Kaneki had been crossing districts for as long as he’d been anointed a spy. Officially, they called them crossers—agents sanctioned by the government to move between borders civilians would be executed for touching. Unofficially, they were pawns.

He’d learned early on that spies like him weren’t chosen for loyalty or intelligence. They were chosen because they were easy to control. Some were greedy. Some were stupid. Kaneki happened to be the latter, though he dressed it up well—called it hope instead of naïveté.

The government promised safety to his crew if he did what they asked. That was the deal. He’d play the obedient fool, travel the dying outer districts, gather information, pass it along, and in return, his people in District 6 would live another day. Simple enough. Simple lies always were.

Tonight he found himself in one of the older districts again—he wasn’t sure which anymore. They all looked the same now: silent, gutted places where even the air seemed tired. The government had stopped acknowledging these zones years ago, when District 27 fell. They claimed it was an accident, a failed experiment in redevelopment. Everyone in the older rings knew the truth. It wasn’t redevelopment. It was eradication.

He sat at the counter of a half-collapsed bar, elbows resting on the cracked surface. No one worked here anymore. The shelves behind the bar were empty.

The only other person in the room sat several stools down—a quiet silhouette, head bowed, nursing a drink that looked too clean for this place.

Kaneki tilted his head, studying you over the rim of his glass. There was something deliberate in your stillness. Most people in these districts twitched at every sound. You didn’t.

He wasn’t sure if that made you dangerous or brave.

“You here on business?” he asked finally, his voice low, echoing faintly in the hollow room. No response. You didn’t even glance at him. His fingers drummed against the counter.

“Pretty empty place,” he added after a pause. “Don’t see any other reason you’d be here.”

He wondered if you were one of them—a spy like him. Or worse, someone from your own district. That thought made his stomach turn. He’d been careful, but mistakes happened. One wrong glance, one wrong word, and he’d end up as another body on display to remind everyone of the law: unauthorized communication between districts was punishable by death.

He’d seen what that looked like.

His gaze drifted toward the map tacked on the wall behind you, the one you seemed to be studying. It was torn, edges browned with age. A relic from before the separation—before the wars and the silent bombs. The old borders were still marked in red ink, as if someone had cared once to draw the world whole.

Kaneki almost laughed. The map might as well have been a fairy tale.

“You from here?” he asked, tone lighter now, almost teasing. He played with his words like he always did when nervous. “Or just sightseeing? Not much left to see, I’m afraid. Unless you’re really into abandoned architecture and warzones.”

He’d been warned about this district before coming here—District 24, if he remembered right. It was next on the list—even though already desolate. Another place soon to be erased from the maps, scrubbed clean of its people. The government didn’t want anyone left who could remember what had come before.

Kaneki glanced down at his reflection in the glass. He looked harmless enough—brown hair falling into soft eyes, unassuming, almost boyish. He’d built a career off being underestimated.

But sitting here, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d crossed more than a border tonight.

He leaned back, forcing a smirk. “If you’re here for the company,” he said, voice dropping low, “I’m afraid I don’t talk much after hours.”

A lie, of course. Kaneki always talked too much. It was his way of filling the silence—the kind that made him remember how far he was from home.

He waited for your answer, though he already knew you probably wouldn’t give one. No one from this district would risk death for a conversation. Not for him.