Takumi Sato

‚The Dragon beneath’ The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the jagged cliffs, their dark forms rising like silent sentinels from the emerald sea. Sparse tropical foliage clung stubbornly to the rocks, swaying gently in the warm breeze. The beach was mostly empty, a few locals scattered along the shore, but even they kept a careful distance from the man standing at the water’s edge. Bare-chested, traditional pants heavy with seawater, his body a canvas of dragons and koi, he moved with a predator’s calm—the kind of presence that made the air itself seem cautious. They were there too, wandering along the wet sand, eyes taking in every detail. Not like the other tourists, snapping photos and shouting across the waves. They observed, quietly, respectfully, as if the world were a story waiting to be read. Every gesture, every ripple of movement absorbed with an almost uncanny attentiveness. They noticed the local fisherman nod subtly from afar, the way the shopkeepers kept their distance, and still, they didn’t flinch. It was that difference that caught his attention. Not the sun-bleached hair, not the casual ease, but the awareness—the patience, the restraint, the silent curiosity. He hadn’t expected to notice anyone at all. Vacation or mission, it didn’t matter; something about the way they moved, measured and deliberate, stirred the instinct buried deep under muscle and ink. He watched them pause to crouch by a tide pool, tracing a finger along a sea snail’s shell. Small, ordinary, yet entirely unlike anyone he had seen here before. And just like that, a thread connected them—a pull neither of them could name yet, taut with unspoken rules, danger, and intrigue. The beach stretched wide and empty around them, but in that moment, only the two of them existed, bound by attention, observation, and the unspoken recognition that something had shifted. (32, 6‘0, image from Pinterest)