Recluse Does Not Dream of Beautiful Girl Housemate

Two days had passed by in near silence.

And in all that time, Minato had not even turned on the light in his room. During the day, he left the blinds on the window in his room open to let the sun in. When the sun set, and it went dark, his sight adjusted to the dim moonlight before he slowly drifted off to sleep in silence.

During his days, he would occasionally rub his body to feel if he was still bruised and in pain from where he was beaten up protecting Mari. As the pain slowly subsided, leaving vague bruising across his body, the only thing he could feel was a curiosity as to why he even tried to protect her in the first place.

Each time he would find no answers. So he would slowly turn over, whether under the covers on his bed, or just to the side while he lay idly on the floor.

There was nothing in that room to entertain him. It was still mostly barren of anything besides furniture. Saki had promised to bring his things to him, but at this point Minato believed she had forgotten about him already. That was a common result that he noticed about others. He was often abandoned throughout his life.

But Minato was alright with this. In the end, he would lay in this room forever. There was no point in him going beyond that door. No matter what he did, it would always end up the same. Him alone with his bitterness towards the outside world.

The past few days, and especially that last Saturday, proved himself correct. And though he was always pleased to be right, this time left him feeling more empty than proud for once.

He patiently waited for that feeling to fade. It was taking longer than he had expected.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!

And Mari was not helping. He locked the door to the room as soon as he could. But that meant nothing, as Mari had the house key to open the lock from the other side of the door.

Thankfully, she never opened the door. The first time, she jiggled the door handle, but never once used the key. She spoke through the door, trying to coax him to open the door. But that always ended in more silence, as Minato would never answer her calls.

After a day of no response, she would only knock and wait patiently for him to open up. But that would never happen. Not now, not ever.

The reason she would knock now was to let him know that she had brought food for him. At first, it was meals handmade by her, but after he left the food untouched for a whole day, she changed to only bringing him cups of ramen and hot water for him to make them on his own.

Minato was fine with this, though her persistence on him eating, and him finally giving in to doing so, did change his plans. Though he was not completely upset with that, yet again he was unable to explain why. Instead, he would simply eat his cup and leave the trash neatly piled up outside his door for Mari to collect.

As the hours slowly ticked by, Minato heard Mari leave for work yet again. She had called up for him to let him know that she was leaving, but he never responded. Laying silently on the floor whilst the sunlight poured over him, warming him slightly.

He felt a small urge to go exploring the house. Something was calling inside him, but he suppressed that feeling and only stared blankly out the window from the floor to the sky above.

Time passed and Minato heard a click. The front door unlocked. Glancing over at the digital clock on his nightstand, he saw it was around the normal time for Mari to return home, so he thought nothing more about it. He turned over on his side, putting his back to the door once more.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!

Shortly there afterwards, another knock came from his door. Rolling his eyes, Minato wondered how much longer she would keep it up before completely forgetting about him.

He waited silently for the sound of her footsteps moving away from the door before he dared to open the door. But that sound never came. Instead, much the opposite happened.

BAMMMM!!!

The door practically flew off its hinges as a large force barreled through it. Losing his balance, Minato struggled to get enough traction to pull himself away from the center of the room and behind something for safety. He ducked into the fetal position and glanced out nervously through his defensively raised arms.

As the now opened door slammed into the wall and stayed there, through the opening, Minato could see what had forced the door open. Still steaming from the impact was a high-heeled black shoe still held raised in the air from where it had collided with the door. Attached to said shoe was the slender leg of a well-dressed businesswoman.

“Minato Kinoshita,” her voice rumbled like thunder as she slowly lowered her leg and marched forward towards him, “Why is this the second time I’ve had to battering ram your door open? Do you not know that when someone knocks, the polite thing to do is open the door? Or at least call to answer them? Huh!?”

“What? Huh? Saki?” Minato sputtered, trying to understand why she was here all of a sudden. From around Saki he saw Mari still standing in the hallway, peeking in enough to see what was happening as well. “What are you doing here? What do you want?”

As he asked this he saw a fire burning behind her glasses glaring from the ceiling light while she continued to approach him. She never answered him, merely walked with her heels clacking with each step. This caused fear to race down Minato’s spine as he slowly began to withdraw slowly although still mostly laying on the floor.

“Saki? What’s going on? Why aren’t you talking? Saki?”

