Prologue

I shivered.

Cold was never been my friend in the first place. No matter how thick already the outfit I was clad in, going out at two in the morning and in the end of December was totally a worst idea. But I guess I couldn't help it because this was the last flight.

I shivered again.

I didn't know whether it was because of the cold air or because I hated flying. The view of the large airplane from the glass wall in the passenger waiting room somehow chilled me. I always hated flying. The sensation you got around your ears when the plane takes off was horrible. Also the turbulence and small tremor that always made me think the plane could fall off at anytime wasn't a pleasant feeling to suffer.

Then I heard the female announcer. It's finally time to go.

I shrugged my revulsion of flying with the fact that this was really the last, the last time I had ever seen Japan again, before I comeback whenever someday.

There were only few people boarding this plane. A midnight flight is indeed not everyone's favorite. I relaxed my back while observing the attendant girl who was giving flight instructions that somehow resembled one of my acquaintances.

Once more I took a look at my phone screen before I turned it off and I smiled.

"Goodbye, Rena-chan."

Chapter I

It was all started around July.

I didn't know when to decide the start of this story but I'm pretty sure it was on the month of someone's birthday.

Her birthday.

It was in the midsummer where wearing nothing was the best choice, at least if your nerves were able enough to endure people's piercing eyes seeing you streak out in the road like that. Though if we were living in the ancient Greek era, I wouldn't mind dressing up like that. Probably because the heat was frying my common sense enough to erase my sanity. But no, I could only half doing it. I always slept naked, at least when I was with my girlfriends. Or that was what those girls considered about me.

My name is…ah no. I almost forgot what I was being called with. I went with many names. Womanizer, some people in the cafes and also those who accepted me as their loyal costumer said. Kissing monster, those high school girls whom always screamed every time they saw me smiled at them said. Liar, my first girlfriend said. Whore, passerby and most girls I've slept with said. Loner, my family said. Though the last one was like ages ago that I couldn't even recall their faces. Or maybe it was just my imagination about having an imaginary family.

But at least they were right. I was alone. I was lonely.

The weather was that unfriendly that I couldn't stand the heat while I knew there weren't much left in my pocket to enjoy some nice sweets in a decent café, that of course, had some air conditioner inside. Thanks to the girl I met last night.

The audible pop and burst of the soda can I opened drew me back from the daydream. The only thing I could enjoy this summer was this cold orange soda, though finally I could get myself at some ramen stall which had an old air conditioner that sounded so horror like it was bought several decades ago. But I guess it was the least of my problem cause the heat of the soupy chicken broth inside some large pots which was in my unfortunate to get a seat close to them, was already enough to get me an unwanted free sauna.

After enjoying a bowl of the cheapest menu of ramen, I decided to go back to my small, little, little apartment that it could only fit a single bed, a small dresser, a stool, and an old small desk which seemed like it's been bullied by the owner's children with their badmouth words decorating its surface. Sometimes they made me smile if I reread them, those kids are just like me back then.

It didn't mean I couldn't let out bad, harsh words after I became an adult. But throwing those words was considered unnecessary and it could even affect my job. Or that's what I called it with.

Girls and boys are really different. You can easily please boys by dressing and behaving decently before their eyes, and voila, enjoy the free dresses, shoes, fancy restaurants, you name it. Nevertheless, that would not do with the girls. They are all weak in their ears. Easily fell in my arms with some simple nice words and comforting promises of devotion, sometimes the truth, sometimes half-truths, mostly were blatant lies. Yet, they kept coming back.

So I could verbally badmouth someone actually, but not in front of my customers. That would be considered unprofessional. Though I'm just saying I was an amateur. However, the girl last night was an exception.

Have you ever been bullied back in your grade school, middle school, high school, or even college? I had one experience around middle school anyway. The main antagonist was always the one who is stronger than you, in any aspects. This boy was in a favor with his big athletics body, of course I was nothing trapped inside a weak, skinny body of a girl who always thought giving him some badmouths was already punitive enough to make him stop mentally groping girls inside the changing room. But I was wrong anyway.

Stealing my lunch, purposely shoving me to the lockers when we were passing along, secretly drawing my notebooks with some vulgar pictures of genitals, also setting some thin thread across the hallway when I was running an errand to make me tripped and fell on my face right where they put some stolen curry sauce from the cafeteria on the floor, these were just some of what a weak girl received for defending their friends from some lusty preying eyes.

I sounded so heroic though, but no, all I did was just spitting on his face and threatening to report to the principal.

But that was just a bitter history, wasn't it? In my age now, those kinds of bullies are much easier to dealing with, compared to the ones I had faced when I was adult.

xxx

"Will you love me forever?"

"Eh?" I stopped scrolling down an online daily in my phone and turned my back to her.

"Will you love me forever, Jurina-san?"

