DISCLAIMER: SKIP BEAT! and its associated characters are the creations of Yoshiki Nakamura. This author claims no ownership of Skip Beat or any of its characters. All other rights reserved.

Author's Notes at the end of the story.

***CONTENT AND TRIGGER WARNINGS*** Mature sexual themes, child abuse, suicidal ideation

One Day in the Life of Saena Mogami

I. Morning.

I shed him like a snakeskin in the night, and now he sleeps, newly-molted, soft, sallow, naked.

Todoh Su-su-mu-san, name like the wind through the bamboo, sprawled naked and victorious on my bed. Oh yes, we fucked last night. Mogami Saena, served up on the half-shell like an oyster for delectation. The girl was the knife he used to pry me open. He brought her to the office like a bad cliche, bought me a drink afterward, and then another, and then another. Drunk Saena offered up her pearls and he consumed them like swine. No doubt he congratulated himself on the culmination of his twenty-year pursuit, no need to comment on my lipstick color now that he's had it smeared all over his cock. Did he enjoy my hands on his back spreading his middle-aged sweat across avuncular skin? He laid a trail of slime on me with his tongue in an earnest effort and I'm sure I moaned encouragingly at the right times during the requisite paw and poke and stick.

He wanted to paint over the marks the other one left so long ago, and maybe I wanted him to do that, too. But there were no angel choirs singing. No immolation by semen. Just a mess on the bed, some chafing, disappointment. Empty heart, empty fuck. Condoms filled with his refuse in the trash, distended and discarded and filled with congealed bodily fluids. Now he's here like the reek over a landfill—my skin reeks of him, the bed reeks of him, is full of him—he's drooling on me and his arm lies on me like a cudgel. No one wants to be a refugee in their home but I am pinned against the wall and his torpid flesh. I want to wash him off me but the smell is like an oil slick on water and a single wash will not do. I won't be able to breathe freely until he is off of me.

I should have given the pervert what he wanted. Never had to say it but all the office girls know he wants a hard slap and some whipping and a stiletto on his neck. "Yes mistress, no mistress, if you please, mistress," all that. Some men like that. This one, though...he'll take a slap and then smirk at you, as if to say "ah, you hit like a girl." Masochism manifesting in misogyny. Wait long enough and you'll see, that's how he is.

I extricate myself, rip the blinds open. Morning light filters in from wall to wall, from the kitchen to the bed. No walls between those rooms here. They call it an efficiency, I call it a coffin. I lie here dead until I rise and wake, undead-Saena suiting up in the morning for the daily ride on the hamster wheel. The niceties have all been mortgaged away, the apartment is all I can afford. Some mistakes, you see, have consequences, and the remote care and upkeep of a daughter is one of them. But now that I've seen her, the Crocodile and I will have to talk. Living on her own since 15 and Yayoi, apparently, still keeps the funds for her room and board. The girl can live whatever life she wants, for all I care, but what are these automatic deductions from my paycheck if they are no longer providing her room or board? What was I paying Yayoi for, then, if the girl is supporting herself?

"Todoh," I say, and he groans into the pillow. I rip the blanket off of him—today is a ripping kind of day, it seems. He groans again, stirring. "Todoh. Get up," I say again. Get out, I think. The Snake rustles drowsily and his sallow limbs flex and I go and wash him off in the shower. When I finish he greets me and walks past me into my bathroom and pisses in my toilet, the acrid stink and tinkle of a man that thinks he's marking territory cutting through the smell of soapy steam. Just like that I feel his scent on me again...I am marked again, by proximity of his piss. Does he think I am his lover, to be claimed? Does he think he is entitled to piss in my toilet and lie in my bed and drink my water and stain my sheets?

He has not washed his hands but he reaches for me. I recoil.

Atsuki hi wo
Umi ni iretari
Mogamigawa

He's smiling like he's done something clever.

It's not as if a woman named Mogami has ever had one of Basho's Mogamigawa haiku quoted to her before. Oh no, never. The Snake delivers it with far less charm than Kyoko's father did, but perhaps it's simply because I am no longer young and poetry no longer moves me.

I should smile back and give him a treat.

I have no treats suitable for snakes. Or pigs. Or masochistic perverts.

"Get out," I say, and the Snake stops and stands stock-still, surprised.

"Get out," I say again, and this time he looks like he'll say something but already I am walking to the closet and the ten black jackets in it, hanging with their ten black skirts and their ten white button-blouses. Black suit and bengoshi pin, accessorized with a respectable briefcase. I fling the day's suit onto the bed and glare at the Snake and the Snake wriggles into his wrinkled pants and yesterday's socks and when I am dressed I open the door to see him out before he can try to slime further into this place, asking for coffee or water, asking me to walk with him to his car so he can make some play of coming to the office in my company. I will not oblige him. I will come on my own or not at all. He will leave this place like the mistake that he is. When he is gone only I remain. There is no time to strip the rumpled bed. I must wait to erase him from this place until evening.