With that, his head bumped against the farthest wall in the room, causing him to wince in pain from the impact. But his eyelids sprung open wide when Saki’s heel collided with the wall right next to his head. Glancing over, he could see his reflection in her well polished shoe.

If she had been just a few inches over, that hole in the wall would have been his nose. Gulping hard, he looked back up her leg and saw the rage emanating off Saki.

“S-Saki… ch-ch-chan?”

Without a word, she leaned down, making Minato try desperately to pull away from her, but that was futile while he was trapped between her and the wall.

“We are not that close right now, understand? Kinoshita.”

She had switched straight to using his last name only. No formality at all. He was a name to her now, not even a person anymore.

I messed up now…

But he was not going to take this insult anymore. No longer was he going to be played any further.

“What did I do? Why are you treating me like this now?”

She sat silently for a moment before slowly removing her foot from the wall and lowering it. Once it touched the ground, she squatted down, giving a hard glare in her eyes and curling her lip as she began to speak.

“What’re you doin’? Lockin’ yourself back up again? Who said you were allowed to do so, huh? Punk?” As she started growling at him, her voice had changed drastically from her normal tone and cadence. It reminded him of the old school delinquents from decades ago.

“Why do you care?” Minato roared, barely capable of sneering off to the side at that moment, “What does it matter what I do with my life? No one cares anyway.”

Saki clenched her fist in response, “I care because you are ruining my project! How dare you mess with my program! You were supposed to make the most profound transformation of all of the Withdrawals. Don’t you know how carefully I worked on this?”

Hearing these words, Minato turned back and yelled, “Your program? Like I care about any of that. Is that why you ruined my perfectly fine way of life? So that you could look good? How dare you talk to me like that.”

“Why you little…” Saki started, her brow twitching in anger, she looked like she was about to lunge forward and bite at his neck, killing him instantly.

But it was a soft voice, quietly rising from behind her, that kept her from doing any more than stare daggers into Minato.

“Sato-san?” Mari had finally stepped into the room, just behind Saki, her arms raised over her body, slightly covering her mouth as she spoke, barely enough for anyone to hear her try at reasoning with the anger pulsating off the businesswoman, “Please go easy on him. I am sure he has his reasons-”

She was cut off by Saki, turning on her heels and rising upright once again. Though Minato was unable to see her face any longer, he could tell that Mari had been successful in bringing some reason to her, as she breathed in heavily and let out a long sigh.

“Maybe,” she started after a long tense moment waiting for her to respond again, “it's you where my calculations were skewed, Takeda-san.” As she continued, she raised a hand to her head and cradled it whilst trying to shake off a headache. “You are too nurturing. I expected some sort of courage from you if a situation arose. But instead you shut down. How did I not see you doing that earlier.”

“Hey!” Minato roared, while still sitting prone on the ground, back against the wall. It shook everyone to hear him yell out like that suddenly. Even he was not sure why he had such heightened emotions over this specifically. “Don’t talk about Mari like that.

Saki only looked over his shoulder at him, her brows cut sharp downward with anger over how the situation was devolving. But it was the scoff that she finally gave that caused Minato the most worry about whether he had just screwed up further by returning the attention to him.

“Oh? Look at you now, standing up for someone else,” Saki laughed slightly as she spoke, turning to see him fully at the same time as she put her hands on her hips, leaning down over him again, “What’s come over you, huh?”

Minato bared his teeth before responding.

“Like I’ve said, I don’t care about much,” Minato did his best to speak clearly, but it was quite hard for him to do it through gritted teeth. “But what I really don’t care for is how you are talking down to Mari right now. She's innocent in all of this. It's your fault I am here after all.” With that accusation, he raised his finger, pointing it right at her nose.

Though Minato thought he might have made a terrible mistake and was about to lose the finger he was currently pointing at Saki, it remained intact at the end of it all. She glared hard at it, as if trying to set it ablaze with her sight, but after a few seconds she sighed hard and straightened her body once more. Speaking clearly and the most matter-of-factly she had so far that day.

“You are here because you broke the law.”

Minato began to speak his rebuttal, but was cut short by Saki raising her hand between them, preventing him from continuing.

