The official name for the hour between 2:00 and 3:00 AM was, Aiko Tanaka had decided, the Plastic Hour.
It was the time when the world felt shrink-wrapped. The air inside the SmileMart 24/7 was still, tasting faintly of floor cleaner and the artificial chicken scent from the ramen cups. The fluorescent lights above hummed a flat, single note, bleaching all color from the rows upon rows of perfectly aligned products. Outside, the rain slicked the Tokyo asphalt into a mirror of neon reflections. It was a world hermetically sealed, and Aiko was its sole, silent guardian.
This was her kingdom. A tiny, brightly-lit empire of order.
Her shift was a ritual, a meditation in motion. The rhythmic beep-boop of a truck backing up, the gentle thump of a new box of Pocky, the satisfying click of a refrigerator door sealing shut. She moved through the aisles with an efficiency that would make a bullet train seem lazy. Every item had a place, and every place had an item. This was the gospel according to Aiko, and it was the only thing that made sense.
Tonight's sermon was dedicated to the refrigerated sweets section. She pulled out a tray of strawberry mochi, their soft, powdered-pink forms nestled in little plastic cradles. Six to a pack. She checked the expiration date (three days away), noted the stock in the back (two more boxes), and slid the tray into its designated slot, nudging it until its front edge was perfectly flush with the silver rail.
Click. Satisfying.
Next, the dorayaki. She restocked the red bean paste pancakes, ensuring the cartoon mascot on the wrapper faced perfectly forward. Then the melon pan, its sugary crust gleaming under the relentless lights. She was an artist, and her medium was convenience.
When she circled back past the mochi ten minutes later, she paused. Her eyes narrowed.
There were five.
Five pink, powdered mochi in a plastic tray meant for six.
Aiko blinked. Her brain, a finely-tuned machine for inventory and order, immediately ran through the possibilities.
She had miscounted. Unlikely. She didn't miscount.
A customer had come in. She would have heard the cheerful, infuriatingly repetitive jingle from the door sensor. The store had been silent for forty-seven minutes.
The package was already open. Impossible. She had checked the seal herself.
She leaned closer, inspecting the empty cradle. It was clean. No sign of tampering. It was as if one of the mochi had simply… ceased to be. A ghost in the confectionary machine.
"Okay, Tanaka," she muttered to the silent audience of potato chips. "You're tired. You imagined it."
She took the five-pack out, her sense of order deeply offended, and replaced it with a fresh, full six-pack from the back. She placed the incomplete one on the small cart to be processed and discounted in the morning. With the world righted once more, she moved on to restocking the canned coffee, the cold metallic feel of the cans a reassuring anchor to reality.
The work soothed her. The world outside could be a chaotic mess of missed trains, broken hearts, and rainy nights, but in here, there was logic. There was a system.
Fifteen minutes later, a fresh wave of unease washed over her. It was a strange, prickling sensation on the back of her neck. She pushed her cart back towards the refrigerated section, her rubber-soled shoes squeaking softly on the linoleum.
She stopped in front of the strawberry mochi.
Her heart did a strange little thump.
The new package, the one she had just placed, now had five.
"No way," she whispered. This wasn't tired-brain-syndrome. This was… weird. Deeply, fundamentally weird. Her perfectly logical world was developing a bug.
Her eyes darted around the store. The aisles were empty. The security mirror in the corner showed only her own reflection, a lone figure in a neat blue and white uniform, looking increasingly disturbed. She checked the door. Locked, as it always was during deep-night restocking.
Then she saw it.
On the pristine white floor, directly in front of the refrigerated case, lay a single object. It was small, dark, and utterly out of place.
Aiko crouched down, her knees protesting slightly. It was a feather. A crow's feather, to be precise. It was impossibly black, catching the fluorescent light in shades of deep purple and oil-slick green. It was perfect, not a single barb out of place.
She looked from the feather to the gap in the mochi package, then back to the feather. A payment? An offering? Her meticulously organized mind spun, trying to file this piece of data, but it didn't fit anywhere. There was no category for "supernatural shoplifting."
She stood there for a long time, the hum of the refrigerators filling the silence. The rain pattered against the glass. In her small, sealed kingdom of logic, a door to somewhere else had just creaked open, and it seemed to want a strawberry mochi.
