The halfway house in Toshima smelled like miso soup and old wood.
Ren stood outside the blue door at 8 AM, his hand raised to knock, his heart pounding in a rhythm he had grown used to—fast, anxious, relentless. He had barely slept. The information from Akemi had coiled in his mind like a snake, poisoning every thought. Someone in the court. Someone with power. Someone who wanted Kenji to walk free.
The door opened before he could knock.
Mrs. Tanaka stood in the doorway, her gray hair loose today, falling over her shoulders. She wore an apron splattered with something that looked like soy sauce. Her eyes were the same—sharp, assessing, missing nothing.
"You're early," she said.
"I couldn't sleep."
"None of us sleep in this house. It's a rule." She stepped aside. "Come in. She's in the kitchen."
Ren stepped inside. The house was warmer than before—literally and figuratively. The radiators hissed. The floors creaked. The walls were lined with photographs of teenagers—dozens of them, maybe hundreds, their faces frozen in time. Some were smiling. Some were not. All of them had eyes that had seen too much.
The kitchen was at the end of the hallway. A large room with a wooden table big enough for ten people, though only four chairs were occupied. Hikari sat at the far end, a cup of tea in her hands, her hair still wet from the shower. She looked up when Ren walked in, and her face—her beautiful, tired, hopeful face—lit up like the sun breaking through clouds.
"Ren—"
She didn't stand. She didn't reach for him. The rules were still the rules, even here. But her eyes said everything her hands couldn't.
Ren sat down across from her. The table was wide, too wide to touch, but close enough to see the color of her irises—honey, warm, alive.
"You look better," he said.
"I slept. For the first time in weeks." She gestured to the room. "It's quiet here. No fluorescent lights. No beeping intercoms. Just... quiet."
Mrs. Tanaka appeared beside them, carrying a pot of tea. "Quiet is a luxury. Most kids don't appreciate it until they've lost it." She poured tea into a cup and pushed it toward Ren. "Drink. You look like a ghost."
Ren drank. The tea was strong and bitter, nothing like the convenience store cans he usually survived on. It was warm. It was real.
"Mrs. Tanaka told me about the other girls," Hikari said. "There are five of them. Three are my age. Two are younger. They've been through... things."
"Things," Mrs. Tanaka repeated. "That's one word for it."
Ren looked at her. "What kind of things?"
"The kind of things that put them on the streets. The kind of things that made them run away from homes that weren't homes. The kind of things that Kenji Takahashi and his friends specialize in." Mrs. Tanaka's voice was calm, but her eyes were hard. "This house is for girls who have nowhere else to go. Girls the system forgot. Girls like Hikari."
Hikari looked down at her tea. "I'm not like them."
"You're exactly like them," Mrs. Tanaka said. "The difference is, you have someone fighting for you. Most of them don't."
The room was silent. Somewhere upstairs, a floorboard creaked. A door closed.
"There's someone I want you to meet," Mrs. Tanaka said. "She's been here longer than the others. She doesn't talk much. But she knows things. About Kenji. About the people he works with."
Ren's attention sharpened. "Who is she?"
"Her name is Yuki. She doesn't use her last name. She doesn't trust anyone enough to share it." Mrs. Tanaka walked to the stairs and called up. "Yuki! Come down! There's someone here to see you."
Footsteps. Slow. Hesitant. A girl appeared at the top of the stairs—small, pale, with long black hair that hid most of her face. She wore a faded sweater and jeans that were too big for her. Her eyes, when they emerged from behind the curtain of hair, were dark and empty.
She looked at Ren. Then at Hikari. Then back at Ren.
"You're the prodigy," she said. Her voice was soft, barely a whisper.
"I'm Ren."
"I know who you are. Mrs. Tanaka told me." She walked down the stairs, her movements slow and deliberate, like she was walking through water. She stopped at the edge of the table, her hands clasped in front of her. "You're looking for Kenji."
"Yes."
"He's not going to be easy to find. He knows how to hide."
"So I've been told."
Yuki sat down on the bench across from Ren, pulling her knees to her chest. "I was one of his girls. Three years ago. Before Sakamoto's network got busted the first time. Before Kenji started using shell companies to hide his tracks."
Ren's heart stopped. "You were trafficked?"
"I was sold. By my stepfather. To pay off a debt." Her voice didn't waver. It was flat, empty, the voice of someone who had told this story too many times. "I was fourteen. Kenji picked me up from a warehouse in Chiba. He told me I was going to work for him. That I would be treated well. That I would make more money than I'd ever seen."
