools for winter athletes. It had campuses across five countries: France, Japan, Canada, New Zealand, Chile. It was the kind of place that shaped Olympic dreams.
Takeshi didn't care.
Tokyo was loud. Hot. Choked with sound and neon. He hated it on sight. But Kaori was different. Tall, elegant, every move sharp as a slalom turn. She looked like a woman who didn't have time to be gentle. But when she saw him, she didn't reach for a handshake. She pulled him into her arms.
Not awkward. Not polite.
Real.
"You've been through enough," she whispered, her Japanese soft but strong. "We'll take it one step at a time. You're safe now."
She didn't press him. Didn't ask about his mother. Or his father. Or Bachan. When they got back to her house in Setagaya, she handed him a folder—campus map, schedule, uniform list.
"Orientation is Monday," she said with a tired but genuine smile. "No pressure. Just do what you can. That's all anyone should ask of you." Finally, she said with a soft tone "my husband and daughter are away at the minute, but they'll be back soon so prepare yourself they are quite something, especially the little one – she's been a fan of you since I showed her some of your tapes, that your mother sent over"
Takeshi sat down on the futon in the spare room and stared at the ceiling. The hum of the city beyond the window was nothing like the stillness of the Alps.
But it was real. And for now, that was enough.