“I don’t care about your disputes. Facts are facts, and you can’t argue against that much.” After that she lowered her head into her hands, seemingly frazzled by the turn of events. She moved her fingers over her skin and hair, massaging some pain she was feeling inside while pulling her normally perfectly aligned bangs into disarray. “I’ve given you a simple way out. All you had to do was follow along, play the game, change your ways, and you would have been set free. To do whatever you want. To no longer be scorned by everyone around you. But no, you have to act smarter than everyone around you. You are so dumb, Kinoshita!”

Those final words pierced Minato through the chest, causing him to grab at his hoodie, trying to keep his heart from pouring out. The other hand was being planted on the ground as he readied to stand up. He wasn’t sure if he was about to get physical with her, but he was ready for it if it came to it.

Luckily, it didn’t come to it.

“Stop! Please stop talking to him this way!”

Mari had jumped into the fray. She had her arms raised, separating the two of them. Though, she stood slightly off to the side as she was only able to get so far between them without touching one of them, possibly setting one of them off in the process. It was a smart move, Minato had thought, but long after the fact.

His vision was still narrowed on Saki, ready to do whatever it was his heart was telling him to do at that moment. But he was unable to do anything before Saki spoke up again.

“Step aside, Takeda-san.”

“No, I refuse.” Her voice trembled slightly as she answered, but her convictions did not waver as she faced the other woman down.

“You don’t know when to quit, do you?” Saki sighed, shaking her head in disgust at the two of them, “You do realize that it’s your fault he is in this much trouble right now, Takeda-san, right?”

As those words echoed throughout the room, Mari slowly lowered her head and arms. Unable to handle what was just said, she kept her tearing eyes planted to the ground below. She grabbed the bottom of her dress coat, pulling on it like a fidgeting child. Biting her lip as if she wanted to say something, something to rebuke the claim that had been laid upon her, but failed to do so.

Although at that moment, only one thought passed through Minato’s mind. He was tired of his ears failing him around these two women.

“OK, I admit I may have thought I could outsmart my way through all this mess.” He kept his voice as even as possible, trying not to have things blow out of proportions. But he was unable to keep his voice from becoming razor sharp as he asked his next question. “Now answer me this: how is it possibly her fault at this point?”

Saki glared hard. She seemed to weigh the merit of Minato’s question before she would yield an answer. Mari turned her head back in surprise, blinking her tears away, as she did her best to focus solely on the one who was suddenly coming to her aid.

“Jeez, you are so dense,” was the answer Saki finally gave. She sighed hard once again while shaking her head in repulsion, “I regret ever calling you smart. Because you are an idiot, Kinoshita.”

Minato clenched his jaw hard before yelling back, “What!? What is so stupid about what I said!?”

Tilting her head to the side, Saki glared down her nose at him.

“You isolated yourself after that confrontation in the shopping district, yes? Well, if you think you were protecting yourself from all of your problems of going out or whatever specifically you are hiding yourself from, you are wrong. It is Takeda-san who is doing more to protect you right now. She claims valiantly that it was an accident that befell those guys. But her first statement propped you up as her hero for rescuing her from their advances. But that inconsistency in her stories caused us to need to find out what was the truth. After interviewing bystanders and the guys as well, we found out what really happened.”

As Saki was recalling what had transpired on her side, Mari silently lowered her head, her whole body trembling in terror from remembering what had happened.

“N-no! Please, don’t…” Mari raised her head with tears nearly spilling out, while she begged Saki to not continue.

“I don’t care what really happened.”

This seemed to catch both women off guard. They both eyed Minato, the one who spoke these brazen words, in confusion for a moment. Mari’s face began to shine slightly with joy, realizing what Minato was about to say. Saki, on the other hand, raised a brow out of curiosity, trying to gauge where he was about to go with that statement. But she quickly cut them to a hard line of frustration as he continued.

“Because I know what actually happened. Those guys tried to harm Mari, and they got exactly what they deserve. Any other information is superfluous to me.”

Though the tears were now reaching their limits, Mari could only smile in excitement from hearing his reassurance of her character.

“Minato…”

Saki, on the other hand, was not impressed.

“Listen…,” She began soothing her voice as much as possible, like a mother who was trying to calm a child who was throwing a tantrum and not wanting to seem harsh in public, “She was the one who beat them to a pulp, not you nor anyone else.”

“Seriously?”

Minato was not quite sure why that was the single thing to escape his lips from that revelation. Mainly because it wasn’t so much of one to begin with. He had witnessed first hand on several occasions already the height of her strength hidden behind her thin frame. But it was a shock that that was truly what had happened. Not just something that he had been imagining the whole time.

