Autumn wind threaded itself through the concrete canyons, a thin, bitter thing that tasted of rain and old asphalt. Streetlamps coughed and threw reluctant pools of light onto the wet pavement; the city beneath them held its breath, as if waiting for something inevitable to break.
Ken and Ayato walked side by side without speaking. Two silhouettes stitched into the night, two bodies carrying the same fatigue — the kind that settles into the bones after too many sleepless nights. They moved with the easy familiarity of people who had shared too many small defeats and too many quiet victories. There was comfort in that silence, a warmth that the cold air could not quite touch.
"You notice?" Ayato said at last, a low murmur barely louder than the wind. "We'll always come back here like idiots."
Ken shrugged, watching his breath mist in the lamp‑light. "Maybe we don't have anywhere else to go."
"Or maybe we just like complaining too much." Ayato's laugh was a small thing, genuine, the easy sound of someone who trusted the other would understand.
They found their usual place on the old iron railing of the bridge, sitting with their legs dangling over the drop. From there the city spread out in a scatter of light and lies — windows that held strangers' lives, headlights like slow, obedient fireflies, a river reflecting the sky's low, tired glow. For a while they listened to the water and the city's distant clamor and let the quiet settle over them like a cloak.
After a time the quiet bent toward something softer in Ayato's voice.
"If something happens to me, Ken… promise me you won't hate me. And don't do anything stupid."
Ken rolled his eyes, then exhaled in a long, exaggerated breath. "Why are you bringing this up again?"
"Promise."
Ken looked at him — at the curve of his jaw, the way his eyes crinkled when he tried not to smile. "Okay. I promise. But you're being melodramatic, as usual."
Ayato's smile was thin, not bright. "Sometimes tomorrow arrives faster than you think."
Ken did not answer. He watched the streetlight reflect off the raindrops on Ayato's jacket and found himself thinking of smaller things: the ridiculous taste of instant noodles at three a.m., Ayato's habit of cracking his knuckles when nervous, the way he hummed under his breath while repairing busted radios. Little things that look foolish until they are gone.
Then the air shifted. A low engine growl wound out of the fog, unusual and wrong in its silence. The sound gained weight and shape until a car — black as a shadow — slid into view, headlights off, moving like a dark thing that had learned to stalk.
Ken froze. "That's… odd."
Doors slammed. Four figures tumbled out of the night, faces hidden by hoods. Movement like quick knives. One heartbeat. Two. Then the first crack of a gunshot, sharp and unadorned, split the night. A second gunshot answered.
"Run, Ken!" Ayato's voice was the only clear thing left in the storm.
They broke into motion as if pulled by some wire. Rain turned traitor, stinging their faces and making the asphalt slick and treacherous. Boots slapped, breath ripped; the world narrowed to a concentric ring of fear. Ken could feel his own pulse in his throat — a steady hammering that made his stomach churn.
They ducked into a narrower alley, where the fog gathered like a shroud. The walls closed in; the lamps were gone and everything became a smear of shadow and sound. Ken shoved himself against the cold brick and tried to catch his breath, lungs burning.
His voice came out thin. "What the—"
Ayato crumpled down on one knee, and when Ken looked at him, the sight lodged itself like an unfair stone in his chest. Ayato's hand folded over his side, fingers slick with dark wetness. Blood, slow and stubborn, crept between his fingers, staining his skin the color of old wine.
"Ayato!" Ken's words were animal. He dropped beside him, hands trembling as he brushed back hair plastered to Ayato's forehead. "No—don't do this. Hold on."
"It's nothing," Ayato said, with a practiced attempt at nonchalance that did nothing to mask the sharpness in his breath. "Just a bullet… not that bad."
He tried to force a smile and it broke like cheap glass. "You know me… I'm tough."
"Shut up," Ken said, voice raw. "I'm calling for help. Don't—"
Ayato pushed his hand away with a gentleness that contradicted the urgency in the world. His eyes met Ken's and for a second, the rain quieted to something private.
"No," Ayato said. "Listen to me. You have to run. Now."
Ken's jaw mouthed at the absurdity. "I won't. I'm not leaving you."
"If you stay—" Ayato's voice faltered as if the words had to cross a canyon — "they'll kill you too. Those men… they work for OIMEN."
