Chapter 6
The essence of Mama, once so familiar to me, had nearly faded from my memory - the sweet scent of her shampoo that lingered in her long, wavy chestnut hair, the perfume that enveloped her and left its trace in the living room long after she departed for work. The image of her without the mask of make-up, which she donned like armour for her screen appearances, had grown distant. But on that night, as our gazes locked, a rush of nostalgia flooded through me, reignited by the sight of her natural-coloured lipstick on her plump lips.
"You're just like me— a pathetic who is chasing for the wrong person," she said, her voice quivering with a fragile vulnerability.
As Mama attempted to hide her mouth with a pale-skinned hand, I caught a glimpse of a shaky smirk behind her fingers. In that instant, I misunderstood, thinking she was mocking me. A surge of indignation rose within me, urging me to unleash my anger in a torrent, much like Papa used to. But I restrained myself, bottling up the tempest inside, allowing it to churn silently within me as she spoke words that unknowingly marked a turning point in my life.
"Do whatever you want to do. I don't care, but... stay away from him."
Her words, delivered with a detached sort of concern, were like a cold splash of reality. They didn't come as a tender plea of a mother worried for her child's safety; rather, they were a blunt admonition, a stark warning devoid of warmth.
From that night onward, my life had been holding onto one motivation - leaving this hell for a place where nobody knew me.
I used to think of not furthering my studies after graduating middle school, but the monk whom I often talked to every time I paid a visit to the nearby shrine helped me enlighten the view of my future. I disregarded my plan to leave the city early and enrolled at Miyamoto High in the hope of having a high school diploma so I could apply to a university far from Tokyo.
Despite the monthly allowance that trickled in from Mama, and the modest wages I earned from a part-time job at a nearby coffee shop, my financial reservoir was hardly sufficient for the ambitions that simmered within me. The realization dawned that sometimes, to reach one's goals, one must be willing to tread into murkier waters, to stain one's hands with the earth of less trodden paths.
That evening when I worked on an espresso machine I always did, a regular customer walked in, ordering the same drinks - double espresso. I had never directly talked to him, but from everybody else, I learned that the middle-aged man was called Matsuoka-san, a businessman of a real estate company who loved to sit next to the glass wall, enjoying his time while looking at the view outside. Never once did it come to my thought that he was aiming for me, but that evening, as I walked home after ending my shift, he stopped me.
Beneath the pallid glow of a post lamp, which barely disturbed the night's embrace around a hushed park, Matsuoka-san greeted me with a grin that sent a ripple of unease through me. His large hand enveloped mine, his presence looming as he leaned in close, his breath a whisper against my ear. It was there, in that shadowed moment, that he dangled before me the lure of a shortcut to easy money.
"Right... I'll give as much as you need, Morikita-kun."
My heart thundered in my chest, a frantic drumbeat echoing the tumult of memories that surged forth. Images of Papa, of times both tender and tainted, cascaded through my mind. A wave of nausea engulfed me as Matsuoka-san's face blurred into those memories, morphing into scenes of what Papa had disgustingly taught me, of the moments with Mio, and the haunting image of her lifeless form that lingered in the recesses of my mind.
I want to leave— far from this hell!
The thought was a silent scream, a desperate plea for escape. With a solemn resolve, I stifled any flicker of hesitation. This decision, born of desperation, led me to Matsuoka-san's bed, where I became a pawn in his twisted games, an object for his nauseating perverse pleasures. Each encounter was a violation, a grim echo of the distaste I felt under Mio's pleading gaze, her desperate pleas still haunting the corners of my mind.
It was repugnant, yet I continued, plunging deeper into the abyss, each act a step further into a numbing darkness. Matsuoka-san was only the beginning. I found myself spiralling into a world where any man with enough money could claim a piece of me. Their sizes, fetishes, backgrounds, or the sordid places we met – none of it mattered anymore. My only need was their money, a means to an end, a desperate bid for a ticket out of the nightmare that my life had become. This was my dark descent, a path walked in the pursuit of freedom, yet each step seemed only to entangle me further in the very nightmares I sought to escape.