Before my eyes, was a face of someone I wouldn't want to see in my entire life ever again, Fujita Nana.

"World has its doomsday, people can die, even a simple thing such a movie can end. I can't guarantee there is forever, honey." She took my hand and put the palm on her cheek, feeling my warmth.

"You said you love me…a week ago…"

"I didn't say anything about forever, right?" I was used to dealing with this kind of conversations.

"Are you one of those kinds of people who don't believe in eternal love?"

Honestly I didn't believe in love itself.

"When we die, we cannot be sure we meet again in other world dear, you can be in heaven while I'm in hell." I camouflaged my itch just to pull my hand off of her skin. I started to feel disgusted.

"I'm sure we both will be in hell."

"Hell isn't a nice place to be living in. Don't belittle it as if it was just a sauna place with much hotter atmosphere."

"So does this world. People aren't nice and making it like a living hell. They come and go without even considering my feelings. I had them paid of what they did to me." A sharp tone of her somewhat chilled my back, I could feel a cold sweat rolled down my neck.

"You know what exactly I'm doing for a living right?"

"I would be a fool if I didn't know." She poked my nose. The sneering eyes started to irk me.

"Then why are you asking something impossible?"

"I'm sad you have to pay for this, Matsui Jurina-san. Literally."

"Wait, that's my line!" I suddenly got up and dressed as quick as I could. Getting off of this girl was my important mission. But first, I had to get out of this room.

"You can get out then. But don't be surprised if someday there are flyers everywhere of your face in the streets, asking for a bounty of your head worth thousand yen. Sexual abuse to an underage high school girl, how was that sound?" She said the last sentence with a giggle.

"You said you were twenty?!"

"Well I need new bags, shoes, perfumes, and other normal things a girl in my age. Who's fault for not checking my ID in the first place?"

Her victorious giggle seriously irked me to the bone.

"Whore!"

"So are you."

"Go to hell."

"I'm already a VIP of it."

In the end, all was left was some hundreds in my hoodie pocket.

xxx

The room was slightly dark. A large burgundy curtain was purposely closed shut, looking so out of place in the current weather; as if not allowing the sunlight to fully give the room a summer feeling. Probably the owner of the room hated summer. Or likely that person hated the heat, maybe because there wasn't any air conditioner? Or it was possibly a property of a vampire.

The last testimony was perhaps right, judging by the one that was currently occupying the room. It was appeared to be a woman in her late 20's. Lying in a bed with her long hair spread on. Though dim, anyone could see her uncovered skin was bright, like glowing in the dark. Or her skin was just that inhumanely pale.

She kept turning around in her sleep as if she was dreaming unpleasantly. It could probably that, as she kept voicing out her anxiety, muttering words that only God knows, almost sounded like some spell. Her thin white night gown was getting even tattered the more she moved. The sweat started to run down her forehead, down to her cheeks, down to her neck, not sure if it was because of the summer heat or her current body temperature.

Suddenly there were knocks on the door. Loud knocks that sounded angry and almost turned into a bang. Sounded like, whoever was that, wanted to immediately meet the girl in the room. As if there was a murder, a fire, or an accident. Whatever was that, it seemed something urgent.

"Miss! Miss!"

It wasn't that hard to predict that something wrong happened to the pale girl on the bed. The voice of the man who was banging the door quite explained everything. Yet the one being called was still struggling with her nightmare, her face looked like she was in pain.

It seemed like there was no other choice than to break the door with force, because apparently she had locked the room from the other side. With a single kick, the man in black suit that had his bodyguard training for years successfully opened the door with ease, as if kicking a soda can.

In a swift move, just like in the movies, he took the girl's body and carried her in bridal style. The pale girl had her arms limp and fell to each side, making him looked like carrying a dead body. For a brief moment, the girl had opened her eyes, and she caught a familiar face before she fell back into darkness.

xxx

It took seconds and even minutes to get her realized she was in an unfamiliar bedroom. Her eyes started to get used with the dim lightings of the room, after battled with her own consciousness and the terrible headache since she opened them for the first time. Then she felt comforting chill around her head only to find there was a wet towel covering her now warm forehead. She removed the towel to check her own temperature and sighed in relief when finding it wasn't that high as before. But at that second, an instant frown formed on her face, as if something was wrong. As if something was not going exactly like what was already planned. Then she threw the towel across the room.

"Why am I still alive…?"

There was supposed to be a girlish, high-pitched voice saying that out but instead she sounded like a hundred years old cannibal witch in some fantasy movies she loved to watch. She tried to clear her throat by making some noise but it didn't work and successfully making it even drier. Luckily though, it seemed like someone already predicted this was going to happen by putting a glass of drinking water on the end table beside the bed, making it easily to reach. After finishing in one glug, she laid her still dizzy head back and continued to examine the room.