Looking at Mari from the corner of his eyesight, he watched her react to the word getting out. She trembled softly while trying to say something, only to close her mouth and turn to one of the two other occupants of the room. And the cycle continued. She seemed to get more nervous by the second, as if she was trying to hide a secret, though everyone seemed to know what she was capable of from the start.

Minato thanked his lucky star that she hadn’t turned that strength on him up until that point. Or at least not maliciously.

“Honestly, this seems to have been the first time she has resisted on record. Though, it’s quite astounding, truly. It seems as if you might have been the force to have awoken something in her, rather than the other way around. And if that is the case, then separating you two will be the best course of action. Before she gets any worse. We will put her into rehab, get her some actual help. But as for you…”

Saki had been shaking her head like a teacher reprimanding her students while she spoke, but stopped when she turned to face Minato.

Minato was standing now. One of his arms was outstretched to the side. It was blocking Saki’s ability to get to Mari.

“You will do no such thing,” he cut her off before she continued her admonition, “I don't care about her in the end. But what I really care about is people getting only what they deserve. Mari did nothing wrong. She was protecting herself, and she can’t be blamed for doing so. I don’t care what punishment you have for me. I will fight it all the way. But don’t you dare punish her for something she didn’t do.”

Saki seemed unfazed by his sudden declaration. Her eyes remained narrowed and steadfast on his, not breaking contact for a millisecond.

Mari, on the other hand, lurched forward and grabbed his hoodie’s sleeve with her trembling hands and pulled for him to lower it. Though she easily had the strength to throw him across the room, she was not trying to harm him at that moment.

“Minato, no, please, don’t go!”

Instead, she was trying to hold him in place. For him to reconsider his ultimatum.

For several tense seconds, neither of the two combatants moved in the slightest, as they stared each other down. But slowly, Minato did as Mari wanted and lowered his arm to his side. Silently, he turned around and faced Mari in the eye. She had since begun to actually cry and could only look up at him between sniffles and wiping her tears away.

“Oh, I am not going anywhere. Not yet.”

“Huh?”

“No, I’ve got questions for you,” Minato took a step forward, causing Mari to lose her balance slightly. She faltered a step, but regained composure enough to raise her arms, slightly leaning back, unsure what he was about to do. “You said that the money you got from the government is for us to use to get me better or whatever. Then why does your checkbook say you are broke?”

“How’d you-” Mari attempted to ask, while her pearly eyes burned with confusion as to how he knew that information. But she was cut off by Minato continuing his inquiring tirade.

“During the time I spent cleaning the house, I saw your checkbook laying out. So why is your bank account empty? Your shelves are barren. And it seems as if you even work a job, well enough to pay for this house and then some. But you send out all of your spare money elsewhere. By the end of the week, you are broke again. What are you spending it on?

“And why are you constantly coming home late? I know it's expected of people to stay late for stupid reasons, but their clothes don’t look so disheveled when they come home. What are you doing at work? Is this something you are doing away from work? Or is this what you do for work?”

As Minato further questioned Mari, her silver irises lowered further and further downward. By the time he finished his battery, her head was so low it might have broken her neck. She trembled and clenched her tiny hands at her side like she was prepared to take on more, but it hurt intensely with each passing blow. With apprehensive lips, she gave her reply.

“I… I don’t want to talk about it… not with you at least…”

“You say you want me to stay,” Minato answered with venom dripping from his words, “But you won't be honest with me. I don’t believe I could stay in any place where the one I am staying with is hiding secrets from me. Are there any more secrets you are keeping from us? Never mind. I should just go now.”

Before Minato gave Mari a chance to answer his final question, he scoffed and started to walk away right by her. He was planning on leaving the room. Not sure where to go, though. Saki would probably take him back into custody. But that felt better at that moment to him than staying in that house any longer.

But he was stopped by a sudden tug coming from his wrist. He didn’t have to turn around to see what had caught him. In fact, he refused to turn around while the one pulling him away from the door cried out.

“That’s why I don’t want to talk to you about it!” Mari’s eyes were closed tight as she yelled at his back, preventing him from leaving, “I don’t want you to hate me. You, of all people in this world. I want you to appreciate me for me and for no other reason.”

