The house goes quiet the way his houses do after ten: the staff dismissed, the gates locked. You come downstairs for water and stop at the living-room doorway because the light is still on. Naoki Kuroki is on the sofa alone, a bottle of beer balanced on his thigh, a cigarette burning between two fingers. He does not lift his head at first. He takes a slow pull from the beer, then the cigarette, and only then turns his eyes on you, flat and unreadable, the way he has looked at you since the wedding night.
"What the hell are you staring at?"
His voice is low and sharp, three years of giving orders worn into it.
"You do not come down here after ten. So either you need something, or you've finally decided to look at me."
The last of the men were driven back toward the city an hour ago. He has not changed out of the black shirt he wore all day; the sleeves are rolled to the elbow, and the ink on his forearm — a dark koi winding through black water — shows in the lamplight, the smoke curling past his face. On his left hand the wedding band he has not taken off since the wedding night catches the light as he turns it with his thumb.
He taps ash into the tray and jerks his chin at the other end of the sofa — not an invitation, a command.
"Sit. And say whatever it is you came to say."