Staying at home was not an option for Masaoka Masami.

Suzuki Masami had been able to stay at home. Suzuki Masami had been a stay at home mom. Suzuki Masami had been a housewife. Masaoka Masami was neither of those things. Masaoka Masami was a woman who lived alone in a two bedroom apartment without any children, without a husband, and without even a cat to keep her company. Masaoka Masami had to support herself. Masaoka Masami was a woman with no work history, no real skills, and no prospects. Masaoka Masami had to figure something out.

And that something was teaching English.

That was it. That was what those four years of biology in university had gotten her. A job teaching English to the Japanese, Japanese to the English, and herself not to break down crying by the middle of the day. It was just so…much. She didn't want to be around people. She wanted to be alone. She wanted…she also did want to be around people…but also not. She just wanted…she just wanted to…

She just wanted to go to bed.

She checked the time on her phone. She clicked it on and swiped past the lock screen. It was a cheap one she had picked up after she destroyed her old one, it was untraceable…and it wasn't hers. The lock screen was just the blue one that it had come with…she swiped past it…the wallpaper was blue too. Her old lock screen had been Sho with a fry up his nose and her wallpaper had been Shigeko holding court with her dolls…and this was just blank and…blue and…

And it told her that it was quitting time.

She logged her hours quickly. There. She had put in a ten hour day and…yes. She would eat another day. Nothing of substance, no, she needed to save every penny that she had for Sho…for when he came. He would be joining her and…and that was why she did this. That was why she worked here for peanuts and went home and laid down on her bed and just…waited for tomorrow to happen. For Sho. Always for Sho. Everything she did was for Sho.

Everything that she had ever done had been for her Son…for her children.

She clicked her phone off and got up from her desk. She had a desk in a room full of desks….not even a proper office…but then again why would she have one? She was, Masaoka Masami was, a nobody. She was just…another person here trying to earn a quick living teaching English to people trying to get ahead and Japanese to people trying to get away. She wasn't trying to change the world or…or conquer it…she was just trying to get by. She was just another person in a sea of people just trying to get by.

So, really, she was Hayes Masami again.

Masami, back when she had been Hayes Masami, had been in this same boat. Well sort of. She had done what she had to do to make money, the animal shelter had been a volunteering thing, and she had…well she had lived in an efficiency apartment in a bad neighborhood…but she had been proud of her efficiency apartment in her bad neighborhood. She had been proud of having done it all herself with minimal…monthly…help from her parents….so she had never been alone, truly alone, after all…but still. She was almost her old self again…and she so wished that she could have gone back to being her old self…the self that she had been before she had even met Touichirou. Before she had let him sweep her off of her feet. Before she had practically dragged him into bed…before they had needed to get married…before Sho…before Shigeko…the person she had been before all of it. She so wished that she could have just gone back to being that person but…but she couldn't. She didn't have a time machine.

She barely even had a phone.

"See you tomorrow, Masaoka-san." Said a coworker which Masami could not remember the name of right now. He said goodbye to her as she got up and…and she had to be polite. She had to be polite even though she was just so…so done…with talking to people. She had been talking to people all day. She had been talking in English and Japanese and…and she was tired of both languages. She was tired of talking to clients and to her coworkers…all of which seemed just tickled pink to try out their skills with a native speaker…she just…she wanted to just stop talking…for five minutes…

But that was not the way the world worked.

"Goodbye everyone, see you tomorrow!" said Masami with what enthusiasm she could muster. She was so tired…she just wanted to go home, microwave a noodle cup, and go to sleep. That way tomorrow would happen sooner. Tomorrow and then the next day and the next day and the next day over and over and over again. One day like the day before. Over and over and over again. Get up, go to work, have dinner, go home. Rinse and repeat as necessary.

Maybe she would change it up today.

She decided to treat herself to a convenience store bento or some chicken or something. She didn't have the energy to make dinner tonight. She barely had the energy to walk home. She used to be able to walk for miles. She and the kids had always loved their walks and…and she wished…as she walked down the sidewalk she would have given anything to have had two small hands tugging at hers. One hand would have been attached to a little boy who would have been up for anything and the other would have been attached to a little girl who wanted nothing to do but sit on the floor of her father's office and watch him put the lives of all of them in danger with what could only be called insanity…

Stop it.

She needed to stop it. She needed…there. A store. A store which sold food. A Smile Mart. A little taste of both home and nostalgia. Home and nostalgia for neither Masaoka Masami or Suzuki Masami. No, a taste of nostalgia and home for Hayes Masami. For the little girl who had pissed away every single cent she got in pocket money the day she got it on junk food and arcade games. They used to have arcade machines in the stores back then, well they used to have them everywhere, and she must have fed more coins into those machines a day than she made in a week…not that she would be reliving her childhood. Not that she would be pissing her money away on videogames and moon cakes like she had when she had been young. Not that she would have been ridiculous like that.

