The atmosphere in apartment 203 at eight in the evening carried a rare sluggishness. The cooling fans of the PC rig whined at full capacity. The light from the dual monitors cast onto the face of the guy sitting blankly in his swivel chair.
He winced slightly. A sharp pain shot up from his left forearm, which was stiffly splinted and wrapped in white gauze, straight to his brain.
At the same time, the cold gap where his broken front tooth was temporarily filled with dental material constantly reminded him of his insane loss of control yesterday afternoon at Izu beach...
He took a sip of black coffee, cleared his throat to get used to his slightly muffled pronunciation, and clicked his mouse to start the livestream software.
The moment the stream went live, the chat box in the corner of the screen exploded with the speed of a sweeping storm.
He did not turn on the webcam. The stream screen only showed a familiar black avatar with a pulsing audio waveform, alongside a small window replaying the vlog he had uploaded exactly an hour ago.
That vlog was unlike any previous video. It was shot entirely in the first person from the handycam in his right hand. There was no face, just the blinding beach, the sound of crashing waves, the image of three tattooed thugs acting inappropriately, a low curse, and then everything shook violently. The video ended with him sitting in the police station, raising his broken left arm to wave at the camera with a reckless attitude.
"Alright, good evening."
His voice came through the microphone. Completely different from his usual toxic, sharp, and sarcastic tone, his voice tonight was deeper, hoarse from exhaustion, and strangely gentle.
"As you guys saw in the vlog I just posted, and looking at my current pathetic state on the video." He sighed, a genuine sigh without any acting. "My left arm is in a hard cast, plus I just lost a piece of my front tooth. So the rank speedrun plan has to be put on hold for a while until my bones heal. Sorry for this bullshit."
The chat box did not complain about the break. Instead, thousands of comments were frantically spamming about the vlog's content.
[Oh my god, the POV angle when smashing the camera into that guy's face was insane!]
[A real life hero saving a beauty, bros!]
[Who is the girl in the pink bikini in the video? Absolute top tier beauty! His girlfriend?]
He looked at the dancing text on the screen, feeling his temples twitching.
"What the fuck do you mean girlfriend? Stop being delusional." He clicked his tongue, trying to maintain his usual grumpy tone. "That is just a neighbor I bumped into at the beach. Saving someone is a natural reflex when seeing trash acting up, not some cheap romantic movie script."
[A neighbor that you rushed in to fight for until your head cracked and bones broke?] A 5000 yen donation popped up with a highly provocative question.
He froze. His mind automatically rewound to the moment Chizuru's bare shoulders trembled, her pleading eyes, and the primal rage that had burned his rationality to ashes. He shifted his gaze from the chat box, staring into the empty void of the room, his right finger unconsciously tapping a rhythm on the desk.
"You guys do not understand." He muttered, trying to deny his own concern. "She is really annoying. Incredibly annoying. Always stubborn, always foolishly trying to shoulder everything by herself. She takes on everything, only to bring trouble upon herself. And she has too much pride, arguing at the drop of a hat."
He intended to list more flaws to prove how much he hated this neighbor, but the next second, his mouth betrayed his brain pathetically.
"But..." His voice suddenly dropped, becoming strangely warm and soft, as if he was talking to himself rather than thousands of listeners. "She is actually not as fake as I thought. No matter how foolish she is, she always stays true to her feelings. She endures things well, but she also cries easily. And... cough." He cleared his throat, feeling his ears starting to burn. "And her looks. Well, you guys saw the video. She is too pretty, so she easily attracts trouble wherever she goes. If I did not step in, who knows what that scum would have done."
Silence fell over the stream for exactly three seconds.
And then, the chat channel exploded. The messages scrolled so fast the screen became a solid white blur. Heart icons, sly smirks, and a barrage of donations erupted continuously.
[OH MY GOD! Our man is praising a girl!]
[Tsundere! 100% Tsundere!]
[What is with this soft tone? I bet his face is turning bright red!]
[Struck by lightning, bro, just admit it!]
Reading the comments bluntly exposing the truth, his eyes widened. The embarrassment and the feeling of being seen through caused the dictator's wall of ice to completely collapse. He awkwardly grabbed the mouse, mistakenly clicking randomly on the screen tabs.
"What the fuck?! No! Are you guys crazy?!" He yelled, but his panic completely stripped away his intimidation. "I am just giving an objective assessment based on behavioral analysis! What the hell does love have to do with this? There is nothing between her and me right now! There will be nothing! And absolutely no stupid thing like that will ever happen in the future! Drop that garbage thought right now!"
