Grabbing her scrunchy from her wrist, Akemi Miyano pulled her long mane into a high ponytail with a little difficulty, the sharp edges of hairpins nabbing at her scalp as she smoothed over the tiny imperfection for an impeccably neat appearance. Her gaze swiped over the mirror once more, inspecting either side of her profile with a little frown, directed at the myriad of dark colours peaking underneath the thin sheath of makeup drawn on the surface of her neck. Her fingers rummaged through the small pouch sitting at the basin, searching for her familiar yellow-concealer, and with a satisfied hum she unscrewed the cap and draped a small portion on her sponge, gently reapplying the product at the fading coverage of her bruise with practice patience—

Knock! Knock!

"Just a second!" the young woman called, zipping her pouch and throwing it inside the bag sitting on top of her wool pullover she had placed on the closed toilet seat, struggling out of her shirt and slipping into one of her dress-shirt and adjusted its cuff-links. She grabbed her pencil skirt, stuffed her jeans inside her bag along with her pullover, and slung it across her shoulder, preparing to leave the small cubicle of the staff toilet after a quick glance over.

Her hand grasped the doorknob.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Slowly, she turned the doorknob, a readied smile on her lips as she apologised to one of her male colleagues, and with a curt nod at her direction he disappeared, slamming the door shut. Akemi sighed internally as she wandered into the changing room, already awaiting by the end of her shift another rebuttal from the manager for holding up the bathroom. Monotonously, she unloaded her clothes into her locker, kicking off her sneakers and slipping in a pair of heels, and she reminded herself to act like a normal person whose main concern lingered at the monthly utility payment and the submission of multiple assignments, completely untroubled by a stalking crime syndicate and the stubborn guardianship of a certain grandpa.

Akemi closed her eyes.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

She shut her locker and headed towards the door before she grasped the knob, gently turning it and joining the causal buzz of chatter, catching the sight of a waiting line queuing up at the entrance as her fellow waitresses systematically moved across the room, setting clinking tableware on the covered tables, filled with finely prepared delicacies and delicious three-course meals inspired by a dash of Spanish and Greek-styled recipes.

Akemi plugged in her earpiece, angling her face enough to catch the eye of the manager standing at the reception, the gesture of his hand was loud and clear – come over.

She nodded, bracing herself.

Put the act up.

"I think, he hates me," Akemi said, studiously peeling potatoes after potatoes and placing them into their designated bowls to be chopped by expert fingers from a person more experienced than herself. The sharp edge of the knife glinted under the bright lights as Emi expertly sliced a bundle of celery into fine pieces. Her friend rolled her eyes, as she dumped the pieces into a bowl, grabbing a small piece of garlic and a press, squashing it with a huff.

"You're the fifth person who's telling me this." Emi muttered, absentmindedly as she transferred the bowl of chopped vegetables into a pan of boiling water. "And? Do you even a reason for saying that?"

"Sure, I do. He keeps glaring at me and he always calls me out from the entire staff – I mean, I cannot be the only who keeps making a mistake. . ." Akemi muttered, and Emi rolled he eyes, as she lowered the heat, grabbing other funny looking articles of food and operators the brunette couldn't recognise.

"Mhmm," was all her friend said as she manoeuvred between pots. "If it makes you feel better. Our manager is a nag throughout – don't mind him."

"Easier for you to say." Akemi muttered, stepping aside to allow her colleague to access the drawers she was leaning against, remembering the wrinkles on the manager's forehead, the furrowed brows crowning his sharp eyes and chiselled face, haggard with sharp lines of age, and she felt a chill creeping up her shoulder by simply remembering. "He specifically called me to cover some else's shift, now he has the gall to tell me that no-one wants a waitress with a little limp—"

"A limp?" Emi perked up, closing one of the pots with a lid. "When did you hurt yourself?"

"Yesterday – I fell down. Yes, I know how very stupid, and before you start asking why I bothered coming, you know that I need the money." Akemi pointedly and her friend nodded, turning to her with furrowed brows.

"I know you're supporting yourself and all – but it's good to take a break once in a while."

