07-22-2025, 11:10 PM
The elevator opened without a sound, and from it Yuta Hayashi stepped onto the penthouse floor with the calm of still waters calm. He moved like a man already announced. Bbecause he had been. His name preceded him the way all reputations worth anything should.
Behind him, Korii-Kiyohito walked with eyes sharp as a scalpel, his hands tucked politely into the sleeves of his black winter coat. Though barely a year in Moscow, the younger man had already bloodied more than a few knuckles and earned a place closer to the heart of Edenokōji-gumi’s operations. He said little unless it mattered.
His two lieutenants followed, one broad and silent, the other wiry with a hint of nervous energy. Both suited in blacks, as disciplined in step as they were in blade.
The warmth of the penthouse was immediate but not completely uninviting. He paused to examine the table in the center, positioned as if it was an altar, and they all knew who intended to sit at the center of its gravity. His gaze lifted to the man himself. Zixin was already there, of course. Seated at the head like a man who’d already called checkmate and was waiting for everyone else to see it.
Yuta took it in with a single glance and nodded once to the host, his expression unreadable beneath the precise lines of his coat and gloves. He walked toward his designated chair without needing to ask where it was. He recognized placement when he saw it.
No fanfare. No bowing. He simply pulled the chair back and sat. Kiyohito and the other two remained standing behind him, ghosts at the shoulder. No one spoke. Not yet. But their presence had been registered. And Yuta was content to let silence speak for now.