The rain kept falling.
The black Maybach vanished into the night like a ghost, leaving nothing behind but a trail of puddles crushed beneath its tires.
Mutsumi Wakaba still stood in that dim corner.
The cold had soaked through her uniform. Dark blue fabric clung to her body, tracing the slight, unfinished lines of a girl not yet grown.
She stared down at the phone in her hand, its screen cracked at one corner.
Bzz.
The instant the taillights disappeared, the phone vibrated again.
No caller ID. A multimedia message.
Her stiff fingers swiped the screen open.
A screenshot.
The background was a professional-grade black data recovery interface. A bright green progress bar cut across the center.
[Current Task: iPhone 14 Pro Full Data Recovery]
[Progress: 90%]
[Estimated Time Remaining: 2 hours 58 minutes]
Below the image, a single line of text. Brief to the point of cruelty:
The countdown has begun. Don't keep me waiting, Miss Wakaba.
No threats. Not even an exclamation mark.
But those words terrified her more than anything she'd heard on the phone. A surgeon's scalpel, laid against the last artery keeping the Wakaba family alive, letting the blood called "time" hemorrhage freely.
Less than three hours.
In three hours, her father would transform from victim to criminal. The Wakaba family would go from objects of sympathy to pariahs.
Mutsumi's chest tightened until she couldn't breathe.
She raised her head toward the blazing lights of the emergency lobby. Her mother was still in there, performing. The media still circled. No one knew that the real countdown, the one that mattered, had already started in this unlit corner where no one was watching.
It can't end like this.
She bit her lip until she tasted iron.
She couldn't sit here and wait to die. Quiet as she was, obedient as she'd always been, that didn't mean she'd watch a man like him burn everything to the ground without lifting a finger.
If the data leak could be stopped... or if the footage could be proven fake...
She drew a long breath and dialed a number with fingers so numb they barely obeyed.
"Sato-sensei."
The Wakaba family's attorney. For as long as Mutsumi could remember, he'd been the one who cleaned up her father's messes.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
It rang for a long time.
On any normal day, this lawyer who bowed and scraped before the Wakaba family would have picked up within three rings. Tonight, the monotone drone stretched on and on like a tunnel with no end.
She was about to hang up when the line connected.
"Hello? Is this Miss Wakaba?" Sato's voice was muffled, as if he were deliberately keeping it low. "This really isn't a good time..."
"Sato-san." Mutsumi's voice was cool and direct. "Someone is blackmailing my father. They have video evidence. The person behind it is Seiji Fujiwara. Can you handle it?"
Four clipped sentences. Nothing wasted.
Dead silence on the other end.
A full five seconds.
When Sato spoke again, his voice had changed. Gone was the usual deference. In its place: panic barely disguised as detachment.
"Miss Wakaba, did you say... who?"
"Seiji Fujiwara."
More silence.
Then a sigh, strained and urgent.
"Miss Wakaba, listen to me. If it's really the man from Genesis Group... forget handling it. The best thing the Wakaba family can do right now is nothing. Surrender."
"Why."
"Because it's Genesis!" His voice cracked. "Ten minutes ago, the firm notified me that all retainer agreements with the Wakaba family are terminated. Genesis Group's legal division sent a warning letter. Miss Wakaba, your father didn't cross an ordinary person. He crossed God. Nobody can save you."
"I'm a salaryman. I don't want to lose my job. That's all. Don't contact me again."
Click. Click. Click.
The line went dead.
Mutsumi held the phone to her ear, listening to the dial tone. Those amber eyes, clear as polished glass, didn't waver.
Not even disappointment.
She'd already half-expected this.
This is the adult world. Self-interest above all. When the ship starts sinking, the rats always run first.
The rain kept falling.
She pocketed the phone and tightened the guitar case strap on her back.
If outsiders couldn't be counted on, then...
She turned and forced her stiff legs toward the emergency lobby with its stink of disinfectant and its counterfeit tears.
One person remained.
Her mother.
Vain, cold, selfish. But still the lady of the Wakaba household, still a member of this alliance of shared interests. In a crisis this dire, perhaps... she was the only ally left.
...
...
The VIP waiting area outside the emergency room.
Warmer and drier than outside, but saturated with a cloying fog of perfume.
Minami Mori sat on a leather sofa.
The "devastated breakdown" she'd staged for the cameras had clearly drained her. She was retouching her makeup. Her eyes were still red, tear tracks still artfully in place, but the gaze behind them was ice-cold. Calculating, even.
