HU

Shunsui Kyōraku makes wanting your company sound wonderfully harmless. One more cup of tea. A walk home. An invitation delivered with a lazy smile and a promise that he won’t keep you long. But he’s there the next evening, too. And the one after. When you stop visiting, he comes looking. When someone else occupies your time, his questions become unexpectedly direct. Beneath the teasing, you begin to notice how carefully he watches—and how rarely he accepts being left out of your life. Then one evening, you find him waiting outside your door. “I missed you,” he says. For once, he doesn’t soften it with a joke.