The name on the document sat like lead on the page, printed in tight, black type above the face of a man who looked entirely unremarkable.
A middle-aged salaryman. Clean-cut. Mild smile. Glasses perched slightly low on his nose. He looked like he worked in insurance, or maybe logistics. Someone who took his lunch breaks at the same convenience store every day. The kind of man you would pass on the street a dozen times without noticing.
Haruki didn’t recognize him.
That made it worse.
He looked up slowly, meeting the woman’s gaze across the table. Her hands were folded, still, resting on her lap. There was no malice in her expression. But no kindness, either. Just calm expectation.
“Who is he?” Haruki asked. His voice came out flat.
“A message,” the woman said, her tone neutral.
Haruki blinked. “A message to who?”
She didn’t answer immediately. She sipped her tea, savoring it. Haruki’s own cup had gone cold beside him. He hadn’t touched it.
“Your father has enemies,” she said at last. “But you knew that already.”
Haruki gave a faint nod.
“Some are old. Some are new. This one is... persistent.”
She tapped the photo lightly with one finger. “This man has been funneling information. Names. Patterns. Financial trails. We don’t know how much he knows, but we know who he’s selling it to.”
Haruki’s lips parted slightly. “Law enforcement?”
“No,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Worse.”
He didn’t ask who. Not yet.
Instead, he glanced down at the sheet again. There were other details below the photo—daily schedule, confirmed contacts, car license plate, even where he usually sat in the izakaya two blocks from his office.
“Surveillance?” Haruki asked.
“For two months.”
That long?
He looked at the woman again, watching her face for a hint of doubt. She offered none.
“He’s not armed,” she said. “He doesn’t move with protection. He’s been quiet, cautious. We’ve waited for the right moment.”
Haruki’s stomach curled. “And that’s me?”
“You’re the moment.”
He felt his jaw tighten. “What am I supposed to do?”
The woman didn’t blink. “You’re supposed to make him stop.”
Haruki stared at her. “And if he doesn’t?”
She tilted her head, a small, almost imperceptible smile on her lips.
“Then make sure he doesn’t keep going.”
Silence dropped like a blade between them.
Haruki’s fingers gripped the photo without realizing it. The paper creased beneath his hand.
“This isn’t a loyalty test,” she said. “It’s a declaration. Your father wants them to know you’re real. That he’s not sending ghosts anymore. That his son—the one no one took seriously—now carries weight.”
Haruki swallowed.
“I’m not a killer,” he said quietly.
The woman didn’t laugh. Didn’t sneer. She only nodded, once, like she’d expected that answer.
“You don’t have to be,” she said. “But you will have to decide what kind of Nakamura you’re going to be. The one who sends warnings, or the one who is the warning.”
The words sat in the air like smoke, curling through the silence.
Haruki looked down again.
The man in the photo didn’t look like a threat. He didn’t look like anything. He looked like someone’s father. Someone’s husband. A man who carried a briefcase and probably hated his morning commute.
He looked harmless.
Haruki couldn’t stop the thought: Is this what Riku does all the time?
He could imagine his brother looking at this photo and not even blinking. Probably cracking a joke while pouring himself a drink. Haruki didn’t have that ability. He didn’t want it.
Still, he heard his father’s voice again in the back of his mind.
Prove yourself.
No hesitation.
No weakness.
“Why me?” he asked finally, his throat dry.
“Because you’re not like Riku,” she answered.
Haruki blinked, startled.
“You haven’t lost the things he did. Not yet.”
Her eyes fixed on him, steady and unreadable.
“That makes you unpredictable,” she said. “Dangerous, even. But also interesting.”
Haruki wasn’t sure if it was meant to be a compliment. He wasn’t sure he wanted it to be.
He leaned back, putting the paper down slowly, deliberately.
“I’m not killing anyone tonight.”
The woman didn’t react. Not with disappointment, not with approval.
“I didn’t ask you to,” she said.
Haruki frowned. “Then what is this?”
She took another sip of her tea before answering. “This is you being seen. The first time they realize you exist. What you do with that opportunity... is up to you.”
Haruki stared at her, heart still beating slow and heavy.
“I don’t want to become my father,” he said.
“Then don’t.”
“I don’t want to become Riku.”
“Then don’t.”
Her tone was gentle, but firm.
“But,” she said, “you will have to choose who you become instead.”
It was nearly 7:00 p.m. by the time Haruki stepped back onto the street, the cold wind biting against his skin, sharper now than it had been earlier.
He didn’t feel like he had walked out of a meeting.
He felt like he’d walked out of a courtroom, sentenced and shamed and still somehow unsure of what verdict he’d been given.
The photo remained tucked in the inside pocket of his suit jacket.
His footsteps echoed softly as he passed the rusted gate and walked back down the narrow alley, his breath forming white mist in the air. The lights in the apartment windows flickered on one by one as he passed.
The normal world.
The quiet, unseen world of people who never knew how close they walked to danger.
He pulled his phone from his pocket. For a long moment, he stared at the screen.
Then he opened his messages.
Aoi: Still awake.
He hadn’t responded in over twelve hours. She had waited.
His thumbs hovered. Then typed:
Haruki: Are you free?
The reply came fast.
Aoi: Yeah. Where are you?
Haruki paused.
Haruki: Just finished something. Mind meeting me halfway? I want to walk.
Three blinking dots. Then:
Aoi: Sure.
And that was all.
Haruki slipped the phone back into his pocket, then pulled his coat tighter.
There was no decision made yet.
No final choice.
But somewhere deep inside, a line had moved.
And Haruki Nakamura—suit on, assignment in pocket, and the wind at his back—was not the same person who had stepped out of his room earlier that day.