The Grand Zenith felt less like a luxury penthouse and more like a bunker. Outside, the telephoto lenses of a dozen paparazzi aimed at their windows like snipers. Inside, the heavy motorized blinds were drawn tight, bathed in the dim, warm glow of Shino’s desk lamps.
The "United Front" in the garage had been a victory, but the silence that followed was heavy with the cost of it.
"I’ve blocked all incoming calls from the agency," Shino announced, her fingers flying across her keyboard. "And I’ve set up a geofence alert. If anyone with a registered press ID crosses the lobby perimeter, my phone will ping."
"Good," Karen muttered, collapsed on the sofa with a foam roller under her hamstrings. "I’m going to stay in here until I forget what a camera looks like."
But Marin didn't sit. She paced the length of the living room, her eyes darting to the corner of the hallway. She looked at Mikoto, then at her sisters.
"I need to show you something," Marin said. "All of you. But mostly you, Mikoto."
She disappeared into her room and returned dragging a heavy, scuffed plastic bin. It didn't match the aesthetic of her designer walk-in closet. It looked like something rescued from a damp basement.
"What is that?" Karen asked, sitting up. "I thought we threw out all the old stuff from the estate."
"I hid it," Marin whispered. She sat on the rug and pried the lid open. Inside wasn't jewelry or scripts. It was filled with old, VHS tapes, a cracked plastic digital camera from the early 2000s, and a pair of mud-stained sneakers that were far too small for a twenty-year-old.
She pulled out a photo, yellowed at the edges. It showed a seven-year-old girl with wild, unbrushed hair, laughing so hard she had milk coming out of her nose. She wasn't smiling for a lens; she was just... being.
"This was the day before," Marin said, her voice cracking.
"The day before what?" Mikoto asked, sitting on the floor across from her.
"The day Father realized I was 'marketable,'" Marin said. she ran a thumb over the photo. "We were at the park. I was being a brat, honestly. I was covered in dirt and loud. But a scout for a juice commercial saw me and told Father I had 'The Look.' Father didn't see a daughter that day. He saw a bridge to his next hospital expansion. He saw a way to make the Kodakawa name a household brand."
She pulled out a small, leather-bound notebook. It was a diary.
"He started recording me," Marin continued. "Every day. He’d make me stand in the living room and recite his speeches. If I cried, he’d tell me to 'save it for the callback.' If I was angry, he’d tell me 'anger doesn't sell medicine.' Eventually, I stopped being the girl in this photo. I became a mirror. I just reflected whatever people wanted to see so I wouldn't be 'suboptimal' in his eyes."
She looked at Mikoto, her eyes shimmering with a grief she had suppressed for thirteen years.
"When I saw you break down on that court... I wasn't scared for you, Mikoto. I was jealous."
Mikoto flinched. "Jealous?"
"Because you were allowed to fail," Marin whispered. "You were allowed to be human enough to break. I've been a machine for so long that I forgot what it felt like to have a heartbeat that wasn't timed to a metronome. Yesterday, when you looked at me on that set... I felt that girl again. The one with the milk in her nose. She’s still in there, but she’s been screaming in the dark for a decade."
Shino stopped typing. Karen let the foam roller go still. The "Nightmare" wasn't just about their messy habits; it was about the parts of themselves they had been forced to kill to stay "Perfect."
"Father didn't just hire a caregiver," Shino said quietly, looking at Mikoto. "He hired a witness. Someone to see the things he refused to acknowledge."
"I'm not just here to watch," Mikoto said. He reached into the bin and picked up the old, cracked digital camera. He turned it on. The battery was dead, but he held it up as if he were taking a picture. "I'm here to make sure you don't have to hide the mess anymore."
Marin let out a shaky breath, a single tear finally escaping and tracing a path through the dried makeup on her cheek. She reached out and rested her hand on Mikoto’s knee.
"Then don't let them take you away," she said. "If you stay... I think I can find her. The girl in the photo."
"I'm not going anywhere," Mikoto promised.
But just as the moment settled, a loud, aggressive buzzing came from Shino’s laptop. Red lights flashed on her screen.
"The geofence," Shino said, her voice turning sharp. "Someone isn't just at the lobby. They’re in the elevator. And they have a master key card."
"Father," Karen said, standing up and grabbing her racket like a club.
The front door chimed. The nightmare was no longer outside the gates. It was at the threshold.17Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlncqcyLf4s
and then Add to home screen.