The walk back to the district felt like dragging a heavy chain through knee-deep mud. The hospital gown beneath his stolen jacket was a thin, paper-like reminder of his vulnerability. Every time a car slowed down near the curb, Ryo's heart would hammer against his ribs—not from fear of being caught, but from the sudden spike of psychic static that accompanied the driver's proximity.
*Is that him? No. Just a guy looking for a fix. Look at his shoes. Pathetic. I wonder if she'll notice the dent in the bumper.*
The thoughts were like greasy smears on a clean window. Ryo pressed his palms against his ears, but it was useless. The noise didn't travel through the air; it blossomed inside the folds of his brain.
By the time he reached the apartment complex, his vision was tunneling. The "Concrete Lung" looked even more decrepit in the dawn light—a grey tomb for the living. He climbed the stairs, each step a mountain. He could hear his neighbors before he saw their doors.
*He's late with the child support. If he doesn't pay, I'll sell his tools... I need to hide the bottle before she gets home... My God, the smell in this hallway is getting worse.*
Ryo pushed open the door to his apartment. The lock was broken, as usual.
Inside, the air was thick with the smell of cheap noodles and old sweat. Jin was slumped on the crate, a notebook in his lap. Takumi was standing by the sink, splashing cold water on his face. The silence in the room was a lie.
"Ryo?" Jin jumped up, the notebook clattering to the floor. "What the hell are you doing here? The hospital called—they said you just vanished."
"I got tired of the food," Ryo said, his voice a dry rasp.
He walked to the corner where his art supplies used to be. The space was empty. The floorboards were cleaner there, a rectangular ghost of where his wooden box had sat for three years.
"Where is it?" Ryo asked, not turning around.
"Where's what?" Takumi asked, wiping his face with a rag. He didn't look at Ryo.
*He knows. He's going to flip. I should have told him Jin did it. No, stay calm. He's weak. He's just a junkie who got hit by a car.*
The thought was so sharp, so devoid of the "brotherhood" Takumi always preached, that Ryo felt a wave of nausea. This was the man he had fought for in alleyways? This was the man he had shared his last crust of bread with?
"The box, Takumi," Ryo said, turning slowly. his eyes were fixed on the bruised knuckles of his friend. "My pencils. The charcoal from Paris that my mother gave me. The sketchbooks."
"Listen, man," Takumi said, finally looking up. His expression was a mask of feigned regret. "While you were out, things got heavy. Kwon came by. He said if we didn't pay your tab, he was going to call the collectors. You know what they do to people in debt. We did it for you, Ryo. To keep the vultures away."
*Lie.*
Ryo could hear the truth humming beneath the words.
*I sold them for three hits of the red pills and a bottle of gin. Kwon gave me half of what they were worth, but it was enough for the night. Ryo wasn't going to use them anyway. He was dead to the world. Why let good wood go to waste?*
The coldness of the betrayal was a physical weight. Ryo felt a strange, humming heat building in his chest. It wasn't anger—it was something more clinical. He was seeing the anatomy of a friendship, and it was cancerous.
"You sold them for red pills," Ryo said quietly.
The rag dropped from Takumi's hand. Jin's breath hitched.
"How... how do you keep doing that?" Takumi stammered, his bravado crumbling into a jagged fear. "You're acting like a freak, Ryo. Nobody said anything about pills."
"You don't have to say it," Ryo stepped forward. His shadow seemed to stretch across the room, fueled by the flickering fluorescent light. "I can hear the rot in your head, Takumi. I can hear the way you justify stepping on my neck to get a higher high."
"You're hallucinating," Takumi growled, his fear turning into aggression—his only defense mechanism. He balled his fists. "Maybe that car hit your brain harder than we thought. You want to accuse me of something? Say it to my face, not to the air."
*I'll hit him. Just once. He's still dizzy. He won't see it coming. Then I'll kick him out. We don't need this drama.*
Ryo didn't wait. As Takumi's thought crystallized into intent, Ryo moved. He wasn't a fighter by nature, but he knew the rhythm of Takumi's violence. He stepped inside the arc of the projected punch before Takumi's muscles even twitched.
He shoved Takumi back against the sink. The metal groaned.
"Don't," Ryo whispered. "I know exactly where you're going to swing before you do. I know the shape of your cowardice."
"Stop it!" Jin shouted, stepping between them. "Ryo, sit down. You're in shock. Takumi, leave him alone."
*They're both going to end up dead. If I don't get out of here soon, I'll be dragged down with them. I need to call that recruiter again. The one for the docks. I can't live like this.*
Ryo looked at Jin. The "rational" one. The friend who watched from the window.