But the more he explained, the more fiercely the chat teased him. For the first time, a professional streamer who manipulated mob psychology was cornered by his own audience to the point of speaking incoherently. Unable to bear the feeling of having his weakness exposed, he gritted his teeth.
"That is it for today's stream. I need to take my painkillers. Bye."
He swung his right hand and slammed the stop streaming button, cutting the power to both monitors.
The cooling fans slowly spooled down and died. The room sank into darkness and deathly silence.
He sat paralyzed in his chair. The awkward, comedic atmosphere of the recent stream evaporated completely, leaving behind a bone chilling void. He slowly brought his right hand to his forehead, his bony fingers running deep into his messy hair.
He exhaled heavily, his chest heaving violently. A fierce wavering was tearing at his insides.
Standing up from the chair, he staggered out to the balcony, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. The lighter flared, illuminating half of his haggard, bruised face and the deep black eyes holding ultimate torment. He took a deep drag, letting the smoke fill his lungs, hoping the nicotine could numb his tightly strung nervous system.
The stream audience was right. He was showing signs of falling in love.
He could not deceive himself anymore. The image of Chizuru. Her smile, her tears, the warmth of her embrace the night he was severely ill, and her flustered, blushing face this afternoon. All of it had bypassed every defensive barrier, taking deep root in his mind. For the first time since being pushed into this world, he craved a connection.
Naturally, a deep part of his soul was screaming to be released. It begged him to throw away this toxic mask, to shed the hatred attached to him for so long, to forget the years of humiliation, ostracization, and betrayal by the woman he trusted most in his past life. It urged him to step over to room 204, knock on the door, look straight into that girl's eyes, and allow himself to live a normal life like any other man. To know love, jealousy, and reliance.
"Live a normal life." He muttered, blowing a puff of white smoke into the night. The corner of his lips curled into a desolate, utterly desperate smile.
If only things were that simple.
But the moment the thought of accepting his feelings flashed by, the ghost of his pistanthrophobia rose up like a vicious beast. The memory of the backstab in his past life, the collapse of his entire career and honor just because of a woman's crocodile tears, returned vividly like a slow motion film.
His body began to tremble. Not from the cold Tokyo night wind, but from the panic gnawing at his cells.
He was scared. This gamble was too risky, and he was too cowardly to bet his heart again.
He was truly terrified of the uncertainty of the human heart. How could he know if Chizuru's warmth today would not turn into a sharp blade tomorrow? How could he guarantee that if he handed over his heart and his vulnerability to her, she would not crush it like that other woman did? A severe lack of trust made him feel that any romance was a death sentence hanging over his head.
He continuously puffed on the cigarette until the ember burned close to his fingertips, scalding him.
He dropped the butt onto the balcony floor, crushing it with the toe of his shoe. Then he pulled out a second one.
A third.
And then a fourth.
He locked himself on the balcony, letting the darkness and smoke swallow him whole. He writhed in a bloody internal war between the craving for love and his self destructive survival instinct. He bit his lip hard to keep from letting out a painful growl.
All through that night, he stayed awake, burning through an entire pack of cigarettes, staring blankly into the void, letting his soul be torn in half by the cruel contradiction of fate...
...
At the same time, separated by a thin plywood wall, inside room 204.
Ichinose Chizuru was curled up in a thin blanket on her single bed, the very place where, just a few days ago, she and he had spent a night holding each other in absolute embarrassment.
The room was only lit by the faint glow of the smartphone in her hands. The screen displayed the offline interface of a stream channel with a black avatar.
Chizuru had accidentally found his channel a few days after the movie event, when she was researching crowdfunding platforms and stumbled upon an anonymous account with an unmistakable toxic voice and vocabulary. After returning from the beach with a chaotic mind, she had secretly tuned into his stream, even this one.
And she heard everything. Not missing a single word.
She heard him yelling at the audience, heard him complaining about how annoying she was. But above all, she heard the hesitation, the unusually warm tone when he defended her. "She is actually not as fake as I thought. She is too pretty, so she easily attracts trouble wherever she goes."
Chizuru's face was now burning red as if on fire. She hastily turned off her phone screen and tossed it aside, grabbing her familiar rabbit plushie and hugging it tight to her chest, burying half of her burning face into its soft fur.
The heart in her chest was beating at an insane speed. It beat so hard she felt like it was going to leap out of her throat.