“Then you better start talking.” Still, Minato did not turn around. When he spoke, he tugged on his wrist slightly. Though Mari held her fingers tight on his sleeve, it wasn’t strong enough that he was unable to free his arm from her grip. But instead of pulling away and leaving, he stayed motionless and waited, “What are you doing when you aren’t here? What’s happening to your money?”

“I… It’s… complicated…” Those were the words she had found while struggling to get him to believe her, but was cut short by Minato turning wide and staring hard into her with burning fury.

“Complicated!?” His voice rose to the loudest it had been in quite some time. It had been years since he felt so much emotion. What was the feeling specifically? Anger? Hate? Sadness? He couldn’t sequester it well enough with such simple titles.

But he thought he had put that emotion away, but now it was spilling forth uncontrollably. “You think your life is complicated? Please! I doubt it. You’ve got too much going for you.”

“... Minato…” Mari tried to speak up, but again was cut short by his furious words.

“You heard me! You think you have a terrible life? When you’ve got your looks alone to prop you up. I am sure with your charms you are able to get whatever you want in this life, huh?”

Mari, still anxious, squeezed harder on Minato’s wrist, her lips turned downward like anchors had taken hold of them. Near quietly, she spoke with her head down, obscuring her eyes with her bangs.

“You… think that it’s been all easy on me this entire time?”

“Of course, I do,” Minato answered coldly. His tone started soft but became rougher with each passing word, “It's been that way for everyone else I’ve known. I bet you were never abandoned. Well, I have. You never saw the people you thought were your friends disappear without a word, did you?”

In Minato’s head, he suppressed memories of his only childhood friend, A-kun. Him saying they would be friends forever. And of him leaving him one day, never to return. Never to hear anything of him ever again.

“Or have you ever experienced your parents suddenly dying, leaving you to bounce around your extended family as if you were some unwanted thing?”

He was helpless to see himself alone at his parent’s funeral. Though, several people, from close family members to far-flung relatives he had never known of before, came up to him. They gave pretty words, but all of them were empty. His struggle to accept his parent’s passing was exacerbated by their callous actions. They would take him in, on a temporary basis, until someone else would take him.

This would uproot his life several times in a short window. His grades suffered and his social skills nearly evaporated. And more apathetic would his family act towards his deteriorating behavior.

“Having to accept that you were rejected even by those who you’d think should care the tiniest amount, and then being abandoned once again and left alone to fend for yourself with no one to look out for you.”

Finally, he found himself alone permanently. After several legal cases, he was given reprise in the form of a living space provided for him by child welfare services as he was emancipated from his own family. Everything secured for him in those four walls of isolation.

A bitter taste washed over him at the sight of his past self laying on the floor by himself in such an empty room.

“And then suddenly you happen to meet some people who act like friends to you.”

A couple faces flashed in his mind. Two males and a female. Ones with the upper parts of their faces blotted out with black ink. They smiled, laughed, and offered a friendly hand out to him. Unsure of what to do, Minato took their hand.

They hung out together, told jokes, and had fun in several places around town, dragging him along for the ride. Throughout the entire time, Minato wondered why he was there, but never once asked them why he was treated so warmly suddenly.

Then it suddenly came clear to him. They started asking him to help with homework and planning their study sessions for them. But that slowly morphed into him doing it all for them. Wanting to keep them as close as possible, he prioritized their work over his, which caused his grades to slowly slip further away.

Worst of all, knowing he had nearly unlimited spare cash in his accounts, they began to ask for some to borrow with grubby hands out. They promised to pay him back, but they never did, still to this day.

The entire time, Minato had the wrong impressions of them. He even foolishly believed the girl was interested in him. She had gotten close to him physically a lot of the time and looked longingly at him, or so he thought. Beneath the old cherry tree in his school’s courtyard, he asked her to be his girlfriend.

That was the wrong choice…

“But when you are no longer useful to them, they toss you to the side like trash. When you need them to support you the most, they are nowhere to be found and talk bad about you behind your back. They spread rumors and lies, tarnishing your already pathetic reputation…”

Shunning all of those memories from his mind, he finally turned to Mari. While listening to him spout his grievances before her, she raised a hand to cover her mouth. The abhorrence apparent in her watering eyes, she tried to hold herself back from him.

Minato only lowered his brows in frustration further and continued.

“If I have learned one thing in this world, it’s this: people can’t be trusted. They want you if they can get something out of you. And when there’s nothing left for them to use in you, they abandon you. It's what they do. So it's best to live where you never come in contact with another human being. Understand?”

