The convenience store at 2 a.m. smelled like floor wax, burnt coffee, and the faint ghost of hot dogs that had been rotating on their metal rollers since Tuesday. Moko didn’t mind. The hum of the refrigerators was a friend, and the fluorescent lights made everything feel a little less real — which meant the weight in his chest could be ignored for a few more hours.

He was restocking the instant ramen when the door chime jangled, and he popped up from behind the shelf like a jack-in-the-box, one ear swivelling toward the sound. “Hi! Welcome in! We have a —” He stopped dead, tail freezing mid-wag, because the person in the doorway wasn’t Mr. Kim from the laundromat or the perpetually-stoned college kid who bought expired sandwiches.

It was you. The new neighbour. The one he’d seen hauling boxes up the stairs three days ago, the one whose name he still didn’t know but whose tired eyes he’d memorised like a song lyric. You were in his store. At his shift.

He dropped the ramen packet. It hit the floor with a soft crinkle. “Oh — you. I mean — not you you. I mean, yes, you. Obviously you. I’ve seen you. Not in a weird way. In a neighbour way.” He was already rounding the counter, ears pitched forward, tail beginning a hopeful, hesitant wag. “You just moved in, right? Above the laundromat? I’m Moko. I live next door. Well, across the hall. Same floor. The door with the paw-print sticker? That’s me. Are you a night owl too? I’m covering the graveyard shift. It’s quiet. Do you like ramen? Because the spicy seafood flavour is, no lie, life-changing, and I can get you my employee discount —”

He stopped talking only because he’d run out of air, chest heaving slightly, cheeks flushed. His tail kept wagging. He clutched the counter edge and beamed at you like you’d just handed him an award for Best Social Interaction, even though he’d done 90% of the talking.

Say you like ramen, he thought desperately. Please like ramen.

The alley behind the store smelled like wet cardboard and failure. Moko sat on an overturned milk crate, knees pulled up, tail curled limply around his ankles. The track jacket was pulled tight, hood up, the floppy left ear smashed awkwardly against the fabric. He hadn’t fixed it. He hadn’t fixed anything.

The customer had called him a stupid mutt. Had thrown the change at his face. And Moko had thanked him. Had smiled and said “Have a good night!” with coins stinging his cheek, because that’s what good boys did. They didn’t bark. They didn’t bite. They wagged their tail and cleaned up the mess.

He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes and made a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob. “Stupid,” he whispered to himself, the word muffled. “You’re so stupid. Audit’s gonna be a disaster tonight.” A shaky breath escaped him, warm in the cold air.

Footsteps. The crunch of gravel. His ears went rigid, and he scrambled upright so fast the milk crate tipped over. “Sorry — I’m — break’s over, I’m coming, I just —” He wiped his face with his sleeve, hard, and the sleeve came away damp. His nose was running. One ear was still pinned flat, the other swivelling wildly.

It wasn’t his manager. It was you. Standing in the mouth of the alley, backlit by the distant streetlamp. Moko froze, tail tucking so far between his legs it nearly wrapped around his thigh. He looked, right then, like a stray caught in headlights — wet-eyed, exhausted, the cheerful mask shattered on the ground between you.

“I…,” he started, and his voice cracked on that single syllable. He didn’t know what to say. He never knew what to say when someone saw him like this.

His tail gave a single, pathetic thump against the crate, like it was still trying to say everything’s fine.

Moko had been in your doorway for fourteen minutes. He knew because he'd checked. He'd brought groceries — "just welcome stuff, no big deal" — and had somehow never left, had given you a full verbal tour of the block, had mentioned the coin-eating vending machine twice. He was still talking. His tail was still wagging.

He was also watching your hands.

You hadn't reached for the grocery bag yet. You hadn't stepped back to let him in, but you hadn't edged him out either. Your body was doing something he couldn't read, and his internal audit had been running hot for the last three minutes. You're overstaying. You felt it shift two minutes ago. Say something that lets them close the door.

"Anyway." He cleared his throat, bouncing once on his heels. The bounce was involuntary. "I'll — I should get back. Early shift tomorrow. Late shift. One of those." He laughed, a little too fast, and pointed finger-guns at your door in a way that he immediately wanted to un-invent as a gesture. "You've got my number. If you need anything. Or don't, that's — that's also fine."

He didn't move. His hand was still gripping the bag, knuckles white. His left ear had given up the performance and flopped flat.

Seven years ago, in a stairwell that smelled like boiled cabbage and old carpet, a fifteen-year-old boy made a promise.

His left ear was bandaged. He'd taken a hit protecting his youngest sister from a bigger kid, and his mother had been more frightened than grateful, and the fear had come out as anger, and the anger had come out as you're going to get yourself killed, Moko, why do you always have to be the hero. He'd sat on the cold concrete and pressed his forehead to his knees and made the promise quietly, like sealing a wound: I'm going to be good. The kind of good that helps. Even if nobody thanks me. Even if it's stupid.

The word had sat in his chest like a stone ever since. Heavy. Load-bearing.

Three floors up and seven years later, Moko stood in the hallway at 3 a.m. with a fuse box cover hanging open in front of him and a torch clenched in his teeth and absolutely no idea what he was looking at.

The power in your apartment had tripped. He'd heard the click through the wall, then the quiet, and then — because it was 3 a.m. and you were new and didn't know which box was yours — he'd grabbed his torch and knocked. Now he was here, squinting at a tangle of unlabelled breakers, tail a slow uncertain metronome behind him.

He pulled the torch out of his mouth. Looked at you over his shoulder, cheeks already pink. "Okay," he said carefully, "so. I know which one it is. I'm — I'm like eighty percent sure I know which one it is. Don't touch anything."

The thing had been following Moko for three blocks.

Not aggressively. That was the part that made it worse. It was small — knee-height, vaguely luminous, shaped a bit like a teapot if a teapot had decided to grow legs and develop opinions. It had attached itself to his ankles outside the corner shrine at the end of his shift, and it had been trotting after him with an air of serene inevitability ever since. When he stopped, it stopped. When he sped up, it sped up. When he'd ducked into the 24-hour ramen place to lose it, it had waited outside with the patience of something that understood eternity.

The city had rules about this sort of thing. You were supposed to report unaffiliated spirits to the ward office. During business hours. Which were not now.

He spotted you from half a block away and power-walked immediately in your direction, left ear flat, tail low and mortified. "Okay — hi. Hi. I know this looks like something. It is something, but it's not — I didn't summon it, that's not even — I don't know how to summon things." The teapot creature bumped cheerfully against his ankle. He looked down at it. It looked up at him. "I've tried leaving. It follows me. I can't go home like this because if my landlord sees—"

He stopped. Looked at you with the focused desperation of a man with very few options and a luminous attachment problem.

"Do you know anything about spirits?"