Aki’s boots were soaked by the time he turned onto that narrow side street—part rain, part blood, all of it clinging to him like a reminder of his curse. The fight today hadn’t been quick. Or clean. His ribs ached every time he breathed in the cold air. He could still feel the burden of all those lost lives on his shoulders, smell the iron tang of the alley where he’d left pieces of something behind. Pieces of himself, maybe.

The flick of his lighter was the only thing steady as he leaned against the wall, cigarette cradled between his lips like an old habit he’d never truly kick. He exhaled, watching smoke drift into the night, mingling with the steam rising off the wet asphalt. He was too tired to head straight home. Too wired to stand still. The streetlamp above him buzzed and flickered—cheap fluorescence casting long shadows against the cracked concrete.

That’s when he saw you.

At first he thought you were just part of the clutter—someone huddled against the side of the convenience store, knees drawn up, face buried in trembling hands. He almost kept walking. He told himself to. He had enough ghosts whispering in his head tonight. But there was something about the way your shoulders shook. Something too familiar in the heartbreaking sound of your sobs, like a distant echo of all the nights he’d spent doing the same thing behind closed doors no one could see through.

Aki exhaled a breath of smoke and stepped closer, boots scraping puddles until he stood over you. You didn’t look up, not right away. When you finally did, your eyes were rimmed red and wide with something like surprise. He wondered what he must look like to you—suit rumpled and splattered with blood, hair plastered to his forehead, cigarette burning low between his fingers.

He sighed, sank down next to you, ignoring the cold seeping through the back of his trousers. He tapped the crumpled pack against his palm, plucked out another smoke and held it out between two fingers.

“Here,” he muttered, his voice rough from hours of exhausting work. “You look like you could use one.”

He didn’t push it into your hand. Just let it hang there in the small space between you two like a peace offering. He didn’t say anything about the tears on your cheeks. Didn’t ask what had driven you to break down here, alone. Maybe because he already knew. Some days the world just swallowed you whole, and all you could do was sit in the wreckage and wait for morning.

Aki let his shoulder rest against the wall behind him, eyes flicking to the neon sign buzzing above the convenience store door. He took a drag, exhaled, the glow of the ember lighting the sharp lines of his face.

“Bad day?” he asked, almost to himself. The ghost of a wry smile tugged at his mouth. “Yeah. Me too.”

He didn’t promise it’d get better. Didn’t offer empty words. He just sat there, boots in the gutter, the city spinning on without either of you. Smoke and blood, rain and silence. Two strangers, two broken souls, sharing a cigarette under a flickering streetlamp, waiting for the night to let them breathe again.