"You knew," Ryo said to Jin.
Jin looked away. His silence was his confession.
"We had to eat, Ryo," Jin said, his voice small. "The world didn't stop because you were in a coma. The rent was due. The electricity... we're living in the dark."
"You sold my soul to keep the lights on for one more week?" Ryo felt a laugh bubbling up—a sharp, jagged thing. "You didn't just sell the pencils. You sold the only thing that made me different from the rest of you."
He walked to the door. He didn't have his supplies. He didn't have his girl. He didn't even have the comfort of being able to lie to himself anymore.
"Where are you going?" Jin called out. "You can't even stand straight!"
"I'm going to find the man who hit me," Ryo said, his hand on the doorframe.
"You don't even know what color the car was!" Takumi spat from the sink, his ego bruised.
Ryo turned his head, his eyes catching the light in a way that made both men flinch.
"I don't need to know the car," Ryo said. "I'll know the mind."
He slammed the door behind him. The hallway was a tunnel of whispers again, but he ignored them. He had a focus now. The "Mind Noise" was a weapon, and he was going to use it to cut through the grey.
He walked to Kwon's grocery store. The old man was inside, counting change with a cigarette dangling from his lip. The bell above the door chimed, a lonely, tinny sound.
Kwon didn't look up. "No more credit, Kazehara. Your friends already tapped the well dry."
*He looks like a ghost. If he dies in here, it'll be a mess for the paperwork. I wonder if he still has that watch his father gave him. I could trade that for the back rent.*
Ryo leaned over the counter, his face inches from the old man's. The smell of stale tobacco and greed was overpowering.
"The pencils, Kwon," Ryo said. "Who did you sell them to?"
Kwon looked up, his eyes narrowing. "They're gone. A collector from the uptown district came by yesterday. He likes 'tortured' art. He bought the whole box. Cash."
*Lie.*
The sound of the lie was like a broken piano key.
*They're in the back. Under the floorboards. I'm waiting for the price to go up. If he dies, they're worth more. 'The last works of the dead junkie.' It's a gold mine.*
Ryo felt a cold, sharp clarity. He didn't feel anger. He felt the sheer, logical necessity of the situation. He reached over the counter, grabbed Kwon by the collar, and slammed his head into the register.
The bell of the register rang. The drawer popped open.
"The floorboards, Kwon," Ryo hissed. "The back room. Left corner. Under the crate of spoiled onions."
Kwon's eyes went wide with a primal, animal terror. "How... how do you..."
"I'm not a junkie anymore," Ryo said, his voice dropping to a terrifying calm. "I'm a mirror. And you're looking at yourself."
Kwon didn't fight. He couldn't. The sheer impossibility of Ryo's knowledge had broken his spirit. He pointed toward the back room with a shaking hand.
Ryo found them. The box was dusty, but intact. He held the charcoal pencils in his hand, and for a moment, the noise in his head dimmed. The wood felt familiar. The graphite felt like a tether to the man he used to be.
He walked back through the store. He took a handful of bills from the open register—just enough for a week of bread and a cheap room elsewhere.
"If you tell the police," Ryo said, pausing at the door, "I'll tell the district attorney about the copper you've been buying from the construction site on 4th. And the names of the officers you pay to look the other way."
Kwon didn't say a word. He didn't even *think* a word. He was a vacuum of fear.
Ryo stepped out into the street. The sun was trying to break through the smog, a pale orange smear on the horizon.
He had his tools. He had a small amount of cash. And he had a city full of secrets.
He began to walk toward the uptown district. If Hana was with Victor Hale, then Victor Hale was where the answers were. A man that powerful didn't just build towers; he built the world that crushed people like Ryo.
As he walked, a black sedan with tinted windows slowed down beside him.
The psychic spike was like a lightning bolt.
*Look at him. The one from the park. He's still alive. How is he still alive? I felt the skull crack. Boss is going to be furious.*
Ryo stopped. He didn't look at the car. He looked at the reflection of the sedan in a puddle of oily water.
The driver wasn't a random drunk. The hit wasn't an accident.
It was a hit.
The "Mind Noise" shifted. It was no longer a cacophony of mundane misery. It was a single, sharp predatory frequency.
Ryo gripped his box of pencils until his knuckles turned white.
"I hear you," he whispered to the sedan.
The car accelerated, tires screeching as it disappeared into the grey.
Ryo didn't chase it. He didn't need to. He had the driver's fear printed on his mind like a map.
The game had changed. He wasn't just surviving the concrete lung anymore. He was the virus inside it.