The 366th Day

𝑪𝑯𝑨𝑷𝑻𝑬𝑹 𝑻𝑯𝑹𝑬𝑬: 𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑪𝑶𝑳𝑳𝑬𝑪𝑻𝑶𝑹.

Location: PRIVATE ROSARY

SEPTEMBER 16, 2025 | 12:30PM

——

While the Shark is busy measuring his office, the Prince is busy measuring his prey.

Vane Kenji sits inside a white marble gazebo surrounded by white roses, white stone, white silk cushions, and the kind of manicured silence only rich men mistake for peace. The private rosary spreads around him in perfect circles, every hedge trimmed into obedience, every petal curated toward softness. Even the air smells controlled. Rosewater. Wet marble. Expensive soil.

Kenji likes it that way.

Noise is vulgar.

Kaito has always been noise in a black suit.

On the tablet in Kenji's lap, Ren Ishida hangs mid-air between two shipping containers.

Kenji drags one gloved finger across the screen and enlarges the image. Dark hair caught wild by motion. Navy hoodie pulled tight across a lean frame. Sneakers worn smooth at the soles. Body stretched into a dangerous arc, all instinct, balance, and defiance.

The boy looks like gravity made a mistake and Ren has been personally exploiting it ever since.

Kenji smiles.

It does not reach his eyes.

At thirty-nine, he still has the face people trust before they know better. Beautiful, clean, too youthful under the noon light, with dark hair arranged in soft precision and features so composed they seem polished rather than born. The white linen suit only makes it worse. He looks angelic from a distance, which has always been useful. People are so much slower when they expect evil to arrive ugly. Adorable little survival failure. Humanity does stay committed to bad pattern recognition.

The video resumes.

Ren hits the far container, rolls, comes up laughing at something off-screen, then turns and looks directly toward the hidden camera.

Not at it.

Through it.

Kenji stills.

The footage cuts to another angle. University district. Gymnastics pavilion exterior. Ren vaulting a railing instead of using the stairs like a civilized person with knees he intends to keep. Another clip. A fire escape. Ren climbing fast, dark hair whipping across his face while two of Kaito's men fail to look competent in charcoal suits. Another. The Ishida residence perimeter. A blur of gray and black over roof tile, then a drop through hedges, then that ridiculous grin thrown toward Kaito's Maybach like a knife with teeth.

Kenji watches the same three seconds twice.

Then again.

Ren waves.

Mocking. Bright. Alive.

Kenji's fingers curl around the stem of a white rose resting on the table beside him. He does not remember picking it up. The thorns press into the leather of his glove. He keeps squeezing until the petals bruise under his thumb and the head folds in on itself, soft white collapsing into wet creases.

"Master Kenji."

A servant approaches the gazebo with his head bowed and a silver tray balanced in both hands. Not tea. A sealed card. A ridiculous relic of a house that still pretends ritual can make bloodlines respectable.

Kenji does not look up.

"The Shark has made his move," the servant says. "He has secured the Ishida boy."

Kenji taps the tablet once. The footage pauses on Ren scaling the fire escape, one hand extended toward the next rung, body suspended against rusted metal and dirty brick.

"Kaito always did have a taste for things he could not understand," Kenji says.

The servant remains very still.

Wise of him.

Kenji swipes to the next clip. Ren in the gym now. High bar. Chalked hands. Dark hair damp against his forehead. A body built like a blade disguised as a boy. He releases at the top of the arc and turns through the air with a violence so clean it almost looks like grace. The landing wobbles, recovers, holds.

Kenji's smile warms by half a degree.

Not affection.

Recognition.

"There," he murmurs. "That is not fear."

The servant says nothing.

Kenji sets the crushed rose on the marble table beside the tablet. Its petals leave a damp mark on the stone.

"Kaito thinks he is protecting him by putting him in a cage." Kenji's gaze stays on Ren's frozen face. "He does not realize I have been waiting for the cage to close. Wild things are so hard to collect in open air."

He resumes the video of the fire escape.

Ren shouts something down at the guards. The camera does not catch the words clearly, but the expression is enough. The arrogance. The playfulness under threat. The little visible refusal to be handled properly.

Kenji exhales through his nose, almost a laugh.

"Kaito thinks he bought a strategist," he says. "I know he bought a masterpiece."

The servant lowers his eyes.

"And masterpieces," Kenji continues, "belong to the collector with the sharpest eye."

He lifts the sealed card from the tray and opens it with one clean thumb. A brief message sits inside in narrow black print.

THE ASSET HAS ENTERED THE ESTATE.

Below it, a timestamp. A security route. A confirmation of Sato's intake file. So Kaito has already begun processing the boy into the house. Clothes. Rooms. Cameras. Schedules. Rules.

Kenji almost pities him.

Almost.

Kaito has always mistaken ownership for comprehension. He can buy the frame, the wall, the lighting, the armed guards, the biometric locks. He can dress a wolf in navy cashmere and call the softness strategy. He can build the cage as high as he likes.

But Kaito never learned how to look at beautiful things without trying to make them useful.

Kenji stands.

A bruised petal falls from his glove onto his white linen trousers. He brushes it away with mild annoyance, then walks out of the gazebo toward the rose path. The servant follows three steps behind, careful not to breathe too loudly.

At the end of the path, the city glints beyond the estate walls. Vane Tower rises in the distance, black and severe among the afternoon glare.

Kenji takes out his phone.

The call connects on the second ring.

A woman answers in a low voice. "Master Kenji."

"I need the old Rosary files opened."

A pause.

"All of them?"

"The ones Kaito thinks are dead."

Another pause. More interesting this time. "That will draw attention."

"So does beauty."

"From Mr. Vane?"

Kenji looks toward the tower. "From everyone who matters."

The woman's voice tightens. "May I ask why?"

Kenji watches a gardener trim a rose hedge with tiny silver shears, cutting away anything that dares to grow outside the shape assigned to it.

"I think it is time," he says, "that I become more involved in the family business."

"You mean Vane Group?"

Kenji chuckles.

The sound is soft, pleasant, and utterly without mercy.

"That too."

He ends the call.

For a moment, he simply stands there beneath the pale noon sun while the rosary breathes around him in white circles. The tablet remains on the marble table behind him, still glowing with Ren's paused face.

Defiant.

Uncollected.

Temporary.

Kenji slips the phone back into his pocket and turns toward the house.

"Let them have their night," he says.

The servant bows, though Kenji is not speaking to him.

"The Beast can play protector. Kaito always performs so beautifully when he thinks love is control."

He steps over the crushed rose without looking down.

"It will make it much more satisfying when I burn the house down to take what is mine."