?

  1

  It had been four days since Reina disappeared.

  Yuzuki could still hear her voice, still remember the way she forced a smile that night before she walked off into the shadows, as if she was trying to convince herself that it was going to be okay.

  But it wasn’t.

  And deep down, they both knew it.

  The park felt different now. The small group of girls, the fragile protection they had built for themselves, was shaken. No one said it aloud, but everyone knew what had happened. Reina had gone where many girls before her had gone—into the hands of people who saw them as nothing more than a product to be sold.

  Yuzuki sat at the park bench, her fingers curled around a half-empty can of coffee she had bought from the vending machine with the st of her money.

  The night air was cold, cutting through her thin hoodie, but the shiver that ran down her spine had nothing to do with the weather.

  She wasn’t scared of the dark.

  She was scared of how easily the dark could swallow people whole.

  She took a sip, letting the bitter taste coat her tongue. The vending machine coffee was disgusting, but warm—one of the only things keeping her body from completely shutting down.

  She gnced to the side, watching the other girls—Mika, Haru, and two others whose names she had never bothered to learn. They sat huddled together near the vending machine, speaking in hushed voices.

  They were deciding who would be next.

  Someone had to go out. Someone had to do what Reina did, to make sure there was enough money for food, for cheap motels when the weather got bad, for the bare minimum it took to exist in a city that didn’t give a damn whether they lived or died.

  It wouldn’t be her.

  They knew that.

  Yuzuki hadn’t been pushed into that world yet, but how much longer could she hold out?

  She swallowed hard, gripping the can tighter. How much longer until she became like Reina?

  ?

  2

  The rain started falling again.

  Soft at first, just a light mist in the air, then heavier, soaking into her clothes.

  Yuzuki watched the droplets slide down the metal of the vending machine, the neon lights reflecting in the water, making it look almost beautiful. The city had a way of disguising its filth under artificial brightness.

  A rhythmic sound interrupted her thoughts—the steady, controlled bounce of a basketball against wet pavement.

  She didn’t even have to look to know who it was.

  Naseru.

  The ball hit the ground in perfect intervals, like a metronome counting down the seconds of a life neither of them knew what to do with.

  Yuzuki finally turned her head.

  He was standing under the streetlight, his hoodie up, eyes half-lidded with that same detached expression he always wore. The rain slid down the fabric of his clothes, but he didn’t seem to care.

  “You’re still here,” he said.

  She let out a hollow ugh. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  Nasru stopped dribbling and spun the ball in his hands before tossing it towards her. The wet leather smacked against her palm.

  “Then py,” he said.

  She blinked at him. “What?”

  “Py. You look like you need to.”

  The words echoed from their first meeting, but this time, they felt different.

  This time, Yuzuki wasn’t sure if pying a meaningless game was enough to hold back the crushing weight of reality.

  But she picked up the ball anyway.

  She took a step forward, bouncing it against the pavement, listening to the way it sounded beneath her fingertips.

  The feeling was familiar. Steady.

  Something about it felt real, in a world where everything else was slipping away.

  For a moment, she could pretend that she wasn’t one mistake away from disappearing like Reina.

  For a moment, she wasn’t just another girl waiting to be forgotten.

  For a moment, she wasn’t a runaway.

  She wasn’t next.

  She was just here.

  And that was enough.

  ?

  3

  “Why did you come back?”

  The words left her lips before she even thought about them. The question tumbled out before she could stop it, voice barely louder than the rain around them.

  Naseru didn’t answer immediately. He stood there, arms loose at his sides, watching her dribble the ball in slow, aimless movements.

  Then, finally, he spoke.

  “Didn’t have anywhere else to go,” he said,

  echoing her words from earlier.

  She wasn’t sure if that was the truth.

  Maybe it was.

  Or maybe he had been running from something just like she had.

  “You py like someone who actually knows what they’re doing,” she said after a while, not as a compliment, but a simple observation.

  “Did you py a lot in the other country?”

  Naseru’s hoodie shifted slightly as he shrugged. “A little.”

  “You’re good.”

  Another shrug. “Doesn’t matter.”

  Her eyebrows pulled together. “Of course it matters. If you have a talent, you should use it.”

  He looked at her then, something unreadable flickering across his face.

  His eyes dark under the shadow of his hood.

  And for the first time, Yuzuki saw something raw behind the indifference. Not anger. Not sadness.

  Just exhaustion.

  “Says the girl who ran away from home to chase a dream that kills people.”

  Her hands tightened around the ball.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You ever ask yourself what happens to the ones who don’t make it?” Naseru said. “You ever talk to the idols who got thrown away? Or are you just chasing some fantasy?”

  His words hit her harder than she wanted to admit.

  She had thought about it.

  She had seen the news articles, read the suicide reports, watched as bright, beautiful girls colpsed under the weight of the industry.

  Bright-eyed girls turned statistics. Headlines turned whispers.

  She’d ignored them.

  Because the truth was heavy.

  And dreams were easier when you looked away, when you pyed at selective amnesia.

  And yet, she had ignored it—because admitting the truth meant admitting that maybe her dream was built on something rotten.

  “It’s not like that,” she whispered, but even she wasn’t sure if she believed it.

  Naseru shook his head.

  “You should ask them,” he said. “The ones who came before you. See if they’d do it again.”

  “And what about you?” she shot back. “You’re good at basketball. So why aren’t you doing something with it?”

  “Because I don’t care anymore.”

  The answer was simple, direct.

  Yuzuki stared at him, heart pounding.

  She didn’t understand him.

  And she hated the fact that part of her wanted to.

  The rain fell harder between them.

  ?

  4

  That night, as she y under the awning of a closed ramen shop, trying to find warmth in the fabric of her soaked hoodie, Nasru’s words wouldn’t leave her mind.

  You ever ask them? The ones who came before you?

  She had spent so long chasing her dream that she had never questioned whether it was even worth chasing.

  But now, she wasn’t so sure anymore.

  She had spent her entire life looking up at the stage, dreaming of the glow, the roar of fans, the sparkle of it all. She thought it meant safety. Validation. Love.

  But now she saw the rot underneath.

  And for the first time, the glow looked like fire.

  For the first time since she ran away…

  She was scared of the answer.

  She was scared not of what she’d lost.

  But of what she was running toward.

  ?

  To be continued…