When I no longer see his shadow in the hallway I exhale. My face is in jars and powders on the dresser and I put it on and then I am fully dressed, fully Mogami-san, the Crocodile's pet bitch.

II. Noon.

The NuCorp case is mine in all but name—my work, my writing, my files, my research, my strategy. I drafted the opinion, I draft all the outgoing emails to the client. I am running discovery, and, when the other party inevitably settles, I will be drafting the term sheet and the final agreement. For NuCorp and for every other large client we've had in the last ten years, I go to battle. When the paralegals run, they run in terror from me. I do not suffer incompetence gladly. In comparison, the Crocodile is downright kind. Oh the Crocodile smiles crocodile smiles and cries crocodile tears and signs his name onto the pages of my work because that is the cost of my salvation from ruin. "Work for me like a dog," he said, and I have; seventeen years and I still have not paid for the mistakes I made as a young green girl seduced by a stranger and discarded, I still work like a dog and I am paid a bare pittance, even less when he deducts a portion for Yayoi. The slap was the least insulting thing he ever did to me. When Nucorp engaged us as their Japanese counsel, he dropped it on my desk. "Be careful with the files on this one," he said. "Trade secret misappropriation. I know you have trouble keeping proprietary files to yourself, Saena, but try not to let the opposition fuck you for it again. I don't know if I can keep another of your brats alive, Yayoi had her hands full with the first one. Of course it wouldn't have been so bad if you weren't such an unnatural woman." And I smile and say 'hai!' and keep my head down because he holds my daughter hostage, because he knows I am a monster who could not love my own child—and one who cannot get another job anywhere else. The bengoshi of Japan have long memories, and I am well and truly fucked if the Crocodile were to throw me out.

It is the Crocodile who sits at the head of the table across from the American blonde in her designer suit and her diamond-studded watch, laughing and joking and recommending taiyaki in his trademark flirt. I come in with the green tea, placing the glass at his right hand quietly as the American looks at me curiously. Jessica Smith, who sat behind me during our shared classes at Stanford, now equity partner in her Californian firm and representing our client's North American interests. "Saena," she says, and I smile my well-behaved smile. Five years since acquiring my LLM and I've forgotten how familiar Americans can be with our given names. It was so jarring during the short time I had in Palo Alto. Her translator sits next to her but I respond in English.

"Ms. Smith," I say. "How lovely to see you again. Congratulations on making partner."

"Thanks!" she says, and her white teeth glint at me hungrily. "You look a lot less intimidating when you're not in the gunner pit. And it's Jess, remember?"

"Oh, you're so funny, Jessica," I say. "I was never intimidating."

"The lies you tell! And again, it's Jess. Saena, you had the professor working to keep up with you!" She smiles again and turns to the Crocodile. Americans always smile so unnecessarily. "Did you know, Katagiri-san, when she was studying for her LLM—all of us in the regular program took notes on the things she would say in class? And we knew she was still working while she studied! She's extraordinary! I had no idea she was a partner here at Viride. I'll have to tell the rest of the California team. What a great team we have. Really looking forward to getting this project rolling."

I can already tell that the Crocodile's smile has hardened on his face. "Mogami-san is not a partner here, Smith-san," he says, taking her by surprise. "She is my associate. Mogami-san has not yet earned partnership here at Viride."

"Oh." Jessica looks over at me, and I see the question in her eyes. Americans are always so greatly concerned about things like pay equity and gender disparities in the legal profession. I merely blink and maintain my composure. No response I make to her will lead to a positive outcome.

"Well then, let's get started, shall we?" Our next call with the opposing party is tomorrow, and we have to review the negotiation strategy before we engage with them. I produce the proposed documents and their corresponding English translations, the Crocodile pretends he wrote them. "Explain this term," Jess asks from time to time, and the Crocodile looks over at me and I reply on his behalf. Soon it becomes obvious that the Crocodile has not yet fully debriefed himself on the situation and on the documents that have been drafted, and Jess directs the questions to me directly. I can tell the Crocodile is not pleased. I try to make myself smaller, stay out of his way, but it's impossible. I cannot dissemble when he has not done the bare minimum. Even after I delivered executive summaries of our positions, he has not bothered to read them. Jess may be an excessively cheerful American, but she is no fool. She carries the confidence borne out of a million victories and a summa cum Stanford law degree. More prestigious than my own degree from Tokyo. I refuse to look her in the eyes. We continue working through lunch, and I hand out the bento boxes that have been delivered to us. I watch Jess struggle with chopsticks and discreetly hand her a fork.

She takes a small sip of her green tea and makes a face. "I'm sorry...do you have any sugar, perhaps?"

"Of course," I respond, and rise so I can head to the kitchen to grab her sugar.

