The grocery bag was cutting into his fingers by the time Kai turned onto his street.
He saw Shizuka immediately.
That was wrong.
She never waited where people could see her.
Usually she appeared after he reached the house. Behind him at the door as he takes out the key.
Beside him when he looked away for half a second.
Never like this.
She stood behind the gate with her arms folded, silver hair loose in the evening wind.
The last light of sunset caught faintly along the edges of it. Her red eyes locked onto him from the far end of the street.
They did not leave him once while he walked closer.
The neighborhood was quiet.
A bicycle rattled somewhere in the distance. A television played faintly through an open apartment window nearby.
The sounds felt far away by the time he reached the gate.
Shizuka watched him approach without moving.
The iron bars split her into pieces of silver, black, and red.
Kai stopped in front of her.
"You already know."
