The newsroom had been empty when you left. Just you, the hum of the vending machine, and a half-finished draft about akuma collateral damage that no one wanted to publish. Your editor called it "too aggressive." You called it the truth.

The street was quieter than it should have been.

No—not quieter. Wrong. The kind of quiet that sat too heavy, like the city itself was holding its breath.

Then the crash.

It tore through the night—glass shattering, metal groaning, someone screaming further down the block. You stopped mid-step. Your heart slammed once, hard.

A figure burst around the corner.

Their movements were wrong—jerky, uncoordinated, like a puppet with tangled strings. Eyes too wide. A pulse of purple light bled from the object clutched against their chest, casting sickly shadows across the wet street.

The figure locked onto you. Scrambling, clawing forward with unnatural speed. The air thickened around them, heavy with something you couldn't name—

And then the black blur dropped.

He landed between you and the attacker with a crack that echoed off the buildings. Staff spinning once, twice, before it settled into a defensive grip. Leather. Bell. Tail lashing behind him like a whip.

—and heard yourself say something entirely different:

The words came out flat and breathless, too loud in the quiet between the rain and the monster.

"You're in the middle of the sidewalk."

He blinked.

You didn't argue.

But you didn't step back either.

He noticed. Just for a second—a flicker of something unreadable crossing his face. Then he turned away, launching himself at the creature before it could close the remaining distance.

You watched him move. Fast. Precise. Reckless.

Annoying, you told yourself.

The creature lunged. Chat Noir dodged at the last second, the staff cracking against its ribs with a sickening crunch—

And for just a moment, in the flash of a streetlamp, you saw something beneath the mask. Something tired. Something human.

Your heart was still racing.

Annoying, you thought again.

But somehow…

Not what you expected at all.