Unlike hers which was plain white, the wall paint of this room had more theme and decorations. The ceiling was even adorned with a beautiful Michelangelo-styled painting which depicted some angels taking a bath in a hot spring. And looking by the furniture, the owner of this room must be a kind of person who ran some huge companies and having personal butlers and bodyguards around their house. Even the glass she just had her drink from couldn't be just an inexpensive utensil judging by the handle which was decorated with some colored crystals.

The more she examined the room, the more deep the frown and sigh she showed. The more she recognized the room, the more miserable the look on her face. This room wasn't that strange to her. Instead she was too used to see this kind of luxury before she lived in that small cottage of hers. In that brief moment, she knew she wasn't supposed to be here. She knew she was going to face again one of her nightmares. She knew she wasn't taken back here for nothing.

Matsui Enterprise. Who wouldn't know that name in this country? Owning dozens of some big companies and corporations that Japan couldn't live with. Say, some car companies which their advertisements you could see every day on the TV were just like their minions. Then most of the electrical utensils you could find in your house were most likely manufactured by the company's behalves. Not to mention large local fast food chains that rivaled those unhealthy international brands of restaurants you probably had spent your lunches at. Matsui Enterprise was like the icon of Japan's trading and business. It was almost like the heart of Japan economic itself.

Like any other story, there is always a flaw in perfection. The head of the company seemed only had business in his life dictionary, just like what most of rich traders and corporation presidents always do. Knowing this, the mother of the young Matsui Enterprise president, decided that an arranged marriage would be the best decision in order not to repeat her history of failed marriage. She realized she didn't teach her son much about being a fully human, being sad, and even being in love. Yet, her expectation had come into a failure as her son had become even like his dad, her husband, which getting even greedier at working and expanding the family's company without even finding the true meaning of having a family. Until now that she had rested in peace after years battled with the cancer, he never even once hugged his own and only daughter, Matsui Rena.

A drop of tear rolled down Rena's cheek, her hands reached the nearby pillow and immediately hugged it hard, as if not letting go. And from some silent sniffs, it gradually developing into massive stream of tears drenched half of the pillow. At times like this she just wanted to hear the soothing voice of her mother she didn't even had. A comforting voice that would tell everything will be okay, that would tell that her marriage arrangement would be cancelled.

Being raised as the only daughter of a head of Matsui Enterprise didn't mean she get to taste going to school every day with some bodyguards secretly spying, ringing a bell every time she was hungry and a full-course meal just appeared before her eyes in seconds, or pointing at bags and shoes she wanted to get them into her personal wardrobe in a blink of eye. Those were what a Matsui's descendant should've got, which was her younger brother, the legal heir of Matsui from his father's arranged marriage with a president of Tableware Company's only daughter. She was just nobody in Matsui family. Not even worth using the last name just because her father was a Matsui. She was just an unwanted mistake of what his father did to a barmaid more than two decades ago.

Rena always wondered why her father didn't just erase her and her mother from this world many years ago which would be an easy job with such power of his. Instead, he chose to torture them by letting them live in a quarantine, that's what Rena called it with, which appeared to be a small cottage in somewhere unknown, segregated from citizens, hiding their existence from the world. When she was six years old, her mother was stricken with a mental illness, the result of yearly isolation with no one to talk to other than her own daughter, the gardener woman, and two bodyguards who always visited once a week to deliver daily goods or some things from her father.

"You could be a use of Matsui Enterprise someday."

Those words always came as an answer of her lifetime question to the point that it sickened her. The first time she saw her father's face was when his father paid her a visit. She saw the detailed wrinkles on his aged face, behind there was lined every story of a single man's life. He looked tired but his eyes were sparkling with hope once they met Rena's. Then behind his back, was a young man in a decent outfit whom she was believed was her younger brother. In that time, every rage that had been built up her chest for years burst out uncontrollably, which in return she got the said answer. An answer that now she finally understood after his father's once and only visit five years ago.

So what was she, a tool? A machine that being forced into studying economics daily for the sake of the company? Then what if her brother wasn't deceased a year ago? Wouldn't she just become a useless device raised by her father?

One day when she was peacefully reading a magazine, a bodyguard that always paid monthly visit came with a handful of newspapers from different publishers which the headlines were the same; printed in capitals and some mournful titles announced his brother was poisoned by an unknown person in a dark alley. He was left for dead by the murderer in his car. No clues or evidence making the case become unsolvable and in the end, the police decided to leave the case closed.

Before even she folded back the newspapers, the bodyguard gave her a letter from her father saying that now he wanted her to help him. She was to marrying a man his father had chosen and becoming a successor of Matsui Enterprise replacing his brother.

Then she finally knew a good use of the pills she found inside the cabinet.

xxx