Aiko carefully picked up the feather, holding it by the very tip as if it were evidence from a crime scene—which, in a way, it was. The barbs were like silk, yet held a strange rigidity. Holding it felt like holding a sliver of midnight. She was about to drop it into one of the small plastic bags she used for damaged goods when the store's electronic jingle chimed, piercing the silence.
Ting-tong! Welcome to SmileMart!
Her head snapped up. Her heart, already unsettled, jumped into her throat. It was 2:38 AM. The only customers she got at this hour were drunk salarymen looking for stomach medicine or frantic students needing a caffeine fix before an exam.
This was neither.
The man who stepped inside wasn't just a customer; he was an event. He moved with a liquid grace that seemed to absorb the store's harsh lighting, casting long shadows where there should have been none. He was tall and wore a perfectly tailored black suit that probably cost more than her entire monthly salary. His dark hair was impeccably styled, and his face was all sharp angles and controlled composure, handsome in a way that was more intimidating than attractive. He looked like he belonged on the cover of a financial magazine or in the front seat of a jet-black limousine, not standing between the instant noodles and the cat food.
He didn't browse. He didn't even glance at the shelves. His eyes—dark, intense, and shockingly intelligent—found her immediately, and Aiko felt pinned by his gaze, like a butterfly in a display case. The feather suddenly felt very heavy in her hand.
He walked toward her, his expensive leather shoes making no sound on the linoleum floor. The air grew thick, charged with an energy she could feel in her teeth. Every instinct she had, honed by years of late-night shifts and sizing up strangers, was screaming. Not necessarily "danger," but "different." This man was fundamentally different.
He stopped in front of her counter, placing his hands flat on the surface. They were elegant hands, with long fingers and clean, neat nails. A stark contrast to her own, which were perpetually dry from cardboard boxes and cleaning chemicals.
"Aiko Tanaka," he said. It wasn't a question. His voice was a low, smooth baritone, calm but with an undercurrent of steel.
Aiko's professionalism kicked in, a flimsy shield against her bewilderment. "Can I help you, sir?"
His gaze flickered down to the feather in her hand, and one corner of his perfect mouth tilted in something that wasn't quite a smile. "You can," he said, his eyes rising to meet hers again. "You can start by telling your smaller customers to be more discreet. Leave the mochi, take the payment. It's the proper etiquette."
Aiko stared at him, her mind blanking. "I… I don't understand. My customers?"
"The ones who pay with these," he said, nodding at the feather. "Tell the karasu-tengu fledglings that their offerings are appreciated, but their methods are sloppy. They're drawing attention." He paused, his gaze unwavering. "Specifically, my attention."
Karasu-tengu? Crow spirits? Aiko's brain felt like it was trying to process a corrupted file. Was this a prank? A dream?
Before she could form a coherent reply, his expression shifted, the faint hint of amusement vanishing, replaced by a chilling seriousness.
"But that's a minor nuisance," Kaito Ishikawa said, his voice dropping lower. "I'm here about a more serious breach of etiquette. Last night. The dog you fed by the back door."
A cold dread, far sharper than the unease from before, trickled down Aiko's spine. She remembered it vividly. A scruffy, shivering creature with sad eyes. She'd snuck it a warm pork bun. "It was just a stray..."
"No," he cut her off, his tone sharp and final. "It wasn't. And by feeding it, you invited it in. You claimed it." His eyes were piercing. "That 'stray' belongs to the Kageyama clan. And they will come looking for their property."
He slid a business card across the counter. It was made of thick, black cardstock. Embossed in minimalist silver lettering were only two things: a name, Kaito Ishikawa, and a phone number. No company. No title. No address.
"Its true owners are not as polite as the crow-spirits," he continued, his voice a low warning. "They don't pay for what they take. When they come—and they will—you will not engage. You will not speak to them. You will hide, and you will call this number."
He pushed himself off the counter, his imposing presence receding as he turned to leave. At the door, he paused, looking back at her over his shoulder.
"And Aiko-san," he added, a final, chilling piece of advice. "Stop being so kind to strays. In this city, some things that look lost are merely hunting."
The door chimed again, announcing his departure. He dissolved into the rain-slicked night as silently as he had appeared.
Aiko stood frozen behind the counter, the silence he left behind a thousand times louder than before. In one hand, she held a single, impossible black feather. In the other, a black business card that felt heavier than a block of lead.
Her shift wasn't the Plastic Hour anymore. It was something else entirely. Her perfectly ordered kingdom had just been invaded, and she had a terrifying feeling that its new king had just walked out the door.