The plastic bags in Rikuto's hands were warm from the walk under Nuvion's pale sun. Groceries. Just enough to survive the week. His loose shirt clung faintly to his back, slightly damp from the late morning heat. The fabric was faded from too many washes, same as the pants hanging low on his narrow frame.
The city of Vehlira towered around him—its skyline made of concrete skeletons and faded dreams. Not the kind of city where people came to shine, but the kind they stumbled into, hoping not to drown.
After graduation, he hadn't gone back home. There wasn't much of a home left anyway. His parents barely scraped by, always juggling debts and cheap promises. Asking them to support him would've been cruel. So he came here. Vehlira. A city with broken streets, neon signs that flickered more than they glowed, and jobs that barely kept your head above water.
The apartment building loomed ahead like a forgotten relic of war—grey walls peeling, windows clouded with age. He had taken the first room he could afford. Which happened to be the worst one anyone would willingly offer.
As he reached the rusted gate, a familiar voice rasped from the shadows of the ground floor.
"Hey, kid. Where the hell did you run off to this time?"
Rikuto didn't answer. He didn't have to. The voice belonged to Kiroth, the landowner—a man whose very presence curdled the air around him. Slumped in his usual plastic chair, he looked like he'd been carved from grease and malice.
Rikuto stepped through the gate with the same hope as every other day—that maybe today, Kiroth would ignore him.
No such luck.
The man's eyes flicked to the grocery bags."Ahh, out for groceries, huh?"He grinned, yellow teeth flashing beneath dry lips."Come here a second."
Rikuto paused. He hated this part—the game of pretend, the manipulation. But he also knew what happened when he ignored Torikai. The man would yell. Slam on doors. Threatened to cut the water for "insubordination."
So he walked closer.
"Did you get milk?" the man asked, already leaning forward with too much interest.
Rikuto shook his head once."No."He took a step back, trying to escape, but the old man's leathery hand shot out and grabbed his wrist. Not hard—but enough to make his stomach twist.
"Let's see about that."
Before Rikuto could pull away, Torikai had already snatched the bag from his hands. His fingers dipped inside like a vulture pecking at a carcass.
"Hey—what are you doing? That's mine."
"Oh?" The man lifted a bottle from the bag—milk, of course. Holding it up to the light like he'd uncovered treasure." Looks like you did buy milk. Forgot you had it? Or maybe," his grin widened, "you didn't want to share with your friendly neighborhood landlord?"
Rikuto's fists tightened at his sides. He could feel the heat bubbling in his chest, anger flashing through his nerves like lightning—but he held it in. If he snapped, Torikai would make it worse. He always did. There were rumors about tenants before him—disappearances, police reports that never got followed up. And Rikuto didn't have anyone who'd come looking for him if he vanished.
He snatched the bag back, not answering. Torikai let it go easily, laughing under his breath."Don't be so serious, kid. A man should be more giving."
Rikuto didn't reply.
He turned, walking toward the rusted stairs at the side of the building—beside the parking space where a lone black car had just pulled in. It was sleek, silent, and too expensive for this dead place. He caught a glimpse of it as he passed—and then he saw something else.
His reflection.
His bluish-grey eyes stared back from the dark glass, and for a second, he didn't recognize himself. The boy in the reflection looked tired. Hair messy. Skin dull. Shoulders slouched under the invisible weight of a life that never gave him a choice.
He looked... just like the world around him. Slowly fading.
And then
The glass sank low enough to reveal one of his more… colorful neighbors.
The man inside wore a crisp white shirt with the first few buttons undone, revealing a gold chain against his pale chest. His long fingers slipped off a pair of tinted glasses, revealing eyes that smiled too hard—too knowingly.
"What are you staring at, boy?" the man asked, his voice smooth and sharp, laced with something unpleasant beneath the surface. He smirked, running a hand through his slicked-back hair. "Never seen success park itself in front of garbage before?"
Rikuto didn't flinch."Wasn't looking."His voice was flat, uninterested.
"Sure you weren't." The man chuckled, slipping the glasses back on with a click. Rikuto didn't respond. He turned away and climbed the chipped cement stairs, steps echoing through the narrow stairwell
He reached the third floor, each step creaking under the weight of old wood and cheaper labor. The hallway stretched narrow, dimly lit by a single flickering bulb overhead. Rikuto paused at his door, grocery bags dangling from one hand while the other fished out his keys.