"I know that."

"I just feel that you've been overexerting yourself, lately."

"I think, I've been taking it easy all this time."

Emi's gaze fastened on her, a cloud of scepticism misting her dark eyes as she took in the crescent moons hanging beneath the brunette's eyelids, and Akemi averted her gaze in response, pulled another potato from the sack laying on the rack closest to her and tightened her grip on the peeler, dismissing the subject of the conversation with a simple half-hearted shrug. ". . .I just have trouble sleeping lately."

"Really?" Emi asked, her dark eyes softened as she stirred the broth, "Do you think talking about it would help?"

"Maybe it would if I could remember what it was about," she said, twisting the vegetable in her hand and tearing its skin with practiced skill, "All I know is that I always wake up in the middle of the night with a fright that somebody is behind me – just a breath away from shooting me in my sleep. It's strange, isn't it?" she held up the potato, inspecting it from all corners, satisfied she placed it in the bowl, ready to be handled by her co-worker, and she set down the peeler, catching Emi's concerned expression, and the brunette realised suddenly how much she had said. . . .

"No worries!" Akemi waved a hand and twitched her lips into her usual bright smile. "It's probably because of the horror movies I've been watching alone at home recently."

"Well, you probably shouldn't be doing that anymore." Emi muttered, her frown still worryingly perched at her forehead as she redirected her focus on the bowl of potatoes, washing them under cold water, and once she turned her back on the brunette to access the sink, Akemi slipped away with carefully laid steps. Quietly, she left between the double doors into the public area of the restaurant, and with a start she realised that, once again, she stepped from one lion den into another.

The manager caught her eyes. Baffled and yet annoyed, he donned her a stringent look at witnessing her leaving the post he had assigned to her, and the young woman squeezed her eyes shut, knowing her plan for a bathroom break was flushed down the drain when she caught another co-worker swiftly entering the only staff toilet in this damned restaurant. Helplessly, Akemi watched her manager, sneaking glances left and right for any approaching customer before he left his own post at the reception desk.

Oh no.

Her gaze swiped across the room, her eyes lighting up at a familiar visage she recognised serving the lower tables, and without another thought she headed towards him. He was her only hope to save herself from another impending trouble. She could only hope her earlier prolonged stay at the bathroom would prove an obstacle to keep him from aiding her.

He gracefully bowed once he finished taking the order, his dark eyes rose from his customer, staring square at her auburn eyes, and the dark haired parted her lips when—

She stopped.

What was his name again?

Slowly, her brows drew together, thinking without arriving at any answer, and her colleague returned her frown, and with a quick turn of his heels, he resumed his trek towards the kitchen, effectively stepping past her, and her eyes followed his retreating back, catching another glimpse at her manager closing in on her, his face seemingly smooth and friendly, and yet his smile seemed too strained, she could easily recognised the irritation carefully kept behind his eyes. . .

Oh damn.

Without a second thought, Akemi whirled around and stretched her arm to grab her co-worker by the back of his waist coat, and she squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, knowing she would feel the avalanche of embarrassment later. "Please excuse me…I'm very sorry, but I was just wondering whether you have a smoke on you?"

He stared at her as though she grew a second head, blinking once, twice as though he somehow misheard her and doubted the doubted the functionality of his own ears. "A smoke?"

"A cigarette," she clarified and donned another smile of hers in her arsenal, kinder and patient – the one everyone seemed to mistake as angelic. "I'd like to have one if you'd be so kind. . ."

He nodded, still caught in a hazy stupor as his fingers delved into his pockets, searching for a key he finally fought inside his breast pocket. "It's in my locker. The third from the middle downwards."

"Thank you," she thanked him with another smile, wider at the corners, and his lips twitched into a smile as well.

"You're welcome," he mumbled, stepping past her to resume his work, his ears burning bright red, and her smile brightened out of habit alone, like a switch her fingers repeatedly flicked off and on.

