Chapter 21: The Price

Because sometimes, love isn’t flowers or words. It’s standing in front of a monster and daring it to kill you first.

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The call came at midnight.

Midnight calls are like loaded guns — nothing good ever comes after the first ring.

Jin didn’t waste time.

“Biggest fight of your life,” he said. “Biggest purse too.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Name doesn’t matter. All you need to know? He’s not human. Last guy he fought’s still drinking through a straw.”

I stared at the cracked ceiling of my apartment, phone pressed to my ear, the sound of my own breathing louder than Jin’s voice.

“And if I say no?”

“You don’t get the money. You don’t get the time.”

“Time?”

“Hospital bills, Kazuki. Treatments, meds — the stuff she needs to stay alive long enough for you to keep playing boyfriend of the year.”

Silence stretched like a rope between us. Tight. Choking.

“When?” I asked.

“Two weeks.”

Click.

---

I sat there after the call, the dark pressing against me like a second skin.

Two weeks.

Two weeks to turn myself into something that doesn’t break.

Two weeks to sell what’s left of me for a few more borrowed breaths of hers.

---

Later, I went to see her. She was sitting by the window in her apartment, humming something soft. Probably the same melody she played that night in the hall.

The light from the street painted her in fragments — gold on her hair, shadow on her cheeks.

“You’re quiet,” she said without turning her head.

“Am I?”

“Yeah. Quieter than usual, and that’s saying something.”

I wanted to tell her. Wanted to spill everything. About the fight. The risk. The fact that I was about to trade pieces of myself until there was nothing left.

Instead, I sat beside her and said, “Just tired.”

She laughed — small, broken at the edges.

“Guess we’re both tired then.”

---

We spent the night talking about nothing. About the smell of rain. About music that doesn’t need words.

She asked what the moon looked like tonight. I told her it looked lonely.

She smiled like she understood.

But somewhere between the silences, she tilted her head and asked:

“Kazuki… promise me something?”

“What?”

“Don’t leave me alone.”

My chest caved in.

“I won’t,” I said. And it was the only truth I had left.

---

When she fell asleep, I stayed awake, staring at her face like it could anchor me.

And I swore — to myself, to the night, to every scar on my body —

I’ll win this fight.

Even if it kills me.