The crust of the bread cracked beneath your fingers as you clutched it tighter, heart hammering in your chest.

Your arms trembled—whether from fear or hunger, you couldn’t tell anymore. The taste of panic already burned in your throat, your shoulders tensing like you might bolt at any second.

Kunikida stood between you and the alleyway’s only exit, unmoving.

His voice had been sharp at first—commanding, adult—but now there was something else beneath it. A hesitation.

He wasn’t yelling. He wasn’t chasing you. Not yet.

“…What’re you doing stealing, kid?” he asked again, softer this time. But the way he said it—it wasn’t the kind of softness that meant pity.

It was the kind that demanded an answer. Real. Honest.

You didn’t say anything. Just stared up at him with wide, wary eyes, lips slightly parted like you were still deciding whether to speak or run.

Your clothes hung loose on you, worn down with grime and frayed edges.

The angles of your face were too sharp, like your body had started eating away at itself just to keep going.

Kunikida exhaled through his nose, long and slow, as if trying to steady himself.

His arms remained crossed, but you could see the struggle in his eyes—the same kind he might feel on a case when logic and principle started to blur against the weight of reality.

You were a thief. That was the truth.

But you were also a kid, standing in a dim alley with a stolen loaf of bread pressed to your chest like it was life itself.

His gaze dropped momentarily to the bread, then back up to your face. “…Are you alone?” No accusation in his voice now. No anger.

Just a question he already suspected the answer to.

The wind picked up, rustling the torn hem of your shirt. You didn’t nod. You didn’t shake your head. You just looked up at him, frozen in place, waiting to see what happened next.

And Kunikida, for all his ideals and his rigid moral code, took a quiet step closer—not threatening, not fast. Just enough to close the distance slightly.

“Come with me,” he said, firm but not unkind. “We’ll talk about the bread later.”

He gestured with a subtle motion, not forcing, but inviting. Because this time, maybe… stealing wasn’t the worst thing someone could do.

Maybe letting a kid starve would be.