"Good."
A faint smile of satisfaction curved across Seiji's lips.
He stepped aside, leaving the path open to his room. "Come in."
Like a puppet on strings, Utaha Kasumigaoka moved stiffly, each step dragging her deeper into the place she had always dreaded—the room of the single male neighbor she had tried to avoid.
The moment she crossed the threshold—
Click!
Seiji swung the door shut and locked it.
Utaha flinched.
This small room, once ordinary, instantly became a cage.
Seiji walked to the table, pulled a thick stack of ten-thousand-yen bills from his wallet, and tossed it down.
"Here's five hundred thousand. Think of it as a deposit."
Utaha's eyes locked on the money, unable to look away.
Then, Seiji produced a neatly prepared document and a fountain pen.
A "Lover's Contract."
"Sign it." He handed it toward her.
Don't misunderstand.
He hadn't made this for Utaha specifically. He'd simply thought it might come in handy, so he'd printed one earlier that afternoon. And now, perfectly on cue, here it was.
"…"
Utaha accepted it in silence and skimmed the pages.
She froze after only a few lines.
The clauses were viciously one-sided. Every paragraph spelled out humiliating, degrading obligations the "second party" would be forced to obey.
"Sign it, and you'll get the rest," Seiji said, watching her.
Her whole body trembled as she read words like "the second party must obey all instructions unconditionally" and "during the contract period, all rights of the second party's body belong to the first party."
Signing it meant surrendering her dignity. Becoming nothing but a toy.
"And one more thing…"
Seiji pulled out a video camera he had just bought that afternoon. He flipped it on, set it on a tripod, and aimed the lens directly at her.
"To guarantee the contract's 'validity,' I'll need you to cooperate with me and record a 'voluntary statement.'"
"!!!"
Utaha's head shot up, eyes wide with fear.
"D-Do we really… have to?" she whispered, biting her lip.
Leaving behind a recording meant leaving behind a weapon that could destroy her forever.
It was like those guys who tell girls they'll just fool around a little, won't go all the way—then end up taking everything. Seiji, under the pretense of proof, would now hold her in his grip wherever she went.
Utaha knew exactly how dangerous her beauty was. With this video, she might never escape him for the rest of her life.
"We have to," Seiji replied, cold and absolute.
"But…" Utaha clutched her fingers against her chest, trembling.
Seeing her hesitation, Seiji sneered.
"Utaha-senpai, you and I both know this kind of arrangement isn't legal to begin with. If you take my money and disappear, or go to the police claiming I blackmailed you, where does that leave me? I need protection."
"I need proof that everything happening today… is your choice."
His words were half truth, half lie.
Really, Seiji just wanted the recording. And he knew it would shatter the last of her resistance.
"Of course, if you don't want to, you can leave right now." He gestured politely toward the door.
Utaha's head drooped, fists clenched tight.
Leave? Impossible. She had nowhere left to go.
"…I understand."
She closed her eyes, voice trembling. "I'll do it."
"Good." His lips curved into a satisfied grin, tinged with a devilish edge. "Then here's what I want you to do on camera…"
He gave her instructions.
Utaha's eyes widened in horror as she listened, staring at him like he was filth.
What followed became the most humiliating moment in all her seventeen years.
Under his commands, she stood before the camera, stripping piece by piece.
Her black stockings slid from her pale, slender legs. She folded them neatly and set them with her clothes.
Her flawless skin shivered in the cold air, exposed under the camera's unblinking eye.
Burning with shame and fury, she held up her student ID, introducing herself clearly, even reciting her measurements.
Then, with no defense left, she displayed the contract page by page to the camera, reading each degrading clause aloud, declaring that she was signing willingly.
At last, she put her name to the document. With a face full of humiliation, she dropped to the floor in a formal dogeza, pushing the signed contract toward the lens—toward Seiji.
"Well done."
Seiji looked down from above, his smile widening.
Utaha, however, felt something deep inside her soul shatter the moment her knees hit the floor.
…
…
Meanwhile—
Downstairs, Ms. Sato, the building manager, couldn't shake her unease.
She kept replaying the image of Utaha Kasumigaoka's pale, stricken face—and Seiji Fujiwara's disturbingly calm expression.
"No, I can't just sit here. What if something's really wrong?" she muttered, finally climbing the stairs.
She crept to the second-floor hallway, her steps light as a cat.
Silence. Not even the motion-sensor lights came on.
Pressing her ear toward the hall, she heard nothing.
No voices, no arguing—nothing.
That unnatural quiet only made her nerves worse.
She did the math. Utaha had gone into Seiji's room… what, half an hour ago?
A young man and a girl, alone together this long, in total silence—
An absurd thought began to grow in her mind.
Could they already be… finished?
It made a twisted kind of sense. Utaha was a stunning girl; any ordinary boy would struggle to resist.
Ms. Sato's imagination began to run wild.
A desperate girl with nowhere to turn, needing money. A young man who had just made a fortune and was about to move to Minato Ward.
Taking advantage of the situation?
Or mutual consent?
Either way, it wasn't unthinkable.
Ms. Sato's expression grew complicated. Worry for the girl mingled with a sharp, guilty curiosity.
She hesitated, then decided to wait a little longer.
"If it's consensual, then fine… but if Fujiwara's tricking her, and Utaha gets angry, that could cause problems. It'd hurt the building's reputation."
"And besides… she's just a girl…"
Ms. Sato murmured, unease flickering across her face.