"Saena," she says, "Wait—"

And she gets up and joins me. "This is not necessary, Jessica," I tell her. "Please sit—you should enjoy lunch while I grab some sugar and some other refreshments."

But she persists in following me out of the conference room and into the hallway. "Saena," she says, and I sigh. "Look, I know we weren't that close but I really respect you—and I can tell something is off."

"Jess," I say, "I assure you, we at Viride will do the utmost to provide our client the best representation possible."

"You know that's not what I'm talking about." Her blue eyes bore into mine, and she hands me her card. "You're wasted here. Don't let him do that to you. We're always looking for competent attorneys, and our firm is opening a branch here in Tokyo. Contact me. We'll bring you in as a partner, no questions asked. You deserve better than this."

I'm dumbfounded, staring at the card in my hand. "Jess—" I say, but she puts a friendly hand on my shoulder and has already turned to head back into the conference room.

"Think about it," she mouths at me before disappearing back to her lunch.

And I think about it. I think about it all afternoon, as the Crocodile insists on bringing Todoh in. Todoh grins at me sheepishly. He, at least, bothered to read the summary the Crocodile has forwarded. But even he could have chosen to defer to me, and he doesn't. Jess stares daggers at him while he flounders through the plan I wrote.

Her card burns in my pocket. I keep my plastic smile on. Survival is a long game.

III. Night

At ten o'clock on Thursdays, I sit in my shoebox and watch her. Box R, teen drama. Hardly suited to a woman on the wrong side of forty, but I cannot help myself. The credits roll as my kettle boils and dinner will be kitsune udon reconstituted with boiling water and served in the styrofoam bowl all instant noodles live in. Tonight I sit on the floor after having stripped the offending sheets off the bed. I've thrown out the pillows he touched, too.

I am not my daughter, I do not lie with movie stars or idols. Until last night, I did not lie at all. That fey girl-child of mine was borne from my body out of the cracks made by her father, the charming stranger with the self-deprecating smile. Spirited, optimistic, tenacious Kyoko, grown so suddenly into a stranger. Grown so suddenly into womanhood, and me still paying for the sin that made her. Some errant god must've endowed her with the witch-oil in her soul, because from me there is nothing, nothing, nothing.

But this Natsu, this monster she's created—I recognize her. She is a legacy culled and cut and polished from me from the bits of mothering I gave her. The cutting glance and the savage look and the speed and the cunning which I delivered with the slaps on her little cherub face, I recognize them on the screen. All of these were mine. On spring days with the sakura how I want to forget how she would come to me like a supplicant asking for absolution and I would slap her as if her punishment would cleanse my own sin from my soul. Always she'd come, bringing me an imperfect test, a scrawl of two stick-figures holding hands in front of a happy home, a flowering weed she'd found in a meadow. Love me, okaasan, that's what all of it meant. Love me like the horrific logo she wears emblazoned on her back on non-shooting days. She never could understand why she was never good enough, and I never told her. I never told her how horrible it is to wake in the hospital when you'd intended never to wake again. How horrible it is to live day after day after day after that, with nothing but sheer inertia holding you together. Two pigtails and a cup of tears, I'd take them twice daily with an SSRI and I could never embrace her. You cannot embrace a double-edged dagger, it does not kill you and merely makes you bleed. But she haunts me, this girl, lurking in shadows, flitting in and out, just out of sight and in the corners of my vision.

She smiles a vestal virgin's smile in a commercial in between Natsu's horrors, and if it weren't for her eyes, I would swear it was a different person.

Oh, dear reader, you may think I do not know her but I do, I do, I do. All her thousand little niceties, the graces, the airs—something in the blood must've known how to act and primp for the camera, something in the blood taught her how to charm the chiseled men that buzz around her like flies and that something did not come from me. My little girl out in the world, does she know it's full of wolves? Does she know how they'd tear her down at the slightest provocation? One wrong move on the tightrope she walks and she'll be another undead woman with dead eyes and scorched earth for a soul.

The episode ends with a lit match and a screaming girl and now I am to bed with a cocktail made of whisky and trazodone and ambien and xanax.

I sleep, perchance to dream.

I'm always disappointed that I wake up.

Because I always wake up.

Forgive me, Kyoko.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

Authors notes:

1. The poet Basho wrote a number of haiku about the Mogami River. This is what Todoh refers to during the Saena arc.

The haiku quoted translates to:

The hot sun was
Set into the sea
By the Mogami River

2. An LLM is a Master of Laws, usually a post-graduate law degree that takes about a year to complete. Generally, one is required to have a JD or equivalent to enter into a program. Many lawyers who earn their law degrees outside the U.S. choose to enter into an LLM program to gain information on US law, or to otherwise expand their expertise in specific areas (for example, a Tax LLM). Stanford does indeed offer a one-year LLM program.

3. If you or someone you know is suicidal, please call the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-TALK. Reach out to a friend or a family member. Heck, reach out to me. You aren't alone and help is available.