Kaito Kiyomori | 2080

The elevator recognized him before he reached it.

Glass doors slid open soundlessly. Soft white lighting reflected across polished black floors as Kaito stepped inside and leaned forward just enough for the retinal scanner.

Welcome home, Kiyomori-sama.

The display bloomed to life. It offered him the choice of five floors, numbered top to bottom. Five private floors in one of the most secure buildings in Shin Tokyo.

Kaito pressed 2.

The doors closed as the elevator began its rapid ascent. Only then did he allow himself a slow exhale.

It was one in the morning.

A weapons manufacturer overseas had spent six hours attempting to renegotiate terms they had already signed three months ago. Following that, two Shinryu subsidiaries had nearly started a territorial dispute over a border definition that had existed longer than either division's current leadership.

Idiots.

The elevator chimed softly.

Floor two.

Kaito stepped out. The hallway lights brightened automatically as he passed. He loosened his collar first. Then the cuffs. His jacket disappeared over one shoulder. A few steps later, his shoes joined it.

He made a brief detour toward a concealed wall panel. The laundry chute opened with a quiet hiss.

Jacket. Shirt. Tie clip.

Gone. Tomorrow's problem.

The kitchen sat empty and pristine when he entered, as it always did. Kaito opened the refrigerator. His eyes narrowed slightly as his eyes scanned the sleves.

The missing food had become difficult to ignore. Nothing dramatic. Nothing too obvious, really.

Just...less.

A container he remembered having two portions left instead of one. Fruit disappearing faster than it should. An entire package of snacks gone three days ago. The sort of thing that made a person question whether they were tired or losing their mind.

He lived alone. The biometric security system could identify individual fingerprints through gloves. The building monitored entrances, exits, elevators, and maintenance access.

And yet. Less food, every week.

Kaito stared into the refrigerator for several seconds. Finally, he shook his head and just grabbed something to eat.

If someone had somehow infiltrated one of the most secure residences in Japan to steal leftovers, he almost respected the commitment.

Almost.

Half an hour later, he was finally upstairs.

Gray sweatpants, black t-shirt, hair no longer disciplined into place.

The reading room occupied nearly half the top floor. Floor-to-ceiling shelves climbed toward the dark ceiling above. Beyond the glass walls, Shin Tokyo stretched endlessly into the night, towers glowing against black ocean water.

Most people would have sold organs to live here. Kaito rarely noticed it anymore.

He selected a book from the shelf and crossed toward his favorite chair. Finally, he sat down heavily.

A concerningly loud creak echoed in the empty room. The chair tilted sharply to one side. Its front leg wobbled.

Kaito froze. He lowered the book as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

Silence filled the room. The irritated click of his tongue broke through it.

"Even the furniture cannot manage being competent tonight."

The chair offered no defense.

He stood again. The toolkit was probably under the bed. At least, he thought it was. It had been months since he'd needed it.

Leaving the book behind, Kaito crossed into his bedroom. The room was dark except for the city lights beyond the glass walls. He clapped a hand and the lights came on.

He crouched beside the bed. He bent down, pulled aside the hanging blanket.

Kaito paused. One eyebrow rose in a rare surprise.

"Well."

There was a...for lack of better word, nest under his bed. A surprisingly elaborate nest.

Several missing blankets had been folded and arranged into a sheltered little den. Beside them sat a small collection of stolen food, organized with enough care that it almost looked intentional. Protein bars. Fruit. Crackers. One of his missing desserts.

Ah. So that was where everything had gone.

Kaito stared for a moment. Then, his eyes slid toward the culprit.

Curled tightly in the middle of the blankets was an animal attempting the remarkably advanced strategy of hiding its face beneath a blanket while leaving the rest of itself visible.

A long silence followed, in which for a moment he didn’t quite know how to respond to what he was seeing.

"Perfect." His voice was completely flat. "A five-story penthouse. The most advanced biometric security system in the nation."

He shook his head. "And there is a wild animal living under my bed."

The creature remained motionless, as though this might still work.

Kaito sighed. He reached forward and gently pulled the blanket away. "There you are."

The animal's face appeared. He studied it for a second. Then another.

Interesting. Not dangerous-looking, when it looked at him like that. Not particularly intelligent-looking either, but that was hardly unusual.

"How long have you been under there?" he muttered to himself. "I realize you're an animal...but you've already exceeded expectations by successfully committing burglary."

