Day 14, August 31, 2015
Account Balance:¥2,613,000
9:20 a.m. Shibuya, Office 12F
Yuji glanced up at the pale light outside the glass.
Late August in Tokyo was, as always, too bright for its own good.
His coffee was still warm, but he had already refreshed his inbox for the sixth time.
The bid results were due tomorrow.
Today was supposed to be just another Monday.
He told himself not to overthink it.
But when the head of Marketing brought up "Metamind" again in the morning meeting, he felt his chest tighten for half a second.
"The concept is rock solid. Structure's clean, visuals align perfectly with UX."
"I really think the client's going to bite this time."
Yuji nodded, maintaining his usual soft smile.
In truth, the first version of Metamind was written by Aria.
A rough outline, incomplete, buried in an old PowerPoint deck.
She'd tossed it to him casually back then, "Take a look, see if there's anything there" like it wasn't much.
She had just quit her job at the time, uncertain about going freelance, drifting in and out of burnout.
There was always a fragile tension in her eyes, like she was one bad night away from giving up.
Yuji didn't ask too many questions.
He quietly kept the keywords, polished the structure, rebuilt the visuals, and turned it into a full-fledged team proposal.
He didn't put his name on it.
The whole team signed off.
That, in his view, was polite enough.
"She's not the type who can lead client-facing projects anyway."
He absentmindedly opened their chat window, then closed it again.
At the top of the message list was the same unread bubble:
"Hey, did you eat? Let's talk later tonight."
It had been three days.
She still hadn't replied.
He didn't count it as a fight.
She'd done this before, zoning out, getting stuck in her head, disappearing for days at a time.
Then she'd come back like nothing happened, curl up on the sofa, and ask if he wanted instant noodles.
That was just who she was. Sensitive, but harmless.
Yuji had never once thought of her as someone who holds grudges.
6:40 p.m. – Home
The moment he opened the door, he knew she wasn't there.
The apartment was too quiet, not like someone had just left, but like no one had lived there for a while.
No blanket on the couch.
No dishes in the sink.
No laundry drying on the balcony.
Her toothbrush was gone.
So were her slippers by the door.
Yuji dropped his bag onto the couch and noticed her old pink iPhone lying on the edge — cracked case, glue peeling off the corner.
She'd been oddly attached to that thing.
Said there were a few trade notes in the memos she couldn't bear to lose.
He picked it up and pressed the power button.
Nothing.
Held it longer.
The Apple logo flickered once, then disappeared.
The screen blinked white.
Hello
Swipe to begin
Factory reset.
He froze for a moment.
Then turned around and saw the sticky note taped to the fridge.
That same pale green pad she always used.
Neat handwriting in black ink:
"You once said I was too emotional to survive this field.
So I learned to calculate. — A."
Yuji stood in the kitchen, unmoving for half a minute.
Then he let out a short laugh and peeled the note off, tucking it into his wallet.
She's being dramatic again, he thought.
Maybe he'd been too busy lately.
Maybe she felt unheard.
She always needed emotional feedback, and when she didn't get it, she disappeared for a while.
That was her pattern.
Everyone said she was brilliant, but too intense, too much trouble.
He was the only one who'd stayed.
He thought that counted for something.
He thought he was being kind.
He opened the fridge.
It was empty like a reminder.
Still, he kept the note.
As if keeping it would somehow make her return the next morning, smile faintly, and say:
"You really thought I meant it?"
Kabukicho · Room 402 · August 31st, 3:00 p.m.
The room was lit in pink.
Not a romantic pink—something inhuman.
Like a dream soaked in industrial paint. A color never meant for the awake.
Aria took off her jacket, opened the mini fridge, and grabbed a can of low-sugar oolong tea.
She tossed it to the floor.
It rolled twice—like a gong signaling the start of the night.
She sat on the edge of the round bathtub.
Steam gathered over the rose-tiled walls, beading into a thin layer of sweat.
Phone, power bank, portable VPN router, mini keyboard, double-sealed waterproof touch covers
She laid them out like a battlefield engineer.
No ranks, no flags.
Just one woman constructing a war trench that belonged to no country.
And then she stopped.
At that moment, she realized she no longer had an identity.
She was no one's girlfriend.
Not employed by any firm.
Not on a lease.
Not on a company roster.
No chats to reply to.
No clocks to punch in.
"Right now," she whispered,
"I'm a completely anonymous human being."
She let out a short dry laugh, decisive.
Then she peeled off the IC card taped behind her phone case, and dropped it into the bathtub with a plop,
like completing a ritual.
She looked into the mirror. Her voice steady, as if reading a quarterly earnings report:
"I'm no longer the 'aesthetic copywriter.'
Not the 'calm girlfriend.'
Not the 'Chinese expat in UX.'
Not the token Asian in the creative team.
I'm not anyone's version of anything."
"I'm not a label.
I'm a variable."
"I'm the kind of person you can't name,
So you start fearing me."
She stood up and turned off the ceiling light.
The room fell into darkness, save for the projector silently playing a frame from Margin Call.
Her reflection faded from the mirror like a ghost.
All that remained were the flickering digits on the screen.
She blended into the night,
a passenger among drunk salarymen, exhausted hostesses, and 3 a.m. clinic patients.
She once bought stomach meds from a 24-hour pharmacy.
The nurse didn't look her in the eye. Just asked:
"Cash or IC card?"
This was the Kingdom of Night.
And she was using it to end Yuji's daylight.
The bomb was already planted.
No Wi-Fi login. No Bluetooth trace.
She used a disposable Android phone to access the hotel network.
Then fired up the VPN and quietly scheduled a blog post on a burner account.
There would be no fingerprints.
In exactly 18 hours, the trigger would go off.
All automated.
No need to press send.
The post had only one theme:
"The Making of Metamind: A Plagiarism Timeline."
Timestamps.
Wireframes.
Side-by-side copy drafts.
Photos of Yuji's notebook (she had taken them).
Chat exports (already backed up).
Everything clean.
Everything admissible.
Every page is sharp enough to be a pitch deck.
She had told no one.
Not even Julian knew where she was.
He probably thought she was still figuring out a path to financial freedom.
She wasn't looking for sympathy.
She didn't want an "I understand you."
She wanted only one thing:
"Every time he steps into a pitch room,
he has to carry this history with him."
She opened her final reminder.
Trigger time: 08:59 a.m.
Just in time for Yuji's workday to begin.
She took a bite of tempura. Too salty.
Then drained the can of oolong tea.
Steam fogged up the mirror again.
Her outline came back blurry, but intact.
No fear.
No regret.
She pressed the sleep timer.
The projector clicked off.
Silence swallowed the bathroom.
Room 402, in the deepest neon veins of Kabukicho,
stood like a stage where the ending had already been written.
She closed her eyes.
Yuji's script no longer belonged to him.