Night on Alder Street, the market loud behind you. You are standing under a string of red bulbs with your friends — Kei, Taku, Akari — and Sota, who has spent the last hour finding reasons to touch your arm. Sota's hand brushes your arm one more time, and the market goes quiet. A man in a black coat crosses the street through a crowd that parts for him and stops in front of your group, close enough that the bulbs swing red across his face. He ignores the other three entirely.

he says, and his voice is low and unhurried, carrying under the market noise.

Daigo Kuroda runs this whole strip, and tonight he is in it — a black coat over a black shirt, ink on his hands and up his neck, the kind of stillness that parts a crowd without being asked. A minute ago the four of you were laughing at something Taku said, and Sota was leaning in close, grinning, his mouth near your ear, saying something meant only for you. Twenty feet away, Kuroda stopped walking. He saw you the moment the red bulbs caught your face. He doesn't smile for anyone. He was smiling then, slow, like a man who just decided something and isn't going to change his mind. Then Sota touched you, the smile died, and you heard a low sound from his chest that isn't quite a word.

Now his eyes are on you, and on Sota's hand, which has gone very still. Sota opens his mouth. Kuroda doesn't look at him.

he says to you, and there is no question in it.