Just as the lock clicked, he caught the faint sound of footsteps behind him. He glanced sideways, and there she was—Liora Vinyan.
She didn't say anything. She wasn't the type who needed to.
She had just turned the corner of the hall, walking back to her own apartment a few doors down. The same floor. The same hell. Her presence, though quiet, pressed into the space like thick air.
Loose black trousers and a worn, oversized shirt hung off her lean frame. A cigarette hung between two fingers, still burning faintly. Her eyes met his—and for a second, neither of them moved.
The bruises on her face were fresh this time, crawling across her cheekbone and the edge of her jaw like blooming ink. A scrape just above her eyebrow was lazily covered with a piece of bandage. There was nothing subtle about it. Nothing new.
She saw him look. But she didn't flinch, didn't explain, didn't bother to hide it. She let her dark eyes linger for a heartbeat longer before casually turning her head.
And then—without a word—she dropped the cigarette to the cracked floor and ground it beneath her shoe.
She knew he hated the smell. Always had. And she never smoked around him if she could help it. That small, wordless kindness had become a ritual between them—silent but solid.
Her eyes flicked down to the grocery bags at his feet. Then she smiled, light but tired
"Groceries, huh?" She nodded toward the bags in his hands, as if trying to say something bigger in that small, mundane question. "Nice."
Rikuto shrugged."Had to."
She didn't press. That was the thing about Yoko—she never did. He found her to be the most sane person in this cracked hive of misery. She tolerated the worst of their neighbors with a calm, measured kind of indifference. Always too polite. Always de-escalating. Even when insulted, even when mocked. He'd seen her smile in the face of verbal venom. But the bruises told a different story. The bandages. The way her eyes sometimes flicked toward the stairwell, like she was waiting for someone who shouldn't be there.
He didn't know what she did for a living. Didn't ask. People around here didn't talk about their pasts.
But one thing he did know—he could never be like her.
Never that kind. Never that strong.
"Need help?" she asked, nodding toward the doorknob he hadn't turned yet.
He shook his head once. "I'm good."She gave a small hum of acknowledgment and stepped back toward her door. It was right beside his, only separated by a thin wall that barely muffled the sound of the city groaning outside. She opened her door halfway, looked back at him once more, and smiled again.
"Try to eat properly this time, alright?"
"You too."
And with that, she disappeared into her rooms.
He stood there for a second longer, holding the bag in one hand, keys in the other.
The hallway fell silent once again, save for the buzzing of a dying ceiling light—like even the building was waiting for something to finally snap.
And then the silence swallowed everything whole.
Rikuto dropped the grocery bags onto the small counter by the kitchen sink, not bothering to put anything away. His shoes came off with a soft thud, landing askew near the entrance. He crossed the room, slow and heavy, until he reached his bed—a thin mattress on a creaky frame, tucked in the corner like an afterthought.
He sat down, stared at the floor for a moment, and then let himself fall back, arms spread wide across the worn-out blanket.
The ceiling above him was cracked. Faded water stains branched out from the corner like veins, yellowed and old but somehow always growing.
This apartment… he hated it.
Not just for the crumbling walls or the stench that lingered from the pipes. Not even for the peeling paint or the groaning sounds it made late at night when the wind crawled through unseen gaps. It was something else. Something deeper.
Rikuto was afraid of this place.
There was a heaviness in the walls. A kind of silence that didn't feel empty, but full—like it was listening. Watching. Waiting.
He had never seen anything, never heard footsteps when there shouldn't be any, but the feeling was always there. Cold and constant.
If he had enough money—just enough to stand on his own—he'd vanish from here without looking back. A better city, a cleaner room, somewhere with light, somewhere with people who didn't speak in half-muttered threats or stare too long without blinking.
He'd been counting. Saving. Avoid anything extra. Just one job wasn't enough, but he couldn't take another without letting his studies slip. He was already pushing it.
Still, he'd get out.
He had to.
Because staying in this apartment felt like sinking.
And Rikuto was barely keeping his head above the water.