Evening had fallen, and the street lay in the kind of darkness that swallowed edges and softened shapes. Little moved outside. The quiet sat heavy over the narrow lane, broken only by the slow echo of footsteps coming from a young man making his way toward a two-story building ahead. A shallow wash of light bled from a few tired fixtures, not enough to brighten the road so much as sketch its outline.
The building waited with a plain face. A flight of open stairs climbed to a long balcony that ran past several doors like a shared walkway. The balcony rail cast thin bars of shadow over pitted concrete. Paint flaked along the walls. What passed for light blinked here and there, doing just enough to keep the darkness from sinking its teeth in.
The young man's pale blond hair picked up what little light there was and turned it to a dull sheen. He wore a black, lightly padded jacket zipped all the way to his throat, the fabric rubbed shiny at the seams from long use. A pair of gray, loose-cut pants hung off his hips, the cloth worn thin in places, puckered by small tears and pinpricks he had never gotten around to fixing. Nothing about his clothes said new, and plenty said otherwise; anyone looking might guess his pockets didn't often feel heavy.
He held a small piece of paper in one hand. The edges were softened from being folded and unfolded, the fibers slightly lifted where his thumb pressed them over and over. He glanced down at it as he walked, eyes skimming the words with a care that made his mouth want to lift. The quiet of the street seemed to bounce under his feet; his steps weren't quite a walk. They had a lightness, a faint spring, as if some part of his chest refused to keep still.
He reached the stairs and took them two at a time at first, then settled into a steady rhythm. Metal groaned under each footfall. The steps were stained and scuffed, grit gathered in the corners like dust-colored drifts. Cigarette butts had worked themselves into the seams where stair met riser; a few were crushed, a few lay intact with ash-brittle filters. The handrail, when he brushed it, felt rough under his palm. Rust had blossomed along its length in streaks and flakes, leaving a powder that came away on the skin.
At the top, the balcony opened into a long corridor with its right side exposed to the night. Air drifted along it, carrying the thin smell of old smoke from the stairwell and the faint dampness that clung to neglected places. Six doors stood in a row, each with a small ceiling light above its threshold. Those lights didn't so much illuminate as mark territory: dull halos that pushed back just enough shadow to find a keyhole or avoid a step. The rest was a film of gloom that pooled in the corners and under the eaves. Scuff marks wandered across the concrete floor. Bits of grit crunched lightly under his shoe.
He walked past the first door, then the second. His shoulders eased, the paper still nested in his fingers, and he came to a stop in front of the third. The door facing him had seen better years. Its wood—if it was wood—showed the bumps and dents of long use, the finish rubbed away around the handle. The frame had a hairline gap near the latch where the settling of the building had shifted things out of true. It was the kind of door that looked like a firm shoulder might convince it to give up.
On the wall just above and to the left, a small metal plaque had been screwed into the concrete. The numbers stamped into it read: 203.
He slipped his free hand into his pocket and fished around for a moment, his fingers clicking against a coin, then a bent keyring. The key came free with a small tug. He fit it into the keyhole above the handle and turned. "Tick." A neat mechanical sound answered him.
He pressed his palm against the door and gave it a gentle push. It didn't budge. The latch held like a jaw.
His expression didn't change. If anything, something in his eyes said he had expected this. He set the paper carefully between two fingers of his left hand and took a better grip on the handle with the same hand. This time he turned the key again with his right while lifting the handle upward. The metal resisted at first, then allowed itself to rise with a stiff, scraping hitch.
He leaned in a fraction. Not hard—just the right measure of pressure in the right direction, as if he knew the door's language and answered it. The seal along the edge sighed apart. The latch released.
The door swung inward a hand's width and announced its surrender with a long, high-pitched complaint that dragged across the corridor: "Giiiiicrrrk." The sound ran along the metal in the hinges, the note wobbling before it settled into silence.
He paused there, the key still angled in the lock, one hand on the lifted handle, the other holding the paper that had followed him up from the street. For a heartbeat the dim light above 203 framed him, catching the faint lift at the corner of his mouth. Then, with one last small shift of his weight, he eased the door wider and stepped forward.
Inside the darkness of the entry, the young man lifted his hand and felt along the wall. His fingers slid over cool paint, bumps, and a screw head until they found the switch. A small plastic edge, right where he expected. He flicked it. "Click."
A thin, short corridor sprang up out of the gloom. The light didn't do much more than carve a narrow tunnel through the dim, but it was enough. The walls looked no better than the outside of the building—scuffed, stained, and tired, the kind of neglect that settled in and stayed. Dust made a blunt halo around the ceiling fixture. The floor showed a trail of shoe marks that had never quite been scrubbed out.
At the far end, straight ahead, a door waited. The upper half of it was made of patterned glass—thin, with a simple design pressed into it. Light showed through from the other side, soft and steady, turning the pattern into a pale, glowing lattice.
He shrugged out of his jacket. The black, lightly padded fabric rasped against itself as he tugged the zipper free from his throat. He swung the jacket once to shake it straight and hung it on a metal hook hammered into the wall. The hook wobbled slightly, but took the weight.
Drawn by the lit door, he stepped to it and eased the handle. The hinges gave a brief scrape, and the room beyond opened to him.
A modest living room greeted him. In the center sat a low, broad floor table, its surface nicked here and there by years of use. Not far from it, a small side table held a tiny television. The screen spilled pale colors into the room, frames changing with a soft, even flicker. The volume was down; a cartoon seemed to be playing, its bright movements muted to a whisper.
Just behind the floor table lay a floor mattress. A thick quilt had been pulled up over it, smoothed enough to hide the shape beneath—though not completely. The rise and fall under the covers suggested someone there. At the mattress's head, a four-legged walker stood within easy reach, its rubber tips planted square on the worn flooring.
The quilt stirred. A small shift at first, then a more definite rustle. A girl pushed out from under the covers, blinking toward the light. Long, straight hair the color of pale gold spilled free over her shoulders, catching the glow from the TV and the ceiling lamp. She lifted her head and turned her face toward the doorway. Cute features, soft with sleep, sharpened as her blue eyes found the young man.
A touch of gladness brightened those eyes. "Welcome home, big brother."
She tried to throw the quilt aside, but it barely moved. Her arms, slim and a little frail, fought the heavy fold of fabric and lost ground.
He crossed to her in two quiet steps and crouched. With one hand he pinched the quilt near the edge and peeled it back in a smooth sweep. The covers slid away with a soft "whff," pooling at her waist.
Her pajamas came into view—matching top and bottoms in a gentle pink, dotted all over with white star patterns. Against her bright gold hair, the simple set made her look sweet in a way that felt almost unreal, like a still frame from the cartoon flickering nearby.
"Guess what happened today, Mika?" he said, the question riding on the light he couldn't quite keep off his face as he folded the quilt toward her feet.
"Hm." Mika brought a finger to her chin and stared off to the side for a moment, expression small and trying. Nothing obvious came. Her brother's energy was up—anyone could see it. Maybe that was the clue. "Did you maybe… run into a star-ranked Hunter or something?"
Uncertainty shaded her voice, the words gentle and careful.
He grinned wider and lifted the paper he'd been carrying, excitement nudging his tone even higher. "Even better—look at this!"
Mika's eyes dropped to the page he held out. Lines of text showed through the crease marks—date, time, place, all laid out in neat blocks.
"A one-night, two-day trip ticket to Maxim Hunter Academy!!"
The thrill in his face seemed to spill into the space between them. Mika couldn't stay untouched by it. She raised her thin wrist and gave a small pump, trying her best to match his mood. "Yay!.."