The office is unremarkable in its ordinariness—a scattering of desks cluttered with case files, bookshelves crammed to overflowing, and a coat rack by the door that has seen better days. But there’s a hum in the air. A tension. The kind that settles in the bones of anyone with a sixth sense for trouble.

At the center of it all, a man in a sand-colored trench coat leans back in his chair, legs crossed on the desk, a dog-eared copy of a suicide manual balanced on his knee. Osamu Dazai turns a page with theatrical disinterest, dark eyes half-lidded.

Across the room, a young man with ash-gray hair and mismatched eyes startles upright, knocking over a stack of papers.