Mia crossed her arms slowly, leaning against the doorfra with a look on her face that was doing a lot of careful work to appear casual. "You were gone all night."
"Ayaka and Rina needed help. I told you she wasn’t feeling well yesterday."
"She was sick." Flat.
"She was." He kept his tone even. "But she’s better now. I stayed to make sure."
Mia was quiet for exactly three seconds. Her gaze travelled to i-san, then back to him. Then she pushed off the doorfra and walked over, stopping a foot in front of him.
She looked up at him, and sothing complicated moved through her expression: relief and possessiveness and the remnants of a sleepless, worried night all cramd into one look.
"Next ti," she said quietly, "you tell ."
"I’ll do that."
She held his gaze for a mont longer. Then, she grabbed the front of his jacket and pulled him down to kiss him. It was a fierce kiss, and she gripped the fabric tightly. She had made her point without saying anything. He let her.
When she let go, she smoothed the front of his jacket with both hands. "Good. Bring them back safe."
The hallway went quiet.
Akira straightened up and reached for the bag, and then he made the mistake of looking at i-san.
She was still at the kitchen counter, both hands wrapped around her cup, watching the spot where Mia had just been standing.
Her expression was doing a lot of quiet work... she wasn’t looking jealous exactly, nor was it anger. It was sothing older and more complicated than either of those things, sitting right behind her eyes in a place she clearly hadn’t expected to have to manage this morning.
She felt him looking and glanced over.
The expression smoothed out fast... she was good at that, and she offered him a small, composed smile. "You should get going."
He didn’t move right away. "i-san."
"Akira-kun."
"Are you okay?"
The question landed, and she didn’t answer imdiately, which was its own kind of answer.
She set her cup down slowly, looked at it for a second, and then looked back at him. Whatever she’d been smoothing over was still mostly there, but she let a little of it show at the edges. Just enough.
"She’s my niece," i-san said quietly, matter-of-factly. "I’m aware of the situation. I’ve always been aware of the situation." She exhaled through her nose. "That doesn’t an watching it is always easy."
Akira didn’t try to fix it with words.
He crossed back to the counter, leaned down, and pressed a kiss to her temple, sothing that wasn’t an apology but was adjacent to one.
She closed her eyes for exactly one second.
"Go," she said softly. "Before I change my mind and keep you here."
He almost smiled. "I’ll be back before lunch."
"You’d better be." She picked her cup back up, the composure fully restored now, and waved him off without looking at him again.
The gesture was so i-san that sothing in his chest felt the weight of it.
He grabbed the bag and headed for the front entrance. He was three steps from the door when his phone buzzed. Unknown number.
He stopped.
The screen showed a single text ssage: Impressive work at the festival. We should talk.I’m downstairs.-V
The system notification flooded his vision at the exact sa mont.
[NEW THREAT DETECTED: ALPHA-CLASS SIGNATURE WITHIN 5KM]
[IDENTITY: VALERIUS ASHFORD — INCUBUS LORD]
[WARNING: HE KNOWS YOUR LOCATION]
Akira stood completely still, bag in hand. He looked down at the phone, then up at the doors.
"Darling," Ai said, very quietly. "You’re approaching Mid-Boss tier power levels. Valerius will sense this. He already has."
"Good," Akira said. "Let him co."
"That’s exactly what he wants. He’s baiting you into a direct confrontation."
Akira pocketed the phone slowly.
He pushed open the front door and stepped outside.
As soon as he got to the lobby, Akira saw him imdiately.
Valerius Ashford was standing near the reception desk, and the first thing Akira couldn’t help but notice, was that the man looked like he’d been designed to be looked at.
He was tall, maybe two inches above Akira, with the kind of build that filled a suit without straining it.
The suit itself was dark navy, no tie, collar open exactly one button... the kind of intentional casual that cost more than most people’s rent.
He had a sharp jaw, dark hair swept back loosely, and features that were almost too perfect, like soone had assembled them with the specific goal of making people forget what they were doing mid-thought.
He was talking to Mrs. Fujiwara from the third floor. She was sixty-two years old, had lived in Rosewood for eleven years, and right now she was giggling like a teenager, one hand pressed to her collarbone, eyes bright in a way Akira had genuinely never seen on her before.
Two other residents had drifted over from the mailboxes and the side entrance without any obvious reason. They were just... standing nearby... listening... orbiting.
"Alpha-class pheromone passive," Ai murmured in the back of his skull. "He’s not even trying. That’s just baseline ambient effect. Everyone in a twelve-ter radius is mildly intoxicated right now."
Akira kept his breathing even and walked across the lobby.
Valerius clocked him before he was halfway there.
He didn’t startle, didn’t adjust... he just turned, the way a man turns when he’s exactly where he planned to be, and smiled. It was a warm smile. Easy. The kind that made the person receiving it feel like they were the only one in the room.
But Akira felt nothing.
The Essence Shield effect ford a quiet buffer, and whatever pheromone cloud was floating through the lobby hit his essence layer and dispersed.
He stopped three feet away. "You texted."
"I did," Valerius said. His voice was low, pleasantly modulated, with a faint accent Akira couldn’t quite place... sothing European, older than any living dialect. He looked at the bag in Akira’s hand. "Out running errands this early? You must have had a long night."
"Longer than I expected." Akira kept his face neutral. "What do you want?"
Valerius’s smile didn’t change, but sothing behind it shifted, like a small upward tick of appreciation. Like Akira had passed an opening test simply by not flinching or asking how do you know about my night?
He turned back to Mrs. Fujiwara and gave her a short, gracious nod. "I apologize for monopolizing your morning. A genuine pleasure, Fujiwara-san."
She made a sound that was technically words but mostly wasn’t.
He extended his hand to Akira. "Valerius Ashford. I’d say it’s a pleasure, but I want to be honest with you from the start... I think it will be."
Akira looked at the hand.
"Power test," Ai said imdiately. "He’ll push a probe through the contact point. Wants to gauge your actual depth without a direct confrontation."
"I know."
He shook it.
The contact was brief... maybe two seconds, but in those two seconds sothing pressed against the outer edge of Akira’s essence like a hand against a locked door. It felt controlled, precise, and not aggressive... just asuring.
Akira kept his own energy calm and steady, just as Ai had once advised him: don’t push back, don’t retreat. Let them feel the wall without knowing how deep it goes.
Valerius released his hand.
The smile had shifted again. It was more real now, less perford. "Hm," he said, quiet enough that only Akira heard it. "You’re stronger than I expected."
"You keep saying that like you expected anything."
"I did expect things." Valerius gestured toward the lobby exit, easy and unhurried. "Walk with ? This isn’t a conversation for an audience."
Akira set the bag down behind the reception desk... the attendant on duty barely noticed as she was still slightly glassy-eyed, and followed him outside.
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