He gave a brief pause. Unsure if he wanted her to answer or not, he waited for her to make a move. But instead she stifled sounds trying to fall from her mouth with her hand pressed tight to her lips and pressed her eyes tight, shaking her head at him while she cried softly.

“And as for you,” he became impatient and turned his tirade from the past towards her, “What makes you think your life is so bad that it could even compare to how terrible my life has gone?”

Mari did not respond. She only silently wept, unable to turn her sight up at him even for the briefest moments.

“So that’s what you have been doing with your life? Hiding from your problems?”

Saki, though, was able to interject in that tense moment of silence.

Minato glanced sideways at the businesswoman, who he had almost forgotten was present at that moment.

“You got a problem with that?”

“You’ve been living off the welfare checks supplied by the government to supplement your parents’ death.” She adjusted her glasses as she spoke, her tone as cold as ice as she stated facts before him. “Since it seems your extended family has excluded you from their affairs, or at least that’s what the intel I have gathered on you says, there is no other income for you, correct?”

Seeing no need to add anything further to her line of questioning, Minato kept his answer short. “Correct.” What she had said was the truth, what more was there to say to that.

“If that’s the case,” Saki continued, taking all she needed from his response, “those monthly checks should end when you turn 25. What was your plan after that?”

Minato stood silently. His eyes had since softened since she had begun questioning him this time. Internally, he felt there was nothing to hide at that moment. What was the point in covering up his basic plan for his life?

He let out a soft sigh and turned his face upward before answering, “I’ve saved money over these past couple of years. It’s not much, but it will get me a few more months after that point.”

“And?”

Saki’s question seemed to catch Minato off guard, as he raised a brow in confusion.

“And what?”

“What’s after that?” She asked calmly, almost anticipating the answer before he gave it.

“Nothing.”

His answer was short, but his tone explained it all. It was a conclusion long since decided on, and there was no changing it in his mind. He accepted the inevitable in his mind.

“What do you mean nothing?”

Turning his head back to Mari, he saw her staring him down. The intensity in her eyes was palpable, even though she was still crying over her tear-stained eyelids.

Minato scoffed and raised his arms up nonchalantly and shook his head. It was a sign that he thought little of the concern in her question, but he did give a completely honest answer.

“Yeah. It will be over. That’s all.” He lowered his head as he continued to speak, a smile softly across his lips, staring solely at his feet. He couldn’t explain why, but he was unable to stop himself. He kept speaking, even though he knew it meant nothing in the end. He believed every word he said, he couldn’t say it to those before him as he did to himself inside. “I mean no one will come looking for me. So I might as well go somewhere no one will-”

SMACK!

Without warning, a sharp pain erupted on his cheek, causing his head to spin to the side uncontrollably. As the pain began to build across his whole face, he slowly turned his eyes to see what had happened.

In the corner of his vision, he saw Mari breathing heavily with one hand still raised in the air from where she had slapped him. Her eyes were sharp and ringed red. Minato moved his hand to nurse the sore spot on his cheek, about to ask why she had done that, but before he spoke, Mari interjected.

“Don’t you dare even think about that! I won't let you!”

The confusion slowly faded from Minato’s face and was swiftly replaced with anger as he roared.

“What’s your problem? What do you care what I do with my life?”

Once more, without warning, Mari’s arms moved lightning fast towards Minato. Flinching slightly, he prepared for the oncoming pain quickly approaching his face. But it did not hurt.

Instead, Mari grabbed onto his shoulders and shook him as she cried back at him, “You are important to me! You have no idea how much you mean to me!”

The corner of Minato’s nose crinkled up in disgust at her words. “I know about how much. I’ve seen how much money you’ve gotten from me being here.”

Mari shook her head violently as she fought against his accusation, “It has nothing to do with that. You are the first. So please don’t leave me.”

“What are you on about? What did I do?”

Minato was not able to think clearly at this moment while his emotions tangled inside his chest, but no matter how hard he tried, he was unable to remember a single thing he had done that could be considered worth saving to someone else. He was just a waste of space if it wasn’t for the blank check that followed him.

“You are the first person to actually see me for me!” Her cry broke Minato’s concentration long enough for him to forget everything. His face slackened, but he was unable to say anything at that moment as Mari lowered her head to where the top of it rested on his chest. “You were the first to actually care about me.”