The name struck Ken like ice poured down his spine. OIMEN — a shadow in its own right, whispered about in alleys and in certain locked rooms. An organization that ate people and spat out loyalties. Ken's skin prickled; the night felt thinner somehow, as if the air had been pulled taut.
"OIMEN? Why? Why would they come after you?"
Ayato's face was a map of small torments. Rain traced clean lines through the blood on his cheek. "Because… I'm the White Wolf."
The words should have been nonsense, a joke, but they landed like a bell toll. Ken's world tipped; the city swam. The nickname carried weight, a legend half‑ruled and half‑feared. Ayato's mouth curved in a way that did not reach his eyes.
"I used to be one of them," he said. "One of their top people. Until I made a mistake."
The mistake — the phrase hung in the alley like a scent. Ken felt all the air leave him. Tears blurred the streetlight halo. "You—what? You traitor—"
"You're such a damned idiot," Ayato muttered with something like affection and regret.
A small, broken smile. "I can live with that. I can live with being a traitor. But I can't watch you die. Promise me — promise me you'll survive."
Ken's throat closed. "I—"
"Promise me," Ayato breathed, and the desperation in that single word was older than both of them.
"Okay," Ken said, choking. "I promise. But you hang on. We'll get out of this."
Ayato took Ken's wrist in a grip that was more plea than command. Up close, his eyes burned hotter than the dull streetlamps.
"Forgive me, Ken," he said — the words a broken thing.
Ken blinked. "What?"
Silence pressed in, and then Ayato spoke again, voice shredded by fatigue.
"No matter what happens… survive. Leave. Don't die with a criminal like me."
Ken's hand tightened around nothing. He could not imagine turning his back. "Even if you're the worst scum—"
"You're not allowed to die. Not like this. Go."
There was no time left for argument or logic. The world contracted to the pulse of his friend's beating. Ayato's hand clung to Ken's as if anchoring him to a promise.
Then, as if the present had peeled back to reveal a memory that had always lived underneath, Ayato's face softened in a strange, distant way and he was no longer the man dying in the alley but a younger version of himself — alive, laughing.
They were soaked to the bone in a different rain, younger then, on a makeshift training ground that smelled of wet grass and sweat. Ayato, shirtless in the downpour, had a wooden bat slung over his shoulder like some ridiculous, defiant banner.
"If you want to beat me, you have to learn how to fall," Ayato had said once, grin bright and water‑slicked. "I won't go easy on you."
Ken, knuckles raw, never did give up. "I'll never quit."
Ayato had reached out and helped him up then, palm steady and warm. "Because one day, you're going to save me."
The memory was a blade of light in the dark. Ken tasted salt for a different reason now.
Back in the wet alley, Ayato's movements were slow and final. He fumbled at the small firearm hidden in his coat, his hands trembling. "Since you won't leave while I'm alive… I have to die. Maybe that will make you go on."
"No," Ken croaked. "You can't—"
Ayato's finger tightened on the trigger. There was no melodrama in the motion, no grand speech; only a soft, decisive sound and then the sharp intake of Ken's scream.
"Ayato!" The name tore itself from his throat as if it might stitch the moment back together. Ayato slumped, collapsing forward into Ken's arms. The weight of him was solid, terrifyingly real.
The rain played a staccato on their jackets, loud and indifferent. It tried, uselessly, to wash the red from everything. Ken fell to his knees, hands slick and useless, palms pressing to his friend's chest as if to staunch a wound that could not be sewn.
A crunch of gravel announced movement — someone approaching. One of the attackers stepped into the dim light, a slow, deliberate figure. When the hood came off, the face was new to Ken but the eyes were a cold, corporate absence of mercy.
"Why?" Ken demanded, voice shredded. "Why him?"
The man's expression was harvested from stone. "Because he betrayed the blood," the man said, words like verdict. "And you—" he leveled Ken with a look that had no room for human error — "you are next."
Ken's brain blanked then, as if pushed out by a hard, white nothing. He tried to move — to crawl, to find a place to hide — but the world narrowed to the smell of wet pavement and the hot sting of something that took his vision: the bullet. It struck like a black blossom and the alley exploded into color, then dissolved into the thick, forgiving velvet of unconsciousness.
In that dark, as the world went distant and the rain became a far-off drum, a single thought formed and held fast: I will make them pay. All of them. Every last one.
It was not a prayer. It was a promise rooted in blood.