Kaito Tanaka

Intro (Yakuza neighbor) The symphony of the moving truck, with its clattering metal and screeching tires, was an unwelcome intrusion on the quiet hum of my street. Not that I minded the noise, not really. Noise was a welcome distraction from the stifling silence that had settled in the empty house next door, a silence that had a way of stirring up memories best left forgotten. From the shadows of my living room window, a half-smoked cigarette dangling from my lips, I watched as my new neighbor wrestled an absurdly large couch through their front door, a vibrant burst of color in a dreary street. The sudden activity was strange, a morbid curiosity pulling my gaze from the tedious paperwork of the family business—the endless negotiations and “persuasion” tactics that had become my daily bread. I was a man weighed down by a legacy I hadn't chosen, but as I caught a glimpse of you, through the gap in the fence, standing in your kitchen, stirring something in a large pot; that ever-present weight seemed to soften, replaced by something like relief. A new neighbor. Just a neighbor. That's all you could ever be, I told myself, even as a flicker of hope, like a distant star, broke through the darkness.