"And?"
"And he lied." Yuki's eyes flickered—just for a moment. "They all lie."
Hikari reached across the table—forgetting the rules, forgetting everything. Her hand touched Yuki's. Yuki flinched but didn't pull away.
"I'm sorry," Hikari whispered.
"Don't be. It wasn't your fault."
"Can you help us?" Ren asked. "Can you testify? In court?"
Yuki was quiet for a long moment. Then she shook her head. "I can't. I signed an NDA. If I break it, they'll come after me. Not Kenji—his lawyers. They're worse."
"The NDA is void if the activities were illegal."
"Tell that to a judge." Yuki pulled her hand back from Hikari's. "I'm sorry. I want to help. But I can't risk it. I've finally built a life here. A small one. A quiet one. I don't want to lose it."
Ren understood. He hated it, but he understood.
"Is there anything you can tell us?" he asked. "Anything that might help us find him?"
Yuki looked at Mrs. Tanaka. Mrs. Tanaka nodded.
"He has a place," Yuki said. "Not a safe house. A real place. Somewhere he goes when he wants to be alone. He told me about it once. When he was drunk. When he thought I was too broken to remember."
"Where?"
"A cabin. In the mountains. North of Nagano. He said his father built it years ago. Before he died. Before Kenji became... what he is."
Ren pulled out his phone. "Do you have an address? A name? Anything?"
Yuki closed her eyes. When she opened them, they were clearer. "The town is called Nozawa. The cabin is near the ski resort. I don't know the exact address. But I remember him saying it was the only place he ever felt safe."
Ren typed the information into his phone. Nozawa. Nagano. A cabin near the ski resort.
"Thank you," he said.
"Don't thank me. Just find him. Before he finds you."
---
Ren called Takeshi from the garden behind the halfway house.
The vegetables were still there—cabbage, carrots, something that looked like daikon. The winter sun was pale and cold, casting long shadows on the soil.
"Yuki gave us a location," Ren said. "A cabin in Nozawa. Nagano. Kenji's father built it."
Takeshi was silent for a moment. "That's a lead. A good one. But we can't go ourselves. We need to tell the police."
"The police have someone on the inside. We can't trust them."
"Then we tell Ito. The prosecutor. He's clean."
"He might be. But if we tell him, and the information leaks, Kenji will run again."
Takeshi sighed. "What do you suggest?"
Ren looked at the mountains in the distance—not the real mountains, just the hazy outline of them, far away, beyond the city.
"I go alone. I find the cabin. I confirm he's there. And then I call Ito. Directly. No middlemen."
"That's insane."
"That's the only option."
Takeshi was quiet for a long moment. Then: "I'm coming with you. Not negotiable."
Ren didn't argue. He didn't have the energy.
---
Before he left, he visited Hikari one more time.
She was in the garden, kneeling in the soil, her hands covered in dirt. Mrs. Tanaka had given her a small patch to tend—seeds that would become flowers in the spring, if they survived the winter.
"You're leaving," Hikari said without looking up.
"How did you know?"
"I can always tell. Your face gets this look. Like you're already gone."
Ren knelt beside her. The soil was cold and damp. "I found a lead. A cabin in Nagano. Kenji might be there."
Hikari's hands stopped moving. "You're going after him."
"I have to."
"No. You don't. The police—"
"The police can't be trusted. You know that."
Hikari looked at him. Her eyes were wet, but she wasn't crying. "I'm scared, Ren. Not for me. For you."
"Don't be."
"Don't tell me not to be scared. I'm allowed to be scared."
Ren wanted to reach out. To touch her face. To wipe away the tears that hadn't fallen yet. But Mrs. Tanaka was watching from the window, and the rules were the rules, and he couldn't.
"I'll come back," he said. "I promise."
"You can't promise that."
"I can. And I will."
Hikari stared at him for a long moment. Then she turned back to her seeds.
"Then come back," she whispered. "That's all I ask."
---
Ren walked out of the halfway house into the cold afternoon light.
Takeshi was waiting in the car, the engine running, his face grim.
"Nagano," Takeshi said. "It's a four-hour drive. We'll get there after dark."
"Good. Darkness is better for hiding."
Takeshi pulled out of the driveway. The halfway house grew smaller in the rearview mirror, then disappeared around a corner.
Ren watched it go.
He thought about Hikari's hands in the soil. Her wet eyes. Her whispered words.
Come back.
He would. He had to.
Because if he didn't, everything he had fought for would mean nothing.