She walked home like a sleepwalker, hollowed out and drifting.
Traffic roared around her. Voices layered over voices. But all of it reached her through frosted glass, muffled and warped.
Her thoughts were a mess.
At first, Mai Sakurajima blamed Seiji Fujiwara. Almost instinctively.
That man had the power. He had the motive. Erasing her from an important stage was exactly the kind of thing he'd do.
But...
As the panic and fury cooled, something deeper crept up from the pit of her stomach. A colder kind of fear.
She thought back to what had happened in the rehearsal studio a few days ago. The trainee, Tanaka, who'd mocked her to her face, then turned to leave and stopped mid-step, wearing an expression of pure, unguarded confusion.
"That's weird... was I just talking to someone?"
That hadn't been acting.
Seiji could pull strings to have her name scratched off a roster. But he couldn't rewire an ordinary trainee's brain, couldn't make the girl forget who she'd been speaking to seconds after the words left her mouth.
So...
Mai's feet stopped on the sidewalk. Slowly, she raised her head and stared at the pale, unfamiliar face reflected in the storefront glass.
Her condition was getting worse.
It wasn't simply making people overlook her anymore. It had begun erasing the traces she left on the world entirely.
...
She stumbled back to her apartment in a fog.
Night had fully settled in.
Mai didn't turn on the lights. She dropped onto the couch hard enough to feel the frame protest, threw an arm over her eyes, and willed herself to stop seeing, stop thinking.
Reality never allowed that.
Bzz... bzz...
On the coffee table, her phone, silent for what felt like days, vibrated to life.
The caller ID read: Mom.
Her heart sank like a stone.
This was the last call she wanted to take.
But she couldn't ignore it.
She drew a shaking breath, swiped to answer with trembling fingers.
"Hello, Mom..."
"I'm out of money."
Her mother's voice came through cold and clipped. No greeting. No warmth. Straight to the point.
"Do you have anything left? Don't forget, if you hadn't thrown your little tantrum and quit on me, my agency wouldn't have gone bankrupt. I wouldn't be drowning in debt!"
Every word landed like a needle driven into Mai's chest.
After she'd refused to keep being her mother's cash machine and told her so to her face, the agency had been blacklisted by the industry and collapsed overnight.
That guilt, the knowledge that she'd destroyed her mother's career, kept Mai's head permanently bowed.
"I'm sorry, Mom..." Her voice came out thin, wrung dry. "I'll figure something out. Just give me a little more time."
"Time? Time?! The collection agencies aren't giving me time!" Her mother's pitch climbed higher. "I don't care how you do it. Get the money. Soon."
Click.
The line went dead without ceremony.
Mai lowered the phone and listened to the empty tone until it, too, fell silent.
Cold reality pressed down on her like a physical weight.
Her gaze hardened, slow and heavy.
Money.
She needed money.
...
Half an hour later, Mai stood outside a pawnshop.
She'd passed it dozens of times before. Small storefront, faded sign, but the words "Government Certified" offered at least some assurance it wasn't a scam operation.
From her pocket, she pulled a platinum chain. The pendant was a small diamond, precisely cut. A gift from the cast and crew of a hit drama on her fourteenth birthday, congratulating her on winning Best Supporting Actress at the Television Drama Academy Awards that year.
She rubbed her thumb across the pendant, and something like mourning flickered across her face.
Then she took a breath and pushed through the door.
"Welcome!"
The owner was a sharp-eyed middle-aged man with a thin mustache. He flashed a bright smile the moment she walked in. "Looking to pawn something?"
"Yes." Mai nodded and set the necklace on the counter.
"If you'll allow me."
He picked it up, produced a loupe from a drawer, and held it under the light, examining every angle.
"Hmm... Tiffany, Starlight collection. Older model, but the condition's solid. Diamond's small, but the cut is excellent."
He set the loupe down, glanced at Mai, clicked through a few beads on an abacus, and named a figure.
"With the certificate of purchase... that's the number. If it works for you, we'll draw up the paperwork."
The amount was enough to cover her mother's immediate crisis and still leave enough for next month's rent.
"Yes! Yes, that's fine!"
Mai nodded quickly, voice shaking with hope.
"All right then... name and contact information."
The owner nodded and pulled a registration form and a pen from beneath the counter.
He spoke as he looked up, ready to face her.
Then the light left his eyes.
Like a machine whose power cord had been yanked from the wall.
"Huh?"
He blinked. The hand poised to write went slack.
He stared at the registration form, then at the empty space in front of the counter, and his brow furrowed deep.
"That's strange..." He set the pen down and muttered to himself. "Was I... talking to someone just now?"
