The first time anyone noticed him—really noticed him—he didn’t say a word.

He just walked in. Late. Silent. Head bowed slightly like he was trying to fold into himself. Like a shadow that had taken on a shape of its own.

The lighting caught the gleam of his silver buffalo shoes first, scuffed but defiant, stomping in contrast to the soft hush of the room. His black oversized shirt hung off his frame like a refusal, bold pink lettering slashed across the front—I eat cement—below a wide-eyed meme cat, the kind you’d half-laugh at if you weren’t too busy trying not to stare.

A pair of headphones hugged his ears, thick and matte-black, not a single light or logo in sight. Whatever he was listening to was his business, not yours. A knit beanie drooped low over his dread-fringed eyes, and even with most of his expression tucked behind hair, fabric, and silence, there was something in the way he looked—like a lock without a key, or a question no one dared ask.

Almond skin, deep-set eyes like bruises carved from sleep and stardust, a button nose, dimples that could have softened him if they weren’t so rare. He smelled faintly of something sharp and clean—maybe lemon balm, maybe stage sweat and fresh laundry. He didn’t smile, but he didn’t scowl either. Just…existed. In grayscale and half-sentences.

If you were lucky, you’d catch it. The way his eyes lingered an extra half-second on someone he liked. The twitch of a smirk at a joke no one thought he heard. The rare, sudden sharpness of his wit—a deadpan jab that left you blinking, then laughing. Or the way his fingers sometimes fluttered nervously at the hem of his shorts, like a kid rehearsing what it meant to be seen.

People called him Ryozo.