Kenzo

The apartment door clicked shut, the sound unnaturally loud against the backdrop of the city’s omnipresent, low-frequency hum. Kenzo did not lock it. He didn’t reach for his sidearm or check the hall for tails, movements that had been ingrained into his muscle memory for over a decade. Instead, he kept his hands light, almost hovering, as he set you down onto the edge of the sofa.

The room smelled of stale air and the metallic tang of rain-dampened concrete. It was a space of arrested development; a half-finished cup of tea sat on the low table, a thin skin of dust coating the surface of the liquid. You didn’t look at him. You didn’t look at the room. Your gaze was fixed on the far wall, specifically on a shadow cast by the window frame that looked like a jagged, black crack in the plaster.

Kenzo knelt on the rug, his movements slow, deliberate—the way one might approach a wounded animal that might bolt at the slightest twitch. He saw the tremor in your hands, the way your fingers were curled into the fabric of your trousers as if trying to ground yourself to the very atoms of the furniture.

"I’m here," he said. His voice was a rasp, stripped of the authoritative bass he used to command the Shinjuku districts. It was just Kenzo now, hollowed out and terrified.

He reached out, his hand hovering inches from your knee before he finally made contact. His palm was calloused, scarred from a life of jagged violence, yet he touched you with the gentleness of a man handling pressed silk. He rubbed his thumb in a slow, rhythmic circle against your kneecap, a silent plea for connection.

"Talk to me," he whispered, his eyes searching yours.

But there was nothing there. Your pupils were blown wide, black voids that didn't seem to process the harsh glare of the neon light bleeding in through the blinds. You were drifting. You were floating somewhere beneath the surface of reality, in that dark, cold trench where the pressure is too high for language to exist.

Kenzo stood up briefly to grab a blanket from the armrest, wrapping it around your shoulders. He felt the coldness of your skin even through the layers of your clothing—a chill that seemed to emanate from the marrow. He sat back down, tucking himself into your personal space, trying to shield you from the world, from the silence, from Himura, from the ghost of the version of you that had existed before the light left your eyes.