The bus swayed with its usual rhythm, but Mafuyu couldn't relax into it tonight.
She stared out at the blurred city lights, watching her pale reflection ghost across the dark glass. The woman looking back at her seemed like a stranger.
Already, the warmth from dinner was fading, replaced by the familiar dread that lived in her chest. Her hand found the folded piece of paper in her pocket, fingers tracing its edges. Makoto's phone number. She held onto it like it might keep her afloat.
Her mind drifted back ten years, to a different kind of exhaustion. She'd been eighteen when the car accident took her parents and younger brother. College became a distant memory, replaced by a string of part-time jobs that ground her down one shift at a time.
The family restaurant "La Famiglia" hired her because the owner, a kind old man, looked at her and saw someone who needed help.
That's where she met them. Yuna, the small girl with gray hair who demanded extra sprinkles on her ice cream like a tiny tyrant, and Makoto, her quiet older brother, who apologized for everything.
Their parents were always busy on their business trips, so the restaurant became their second home. Mafuyu, drowning in her own grief, clung to them.
She became their older sister. She helped with homework, listened to Makoto's passionate anime analysis, and mediated Yuna's endless school life dramas. When she had time, she made them special bentos, finding an outlet for her creativity in octopus-shaped sausages and omurice with smiling faces.
They became the family she'd lost.
"Your cooking is the best, Mafuyu-nee!" twelve-year-old Makoto had announced once, mouth full of her tamagoyaki. "When I grow up, I'm going to marry you! Then I can eat this every day!"
Yuna had snorted from across the table. "Idiot. She's too old for you. And her rice balls are lopsided."
The memory cut through her chest, sharp and sweet. Makoto, with his dorky smile and surprising depths of kindness, had become something warm in her otherwise cold life. She'd felt it even then, something more than what an older sister should feel.
She'd seen the way he looked at her, that first clumsy crush boys get. But she'd shut it down hard. He was just a child, a sweet, innocent boy. But she wasn't.
She knew there was something wrong with her. Some twisted part that didn't want his gentle, reverent affection. She wanted something else, something harder, something she couldn't name.
So she'd built walls between them, a fortress of kind but distant sisterly love. When he finally outgrew his crush, she felt both relieved and heartbroken.
The bus hissed to a stop. This was her stop, near Tatsuya's apartment. The dread turned physical, like a knot pulling tight in her stomach.
She'd met Tatsuya at the restaurant, too. He was a regular customer. He was everything her broken heart had been screaming for: Kind, handsome, charming, and successful. He brought flowers; he called her beautiful. He was the first man who made her feel seen.
But the mask started slipping after they started dating. His charm became a weapon. His compliments turned into currency she had to earn. Underneath everything was his stress, that constant low hum of anger ready to explode at any moment.
And when it did...
Mafuyu flinched, her hand moving to the bruise on her wrist. The darkness within her had recognized the darkness in him. It was sick and codependent. She was a masochist who'd found her sadist. She'd mistaken it for love.
She unlocked the apartment door, the key turning quietly. "Better not to wake him." She moved through the darkness on silent feet. The apartment was cold, air-conditioning on full blast like always. Tatsuya hated the smell of the city. He hated the smell of anything that wasn't him.
A light clicked on, harsh and sudden. Tatsuya sat in his expensive leather chair, whiskey in hand. He'd been waiting.
"You're late." His voice was calm, almost a purr. That was worse than shouting. He didn't look at her, just swirled the amber liquid in his glass.
Mafuyu's heart hammered against her ribs. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "My shift ran late."
"Did it now?" He took a slow sip. "That's a shame. Because I was hungry." He looked up, and his eyes were dead. "And you smell bad. You smell like cheap, greasy food. You smell like that pathetic little restaurant you were working at."
He stood up slowly, his movements deliberate. "Go take a shower. Wash that disgusting, poor person smell off of you." His voice turned sweet, which made it worse. "And then you can come to bed and make it up to me."
But tonight was different. She could still taste the curry. She could still hear their chaotic, beautiful laughter. And Makoto's promise burned in her chest. "I will free you. And I'll make him pay for that!"
Mafuyu stood in the darkness, small, fragile, and terrified. But for the first time in years, she didn't feel completely alone.
The thought was a small, fragile seed of hope. "Next Saturday." She was scared. But she was also excited, a dark, thrilling excitement she hadn't felt in so long.
She was going to be saved.
"Not tonight, I'm tired. You should go to sleep first." She made her own small resistance as she turned away and went for a night shower.