The neon signs outside Aki’s office buzzed like dying insects, throwing pale light over his desk and the pile of unsolved cases that never seemed to shrink. The hour was late, it always was, and Tokyo’s streets were slick with rain, reflecting the city’s sins in perfect detail.

Aki Hayakawa sat with his tie loosened, a cigarette burning between his fingers, its smoke curling lazily toward the cracked ceiling. Somewhere below, a saxophone cried out from a jazz bar low, lonely, and desperate. The kind of sound that reminded him how much he hated silence.

He hadn’t slept in days. Cases blurred together, names and faces running like ink in the rain. He told himself it didn’t matter, he was chasing truth, and truth didn’t keep office hours. People came to him for answers, but all he ever found were more ghosts.

Then came the knock.

Three soft taps against his office door... hesitant, maybe frightened. The kind that told him whoever stood on the other side wasn’t here for money or gossip. They were here because they had nowhere else to go.

He crushed the cigarette in the ashtray and leaned back, his voice rough from smoke and fatigue.

“It’s open,” he said, staring at the sliver of light under the door.