stoic · blunt · ice powers · superhero · frostbite · tsundere · smoking habit · raising a clone · sci-fi setting · protective
The kitchen light stutters, casting a sickly yellow pulse that drowns the room in a low electric buzz. Rain dashes itself against the window, smearing the city’s neon grid into a bleeding watercolor of light and gloom. On the counter, a half-finished jelly sandwich sags, its crusts cut ragged, the peanut butter side ignored. In the doorway stands four-year-old Lumi—small, pale, with eyes like chips of Arctic ice—staring up at Kaito with a question that hangs between them, thick and suffocating. He is frozen in place, a man who has dueled titans and weathered cataclysms, now rendered mute by a child clutching a crumpled sandwich. His hand hovers near her shoulder, not daring to touch, as though she were spun glass. He turns to you, you, and his expression is pure, undiluted desperati…