Chapter 20: Deepening Bonds

The gym on the second floor of Residence D is empty at 5:47 AM. The overhead lights flicker once, stabilize, cast their harsh illumination across the rows of equipment. Treadmills face the exterior windows, offering a view of Roppongi's early morning traffic. Weight racks line the interior wall, organized by kilogram increments. The air smells of industrial cleaner and old sweat—the residue of hundreds of workouts absorbed into the rubber floor mats.

Hana works through her routine with mechanical precision. Bench press: three sets of twelve at 35 kilograms. Lat pulldown: three sets of fifteen at 40 kilograms. Bicep curls: three sets of twelve at 8 kilograms each arm. The numbers matter less than the rhythm—the repetitive motion that quiets the constant analysis, that gives her body something to do while her mind processes everything else.

Seven months, she calculates between sets. Seven months of consistent training. Three hundred and fourteen gym sessions. The body she didn't choose becoming something she's chosen to build.

The door opens. Footsteps on rubber.

Miya.

She's dressed in practice clothes—the black leotard and tights that constitute her default uniform for training. Her face still shows traces of hospital pallor, but she's upright. Moving. Alive.

"The doctors cleared me," Miya says before Hana can ask. "Light activity only. Nothing strenuous."

"Then what are you doing here?"

Miya doesn't answer immediately. She walks to the stretching area, sits on one of the foam mats, begins working through flexibility exercises that require minimal exertion.

"Could you teach me?"

The question catches Hana mid-rep. She sets down the weight, turns.

"Teach you what?"

"This." Miya gestures at the equipment, at Hana, at the routine that's become as automatic as breathing. "The way you approach it. The—" She stops, searches for words. "The way you eat without being afraid."

Ah.

Hana moves to the mat, sits across from Miya. The girl is tiny even by Japanese standards—stunted growth from childhood illness, trapped in a body that looks younger than her sixteen years. The eating disorder that the industry enforces. The fear that structures every meal.

"This isn't about looking different," Hana says carefully. "The numbers. The tracking. It's not about weight loss or beauty standards."

"Then what is it about?"

"Functioning better." Hana pauses, organizing thoughts into something communicable. "When I came here—when I was changed—everything felt out of control. The body. The situation. The people around me. Exercise was something I could measure. Track. Improve incrementally."

"And the food?"

"Same thing. Data instead of fear. If I know what I'm consuming, know what my body needs, the eating becomes mechanical rather than emotional."

Miya's eyes are fixed on her. Searching.

"Does it work?"

The question lands heavier than it should. Hana thinks about the voices—quieter now, more integrated, but never silent. Thinks about the trading account that grows steadily toward escape. Thinks about the strange territory between acceptance and resistance where she's learned to live.

"Yeah," she says finally. "It helps."

The conversation with Yuki happens in the communal kitchen at 7:15 AM.

Hana is preparing breakfast—the precise portions her calorie app suggests, protein and complex carbohydrates in measured quantities—when Yuki appears. She moves with the tentative energy of someone who has been waiting for this moment, rehearsing words, delaying anyway.

"Can we talk?"

Hana nods. Sets down the measuring cup.

They sit at the small table by the window. The view is unremarkable—other towers, road traffic, the gradual lightening of Tokyo's sky. But it's private enough for honest conversation.

"I need to apologize," Yuki says. "Properly. Not just the surface apology I gave at the beginning."

"You've apologized."

"Not for everything." Yuki's hands twist together on the tabletop. "I transformed you. Accidentally, but I did it. And then I let you believe—" She stops. Breathes. "I let everyone tell you the magic would make you accept it. That you'd adjust. Forget."

"But you knew."

"I hoped." The word comes out raw. "I hoped it would work the way it worked for me. For Sora and Rei and Miya. But you kept fighting. Kept remembering. And every day I watched you struggle, I knew it was my fault."

Silence.

"You were grieving," Hana says finally. "Mari had just—"

"Mari is an explanation, not an excuse." Yuki's voice hardens. "I spent two years telling myself that her death justified my choices. That the transformation was what she would have wanted for me. But that's not true. Mari wanted whatever would keep me near her. Even after she was gone."

The grief is still there. Visible in Yuki's eyes, in the way her shoulders curve inward. Two years of processing and it still hasn't faded.

"Do you regret it?" Hana asks. "Your own transformation?"

"No." The answer comes immediately. "I regret how I got here. I regret what I did to you. But being this—" She gestures at herself, at the body she's inhabited for two years. "This feels right in ways the other didn't."

"And me?"

"That's not my question to answer." Yuki meets her eyes. "I trapped you here. The least I can do is give you space to figure out what you want without my guilt getting in the way."

Honest, Sage observes. More honest than she's been.

Honesty doesn't fix anything, Frost counters.

But it creates space for things to change, Quinn adds.

"I don't forgive you," Hana says. "Not completely. Maybe not ever."

Yuki nods. Her eyes are wet but she doesn't cry.

"But I don't hate you either. And I'm not going to pretend what happened didn't happen." Hana stands. "We're stuck together. We might as well figure out how to be stuck together without destroying each other."

"That's more than I deserve."

"Probably." Hana picks up her breakfast plate. "But it's what I'm offering."

The meeting with CEO Tsukishiro happens at 11:00 AM in the Crescent Moon boardroom on the thirty-fourth floor.

