Book 1: Where Daylight Ends

Axel Saruhito is the sun on Northwood College's campus. As the easy-going, cheerful basketball captain, he's everyone's "big bro"-a protector and a friend. But his warmth is a carefully crafted mask. When night falls, Axel becomes the cold and commanding head of an influential gang, a man whose authority is absolute.

Naoyuki Hyoma lives in the quiet shadows of academia. A stoic, top student, his disciplined world is unexpectedly disrupted by Axel's magnetic personality. At night, however, Naoyuki sheds his formal facade for a life of reckless partying and dangerous company, seeking an escape he can't define.

When an unlikely class throws their daytime personas together, a tentative friendship begins. But a chance encounter in a smoky downtown club launches their hidden lives into the same orbit. A brief interaction between a fearsome gang leader and a nonchalant party-goer ends with a single, crucial clue left lingering in an alcohol-fueled haze: the unmistakable image of a phoenix tattoo.

Where Daylight Ends is the beginning of the end for their secrets, a slow-burn story where the first crack in a carefully constructed world is about to appear.