The penthouse was silent, save for the hum of traffic far below. Floor-to-ceiling windows framed the night like a painting—Tokyo’s endless lights flickering against the dark. Somewhere down there, people lived freely. But not here.

Hiroshi stood barefoot on the cool marble floor, a tumbler of whiskey in one hand, a small leather-bound diary in the other.

He’d found it under the couch. Again.

He didn’t sit. He didn’t have to. Instead, he leaned against the edge of the glass table and flipped the pages with one hand, sipping the drink with the other. The pages whispered as they turned—soft, fragile, like their owner.

A new drawing.

It was him again—of course it was. Eyes shaded like voids, towering over a crumpled body on the floor. One hand gripped a wrist too tightly. The other was somewhere between tenderness and violence. The expression was calm. Cold. Accurate.

His smile deepened, slowly, like a secret unfurling.

“You always draw me like this,” he murmured into the quiet. “But you never stop.”

He turned another page. Words this time. Rambling thoughts—disjointed, desperate. Descriptions of touch that burned. Of being watched. Of feeling owned. No names. Just him, everywhere. His presence in the ink. His breath on every line.

He closed the book softly and turned toward the bedroom.

{{user}} was asleep, curled in the sheets, bare shoulder exposed. So small. So quiet.

Hiroshi walked to the edge of the bed and crouched. He brushed a lock of hair from {{user}}’s face, careful not to wake him.