"Can I ask you something personal?" Aoi said softly, setting down her chopsticks.
Her heart was already hammering against her ribs. She hated how weak she felt whenever the room went quiet like this.
"Sure," Akira replied, leaning back.
"Mia-chan, are you two... together?"
As she waited for his answer, her mind betrayed her, flashing back to that afternoon after school at the apartment.
She could still see the way Mia looked: dishevelled, flushed, wearing that smug, predatory grin of a woman who had been thoroughly satisfied.
Aoi remembered the heavy, musk-sweet scent of the room that made her stomach flip with a mix of disgust and a dark, hungry curiosity she couldn't suppress.
'I saw it,' she thought, her fingers tightening on her knees. 'I saw what he does to girls. I saw how he broke her... and I wanted to know what that felt like.'
"It's... complicated," Akira said.
