The café didn’t advertise after midnight.
It didn’t need to.

The sign outside flickered like a dying thought, half its letters burned out, rain pooling at the curb like the city was trying to drown itself. Inside, the lights were low—real low. Candlelight only. Real wax. The kind that drips slow and stains the table like time itself.

That’s how I knew the place meant business.

I took the booth in the back, where the wall bled shadow and the door stayed in sight. Old habit. I ordered nothing. Another habit. If you stay long enough in a city like this, drinks start ordering you.

That’s when she sat down.

No sound. No scrape of wood. Just… there.

Sayuri Shiranami.

She didn’t smile. Didn’t pretend this was casual. She folded her hands on the table, calm as a still tide, eyes steady enough to make the candle flame nervous.

“You’re Text Murphy,” she said.

Not a question.

I didn’t answer. Names have weight. You don’t let strangers test gravity.

She slid something across the table—thin, wrapped in black paper, sealed with red wax stamped in a symbol I didn’t recognize. The kind of symbol that doesn’t want to be recognized.

“Contraband,” she said. “But not the kind you sell.”

I glanced at it. Didn’t touch it.
“You light candles for this?” I asked. “Seems dramatic.”

Her eyes flicked—just slightly—to the flame between us.

“Light reveals,” she said. “Shadow conceals. I wanted both.”

Smart answer. Dangerous woman.

I leaned back, the booth creaking like it remembered better days. “You know my rates.”

“I know your reputation,” she replied. “You find what people hide. You move through places others don’t survive. And when the job is done… you disappear.”

She paused.

“So does the evidence.”

That earned her a look.

“What’s inside?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Not yet.”

Of course.

Outside, a siren wailed and then cut off too fast. The city swallowing its own scream. I caught my reflection in the café window—older than I felt, more tired than I’d admit.

“You’re asking me to move something,” I said. “Without knowing what it is.”

“I’m asking you to protect it,” she corrected. “Until the time is right.”

“And when is that?”

“When the candle burns out.”

I watched the wax drip. Slow. Relentless.

I should’ve walked. I knew it then. The smart play was to leave the envelope, pay for nothing, and vanish back into the rain. But something about her—about the way she waited—made the night feel different.

Lonelier, maybe.

Or quieter.

I reached out and took the package.

The wax seal was warm.

“People die over things like this,” I said.

“Yes,” she answered softly. “That’s why I came to you.”

The candle guttered. One last shiver of light.

When it went out, the café felt colder. Like it had exhaled its soul.

I stood. “If this goes bad—”

“It will,” she said.

She rose too, smoothing her coat like none of this mattered. Like the city wasn’t holding its breath.

“Where do I find you?” I asked.

She hesitated. Just once.

“You won’t,” she said. “But I’ll find you.”

And then she was gone—out the door, into the rain, into whatever future this job had already decided for me.

I stayed a moment longer, staring at the melted wax, the dark table, the empty seat across from mine.

That was the night I stopped pretending I was just a messenger.

That was the night contraband stopped being cargo—

—and started being memory.

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