She wasn't Hayes Masami anymore.

She had responsibilities...like the one that she had to her son. She had to save her money for him and not…not try to be…someone who she had been before. She had to be…the person who she was now. So she avoided the siren song of the candy isle. She wasn't going to stuff herself with junk food like she had when she had been younger. When she had needed the sugar and caffeine rush to feel….something. Anything. Those days…there had been times like this back then…back when she had been a kid…back when there had been times when she had been so tired that she hadn't been able to feel much of anything at all. She had thought, back then, back when she had been a kid that she'd had problems. The other girls had been mean to her. Her hair had been too brown, too frizzy, too short, too long, too much…too different. She had been too different. Too fat, too skinny, too flat, too much, too…everything about her had been wrong. Everything about her outsides had been wrong. Her insides…what as on the inside was wrong now…and that emptiness was even worse than what she had been feeling at her most….teenager-y….

She wondered how Shigeko would deal with it.

There was a black haired girl in her school uniform flipping through a magazine. Aside from the long black hair in twin braids she bore no resemblance whatsoever to Shigeko. She was more angular than Shigeko, and she looked more carefree than Masami had ever seen her daughter look, but then again she knew that would never have had any idea what her daughter would look like when she got older. When she was old enough to wear the sailor suit. When she was old enough to read about….Masami craned her neck…glamour and fashion and boys and all of the other things that teenage girls read about in magazines. Masami would miss out on…on all of it…

The girl made eye contact.

Masami ducked into an aisle…the toy aisle. Maybe she had done it on purpose. Maybe on accident. She didn't know. She just knew that…that Sho would have liked those trucks. He wasn't too into vehicles but he did like things with moving parts…and he needed more toys. He was a little boy and he needed toys...for when he came back to her. For when her little boy came home to her. For when her little boy…for when she turned up and he was there on her doorstep…there for her to care for…there with questions that she would have to answer…and a room that she needed to fill with…with things for him…

She knew that she was being financially irresponsible but…well her son needed toys.

She left that store with one fried chicken bento, one can of carbonated green tea, and one four pack of hundred yen trucks for her son. Four for one hundred yen…and she had no idea how he would ever have been able to play with those since he played so rough and they were so cheap…but…she would get a better job. For him she would get a better job. She would get a better job and she would find a better place to live and she would get him better clothes and better toys and…and everything would just be better. When her son came back to her then…then everything would have been better. When she came home and found him on her doorstep then….then everything would be better….

When she…when she came home and found him on her doorstep…

The only thing on her doorstep when she came home was a note from the landlord. The window washers would be in next week and she was advised to keep her curtains drawn. Riveting news, truly riveting news. She folded the note and put it into her shopping bag. She would recycle it later. She had no need to be reminded to draw her curtains. She had never opened them. The blinds, the curtains, all of them had been drawn….because there were people looking for her.

The search was still on.

Fukuda, in his latest update, had told her that the manhunt was still on…and also the kids were in China now. They were in China and Touichirou was leaving them in Disneyland all day. There had been a picture of Shigeko dressed up like Cinderella and Sho in one of those Mikey Mouse hats…and the kids had been covered in syrup and powdered sugar and….they had looked so happy….

She shouldn't have saved that picture.

It was dangerous to have these pictures. It was dangerous to even have still been in contact with Fukuda. It was dangerous….well she was living dangerously. She was living in a dangerous…whatever this was. Masaoka Masami lived dangerously. She taught English for minimum wage and then came home to an empty apartment with a convenience store bento and a bag of trucks that her son would never be in to play with and-

-and now she's crying.

She makes it into her genkan before the tears start….and they won't stop. They just keep on coming and…and now there's a notification on her phone. She knows in heart what it is. She knows that…what it means. There's a message in her inbox and…and it's going to be more pictures of the kids. Maybe she would open the attached picture and they would be taller…big kids…teenagers in their school uniforms…in caps and gowns….ready for university…posing with their spouses and children….she just…

The tears kept coming.

She put the bag down on the genkan floor, she didn't care if it was dirty, and checked her phone. She didn't see the point in putting it off. She was already crying. She was already crying so she had might as well get all of her tears out now and not just start up again later when she was trying to get her sleep…sleep that she would need to do it all again tomorrow…complete with crying. She checked her phone and…oh. Work. Someone had been added to her schedule.

Joy.

She wiped her eyes. Her hair was sticking to her tears. Black hair. Masaoka Masami had black hair. She had black hair…and it was in her eyes…and it wouldn't get out of her eyes and…and she just…she gave up. She gave up, picked up her bag, and went to the couch. She went to the couch, sat down, put the TV on, and just…had dinner. She had dinner, laid down, and waited for tomorrow to happen.

She had work in the morning.