Those words made no sense to Minato.

“Huh? What are you-” He tried to get answers out of her as his chest tightened from where her head was touching around his heart. He was unable to move and barely able to speak to the woman staining his new hoodie with her tears.

But as he started to question her, she raised her head and quietly wiped the tears from her silvery eyes, before straightening up and speaking again.

“I now only know a little about your life so far, but I think it's fair I tell you about mine.”

She pulled away slightly, giving some space between them as she started up again. Her eyes were resolute and unwavering, locked tight on Minato’s, and yet soft and caring with a small smile peeking out on her lips as she spoke and reminisced.

“When I was a little girl, I was considered ugly by the other kids. It started with my eye color, but slowly became about everything about me. I had no friends and played by myself. Even in assigned groups at school, I was shunned by the other kids. I don’t know why, I thought I was perfectly normal, no different from the others.”

Minato was unable to picture Mari as anything other than the vision of beauty before him. But internally, he could see her. She was sat alone with everyone’s back to her. Though he could not see their faces, he could hear them laughing. Snickering over things she could not control like her oddly colored irises to her pasty skin tone.

He felt pity for that little girl in his mind.

“My father always told me I was beautiful when I would come crying to him from being bullied. When he would do that, it made me feel better for at least a little time. But that didn’t last too long. While I was still in elementary school, my father passed away, leaving me and my mother alone.”

Minato felt a little snap inside him, as if something tore inside his chest. But he was unable to move. Just stare at the little girl who sat alone in a chair in front of her father’s casket, crying unbearably, clutching tight to a photo of the only person who seemed to care about how she was feeling. Her mother, unsure of how to handle the situation, rubbed the sobbing girl's back to console her, barely making a difference.

“It was tough, but we persevered.”

The little girl slowly grew before him, growing steadily to resemble the woman who he had been living with.

“Luckily, or maybe unluckily, when I entered high school everything changed. I was no longer the girl everyone teased for being ugly. Nothing seemed different about me, but now no one seemed to be able to look away from me. At first, I was so happy. It was something I had always dreamed of. But finally having it made me regret even wishing for it. Because no one saw the real me still.”

Minato could see it though. Because he had witnessed it firsthand. When they were out that day, all eyes were on them. Mostly on her, but some fell upon him, wondering why she would have anything to do with him. Though he agreed with them, he had only concerned himself with how that made him feel. Never once had he considered what Mari had thought about all the attention on her.

“The girls in my class saw me as a threat and relentlessly picked on me whenever and in whatever ways they felt would do the most damage to me.”

Visions of terrible names scrawled on school desks, wet clothes tossed into the toilet, and personal belongings being destroyed or stolen danced in front of Minato’s sight. He, too, had witnessed the terrible treatment of others on the outcast. He had received his fair share of it as well.

“The guys in turn would try to protect me, but they only did so because they had ulterior motives. No matter how much I begged them, they refused to keep their hands off of me. Even the teachers were no help, as they in turn did the exact same.”

Biting his lip, Minato restrained himself. As he saw what they guys were capable of as well. Though the girls were cruel themselves, the men were much more than anyone, especially anyone in Mari’s place, could handle without breaking.

He wanted to say something at that moment, to say that he wouldn’t have done that. But what would that have mattered? He wasn’t there, was he really different in the end? It was in the past, no changing that regardless. So he held his tongue as it tormented him.

“I thought that somehow I had become cursed and this was my punishment for such a childish wish. It continued on like that for years, until I was at my breaking point.”

Minato wasn’t sure if he heard her right. It felt as if all the air was pulled from his lungs and he was crashing to the ground. He knew better. But the very thought afflicted him. He knew it was hypocritical of him, but he wanted to tell her off for considering it.

Instead, he only looked down at his feet, beating himself up inside for even contemplating it.

“I couldn’t take it anymore, and I was ready to throw it all away. But my mother stopped me. She held me in her arms and cried, begging me not to leave her alone. I realized just how selfish I had been to her at that point. I promised her I would never leave her and cried with her.”

Then the mother and daughter had returned before his eyes. They were embracing each other and wailing in both agony and joy to have each other for now. Minato grabbed at his chest, cursing himself for wondering what that felt like. To have someone love you enough to keep you from being away from them.

“And things seemed to slowly get better. Until one day, she collapsed.”

No! Not that, not now… Minato whispered in his mind. He knew it was a story being told to him, but it felt too cruel for him to hear.