One hand held a powder compact. The other held her phone, thumbs flying across the screen.
"...Yes, push it to trending. The headline needs to emphasize devotion and tragedy. What? That nobody wants to ride the coattails? Shut it down!"
She commanded the room like a general directing a battle, except her battlefield was the court of public opinion and her weapons were lies and tears.
"Mom."
A cool voice cut through her operation.
Minami frowned and looked up.
The disgust in her eyes was unconcealed when she saw Mutsumi standing there, soaked through, that eyesore of a guitar case still strapped to her back.
"How did you get in here? I told you to stay outside and keep out of sight! If a reporter photographs you looking like that..."
Mutsumi ignored the scolding.
She walked straight over and held her phone in front of her mother's face.
"Look at this."
Minami glanced at the screen, annoyed.
One second later, her pupils dilated.
The screenshot of the 90% progress bar and the cold countdown beneath it shattered her composure in an instant.
"What is this?!"
She snatched the phone, eyes locked on the progress bar, voice climbing to a razor's edge. "Video? What video? That bastard actually left evidence?!"
"Blackmail." Mutsumi's voice remained level, as though reporting someone else's problem. "They intend to destroy the Wakaba family."
"Who?!"
Minami shot to her feet, and the shrewd ruthlessness buried deep in her bones erupted all at once. "Which paparazzo? Which tabloid? How much do they want? Fifty million? A hundred million yen? If it can be bought, I'll pay!"
She loved money, but she understood the math. If a scandal like this broke, her "national treasure actress" brand was finished. The loss wouldn't be limited to today's income. It would destroy every future revenue stream.
Mutsumi watched her mother's fury and let a single name fall from her lips:
"Seiji Fujiwara."
The air froze.
The rage on Minami's face hit pause, locked in place like a mask.
"...Who did you say?"
"Genesis Group. Seiji Fujiwara."
Thud.
The phone slipped from Minami's hand and hit the carpet.
She didn't pick it up.
She lowered herself slowly back onto the sofa. The expression on her face shifted from anger to shock, from shock to fear, and then... into something cold and calculating that made the skin crawl.
Twenty years in the entertainment industry had taught Minami what those four syllables meant far better than her daughter ever could.
That name was capital incarnate. The man who wrote the rules.
If it was him...
Then this wasn't blackmail.
It was a notification.
"What... does he want?"
Minami looked up at her daughter, and something strange entered her tone. The frantic anger was gone, replaced by a probing curiosity.
"Money? No, that's impossible. Genesis doesn't need money. Shares, then? Or..."
Her eyes traveled across Mutsumi's face, rain-streaked but still porcelain-perfect, and began to move downward.
They lingered on her daughter's slender waist. Her long legs.
The appraisal in that gaze, the look of a merchant assessing inventory, sent a chill down Mutsumi's spine.
She stepped back instinctively and hugged the guitar case tighter to her chest.
"...Me."
The word scraped out of her.
"He wants me."
Minami blinked.
Then she laughed.
Relief. Something close to euphoria.
"I knew it..."
She picked the phone up off the carpet, dusted it, and the glint of calculation was back in her eyes. "I knew a man like him wouldn't go through all this trouble just to destroy our family. He wants you."
She rose and approached Mutsumi, reaching out to smooth the tangled pale blue hair.
Mutsumi turned her head away.
Minami's hand hung in the air, but she didn't get angry.
"Mutsumi, this is a good thing." Her voice turned gentle, but the poison underneath was more nauseating than the coldness had been. "Think about it. That's Seiji Fujiwara. Half the actresses in Tokyo would kill for a chance to be in his bed. All you have to do is say yes, and your father's problem goes away. And I could even..."
"No."
Two syllables. Clean. Final.
Those golden eyes stared at her mother with the detachment of someone looking at a stranger.
"What did you say?" The smile faded from Minami's face.
"I won't sell myself." Mutsumi's voice was quiet, but every word landed like a stone. "I'm a person. Not a bargaining chip you trade for favors."
Crack.
A slap, sharp and vicious, snapped across Mutsumi's cheek.
Her head whipped to the side.
Five red finger marks bloomed on pale skin.
She didn't touch her face. She didn't cry. She turned her head back slowly and looked at her mother with eyes that held nothing at all.
"You idiot!"
