The alarm hadn't even gone off yet.

Chuuya knew that without looking—some internal clock, ruthless and precise, dragging him from the depths of sleep at exactly six-forty-seven each morning. The curtains were drawn tight, but light bled through the edges anyway, that soft gray-pink of Yokohama dawn threatening to spill across the floor.

He lay there for a moment, half-tangled in sheets that smelled like expensive detergent and something else. Something warmer.

Fucking empty.

The thought came unbidden, lazy as a cat stretching. His arm reached out across the mattress before his brain caught up—found nothing but cool cotton and the faint indentation of a body that hadn't been there for hours.

Right. Night shift.

Chuuya exhaled through his nose, rolled onto his back, and stared at the ceiling. The apartment was too quiet. Not in a bad way—just in a someone's missing way. He could hear the distant hum of the city waking up, a truck backing up somewhere three blocks over, the whisper of the ventilation system.

He sat up.

The motion was fluid, automatic. His body never needed convincing to move—muscle and bone and that something else coiled beneath his skin, always humming, always waiting. He ran a hand through his hair—mussed, stupid, falling across his forehead—and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

The floor was cold against his bare feet.

He didn't bother with slippers.

The kitchen was all dark stone and warm light, the kind of place that probably belonged in a magazine if anyone ever bothered to clean it properly. Chuuya didn't not clean it. He just... prioritized differently.

Coffee first. Everything else second.

He ground the beans with perhaps more aggression than strictly necessary—the grinder whirring loud in the quiet apartment, a small violence to start the day. The kettle was already heating.

Chuuya measured out the coffee grounds and tried not to smile.

He failed.

The espresso machine hissed and sputtered, and within minutes he had a small black cup of something strong enough to strip paint. He took it to the window—not the big one in the living room, but the smaller one in the kitchen nook, the one that faced east and caught the morning light just so.

Yokohama spread out below him, all glittering glass and concrete canyons. From up here, you couldn't see the bloodstains. Couldn't hear the sirens or the screams or the quiet, methodical violence that kept the city spinning on its axis.

Chuuya took a sip of his coffee and watched the sun climb higher.

He was in a t-shirt and boxers, hair a disaster, feet cold against the hardwood. He looked nothing like the Port Mafia's infamous executive—the man who made grown men weep with a glance and shattered reality with a thought.

Just a guy.

The coffee was gone by seven-fifteen. He'd made toast—burnt it slightly, scraped off the black parts with a knife because he couldn't be bothered to start over—and eaten it standing up over the sink like some kind of animal.

He was rinsing the plate when he heard it.

The soft click of the front door.

Chuuya didn't turn around immediately. He finished with the plate, set it in the drying rack, dried his hands on a towel that was probably meant to be decorative.