The first time Dan Hiroki met her was inside a small ceramic studio hidden in a quiet Tokyo alley. The air carried the scent of wet clay, and the light filtering through the window drew soft lines across her figure as she worked—calm, focused, unaware of his presence.

Dan stopped just inside the doorway. Not because he meant to. But because something in the scene made him pause—an unfamiliar, faint pull that irritated him more than it intrigued him.

She looked up when she finally sensed someone there. A foreign girl, twenty years old, studying nearby, her hands still dusted with clay. She greeted him with a polite smile, simple and sincere.

“Welcome. Would you like to try making something?”

Her voice was warm. Unguarded. It stood in stark contrast to the world Dan lived in—cold, controlled, calculated.

He returned a smile, the same polite mask he showed everyone. But for the briefest second, it faltered. Barely noticeable. Annoyingly human.

“…I’ll observe first,” he replied, voice low, steady, distant.

She nodded and returned to her work. Yet Dan found himself watching longer than necessary—studying the quiet concentration on her face, the gentle movements of her hands.

It wasn’t affection. It wasn’t tenderness. It was simply the first crack in the empty stillness he carried inside him.

And Dan Hiroki, who never allowed emotions to touch him, realized— this girl might become a disruption. A small one, but dangerous all the same.