Chapter 7: The Spiral

Leon never liked attention.

Not because he was shy, or socially anxious, or emotionally fragile. He just wasn't used to being noticed, and now that he was, it felt like wearing shoes that didn't belong to him. Slightly too tight. Slightly too loud.

And getting tighter.

The week passed slowly, but everything around him sped up.

Strangers began nodding at him on the street. Not friendly nods. The kind that carried weight. The kind of nod that said, I see you, and I know what you could do to me.

One guy held a door open for him and called him "sir" without irony.

Someone left a black envelope under his apartment door. No return address. Inside was a crisp note:

"For future influence. Hold it until you need it."

Under the note: a key. Old-fashioned. Iron. Cold to the touch.

Leon didn't use it. He just stared at it for a while, then put it in the same drawer as the coin and the unmarked keycard.

He was collecting mystery like some people collected stamps.

But it wasn't until the night of the rooftop encounter that things started really spiraling.

It started with Elira.

She didn't knock. Didn't text. She was just there—leaning against the wall outside his building, dressed in a slate-gray coat and black gloves, like she'd stepped out of a high-budget noir film.

"Are you free?" she asked.

Leon blinked. "Not sure. I might have to meet my landlord in a dream to negotiate rent."

She didn't laugh. She never did.

"I want to walk," she said.

Leon looked at her, then at the sky.

It was drizzling again.

"You picked the one weather that makes my hair look like static cling."

She was already walking.

So he followed.

They didn't talk for the first few minutes. Just the sounds of footsteps and distant traffic, broken occasionally by a siren or a bark.

Finally, Elira spoke.

"Do you trust Mira?"

Leon frowned. "I trust that she likes expensive flowers and ominous errands."

Elira's eyes stayed forward.

"She plays kind. But she's patient in ways most predators aren't."

"I don't think she's—"

"Sayaka's worse," Elira interrupted. "She'll test your weaknesses. Use affection like a blade."

Leon stuffed his hands in his pockets.

"Are you listing my potential love interests or warning me about gang tactics?"

Elira stopped walking.

She turned to face him, eyes narrowed, unreadable.

"I'm saying they're moving around you like you're the center. And I don't know if you realize it yet, but you've already chosen how this ends."

Leon met her eyes, unsure if she was threatening him, protecting him, or trying to figure out how close she could stand without losing control.

He was still working out how to answer when Mira showed up.

She stepped from a black car that had been parked silently down the street. She wore midnight blue, her hair half-loose over one shoulder, a small bouquet of violet orchids in one hand.

Elira's expression didn't change. But something behind her eyes sharpened.

Mira approached slowly, heels soft on the wet concrete.

"Elira," she said with the soft disdain of someone using the name like it was an insult.

"Mira."

They didn't look at each other. They both looked at Leon.

"Are you done with him?" Mira asked. "Or was this another attempt at gauging loyalty?"

"He follows no one," Elira said calmly. "He only walks with those he permits."

Leon blinked. "I'm literally just here because I was bored and didn't want to reheat leftovers."

Mira stepped closer. She offered him the bouquet. "For you."

"I have no more vase space."

"Then keep them near your bed. The scent wards off certain people."

"I'm pretty sure that's just good ventilation."

Elira watched the exchange in silence. Calculating. Cold.

And then Sayaka appeared.

Leon didn't even know how she got there.

One moment, it was two women. The next, Sayaka was leaning casually against a lamp post across the street, arms folded, dark red coat fluttering slightly in the breeze.

"You all look like you're rehearsing a Yakuza opera," she said.

Leon turned slowly. "Do you guys… have a group chat I don't know about?"

Sayaka's eyes landed on Mira, then Elira, then him.

"Just checking the pulse," she said. "Didn't want him disappearing without saying goodbye."

"I'm not disappearing," Leon said.

"Not yet," Sayaka replied.

The street was silent now. Just the three of them. No pedestrians. No cars. Just tension.

It didn't feel like jealousy.

It felt like surveillance. Calculation. Each woman measuring the others like pieces on a board they didn't agree on the shape of.

Leon slowly stepped back.

"I think I'm gonna go home."

No one stopped him.

Not because they didn't care.

Because, in that moment, none of them wanted to be the first one to make a move.

So he walked away. Down the street. Into the night. Into the only kind of peace he could get anymore—the kind that came just after everyone else decided to wait.

And behind him, the three women stood in stillness.

None of them trusted each other.

All of them trusted him.

Too much.