"I told you my oldest sister, Mihoshi, got me into modeling," Kise began. "And you know I've had girls claim to be my girlfriend because I'm semi-famous."

He took a breath. "Those were minor annoyances," he said. "I've mostly just ignored them. Because they're not stalkers."

He set his drink down. "I was seven when this happened, and Mihoshi was seventeen. She started the year before. Anyway, there was a fan who really liked her work. It was innocent at first; she was friendly and thought he was a friend. And it went south pretty quickly. He asked her out, and since he was, like, twenty-five, she turned him down. He went nuts. He turned into a stalker, would find out where her shoots were, go to them, and eventually, he started threatening her. Saying if she didn't go out with him, he'd make her pay.

"The police wouldn't do anything, not at first. Saying it was harmless and ignore it. But it was terrifying for all of us. Especially for me, since I had just started modeling too.

"Eventually, it got resolved. He assaulted dad, and dad's like me, doesn't have a violent bone in his body. He broke dad's arm, but he finally went away after that."

He let out a full-body sigh, feeling himself deflate a little, but in a good way; it was nice to get that out. He had never told anyone before. "So, that's why I'm the way I am, why I'm so slow to trust, why it takes so much for me to respect someone. Maybe it was the wrong move, but I didn't want to put my family through that. It hurt my sister so much. Hurt us. It felt like it was us against the world for a while. Why I'm cold to others, why I wait for them to prove themselves to me first before letting them in."

"But I'm glad I opened my world up to you."