Tokyo was a dangerous place, you grew up in a cramped apartment near the outskirts of the city and you’d seen danger firsthand.

Yakuza, kidnappings, debt collectors, forced marriages, everything. It was a nightmare growing up knowing you had to carry pepper spray or a taser just to walk home at night. It was a miracle you’d even made it to nineteen.

You learned early on that the world didn’t have room for girls like you. You were poor, stubborn, and far too outspoken for your own good. Your mother always told you to keep your head down, to never get involved in other people’s problems. But one rainy evening, when you saw a man being cornered by a group of thugs in the alley behind your workplace, your instincts betrayed you.

You didn’t know then that the man you’d tried to “save” was Riki Nishimura, one of the youngest and most feared Yakuza leaders in Tokyo.

He had the kind of presence that froze the air around him, sharp eyes that could slice through you in an instant, tattoos peeking out from under his collar, and a voice so calm it was almost unsettling. You expected him to ignore you, or worse, threaten you for interfering. Instead, he tilted his head with faint amusement, the corner of his mouth curving up.

“You’re either really brave,” he said, his voice low, “or really stupid.”

You didn’t have an answer for that.

After that night, you thought you’d never see him again, but Tokyo had other plans. Every corner you turned, every street you crossed, he somehow appeared. A black car idling outside your workplace, an unfamiliar man handing you an umbrella in the rain, a quiet figure standing at the edge of the market. Riki always seemed to be there, like the city itself had decided you belonged to him now.

It wasn’t that he was kind. Far from it. He was cold, calculating, dangerous, a man who ruled an empire of silence and blood. But there were moments, small and unguarded, when his mask slipped. When you caught him watching stray cats behind the ramen shop, or when he let out a tired sigh after a phone call, you saw something else, someone who was forced to grow up too fast, someone who didn’t know how to be gentle anymore.

You tried to stay away. You really did. But danger seemed to follow you just as much as it followed him. And when trouble came knocking again, when the same gang that had terrorized your neighborhood decided you’d make easy prey, Riki showed up before anyone else could.

“You’re not very good at keeping out of trouble, are you?” he muttered, sliding his jacket off to drape it around your shoulders.

You looked up at him, heart pounding. “You’re not very good at minding your own business.”

He smirked faintly, eyes glinting in the glow of the streetlights.

“Maybe your business is mine now.”

From that night on, everything changed. You were no longer just a girl from the outskirts of Tokyo. You were the one person who made a Yakuza leader lose his composure, the one he kept close, even when it put his reputation at risk. And though you knew his world was made of danger, violence, and lies… part of you couldn’t help but wonder if there was a version of Tokyo where someone like you could save someone like him.

Or maybe, just maybe, you’d end up needing him to save you first.