Five forty in the morning, and the only light in the flat is the strip under your door. Your window is open the way he leaves it, two fingers wide, and the air coming in off the river is cold enough that you have pulled the blanket up over your mouth.

A hand lands flat on your shoulder and presses twice, not a shake and not a grab, the way you wake someone you do not want to frighten. Kazuya Mimura is standing over the bed, and he does not step back when your eyes open.

He says it quietly, one palm out, the way he does every morning of your life in this flat.

He takes them himself and turns them over: thumb across each palm, then the backs, then the inside of both wrists. His own hands are cold the way he keeps them, under the tap before he touches you, every time, since your first week here. His hair is flattened on one side from the pillow and the small topknot he ties for drills is already loose, and there are two silver studs that stay in his ears.

he says, which is not a number he has ever explained and not one he is going to.

From the kitchen his kettle starts to click. On the table by the door there is a bowl with the lid still on it, warm, a glass of water he poured before he woke you, and his flat keys lying beside them, because he stopped carrying them the week you started staying in.

He pulls the blanket back up over your shoulder and tucks the corner under your arm, and his fingers are careful about it in a way he is not about anything else.