A small sigh escaped her lips as she halted at the doorway of the changing room, glancing at her kind colleague disappearing behind the double doors of the kitchen, and Akemi contemplated how easy it would be to change gears and shadow the walk of his life, and she wondered how he would have reacted if she had invited him along? Perhaps, the blood would rush from his ears throughout his face, reddening the apples of his cheeks, his dilated pupils shifting inside the white space of his eyes, glistening and widening with the thoughts invading the quiet place of his mind. . .

Her lips twitched, amused, as her fingers curled around the key, unlocking his locker and finding a pack of Seven Stars, and shoved underneath was a sizeable container—blue in colour, and she held it up, gazing at the small amount of pressurised liquid gas. Her thumb set on the steel wheel, curling around the piece of metal.

"Light it."

She tightened her grip on its slim waist, denting the skin on her thumb against the hard metal, rolling the wheel once. Twice. Thrice. Her trembling fingers curled around its surface.

"Why are you shaking?"

"Why? I wonder," she muttered, trying once again, (twice, thrice, and then—) a cold breeze wafting against her skin, and slowly she closed the door behind her, twirling the cigarette in her hand, an orange glow burning within the trail of smoke, and she parted her lips, breathing in the toxic fumes.

"If you want to cry, just cry."

But that wasn't how it works, was it?

The smoke parted from her lips, swirling in the air and vanishing in front of her eyes. Her lips twitched, stretched into a smile without mirth. What did Nietzsche say?

– To live is to suffer.

The cigarette fell from her fingers, smoke parted between her lips.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Her hand grasped the doorknob.

Quietly, she stepped inside, dislodging the key from his locker, and returning to the buzzing atmosphere of the restaurant, her gaze swiping across the area, landing on her co-worker carrying a basket of bread and bowl of salad. His gaze caught hers, and his lips parted to mouth strings of words, she barely caught, but she recognised the minuscule shift for "Later," after having been exposed to it multiple times from everyone, who always was too preoccupied preferring her little sister over her, and she had long since stopped questioning why and how and except for the treacherous when that tend to scratch the back of her throat. . .

She shut her eyes, pushing the flooding thoughts into the darkest corners of her conscious, and yet they spilled from cracked surface from her mind.

Cracking.

Crumbling.

Disintegrating.

The hours spent under a bookshelf, flipping pages after pages, reading and reading and reading. . .

The brave knights swinging their swords at fire-spewing dragons.

The helpless, kidnapped maids weeping to be saved.

Lies. Lies. Lies.

Fate was always just another demon hiding in the shadow, webbed by lies and traps, and Akemi remembered the lighted match burning in her hand, burning and burning brighter. Flickering in the wind, dancing on the aged paper, and she tasted the blacken smoke flaring under her nostrils, piles of ashes and smoke. . .smoke from scorching firewood, burning bright like. . .the glow of lit wax candles, the orange glow on the walls tracing the fleeting shadow of her form, the soft murmur of grown up voices in the kitchen. . .

". . .There's no turning back."

"But the children. . ."

"It's too late to opt out. . .witness program. . ."

"But leaving the country. . . endangers. . ."

". . .can't we. . . must be. . .anything else. . ."

"Think of something. . .I don't know, but—"

"Are mama and papa in trouble?" she had asked, standing at the doorway, perturbed and worried at the distressed expression on her mum and the increasingly troubled look on her dad.

"Why would we be?" he asked, bending down at her eye level, beaming at her as he ruffled her hair.

But I don't know, he had said just a moment before. She had heard him say it. I don't know. I don't know. I don't—

"No, we're not, honey," her mum chimed in, grasping her hand. "Now, go off to sleep. It's very late."

"But you said—"

No, we're not. Her mum had said. No, we're not. No, we're not. No, we're not—

Lies. Lies. Lies.

Words were just a bunch of lies without a measure of truth. A face was just a hollow expression. Laughter just an echo. Smiles just a look.

Crying can't save me.

She shut her eyes, willed those thoughts away – those emotions knocking her off her feet and sweeping her away like the tidal wave hitting the shores of her life, spirals upon spirals, submerging her six feet underwater, drowning and drowning and drowning. . .

Nothing can save me. . .