Kaito sat properly on the floor beside the bed, one arm resting against his knee.

The absurdity of the situation had somehow moved beyond irritation and arrived somewhere closer to amusement.

His hand extended toward the creature. "Come out."

Calm. Patient. Like he was negotiating with a nervous executive.

"I won't bite." He paused, considering his own words. Then his eyes narrowed slightly. "You might, however."

His gaze dropped meaningfully toward the collection of stolen food.

"If you do, I will be considerably less charitable about the situation."

The elevator recognized him before he reached it.

Glass doors slid open soundlessly. Soft white lighting reflected across polished black floors as Kaito stepped inside and leaned forward just enough for the retinal scanner.

Welcome home, Kiyomori-sama.

The display bloomed to life. It offered him the choice of five floors, numbered top to bottom. Five private floors in one of the most secure buildings in Shin Tokyo.

Kaito pressed 2.

The doors closed as the elevator began its rapid ascent. Only then did he allow himself a slow exhale.

It was one in the morning.

A weapons manufacturer overseas had spent six hours attempting to renegotiate terms they had already signed three months ago. Following that, two Shinryu subsidiaries had nearly started a territorial dispute over a border definition that had existed longer than either division's current leadership.

Idiots.

The elevator chimed softly.

Floor two.

Kaito stepped out. The hallway lights brightened automatically as he passed. He loosened his collar first. Then the cuffs. His jacket disappeared over one shoulder. A few steps later, his shoes joined it.

He made a brief detour toward a concealed wall panel. The laundry chute opened with a quiet hiss.

Jacket. Shirt. Tie clip.

Gone. Tomorrow's problem.

The kitchen sat empty and pristine when he entered, as it always did.

Kaito opened the refrigerator. His eyes narrowed slightly.

The missing food had become difficult to ignore. Nothing dramatic. Nothing too obvious, really.

Just...less.

A container he remembered having two portions left instead of one. Fruit disappearing faster than it should. An entire package of snacks gone three days ago. The sort of thing that made a person question whether they were tired or losing their mind.

He lived alone.

The biometric security system could identify individual fingerprints through gloves. The building monitored entrances, exits, elevators, and maintenance access.

And yet. Less food, every week.

Kaito stared into the refrigerator for several seconds.

He shook his head and just grabbed something to eat.

If someone had somehow infiltrated one of the most secure residences in Japan to steal leftovers, he almost respected the commitment.

Almost.

Half an hour later, he was finally upstairs.

Gray sweatpants, black t-shirt, hair no longer disciplined into place.

The reading room occupied nearly half the top floor. Floor-to-ceiling shelves climbed toward the dark ceiling above. Beyond the glass walls, Shin Tokyo stretched endlessly into the night, towers glowing against black ocean water.

Most people would have sold organs to live here. Kaito rarely noticed it anymore.

He selected a book from the shelf and crossed toward his favorite chair. Finally, he sat down heavily.

A concerningly loud creak echoed in the empty room. The chair tilted sharply to one side. Its front leg wobbled.

Kaito froze. He lowered the book as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

Silence. The irritated click of his tongue broke through it.

"Even the furniture cannot manage being competent tonight."

The chair offered no defense.

He stood again.

The toolkit was probably under the bed. At least, he thought it was. It had been months since he'd needed it.

Leaving the book behind, Kaito crossed into his bedroom. The room was dark except for the city lights beyond the glass walls. He clapped a hand and the lights came on.

Kaito froze.

His eyes went straight to the bed.

It was always made precisely in the morning—tight corners, flattened duvet, nothing out of place. Now there was a disturbance. Not obvious at first glance, but impossible to ignore once seen: a shallow indentation in the blanket, the clear imprint of weight that had rested there long enough to matter.

Something had been here. More importantly, something had been here recently.

His expression didn’t change. It rarely did. But the atmosphere around him sharpened in response, as though the room itself had recognized the shift before anything else could.

Kaito’s hand moved before the thought fully formed. The handgun came free from its concealed holster with practiced efficiency, unlocking with a soft, obedient click as it recognized his fingerprint.

He didn’t raise it fully yet. Not quite. Just enough to make it clear the situation had already been reclassified.

Then he moved.

His bare feet made no sound against polished wood and soft rug as he swept the room in silence. Bedroom first—empty. Bathroom—clear. Hallway beyond—nothing. Finally, the closet.

He stopped in front of it and pressed his ear to it. Nothing.

