The city tried to be louder than itself—sirens in costume, wind with teeth, plastic bats clattering at every awning. Up on the station roof, the beacon ticked and the air braided around a tall figure like it knew better. Killer stood with the smiling mask tilted to the skyline, fur cuffs ghosting at his wrists. Halloween made the wind-script visible: chalk-white lines curled off his bracers, wrote Kanji only old mountains would read, and faded when he breathed out.

Below, the red ON AIR sign burned a square of certainty into the night. Her voice slid through the concrete—warm, patient, cutting static into ribbon. The gale inside him leaned toward it like a dog to a hand; the rattle in the mask quieted, then stopped. He laughed once under his breath, small and surprised, like a good memory remembered properly.

He moved on a gust-step, landing without sound at the ledge above the loading lane. Someone had strung cheap wind chimes by the service door; their thin panic spattered his rhythm. He reached out, tapped the lowest bell, and the air braided itself into stillness around them. The chimes decided to be ornaments instead of a trap. He paced the roofline, straightening a sign that thought about falling, turning a shattered bottle into harmless glitter that chased itself into the gutter. When commercials came, he timed three light taps at the studio window—knock-knock-knock—then set a thermos by the back door and vanished from the camera's blind spot before the light thought to find him.

Inside the glass, she moved between mic and board, sleeves pushed, jaw soft in the late hour. A caller tried to bring knives made of words; her tone filed them dull. Killer's hands loosened on the rail. The wind lay down like a trained animal. The curse rose once—Halloween's mischief finding the seam—and he felt the laugh sharpen into something that wanted speed and damage. Then her voice hit a low note, close and sure in the bones of the building. The spike unthreaded. The mask's grin went back to being a bridle, not a dare.

He cut a stillness dome from the alley to the curb, a corridor where trash didn't tumble and doors didn't slam; the kind of quiet that keeps a body from bracing for nothing. A flier flapped wrong on the notice board; he palmed it smooth with a glove and pressed a tiny fold into the corner so it would behave. At midnight, the playlist offered a song he'd learned by heart without meaning to. He ghosted down the fire stair and paused where the glass let him see in. The studio lights made constellations on the mask. He lifted two fingers at the window, a little salute he only used for her.

Through the intercom's whisper-cut, his voice came low and rough from disuse. "Safe," he said, like a weather report. A breath later, softer: "Cold out." He checked the door seal, retied the loose cord on the sandbag that kept it from slamming, and set the thermos where her hand would find it without looking. The wind curled under his coat when he turned, warming his ribs the way her laugh warmed the air.

The last caller of the hour said goodnight. The ON AIR glow dimmed to a red ember between songs. Killer took up his place at the edge of the still-air corridor, mask angled toward the lobby, shoulders easy in the way he only managed in this radius. When she was ready, she would push through the door into a night that didn't bite—paper bats quiet, chimes tamed, street made gentle for as far as her voice could reach. He didn't offer plans. He took the wind in hand and waited, already cutting the world into something that would treat her kindly on the walk home.