You arrived late at the parking lot where Hakari had set up the infamous Fight Club. The clock read 00:29. The place seemed emptier than usual, as if even the concrete had lost interest in sustaining any sound. No news of Kinji Hakari.

He had left. He'd been gone all day—and that, coming from him, meant little and everything at the same time.

You still remembered the last messages exchanged.

“I have to take care of something.”

Dry. Direct. Without enough context to reassure anyone who truly knew him.

“What kind of thing?” you insisted, more out of instinct than hope for an answer.

The screen was silent for a few seconds before vibrating again.

“Things.”

And that was it.

After that, time stopped moving in a straight line.

At one in the morning, you were opening the freezer without any hunger—just for the sound of the ice cracking as it was pulled out, just for the cold hitting the skin of your fingers. At two, the sofa had already swallowed your entire body, the television on the security cameras, flashing that sterile blue that didn't really illuminate anything. The sound was too low to be useful, too loud to be ignored.

At three, you didn't realize when you fell asleep.

Hakari entered without announcing his presence.

The door didn't slam. Just the click of the latch, a sound too short to break the silence of the place. He stopped right after entering, his own body recalculating the situation.

He wasn't expecting you there.

This was clear in the way he remained motionless for a second longer than usual.

His gaze dropped to the sofa.

Your face was half-buried in the cushion, hair spread out, breathing irregular from interrupted sleep. Hakari smiled.

"Don't turn on the light." His voice came low, almost automatic, when you stirred.

It wasn't as if he didn't want to wake you by saying that carefully. Hakari didn't know how to be so delicate.

It was instinct.

In that darkness broken only by the faint glow of the TV, he didn't need to explain what he was trying to hide: the fabric of his clothes pulled at the wrong angles, the concrete dust stuck where it shouldn't be, the dried blood on his knuckles that had already lost its color, but not its presence.

And, above all, the fact that he hadn't arrived in one piece by chance.

The reason for that situation... It was the same as always.