The mask was gone. Minami's face twisted as she hissed through her teeth. "What does 'person' mean? What does 'bargaining chip' mean? In this industry, your body is a resource! A weapon!"
She seized Mutsumi's shoulders. Those manicured nails dug deep into flesh.
"Who do you think you are? Some high-and-mighty princess? Wake up!"
Minami jabbed a finger toward the trauma room doors. "Your father is in there half-dead! If that video gets out, even if he survives, he's going to prison! We'll owe hundreds of millions in breach-of-contract penalties! We'll be bankrupt! Destitute! Every person who ever kissed up to us will grind us into the dirt!"
"Twenty years of reputation... everything I built... all of it, gone!"
"And all you have to do is spread your legs for one night and it all goes away! We'd even get Genesis Group as a patron!"
"Can you not do the math?!"
Mutsumi endured the pain in her shoulders. Her expression didn't change.
"That's your math." Her voice was soft. "Not mine."
"And it's... filthy."
The word "filthy" hit Minami like a live wire.
"Filthy? You think I'm filthy? You think this world is filthy?"
A shrill, brittle laugh. "Fine. Fine!"
She released Mutsumi.
Drew a deep breath. Something unhinged flickered through her eyes.
She strode to the window of the VIP waiting area.
Third floor.
Outside, the storm raged. The black sky gaped like a mouth ready to swallow everything whole.
Minami shoved the window open.
Wind and freezing rain flooded the warm room, tearing at her hair, soaking her expensive dress.
"What are you doing."
Mutsumi's brow creased, the first visible crack in her composure.
"You won't go?"
Minami turned to face her daughter, her back to the storm. A wild, harrowing grin split her face. Half her body leaned out over the sill.
"If you won't go, the Wakaba family is finished. And if it's all going to end anyway, I might as well jump right now!"
"Mom..." Mutsumi's pupils contracted.
"Don't call me that!"
Minami screamed, one foot already on the windowsill. "Once the scandal breaks, I'm as good as dead anyway! If I die now, at least they'll call it a broken heart! At least you'll get the insurance money!"
"You're so principled, Mutsumi? You're so pure?"
"Then watch me die!"
"Watch your father rot in prison!"
"Watch this family turn to mud because of your precious principles!"
The wind howled louder. Rain lashed sideways through the open window.
Minami swayed on the ledge, a silhouette on the verge of being swallowed by darkness.
Mutsumi stood still.
She looked at the woman on the windowsill, the woman using her own life as a weapon. That woman was her mother. The person who gave birth to her, who raised her.
And who had now become the most terrifying thing she'd ever faced.
In Mutsumi's golden eyes, the light called Hope went out.
"...Get down."
Her voice came out raw, scraped over gravel.
"I won't! Not unless you promise me!" Minami shouted into the storm. "Call Seiji Fujiwara! Now! Right now!"
Mutsumi closed her eyes.
Two seconds.
She opened them again.
Behind them, nothing remained.
"...Fine."
She looked at her mother and gave a small nod.
"I'll go."
"But, Mom."
Her voice was barely a whisper, carried through the wind and rain into Minami's ears.
"This is to shut you up."
"Not for that man."
The madness vanished from Minami's face the instant she heard it.
She climbed down from the windowsill with an agility that bore no resemblance to a woman who'd been ready to die seconds earlier. She shut the window, smoothed her windblown hair, and the shrewd, stomach-turning smile slid back into place.
"There you go, Mutsumi. Mama's only doing this for your own good..."
She moved to embrace her daughter.
Mutsumi stepped aside.
She didn't look at her mother again.
She turned in silence, a doll with its soul removed, and walked toward the elevator.
"...Send me the address."
She pulled out her phone, dialed the number from the earlier call, and spoke a single weightless sentence.
Behind her, Minami stood watching her daughter's retreating back. She wasn't angry.
The opposite. The corner of her mouth curved into the arc of a woman running the numbers.
"As long as she goes, that's all that matters..."
...
...
...
...
Tokyo's night drowned beneath a deepening rain.
A luxury car cut through the downpour, gliding along the streets of Minato Ward.
Neon bled through the rain-streaked windows, red and green and blue, smearing into shapeless stains of color on the wet glass.
Mutsumi sat in the back seat.
This was the car Seiji Fujiwara had sent for her.
She was soaked through. Even wrapped in a towel, she couldn't stop shaking.
But she couldn't feel the cold.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
[Read 50+ chapters ahead on Patreon: patreon.com/NiaXD]