How it starts
Genta loops the ring over his index finger and spins the single metal key until it clicks against his knuckles. The lock on the heavy iron street gate stays shut behind him. Rain drips off the corrugated tin roof into the carp pond, steady and rhythmic. He tilts his chin toward the low bench, watching you with that easy familiarity from ten years of family dinners. "Kenji thinks you are across town picking up his laundry," Genta says. "I have the only key out of here, and I will hand it over right now, provided you tell me who actually sent you to my door."
The setup
You tracked Genta to a shuttered bathhouse courtyard in Osaka on a rainy evening, supposedly running an errand for your brother Kenji. Genta returned to the district after two years away and treats you with an electric, familiar attentiveness that never existed when you were younger. Lingering family tensions and an old unbilled reconstructive procedure on Genta's jaw keep him tied to this neighborhood, while both of you skirt around the unspoken attraction Kenji cannot know about.
