"That's my fucking curry, you blonde prick. Touch it and I'll graft your fingers to the ceiling."
Masaru stood in the kitchen of the Minato apartment, his eyes bloodshot and his hair a greasy nest.
It had been three weeks since the Roppongi subway incident—three weeks of nightmares, phantom pains in his chest where the chains had pierced him, and a steady diet of whatever he could scavenge from the communal fridge.
Alex held a Tupperware container half-open, a plastic fork frozen halfway to his mouth. "It's been in here for four days, Masaru! It's starting to develop its own ecosystem. I was doing the flat a favor by disposing of it."
"Dispose of it in my stomach then," Masaru growled.
He stepped forward, snatched the container out of Alex's hand, and began shoveling the cold, congealed chicken curry into his mouth.
"Ugh, you're absolutely mental," Alex said, recoiling in genuine disgust. "It's cold! And probably sentient! Have you no standards at all? We live in a luxury high-rise, and you're eating like a stray dog in a skip."
Masaru swallowed a massive, spicy lump and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Standards are for people with positive bank balances. Until I see some actual digits in my account, I'm a scavenger. Now fuck off and eat your organic kale or whatever it is you Brits pretend to like."
Alex huffed, muttering something about "uncultured savages," and retreated to the living room.
Yuki was there, curled up on the edge of the sofa. She hadn't said more than ten words a day since the subway.
She spent most of her time staring at the TV, her eyes glazed over as she watched mindless variety shows.
She looked like she was trying to drown out the memory of Sakura's blood with the sound of canned laughter and J-Pop.
Masaru finished the curry, licked the plastic clean, and tossed the container into the sink. He was about to head back to his room to stare at the ceiling when his phone vibrated in his pocket.
It was his old smartphone—the one with the cracked screen held together by scotch tape. A notification light was blinking.
Transaction Confirmed: Deposit Received.
Masaru's heart did a strange, frantic hop. He swiped the screen, his thumb shaking. He opened his banking app, squinting through the spiderweb of cracks.
Current Balance: 600,000 JPY.
"Holy shit," Masaru whispered.
He stared at the number. He'd seen 600k before, usually on the price tags of cars he'd never drive or in the windows of shops that would kick him out for smelling like gunpowder. But seeing it next to his own name? It felt fake. It felt like a trap.
"Alex," Masaru called out, his voice cracking.
"What now? Found a cockroach to snack on?" Alex shouted from the living room.
"I'm out. Don't touch my coffee."
Masaru didn't wait for a response. He grabbed his jacket and bolted out the door.
Twenty minutes later, he was standing in front of an ATM in a 7-Eleven.
He felt like a criminal as he punched in his PIN.
The machine whirred, a mechanical symphony that sounded like heaven to his ears. It spat out a thick stack of ten-thousand-yen notes.
He didn't put it in a wallet.
He didn't have a wallet nice enough for this much cash.
He stuffed the wad into a brown paper bag and headed for the subway. He wasn't going to Roppongi this time. He was going back to Shinjuku.
The air in his old neighborhood felt different now. It felt smaller. Dirtier.
He walked past the crumbling tenements and the piles of trash until he reached a narrow, slanted building that looked like it was being held up by the mold on its walls.
He pounded on the door of the ground-floor unit.
A moment later, the door creaked open.
A woman who looked like a sun-dried tomato in a floral housecoat peered out. Mrs. Sato, his former landlady. She smelled of mothballs and resentment.
"Kobayashi?" she spat, squinting at him. "I told you not to come back without the money. I've already got a guy lined up for your unit. A nice boy. A quiet boy. Not a gutter-rat like you."
"Shut up, Sato-san," Masaru said. He reached into the paper bag and pulled out the stack of cash.
Her eyes nearly popped out of her head. "Is that..."
"Five hundred and ninety thousand yen," Masaru said, dropping the pile into her wrinkled hands. "Every cent of back rent, the late fees, and the cost of the door I broke last winter. It's all there."
The landlady fumbled with the bills, her greedy fingers counting with lightning speed. "I... I see. Well. I suppose this settles it."
"It does," Masaru said, leaning in close. He felt a wave of pure, unadulterated satisfaction. "And here's the best part: Never bother me again. Don't call me. Don't track me down. If I see your face on the street, I'm going to walk right over you. We're done."
He turned and walked away before she could even offer a fake apology.
The weight that had been sitting on his chest for two years—the crushing, suffocating debt that had kept him eating cup ramen and sleeping on a floor that smelled like wet dog—was gone.
He felt light. He felt dangerous.
"Pizza," he muttered to himself. "The big one. No, three big ones."
He found a high-end pizza place near the station. He ordered three family-sized "King's Specials"—stuffed crust, double pepperoni, extra cheese, and enough toppings to make a nutritionist weep.
He paid in cash, tipped the bewildered teenager behind the counter, and clutched the warm, greasy boxes to his chest like they were chests of gold.
By the time he got back to the Minato apartment, he was salivating. The smell of melted mozzarella was driving him insane.
He entered the apartment quietly. He could hear the sound of a video game coming from the living room—some loud, frantic shooter. Alex and Yuki were occupied.
Good, Masaru thought. I'm not sharing. Not today.
He crept toward the kitchen, successfully hiding the boxes behind a decorative screen near the entryway. He needed a shower first.
He was covered in Shinjuku grime and the sweat of a man who had just carried a fortune in cash and cheese across the city.
He wanted to be clean. He wanted to sit in his clean sweats, in his clean room, and eat every single slice until he couldn't move.
The shower was quick but thorough. He scrubbed the last three weeks of stress off his skin, dried off, and threw on his favorite oversized black hoodie. He felt like a king. He felt like a god.
He walked out of the bathroom, rubbing a towel through his damp hair.
"Time to feast," he whispered.
He headed for the kitchen, but stopped dead.
The boxes were gone from behind the screen.
He looked toward the living room. Alex and Yuki were still there, slumped on the floor in front of the TV, controllers in hand, yelling at each other about "respawn timers." They didn't have any pizza.
Masaru's eyes darted to the dining table.
The three boxes were sitting right there, wide open.
They were empty.
Actually, that wasn't true. There was one slice left. A single, lonely piece of pepperoni and stuffed crust sitting in the corner of the third box.
And someone was eating it.
Sitting on the designer sofa—legs crossed, leaning back like she owned the place—was a woman Masaru had never seen before.
She looked to be about his age, twenty or twenty-one. She had medium-length, bubblegum-pink hair that fell messy around a stunningly beautiful face.
Her eyes were a deep, warm brown, currently crinkled in satisfaction as she chewed.
She was wearing casual clothes—a cropped white tank top and cargo pants—and looked entirely too comfortable for someone who had just committed a felony.
Masaru stared at her. Then he looked at the empty boxes. Then back at her.
"What... the fuck?" Masaru managed to say.
Alex and Yuki didn't even look up from the TV. They seemed completely oblivious to the intruder, or maybe they were just used to people appearing in their living room.
The pink-haired woman swallowed the last bite of the stuffed crust, licked a stray bit of tomato sauce from her thumb, and finally looked at Masaru.
She raised a hand in a lazy wave, a playful smirk dancing on her lips.
"Yo," she said.