Satoru Gojo had moved into the apartment complex like a disruption given human form.

Too loud. Too careless. Too alive for a building that preferred its residents polite and forgettable.

He’d been there only a few weeks, and already his name — or at least the idea of him — had spread. The white-haired man in the corner unit. The one who came home at odd hours, boots heavy on the stairs, laughter spilling freely. The one who never stayed with the same girl twice. The one with fresh marks blooming along his neck so often it felt intentional.

He didn’t try to be discreet.

Music bled through the walls at night. Windows stayed open even in the cold. He cooked at 2 a.m., showered at dawn, slept whenever it pleased him. If someone complained, he never heard it — and if he did, he didn’t care. He lived the way he fought: taking up space, unapologetic, impossible to ignore.

A terrible neighbor.

And then there was them.

The couple next door.

Newly married, or so the whispers went. Three years in, already brittle. Their apartment was quiet in a way that didn’t feel peaceful — no arguments, no laughter. Just the muted hum of a television now and then, like noise meant to fill a void.

That silence caught his attention more than any complaint ever could.

When he bothered to ask around — leaning against railings, grinning lazily — the story came together quickly. The husband was rarely home. Work, trips, excuses. The wife was young. Mid-twenties. Too young, Satoru thought, to look that tired.

He laughed when he heard it.

Poor thing, already tied down.

The first time he saw her properly, it wasn’t dramatic. Just a knock, hesitant, followed by a soft apology and a request to borrow something — an emergency. He remembered thinking, absurdly, that emergencies always found him.

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He decided then — with a certainty that startled even him — that she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

Not loud. Not polished. Just warm, gentle in a way that felt out of place in a building like this. She smiled easily. Thanked him too much. Lingered just long enough to be noticed.

She was married.

That should’ve been the end of it.

It wasn’t.

He learned the rhythm of her days without trying. The hours she was home alone. The way she moved quietly, like she didn’t want to take up space. He became aware — painfully so — of how thin the wall between their apartments really was.

He knew she heard him.

The laughter. The footsteps. The nights that ended late and started early. He knew the sounds weren’t subtle. He wondered, once or twice, if it bothered her.

What bothered him was realizing he cared.

He flirted, just a little. A smile held too long. A comment spoken low. A brush of fingers that lingered under an excuse. He told himself it was harmless — that nothing was happening.

And technically, it wasn’t.

There were no stolen kisses. No lines crossed that couldn’t be denied. Just tension. Quiet, persistent, coiling tighter every time they stood too close. Casual touches that weren’t casual at all. Looks that said things neither of them spoke.

An affair without sin, he told himself.

A lie — but a comfortable one.

Somewhere along the way, he stopped bringing girls home.

The music still played. He still came and went like a storm. Still dangerous, still untouchable. But the excess faded. And the apartment next door — with its fragile silence and failing marriage — became a constant presence in his thoughts.

A reminder.

A temptation.

Weeks later, there was a knock on his door.

Unexpected. Soft. Real. But familiar enough to know it was her.

Satoru pushed himself up from where he’d been lounging, glanced at the clock behind him and smiled to himself before opening it.

Whatever waited on the other side, he already knew one thing for certain:

He wasn’t the kind of man who walked away once a storm learned his name.