The pieces of him began rewinding in her head like a film roll. A man with a venomous tongue, always pushing others away, always looking at life with contempt. But that same man patiently taught Sumi how to communicate, hid his identity to help Grandma Sayuri fulfill her wish, hugged her like a child when he had a high fever, and that afternoon did not hesitate to charge in and fight three thugs, suffering a broken arm and a broken tooth just to protect her from disgrace.
And just now, that ironclad man was flustered, blushing, and arguing stubbornly on a livestream just because the audience teased him about her.
Chizuru tightened her grip on the plushie. A sweet, warm, yet incredibly restless feeling surged through her veins. His bravery, his prickly exterior that hid a patched up and heavily scarred interior, created a fatal attraction she could not resist.
"I must be going crazy." Chizuru mumbled into the plushie's ear, her voice tiny, carrying the helplessness of a girl who had just realized the truth.
She liked him. It was not gratitude, it was not pity. She had truly, genuinely fallen for the most awful, eccentric, and rude neighbor in the world. That realization hit her like a flood, washing away all the rationality and professionalism of the perfect rental girlfriend, Mizuhara.
Chizuru closed her eyes, but immediately the image of his sturdy back rushing out to shield her on the beach reappeared. She let out an embarrassed groan, rolling around on the bed, pulling the blanket over her head...
In the silent night, she had no idea that on the other side of the wall, the man she was pining for was drowning in desperate torment. And so, Ichinose Chizuru tossed and turned, staying awake through the long night, harboring a newly blooming, highly complicated affection.
...
The next morning, at a luxurious penthouse in the central Roppongi district.
The glaring sunlight shone through the floor to ceiling windows, reflecting off the expensive sheepskin rug. Designer men's and women's clothing was scattered everywhere from the entrance to the side of the bed.
Nanami Mami lounged on the king size bed, the white silk blanket carelessly draped across her waist, revealing her slender bare back and flawless white skin. Her breathing was steady, her short blonde hair messy after a night of passionate intimacy. Beside her, her new boyfriend, the young master of a wealthy conglomerate, was sleeping soundly, snoring softly.
Mami had absolutely no feelings for the man lying next to her. To her, sex and relationships were merely transactions to satisfy her narcissistic ego, to affirm her self worth, and to enjoy the feeling of being pampered with money.
Bored, she stretched, propped her chin on one hand, and scrolled through her smartphone with the other to kill time.
Social media algorithms always knew how to recommend trending content. And right now, on the trending chart, an anonymously titled vlog sat proudly at the number one spot with millions of views. The clickbait title. [POV] Dealing with trash at the beach.
Mami raised an eyebrow and lazily clicked to watch.
The video started with shaking. First person perspective. And then, a deep, sharp voice, carrying a familiar cursing tone, echoed from the phone speaker.
Mami's finger froze. Her large, innocent eyes instantly contracted. Even though the video never showed the face of the person holding the camera, and even though the voice through the microphone was slightly distorted, for someone as controlling and vindictive as her, the voice of the man who had humiliated her and stripped away her mask at the izakaya that day was something she could never forget.
"Kazuya."
Mami hissed through her teeth. The feeling of utter humiliation from that day rushed back, making her blood boil.
She kept her eyes glued to the screen, tracking every detail of the video. When the camera panned to the scene of three thugs surrounding a girl in a pink bikini, Mami quickly hit the pause button.
She used two fingers to zoom in on the screen, scrutinizing the face of the girl showing clear fear in the frame.
A perfectly beautiful face. Flowing long hair. Flawless white skin.
Mami's eyes suddenly narrowed, flashing with a sharp, dark, and malicious glint. The corners of her lips slowly curled up, forming a twisted, chillingly demonic smile. She had seen this face before. Not at the university, but on a secret forum dedicated to reviewing adult entertainment services and rental girlfriends.
"It really is a small world." Mami whispered, her sweet voice mixed with the venom of a viper that had just found its prey's fatal weak point. She used her red manicured fingertip to lightly tap Chizuru's face on the phone screen.
"Mizuhara Chizuru. Diamond company's ace. So that is how it is."
Mami looked up at the clear blue Tokyo sky outside. The indignation of having her pride trampled by Kazuya suddenly vanished, giving way to a sickening excitement. The man who had humiliated her, who always patted himself on the chest claiming to be rational, superior, and hateful of hypocrisy, was actually walking around, even fighting and bleeding for a rental girlfriend.
A perfect revenge script had just formed in Mami's scheming mind. She would not only smash Kazuya's reputation but also strip bare the truth about Chizuru in front of everyone, just to see how pathetically his arrogant shell would shatter when the truth about this girlfriend was exposed.
The real game was just beginning.