The room is designed to intimidate—floor-to-ceiling windows, a table that seats twenty, chairs that are deliberately uncomfortable for anyone below the head position. Tsukishiro Masanobu occupies that seat with the ease of someone who has done so for decades. His suit probably costs more than Prism5 earns in three months. His expression suggests nothing ever surprises him.

Mrs. Kuroda, his secretary, hovers near the door. Her presence feels like surveillance disguised as administrative support.

"Miss Hana." Tsukishiro's voice is measured, polite in the way that powerful people can afford to be. "Thank you for meeting with us."

"Was this optional?"

"Everything is optional. Consequences vary."

Hana sits in the chair indicated—positioned to put the sun in her eyes, to make her look up at Tsukishiro across the vast table. Standard power dynamics. Predictable manipulation.

"Your actions at the Music Bank recording have generated significant discussion," Tsukishiro continues. "The board is concerned about potential liability. Our network partners are requesting clarification about Prism5's... stability."

"Miya collapsed from exhaustion. I responded."

"You assaulted a production employee."

"I removed a battery from a camera that was filming a medical emergency for entertainment purposes."

"Semantics."

"Reality." Hana keeps her voice level. "Your schedule put a sixteen-year-old in the hospital. Your production culture treats documentation of that collapse as content rather than crisis. If you want to discuss liability, we can start there."

Silence.

Tsukishiro's expression doesn't change. Mrs. Kuroda's fingers pause over her tablet.

"You're suggesting the company bears responsibility for Miss Miya's condition?"

"I'm stating it."

"That's a bold position for someone in your contract situation."

Here it comes, Vex notes. The leverage play.

"My contract situation is simpler than you think." Hana meets his eyes. "You need me more than I need you. The plane incident made me recognizable. The Music Bank footage made me sympathetic. Fire me now, and I walk straight to a competitor with the story of how Crescent Moon Entertainment works its talent to collapse."

"You'd be breaking contract terms."

"I'd be paying a penalty." Hana shrugs. "Which I'd recover within months from interview fees alone."

Tsukishiro's eyes narrow almost imperceptibly.

"Alternatively," Hana continues, "I could simply return to the United States. The debt collection process across international borders is... complicated. By the time your lawyers sorted jurisdiction, I'd have started over entirely."

"You'd abandon your groupmates?"

"I'd remove myself from a toxic situation." The words taste bitter but necessary. "The question is whether you want to make that my only rational option."

More silence. Tsukishiro's fingers tap against the table—once, twice. A rhythm that suggests calculation rather than anxiety.

"What do you want?"

"Schedule reform. Medical oversight. Rest periods that aren't subject to promotional demands." Hana lists the same requirements she gave the executives, unchanged. "Common sense measures that protect your investment while maintaining our productivity."

"Those are significant concessions."

"Hospital bills are significant expenses. Liability lawsuits are significant expenses. Losing a group member to burnout is a significant loss." Hana stands. "I'm offering you a partnership instead of an adversarial relationship. It's more efficient for everyone."

She doesn't wait for a response. Walks toward the door, past Mrs. Kuroda's frozen expression, into the hallway where the air feels marginally less toxic.

That was risky, Sage observes.

That was necessary, Frost counters.

That was kind of impressive, Quinn adds.

The elevator takes her down to the sixteenth floor. Her hands are shaking when she reaches her apartment. But she didn't back down.

That has to count for something.

The evening finds all five of them in Hana's apartment.

It's the first time the full group has gathered in her space—the largest unit on the floor, with its extra bedroom and southern view. The others have brought food from their own kitchens: Sora with rice and vegetables, Rei with convenience store snacks, Yuki with tea, Miya with fruit carefully portioned.

They eat in the living room, scattered across the furniture, the conversation wandering through the day's events without landing on anything significant.

Then Yuki asks the question.

"What if we could reverse it?" Her voice is quiet. "Would you?"

Silence.

Sora is the first to answer. "I wouldn't." Her voice carries certainty. "This is who I wanted to be. Who my mother finally accepted. Going back would mean losing that."

"Me neither," Rei says. "I aged out of male idol training at fourteen. Too short. Wrong look. This"—she gestures at herself—"is the only version that gets to have a career."

Miya considers for longer. "The transformation saved my life. Literally. The leukemia was killing me. Being this... it gave me a future." A pause. "I like who I am now. Even the hard parts."

They all look at Hana.

Don't you want to go back?, Quinn asks internally. To being who you were?

Who was I?, Frost counters. Someone benched. Forgotten. Slowly disappearing into a back office.

But it was your body, Sage observes. Your life.

Was it worth keeping?

The question has no simple answer.

"I don't know," Hana says finally. The words feel inadequate but accurate. "I don't know if I'd want to go back. I don't know if going back is even possible. I don't know who I'd be if I did."

"That's not an answer," Rei observes.

"It's the only answer I have."

The room is quiet. Outside, Tokyo's lights flicker their endless patterns. The tea grows cold in its cups.

"We're messed up," Yuki says eventually. "All of us. In different ways."

"We're surviving," Sora corrects. "In the same ways."

"Is there a difference?"

No one answers. Maybe there isn't one.

Hana looks at the four women sharing her space. Captors who became companions. Strangers who became something closer to family.

Is this what belonging feels like?

She doesn't know that either.

But she's willing to wait and find out.