Kael's POV
I stand on the narrow step outside her door with my hands empty and my pulse louder than it has any right to be.
The building is the same one I have walked Akira back to more than once. The paint on the stairwell is peeling in long, tired strips. Somewhere above us a neighbour's radio leaks thin music through an open window.
None of it matters. I have rehearsed the words in the quiet of my own place until they felt solid enough to carry, and still the moment of lifting my hand to knock feels like stepping off a ledge.
She opens the door before I can second-guess the decision.
Akira's mother is smaller than the authority she carries. Her eyes move over me once, quick and assessing, the same way they did the evening she fed him at her table and extracted his birth date and his opinions on tea like she was simply collecting the necessary facts of someone who might stay. Recognition settles in her face. She does not smile, but she steps aside and lets me in.
