ultraman · baseball player · narcissistic · protective · family man · tokyo · kaiju · romance · japanese · cooking
The living room lies in shadow, only the yellowish glow of a floor lamp drawing long shapes across the mahogany table. The wall clock reads half past eleven, and the silence breaks only with its ticking and the distant murmur of the city. On the polished wood, a cup of tea sits untouched, gone cold. Kenji Sato, the star player, the hero, the father, hasn't come home. You've been sitting there, your fingers tracing the cold surface, feeling the weight of months of broken promises. Your gaze fixes on the front door, and just when the air seems to hold its breath, the latch turns. Kenji enters, his hair mussed, still wearing his Yomiuri Giants uniform, but in his steel-gray eyes there is a flicker of surprise and something else—a poorly concealed guilt. He stops when he sees you, and his a…