There was grip on her shoulder, suddenly pulling her out of the sea, and she chocked on the air, her lungs heavy with filled with water, and she coughed, momentarily startled and disoriented, and she caught a glimpse of a face smooth and concerned, close to hers. She pushed out of his grasp by instinct alone, and unbalanced, she pressed her weight on her hurt ankle to steady herself. Wordlessly, her lips open for a scream that never resounded in her ears. She felt the tears brimming in her eyes and the panic inside her chest – she wanted to go – now.

"Hey now, what's wrong?"

No.

Stop.

She took a step back, three feet between them, and his face twitched, his brows furrowed, her gaze fixing on her face, inspecting and staring, and she swallowed the bile creeping in her throat, tried to still the trembles from her fingers. . .

Don't look at me.

He cleared his throat, adjusted the necktie at his collar. "Earlier. . .you seemed unsatisfied working at the kitchen. You even consulted an unauthorised smoking break—" his fingers reached out to grasp her elbow, gently curling around her arm, enclosed and caged, she wanted to break out – wanted to leave, and yet her feet were firmly planted on the ground, her throat clogged up.

I want to go.

He was too close.

Too close.

She closed her eyes, and swallowed, tried to calm her breathing, his voice drifted in and out from her mind, and she found difficult concentrating on it, and she wished he would shut up and go away—

"As the one in charge at this moment, I feel compelled to ask whether everything is alright on your end?"

Leave. Leave. Lea—

"Are you listening to me, Akemi?"

"Yes," she croaked, training her gaze at her black heels, tried to count the plasters concealing the blisters on her foot, and made a small mental note to buy compression socks, a wrapped bandage brought too much attention . . ."Thank you, but no, there's nothing going on. I'm quite alright so if you would excuse me. . ."

She took a step back, ready to turn on her heels, when he reached out, grabbing her by the shoulder, and this time, a ripple of shudder bubbled across the length of her spine, involuntarily, as though the feared had been ingrained into her body, and she hated the momentary flash of dark eyes and a rotten smile crossing her mind, and almost by reflex alone, she yanked her arm away from him, her own eyes darkening at the sole thought at having been intimidated just by a gesture alone – and no, she wasn't scared. She would never be scared. Not even at her dying breath—

"Look at me when I'm talking to you."

She squeezed her eyes shut, reminding herself for the hundredth time to keep herself in control, but it was proving incredibly difficult when her mouth itched to hiss Go away instead, and she tried her best to smile instead, and yet she couldn't lift the corners of her mouth.

She couldn't. . .

Wait –

No way.

This can't be happening.

"What's wrong?"

His hand was suddenly on her cheek, wiping away. . .tears?

Oh no.

Oh, please, no.

His face twitched, his brows sank deeper and his eyes were demanding and baffled, confused and concerned. She knew that expression. She hated it. She rubbed her eyes, smearing her makeup on the white fabric of her sleeve. "I'm fine," she insisted and yet it quivered throughout each voice, faltering like a breath, weak and quiet. She hated it, and she hated it more that he was looking at her though sympathetic and pitying eyes. She didn't need any of it. She had sworn that she would resist. This couldn't be happening. Not now. Not ever.

"If you're having difficulties. . ."

"I'm telling you it's not like that."

He drew back at her outburst, and frankly she couldn't care. This shouldn't have been happening. Not now. Not with this man in front of her.

This man, who disguised himself with such fake friendliness, whose gaze prickled on her skin and lingered at the deepest corner of her mind when she laid awake at night, alone and troubled. She could hear this irritation just bubbling underneath his honeyed tone. Honeyed and flowered with strings of lies and deceit, so full of trickery. . .just like Pisco.

She gritted her teeth, even as she was drowning in mortification, in embarrassment. Her ears burned red, her cheeks flamed, and there was no getting around it – he had seen her – seen her with this wetness on her face – with this damned weakness.

"Akemi. . ."