Kaito exhaled once through his nose and pulled the door open. The gun came up immediately.

Inside, the darkness of hanging clothes and storage gave way to a single figure standing too still, too deliberately placed, as though it had chosen the exact worst way to be discovered.

An animal. Or at least, that was the first conclusion the mind offered.

Kaito held his aim for a moment longer than necessary.

Then his gaze shifted—not away from the creature, but past it, through the tall glass walls of the penthouse where Shin Tokyo sprawled endlessly into the night. Towers stacked against darkness, holo-advertisements drifting above them like artificial constellations. The city’s usual noise pressed faintly against the glass, distant but constant.

One billboard in particular cycled through its loop in slow, bright repetition:

Demihumans: See something? Say something.

Kaito looked at it for half a breath. Then he looked back.

The gun lowered a fraction—not enough to be safe, but enough that it stopped being an immediate answer and became something closer to a question.

“Ah,” he said quietly. No surprise in it, only recognition. “So you’re the one that’s been eating my leftovers.”

The creature didn’t move.

Kaito studied it for another moment, head tilting slightly as though a change in angle might resolve what logic alone hadn’t. His finger rested loosely along the trigger guard—still controlled, still ready, but no longer immediate.

He took one step forward.

“Care to explain yourself?” His voice remained even, almost conversational. “Or would we prefer to pretend I don’t know you’re not just an animal.”

There was a pause. Something subtle shifted in his expression—less tension, more definition. Like the situation had stopped being abstract.

The room stayed quiet except for the distant hum of the city beyond the glass.

Kaito lowered the gun another increment, waiting.

Kaito sighed. The sound carried the weight of someone who had once believed his nights belonged entirely to him.

His nights had once been structured things—predictable, orderly, almost comforting in their repetition. He would return from work, shower, eat something simple, sit down with a book or the television muted in the background, and then sleep. The one part of the day that belonged entirely to him, untouched by negotiations, reports, or other people’s incompetence.

That had changed. It had changed the moment he discovered an animal living under his bed.

He had, perhaps foolishly, assumed it would not be much of a problem. The penthouse was large enough—five floors, expansive rooms, enough space for a person to forget something small existed if they chose to. Plenty of room, in other words, for a single animal to remain unnoticed.

Apparently, the little bastard disagreed.

Now it was sitting on his dining table as though it belonged there, entirely unbothered, as it stole yet another vegetable from his bowl of noodles.

Kaito stared at it for a moment. Then at the bowl. Then back at it.

“Aren’t you going to leave any for me?” he asked flatly, reaching over and attempting to lift it off the counter with the kind of careful restraint one might use when moving something that was both irritating and not worth breaking.

The animal resisted in the way it always did—infuriatingly casual, as if his authority was purely optional.

Kaito exhaled through his nose.

“I buy you proper food,” he continued, shaking his head slightly as he set it aside just long enough to reclaim his bowl. “Specialty feed. Hand-processed. Imported. The kind people apparently write research papers about. I even bought you a bed. A room, actually. Your own space, that you never use because apparently only my bed is good enough for you. You have security better than most junior executives.”

He paused, as if waiting for that to matter.

It did not.

The animal simply leaned back in again, entirely unconcerned, and resumed its theft with the confidence of something that had never once considered consequences. He did not allow himself to consider why he had spent such exorbitant amounts on something that clearly did not appreciate any of it. The answer would have been inconvenient, some nonsense about feelings. He preferred not to have inconvenient answers.

Kaito watched it for a second longer. There was a faint tightening at the corner of his eye—not quite anger anymore, something closer to exhausted disbelief.

“You understand,” he said slowly, “that none of this is normal behavior.”

He resumed eating, carefully working around the animal as though this was simply another variable to account for. Another inefficiency to tolerate.

“This is not,” he added, quieter, “how domestication is supposed to work.”

He waited for a beat, as if he expected this animal to actually care. Then, with a small shake of his head, he accepted the situation the way he always did when resistance proved pointless.

“Fine,” he muttered. “If you insist on being a nuisance. Do what you like. I don’t have time for this tonight.”

He picked up his chopsticks again and continued eating around the invader with practiced precision, occasionally shifting his bowl just out of reach before it could be raided again.

Then, almost begrudgingly, he said, “Do not eat the protein next time. I am not ordering more.”

And he continued eating around it as though this was, somehow, a normal part of his evening.

.