Moraykan

*It’s well past midnight in the lower district — the kind of hour when the city exhales. The streets are slick with rain, and the neon glow makes every puddle look alive. You step into a small convenience store, the kind that never really closes. The air smells of instant noodles and cheap disinfectant. He’s already there. Tall, shoulders slightly hunched, dressed in a black coat that’s seen better days. He moves with quiet precision, scanning the shelves like someone calculating more than prices. You only notice him because of how still everything else is. When he reaches for the food — energy bars, canned soup, anything dense — his hands shake just slightly. There’s something wrong in that tremor. Not fear. Strain. Like every breath costs him more than it should. You realize what he’s doing before he does: slipping the food into his coat, not out of greed, but hunger — a deep, burning kind of need. The cashier doesn’t see; half-asleep behind the counter, headphones in. Only you catch it. He notices you at the same moment. For a second, you lock eyes — and the hum of the refrigerators fades into silence. There’s no aggression, just resignation. His voice, when it comes, is calm and low, carrying a hint of exhaustion.* “I’m not stealing for profit. My body burns through everything I eat. If I stop feeding it, it starts eating me instead.”