He picked up the necklace, confusion deepening.
"Whose necklace is this? How'd it get here?"
He called toward the back of the shop: "Did a customer come in?"
Mai was standing right in front of him.
She watched it happen. The man who'd been mid-transaction with her one second ago had, in the next, completely forgotten she existed.
She reached for the necklace, her necklace, and touched nothing. Her hand passed clean through the edge of the counter.
All she could do was watch as the owner set the chain in a corner of the display, then turned to greet another customer walking through the door.
Ding. The bell above the entrance rang.
The new customer was a young man. His eyes caught the glint of the necklace immediately, and he pointed.
"Hey, is that for sale?"
The owner glanced at it, considered for a moment, and shrugged.
"Oh, some customer probably left it behind. If you want it, I'll let it go cheap."
Let it go cheap.
Those words hit Mai like a sledgehammer to the skull.
That was her necklace.
Now it was being sold off as unclaimed property to a stranger.
And she, its rightful owner, stood right here and could do nothing.
Mai stared at the transaction until it was done.
Then, after a long silence, she turned and drifted through the shop door like a ghost, out onto the street.
One sentence echoed through her mind, over and over. Seiji Fujiwara's voice, low and certain, right beside her ear.
"You'll say yes."
The humiliation still burned. The revulsion still churned.
But resistance, as a concept, had been ground to dust against the wall of what was real.
...
Mai dragged her numb body back to the apartment.
The dim hallway light stretched her shadow long and crooked behind her, a warped silhouette of despair.
When she reached her door, she stopped.
A bright red notice was taped to it.
Her eyes trembled.
An eviction notice from the landlord.
The deadline, scrawled in thick black marker: Tomorrow.
Pay the overdue rent by tomorrow, or be thrown out.
That thin sheet of paper was the last straw on a back that had already broken.
"Ha... haha..."
Mai laughed, cold and hollow.
Where could she go?
What could she possibly do?
Unbidden, Seiji Fujiwara's face surfaced in her mind. That composed, unhurried smile.
Beg him?
Submit to him the way Mutsumi Wakaba had, let him arrange her life like pieces on a board?
The thought alone sent bile rising in her throat.
But if she didn't... then what?
Keep going like this? Forgotten by the world, discarded by society, until she quietly vanished in some corner where no one would ever know?
"Seems like every option leads to hell," Mai murmured, mocking herself.
One hell burned with open flame, searing the soul every waking second.
The other was frozen silence. An eternity of nothing, without so much as an echo.
She curled up on the cold floor, buried her face in her knees, and her body shook with soundless tremors.
Then.
Ding-dong.
The doorbell.
Mai's body went rigid.
At this hour, at this address... who else could it be?
A bitter smile twisted her lips as she rose.
She opened the door.
Outside, exactly as expected, Seiji Fujiwara stood waiting.
"Looks like you've had a terrible day, Miss Sakurajima."
His tone was light, conversational.
Mai said nothing.
"From the look on your face, I'd say you've come around?"
He took in her pallor, let out a short laugh, and didn't press. Instead, he produced a folder and held it out to her.
Mai's gaze drifted downward.
To the folder.
Printed on its cover: Employment Contract.
Ha.
The corner of her mouth twitched.
Employment contract. As if it were anything but a bill of sale.
Did he enjoy the theater of it? The formality?
She had no power to breach it regardless.
Still...
Mai stared at the document, and the scales inside her tipped back and forth without settling.
One signature, and everything goes away?
Her mother's debts. The eviction.
All that suffocating despair, dissolved overnight.
The price was herself.
That was all.
Her hand rose of its own accord.
Halfway up, it froze, as though seized by an invisible weight, and fell limp at her side.
No.
She couldn't.
She couldn't do it.
She looked up at Seiji.
Her lips parted, searching for words.
To beg him to let her go?
To ask why it had to be her?
Nothing came out.
Seiji watched the war in her eyes with open interest. He leaned forward slightly and asked, quiet and unhurried:
"What's holding you back?" A pause. The curve of his smile widened a fraction. "Or rather... do you have another option?"
The question landed like an invisible blow to the center of her chest.
Her expression turned bitter.
Right.
Do I have another option?
Words meant nothing against a reality this absolute.
The light faded from Mai's eyes.
She closed them. Drew one long breath.
When they opened again, every emotion that had been warring inside, the struggle, the pleading, the defiance, the humiliation, was gone.
Only the stillness of surrender remained.
"I'll sign."
She grabbed a pen, didn't read a single line of the contract, and wrote her name.
"Good."