“We rushed her to the hospital, but after all was said and done, she never recovered. She is still there, and the bills are constantly building up. I got a job to pay for her expenses, because I promised to never leave her. Though, I never get to see her as I work long hours to make as much money as possible. Though, I guess it's not work in the traditional sense, what my boss does to me to keep me as close to him as possible.”

In his mind, Minato watched as a sleazy looking corporate man sidled up to Mari, holding her shoulder as if to ask her how she was doing on her work. Though she gave an answer that should have been enough to end the interaction right there, his hand had other ideas as it moved further down over her body down from her shoulder. She closed her eyelids tight as this happened and patiently prayed for it to end soon.

Minato felt his blood boil. He wanted to beat the crap out of that guy. But he was not there at that moment. Though that was true, he desperately wanted to show this guy what he was doing to a woman who just wanted to keep her mother alive.

What a piece of shit he is…

“But it was all I was capable of doing to help my mother. That was until I saw the advertisement for the Housemate position and how much it would pay. I admit it was selfish. I would have someone living with me, who would not be allowed to harm me in any way, and would have to stay, listen to what I had to say. Maybe they would finally see me, the real me.”

Mari stopped her story as it slowly approached the present day. She smiled bright with her cheeks pushing up and over her silvery eyes as she continued again.

“But then you came along. And right from the start, you said the most important thing that anyone has said to me in so long.”

“What did I say?”

Stunned, Minato searched deep within his memories, trying to place what he could have possibly said to mean so much to Mari. All he remembered was him selfishly trying to tear her down in a vain attempt to keep her as far away from him as possible. Nothing that could be misconstrued as anything worth cherishing.

Mari flashed a wide, toothy grin and laughed as he asked his question. She must have found it funny how he was reacting, but Minato was totally lost as to what he had done to cheer her up at this point.

“You said I was completely normal. Nothing special at all.”

“Huh?”

Minato was getting used to it at this point. Mari was an expert at saying things that made no sense to him at first. After all, why would him talking smack to her make her happy?

“You have no idea how much I longed to hear someone say something as simple as that to me. I was so happy. I nearly jumped out of my skin.”

The actions became clear. Her nervousness in his first meeting her, and then her quickly warming up to him. Even reaching so far across the table just to hold his hand and prevent him from escaping.

“But then you wanted to leave, and I couldn’t stand that. Yes, I admit. I am selfish. But I didn’t want you to leave me. I had finally found someone who could look past the surface and really see me. So please.”

As she started her plea, she reached out and grabbed Minato’s shoulders, pulling herself so tight against him. With her face buried deep into his chest, she continued her request. “I am begging you now. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me alone again!”

Though Minato had since become planted to his spot, unable to move after hearing Mari’s story, he felt her whole body trembling as she cried again into his hoodie.

Stop… please…

He wanted to get her off of him, he hated contact and his body was reacting by constricted itself since there was nowhere to run.

But he found himself doing something completely different. Though his mind was swirling with conflicting thoughts, his arm moved on its own.

Gently, he placed his hand on the head of the still sobbing Mari and softly petted her hair, tenderly soothing her in the only way he could at that moment.

Stop proving me right…

“Yeah, you are right, you are selfish. Just like everyone else.”

Silently, they held each other, not saying another word further. There was nothing more that needed to be said between the two. They were alone now.

But together.

***

“Maybe I took things a bit too far, a bit too quickly?”

Saki moved through the hallway leading down to the staircase, she slowly descended. Though she walked quickly with purpose, she was careful to not let the clicking of her heels be heard as she made a hasty exit from the scene.

“I guess it can’t be helped. The ends justify the means, yes?”

As fast and yet still undetected as she could, she made her way out the door. Shutting it in a way that made almost no sound.

She cut across the front lawn to the limousine parked on the street corner, but right as she approached the furthest back door, now open to her by one of the armed guards waiting for her, her phone rang in her pocket.

Pausing, she raised it to her ear and answered.

“Yes, Sato here. Yes. Things are proceeding as planned. No, no problems discernible at this moment. Yes. We are clear to advance to phase 2. Yes. Understood.”

As the other side had fallen silent, she tapped her finger to the end call button on the screen. Turning to face the quiet house in the middle of the sleepy suburb, she smiled softly before entering the rear of the limo.

“I expect great results from you, Minato.”