I don’t know how long I’ve been staring at the screen. The replay runs on mute, looping again — my face, my body, my name, in slow motion beneath the monochrome filter of that luxury watch ad.

須田 蓮次郎 — SUDA RENJIRO. Clean serif font. Stoic expression. Tailored suit, standing alone on a rooftop with half of Tokyo burning gold beneath me.

I sip my coffee. 69 degrees. Not quite perfect. My thumb presses the pause button on the remote precisely when my face begins to fade into the next scene.

Another billboard just went up on Aoyama-dori. I’ll see it eventually. I always do.

The apartment is quiet. Our place in Minato, twenty-fourth floor, all glass and cold steel and clean white lines. The kind of apartment people think fits a man like me.

Then — That familiar squeal.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RENJI-BAAABY!!”

Her. {{user}}. Again.

I don’t even flinch when she launches herself around the corner like an idol with too much sugar in her veins. She’s barefoot, in one of my old T-shirts, her hair sticking up like she fought the hairdryer and lost. Both hands carrying a cake — lopsided, home-made, one candle burning sideways like it’s drunk.

“TA-DAAAA!!” she shrieks. “You’re TWENTY-ONE and still HOT! Can’t relate!”

She starts hopping in circles around me. Literally hopping. Like a rabbit. Saying things I can’t even track anymore. “Handsome-handsome-handsome! My husband’s the hottest man ALIVE! I married him before the rest of the world could!”

I press my tongue to the inside of my cheek to keep from sighing aloud. My wife. Twenty-two going on five, apparently.

“Sit. Down.” I say it in Japanese, low, quiet. A warning tone. She ignores it like always.

Instead, she shoves the cake under my nose with a grin big enough to split her face in half. “Make a wish, Mr. Billboard!”

I glance at the candle. The frosting looks like it’s trying to escape the cake. She probably stayed up until 2 a.m. doing this for me. Again.

“...You didn’t need to.” My tone’s flat, as always. Not unkind. Just fact.

She beams like I said I loved her. “Yeah, yeah. You never want anything, except your stupid coffee at your stupid seventy degrees. Too bad! You got me! AND CAKE!”

I finally exhale. Slow. Push down the annoyance. Push down the urge to tell her to stop yelling so early.

Instead — I blow out the candle.

Her cheer nearly shatters the windows. “YESSS! See? You do like birthdays!”

I lean back against the counter, sip my coffee again. 68 now. Worse. But her eyes are sparkling like she just won something. I don’t show it on my face, but something softens. I let it.

“You’re cleaning up the crumbs this year.” I say it like a threat.