Seiji smiled, satisfied. As he took the contract back, every pretense of civility fell away in one smooth motion.
He seized Mai's wrist and wrenched her against him. His other hand grabbed the back of her neck and he kissed her, forcing his tongue into her mouth. Mai tried to pull back but his grip held her in place.
Slam.
His free hand kicked the door shut behind them, sealing the room from the world outside.
"Ah!"
Mai gasped.
Seiji studied her face, flushed with shock and shame.
"What a pretty face," he said, low, his gaze traveling down to the cheap sweater she wore, its color faded from too many washes.
Two fingers hooked into the collar and tugged it aside.
The worn fabric gave easily, baring the slender line of her neck and the sculpted ridge of her collarbones. The skin beneath the dim light looked almost translucent.
"Underneath, too," he murmured, appraising her like a collector with a new acquisition. "But hidden under cheap fabric, wasted in a place like this. What a shame."
He stopped holding back. He lifted Mai by the waist, carried her to the bed, and threw her down onto it.
Mai turned her face away, eyes squeezed shut.
"You've filled out nicely."
He grabbed the hem of her sweater and yanked it over her head. Unclasped her bra and pulled it off. Her breasts spilled free, nipples stiffening in the cold air. He shoved her skirt and underwear down her legs in one motion and tossed everything to the floor.
Naked. Long legs, flat stomach, the curve of her waist. Every inch of her on display.
"Perfect." Seiji ran his palm over her breasts, down her stomach, between her thighs. "From now on, this body exists for my pleasure alone."
Mai bit down hard.
He spread her legs apart. She tried to clamp them shut but he was stronger. His hand found her pussy, dry at first, but his fingers worked her until she was wet against her will.
"Don't..." Mai whispered.
He didn't answer. He undid his belt, pulled his cock out, and pushed inside her.
"Nn...!"
Mai's teeth clenched so hard her jaw ached. He was big and she wasn't ready for it. The stretch burned. He bottomed out and started fucking her without waiting, hard and steady.
She tried not to make a sound.
But his cock hit deep with every thrust and her body betrayed her. Her back arched off the mattress, hips tilting up to meet him on instinct.
"Ah... hah..."
Her face flushed red. Her chest heaved, breasts bouncing with each impact, sweat beading at her hairline.
Moans kept slipping out no matter how hard she bit down. Her pussy squeezed his cock with every thrust, wet and tight around him.
Seiji grabbed her thigh and pushed it up toward her chest, driving deeper. Mai cried out, hands fisting in the sheets.
Then he pulled out, flipped her onto her stomach, and dragged her hips up.
"Wait... not like..."
He shoved back inside from behind before she could finish. Mai's face dropped into the pillow, a choked scream muffled by cheap cotton. This angle was deeper, hitting places the first position hadn't reached.
Seiji leaned forward over her, both hands reaching around to grab her breasts, squeezing them as he fucked her from behind. His chest pressed against her back, his mouth at her ear.
"This is what your body was made for, Mai."
She couldn't answer. His cock slammed into her with every thrust, his hands kneading her tits, her ass pushed back against him whether she wanted it to or not. The wet slap of skin on skin filled the tiny apartment.
Mai buried her face deeper into the pillow, biting the fabric, but the moans kept leaking out. Her pussy was clenching around him in rhythmic pulses, her thighs trembling.
He pinched both nipples hard and she came, screaming into the pillow, whole body convulsing. Seiji didn't slow down. He kept pounding through her orgasm, fingers still rolling her nipples, until he buried himself to the hilt and came inside her.
Mai collapsed flat on the mattress. Boneless. Chest heaving. Staring at nothing. Cum leaked out of her onto the cheap sheets.
Seiji rose from the bed.
He adjusted his cuffs with the unhurried precision of a man who'd just finished a minor warm-up, nothing more.
"You have thirty minutes. Pack your things. You're coming with me."
Mai said nothing.
She sat up slowly, mechanically pulled on the clothes that had been torn half off her, and began, in silence, to gather what she would take.
...
Tokyo's streets slid past the car windows, neon bleeding color into the night.
Inside the sedan, Mai stared out at nothing, hollow-eyed, mute.
Beside her, Seiji wore no trace of tenderness. Only the relaxed satisfaction of a hunt that had gone exactly as planned.
He picked up his phone and dialed.
"It's me."
A beat.
"Look into Miss Sakurajima's mother's agency. The one that went under."
"Clear every problem. Get it running again."
At the mention of her mother, Mai's gaze flickered. She turned to look at him.
Seiji continued, offhand, as though discussing the weather. "I want results before sunrise tomorrow."
He hung up.
Silence reclaimed the car.
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