"Really, I'm just. . . on my period," she said, driving through the search engine of excuses supplicated in the section of her mind for stupid and irrational blunders. "I'm so embarrassed. Please forget this has happened—"

"But," he called her again, and she realised that his gaze wasn't fixed on her face, but on her. . .was it her neck?

Oh no.

Almost automatically, she covered the spot with her hand, feeling more and more like a butterfly caught in a carefully hidden web, watching mortified, the mother spider slowly approaching her, dissolving her with her acidic juices, burning her and her skin, and she trembled with the realisation everything was falling into pieces – her careful appearance – all her hand work – was it all for nothing?

It was crumbling.

Disintegrating.

She was unravelling. . .

Oh please, please, please, no.

His hands dived into his pockets before he searched through his breast pocket, searching, searching – searching for what? What on earth was he searching for?

A handkerchief?

A handgun?

Her eyes widened at the black phone in his hand. He couldn't be thinking on calling the police. . .? "What are you doing? I'm telling you—"

"Well that's great. It's only three – we won't be closing for another four hours," he curtly intercepted her, his sharp eyes gently rested on her face, and she felt both repulsed and annoyed at his tone. "Take a break. Get your head back on your shoulder. I'll be counting on you at the reception. That's the least you can do – smiling and looking all pretty. It shouldn't be that hard, even if you're on your monthly bleeding."

She squeezed her eyes shut.

You brought this upon yourself.

You damn mess of a liar.

Akemi took a deep breath, barely believing this (she held the curses firmly between her lips) stupid thing was actually happening right now. Her fingers balled into a fist, and she looked at the reception, at the momentary empty till he was retreating toward – the one she was meant to work at for the next hours. . .standing there and looking all pretty. . .?

How on earth was she meant to do that?

Her soul was as black as a crow. Her smile only reflected the hollowness of her own being, empty as air. There was no way she could stand there. . .like an expendable material you could toss whichever way you want – like a piece of art at an exhibition to ogle at whilst you walked past. She couldn't stand there like some mannequin of sorts that stood at a random corner, looking all smiley and pretty – not if it meant having people's eyes staring at her – staring at the hollow abyss of her soul.

"I can't do that," she wet her lips and shook her head, stained with tears and dirtied with make-up. She was stained and dirtied, marked and watched. How could she smile all happily? "There's no way I can do that."

"It's not that difficult," he pursed his lips, and shook his head as he headed away, his voice only a distant murmur. "Kids these days grow up way too spoilt."

What on earth did she expect? for him to understand? There was no-way he would know what it was like to smile when all she desired was for everything to stop – when all she wanted was for someone to go ahead and unplug the electricity this Earth used to charge each spin of his rotating body. She wanted to drop each mask on the floor and cast all acts to an end. She wanted her life – to live, peacefully, each and every day with her parents by her side, without hiding form the shadows, without fear, without eyes watching her every move.

If only the Organisation could just disappear. . .

But as if that could eve happen. . .

How can I smile happily knowing that?

Her gaze wandered to the manager, who now stood behind the till, tending to a couple of costumers, who were ready to pay, and she contemplated waiting before she threw the concept out of her mind, and she retreated into the locker room, and pulled her bag out of her locker, and loaded her co-workers key inside his own. She set out to find a piece of paper and a pen to scribble a quick note—and there.

Screw him and his twisted little mind.

She placed it on the table, and moved to grab her bag, placing her hand on the doorknob from the back entrance after a quick glance over, and her eyes rested on her little note, and she frowned. She stole another glance at the door, suddenly feeling queasy at the prospect, but she steeled her will and fisted the paper in her hand.

To hell with this act.

She marched out of the room, quickly, before she could think otherwise, strapping her bag over her shoulder as she headed towards the reception desk, he looked up at her approaching figure, and she tried her best to ignore his frown at her still-not-taken-care-of her face as she slammed the paper on his desk.

"Thanks for everything," she mumbled under her breath, heading for the door before he could glance at her writing and call her back into this hellhole. She could always search for a new job as long as she was far away from that man. Even after the subsequent phone calls lightening up the screen inside her bag, for the moment she was glad to be out of reach.

It was a feeling she momentarily cherished.