The Sun of Anxiety

I heard the door close behind her. I had noticed something strange about her.

Tanaka was always cold as ice, efficient and perfect, but a few seconds ago she seemed... upset. Her eyes were darting around. She didn't seem like her usual self..

Mio was left alone in the silence of the room. And then, in her innocence, her mind began to create stories to fill the void. Why was she so nervous? Mio wondered. Her inner self, that imaginative and dramatic little voice that had been quiet during the stress of the parade, reappeared with force. She must have a boyfriend! Mio said to herself, bringing her hands to her cheeks. " That must be it! A forbidden romance that she doesn't want to show Miss Kaguya yet. Maybe he's a rival spy... or maybe... Tanaka is the real owner of the company and operates from the shadows! "

Emotion got the better of her. She wanted to see. She wanted to be privy to that romantic secret.

With a mischievous smile, Mio approached the window and slightly raised the blinds, hoping to see Tanaka kissing someone in the hallway or receiving flowers. But what she saw made her smile vanish instantly.

There were no flowers or romance. Mío saw that everyone, literally everyone on the floor that could be seen from the lobby, was running back and forth. Papers were flying. People were shouting into phones. Executives were desperately loosening their ties. It didn't look like the familiar, elegant company she knew; it looked like the deck of a sinking ship. It was total chaos. “ Huh...? ” she wondered, confused. “ Where's the birthday party? ”

Mio closed the blinds, feeling scared. Her heart began to beat irregularly. She turned around and then noticed something. On the coffee table, where the old magazines had been, there was a shiny black object. It was a phone. Tanaka, in his rush to leave, had left behind his personal secondary phone. It wasn't the work tablet he always used, but a different device.

Mio approached slowly. " Don't touch it " her conscience told her. " It's private. " But curiosity and growing fear were stronger. “ Excuse me... ” she whispered into the air, as if that would absolve her. She reached in. Her inner self screamed that it was wrong, that it was an invasion of privacy, but her fingers had already touched the cold glass. She lifted it up.

Just then, the screen lit up. A wave of notifications began to appear on the lock screen. They were news and social media alerts. And by pure luck (or bad luck), Mio managed to read one message:

“TRENDING NOW: Shibuya fraud is pink.”

This piqued Mio's interest and, perhaps, sparked some fear. Fraud? Pink? With trembling hands, she slid her finger across the phone, which had no passcode. The news app opened. And Mio's world ended in an instant.

The first thing he saw was a photo of her. That photo she didn't even know existed. The photo of her at Happy Burger, with her apron stained with grease, her hair tousled, and her face shiny with sweat. And next to it, her photo from the gala, impeccable. Reading the caption made his stomach hurt:

“CINDERELLA ACTUALLY LIVES IN THE TRASH: MIO DECEIVES HIGH SOCIETY.”

Without saying another word, Mio dropped the phone on the floor. The phone hit the floor, but to Mio it sounded like glass breaking. She realized that her dream story, her fairy tale with Kaguya and Tanaka, might be coming to an end.

Panic seized her legs. Her flight instinct kicked in. Mio ran out of the room. She didn't care who she bumped into or what she broke along the way. She pushed open a door and ran out into the main hallway.

She kept running, blinded by tears, until she reached the large central atrium of the building. It was a huge room with a high ceiling, where investors and interested parties were usually received. There, hanging from the ceiling, were several giant television screens. Normally, they showed stock market charts. Today, all of them, absolutely all of them, showed her face. The news programs were talking about her. The voices of the presenters echoed through the hall: “...the scandal of the year... Ren Shinomiya and the maid... national disgrace...”

Seeing all this caused Mio to stop and crouch down momentarily, covering her head with her arms, as if trying to protect herself from something physical. She felt attacked from all sides. The voices came from the ceiling, the walls, her own mind. “ Stop it! ” she shouted, but her voice was lost in the noise.

In a moment of rage or perhaps pure fear, she saw the glass revolving doors at the end of the lobby. It was the exit. She ran toward it. The security guards, distracted by Tanaka's contradictory orders and the internal chaos, didn't see her when Mio pushed the door open and ran out.

The fresh air should have been a relief for Mio. But it was quite the opposite. The sun's rays, which she received abruptly, blinded her momentarily. And then, all hell broke loose for her. “ THERE SHE IS! ”, “ MIO! OVER HERE !”, “ MIO! IS IT TRUE THAT YOU ARE REN'S LOVER? ”, “ MIO!” HOW MUCH DID THEY PAY YOU?"

Dozens of cameramen and reporters who had been camping outside rushed toward her. Flashes went off. Microphones nearly hit her in the face. Mio backed away, terrified. The noise was unbearable. Her breath caught in her throat. Her chest tightened as if a giant hand were squeezing it. The world began to spin and colors blurred together. For the first time in her life, Mio experienced a true anxiety attack. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't think. She just wanted to disappear.

Her knees were weakening. She was about to fall before the horde of journalists. But then, she felt a strong tug from behind. Three figures appeared at the back of the door, coming out of the building to intercept her. Mio couldn't see who they were. Her eyes were filled with white spots from the flashes, and her mind was shutting down from emotional overload. She felt herself being pulled back into the darkness of the building, away from the cruel lights.

“ I've got you.” Mio heard a distant, distorted voice say.

The emotion was too much for her body. For a moment, Mio stopped fighting. And that was enough for her to faint into the arms of one of the three silhouettes. As the glass doors closed, leaving outside the world that wanted to see her destroyed.