Chapter 3
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Chapter 3: The Death of The Canary
Shimizu Sakuya couldn’t tame a raging tiger, but she could soothe a person who had lost their reason.
Only, the current situation was very bad—after forcibly kissing her, Miss Ayase Aoi was now pulling her hand insistently toward her chest and demanding “deeper communication.”
This turn of events wasn’t unexpected. Ayase Aoi was, after all, a yakuza heiress steeped in underworld culture. From a young age, she’d been taught by that old man to do things by any means necessary. If there wasn’t a bit of ruthlessness in her blood, people might start to question whether she was really his biological daughter.
And this was still far from the worst—Miss Fujiwara Yuki, after awakening her inner black-bellied sadist, was the type to put collars on people. Compared to that, all this kissing and clinging was just a trivial sweet reward.
Getting angry was like a spring, the more tension you apply at the peak of anger, the stronger the rebound force. If you’re courting disaster, the one who gets hurt in the end is still yourself.
After being tormented by multiple endings, Shimizu Sakuya’s clever brain had already figured that out. So when facing the completely irrational and rage-filled Ayase Aoi, the best approach was to go along with her—wait until she calmed down.
…Though a bit hard to admit, thanks to this frail body, she was caught off guard at first by Ayase Aoi’s sudden actions.
When teeth tore through skin, the faint metallic tang of blood began to seep out. It was like sharks in the ocean catching a whiff of it—rushing in without restraint, ready to devour her whole.
Shimizu Sakuya nearly failed to escape.
Thankfully, she was experienced and had developed considerable resistance in this area. She quickly snapped back to herself.
As Ayase Aoi wished, Shimizu Sakuya shifted from defense to offense, regaining control with a stronger stance and embraced her in arms as gentle as water.
Ayase Aoi’s hands unconsciously grabbed at the oversized white shirt on Sakuya’s body, wrinkling it and leaving deep and shallow creases along the back.
A mother’s embrace can stop a child’s crying—and clearly, for twenty-six-year-old Ayase Aoi, this worked just as well.
Though their hearts weren’t pressed together, Ayase Aoi could somehow hear Sakuya’s heartbeat and gradually calmed down, sinking into that comfort.
Like a long-haired cat, tail swishing and cheeks puffed out, she rubbed her head into her owner’s shoulder.
With her chin resting on Sakuya’s shoulder, she was filled with an inexplicable sense of peace. It was like a sedative softening her anger—what she smelled at the tip of her nose was the fresh, rich peach scent from Sakuya’s hair.
It was the same scent as the shampoo they used in the bathroom—the same scent on her own body.
A scent that belonged only to her.
She held onto Sakuya’s hand but caught sight of the other girl’s eyes—already clear from their earlier frenzy, without the slightest emotional ripple, calm as a windless blue sea. But the waves of that sea came crashing with a chill that soaked her to the bone.
She understood. Sakuya’s eyes were saying:
“Are you done yet?”
That gaze was too heartless, too cold—and yet, maddeningly captivating.
The first time Ayase Aoi saw Shimizu Sakuya, she had that same gaze.
Back then, they were still innocent second-years in middle school. Because of her yakuza background, no one dared speak to Ayase Aoi, and she didn’t think she needed friends anyway—always alone.
After school, classmates would head to clubs or hang out in small groups. She would just silently watch from the side.
Ayase Aoi didn’t feel sad—she believed loneliness was life’s eternal condition.
Then one day, out of pure curiosity, she wondered what it would be like to go home with a friend. But when she looked around, she realized she didn’t have one. All she had was a 1.9-meter-tall bodyguard with a buzzcut and sunglasses, and a silent, square-faced chauffeur.
Thankfully, Ayase Aoi was clever. She ordered her bodyguard to stay ten meters away and followed behind an unknown blonde girl, keeping a distance of about three steps.
The orange sunset stretched the girl’s shadow long—so long it felt like they were walking side by side. Ayase Aoi carefully followed in her footsteps, stepping on her shadow.
And just like that, she had a friend to walk home with.
As she followed the girl along the way, she saw—
People walking dogs being dragged around like it was the dogs walking them.
A woman rolling up her sleeves, charging into the supermarket with the spirit of a samurai from a morning drama to snatch up discount eggs.
A father on a rickety old bicycle, carrying his son home from school while loudly singing off-key songs on the bike path…
These were scenes she had never seen before—things hidden behind the tinted, one-way windows of her reinforced luxury car.
Though she kept her distance well, every journey must end. The girl entered a furniture store holding a promotional event and vanished. A crowd of onlookers swarmed the entrance, and Ayase Aoi’s steps stopped.
The girl was gone…
People on the crosswalk wandered in all directions without purpose. Ayase Aoi stood quietly by the roadside, a hollow draft opening up in her chest.
She lowered her eyes, watching the chauffeur slowly bring the lonely car around. The bodyguard respectfully opened the door before her. On her face was an almost unbearable frustration verging on collapse.
In her father’s study was a calligraphy piece meant to teach emotional control:
“Joy shown on the face, disgust hidden in the heart, never expressed in action.”
She had always lived by her father’s teachings. And yet now, she wondered: the girl was just a stranger, so why had she lost control of her emotions?
She boarded the car, lost in thought. But just then, she felt something. She turned sharply.
That blonde girl had, at some point, changed from her school uniform into a cheap performance outfit. The low-quality silver foil in the costume made her golden hair seem even more dazzling.
While other performers wore fake smiles, she stood on the cramped stage, barely three meters wide, in front of the furniture store, expressionless, seriously dancing to a popular idol song.
At that moment, Ayase Aoi’s eyes saw only the girl—illuminated as if by a spotlight.
The girl looked as if she had no connection whatsoever to the world—like a wandering soul beneath the heavens, coldly observing all living things, ready to vanish into a wisp of smoke at any moment.
Just as the car door was about to close, the girl’s gaze met Ayase Aoi’s for the first time. Aoi saw the girl’s face clearly, and she saw those eyes—indifferent and lonely, just like her own at that moment.
She was the same kind… The flaw in Aoi’s heart was a vast loneliness. To seek to fill it was to seek to escape loneliness. When one lonely soul finds another, the desire to love is born.
Ayase Aoi’s pupils widened in disbelief. She clutched her chest as if she’d been shot—the emptiness that had just been leaking air was suddenly flooded by an overwhelming feeling of heartache, bursting in an instant into dazzling fireworks.
Bang.
The car door closed with a perfect seal, shutting out the last ray of sunset. Ayase Aoi thought, the sunset is golden—her hair is golden too.
Once, the loneliness and coldness in her eyes had stirred up Aoi’s heart like a startled fawn. Now, those same eyes made her feel as if countless sharp, icy spikes were piercing straight through her chest.
“Cooled off yet?” Shimizu Sakuya asked as she held her, sounding exactly like the kind of scumbag in morning dramas who apologizes first after a cold war.
Ayase Aoi only felt exhausted, her whole body deflated like a punctured balloon.
She used all her strength to push Sakuya away, gave a quiet “Mm,” and then numbly nodded her head.
She had given her entire youth—her heart and tenderness—to Shimizu Sakuya, following her like the most devoted believer. How could she bear to see her fall into the mud, covered in filth?
Wanting to monopolize her and become her master was nothing more than a pitiful delusion born of anger. She could never truly do such a thing.
Ayase Aoi had finally calmed down. Shimizu Sakuya touched her neck, red and sore from being choked, and her lips still faintly ached from the biting—yet she didn’t feel at ease.
Because she had to push the plot forward, and follow this Aoi route all the way to the ultimate bad ending—The Death of the Canary.
Ayase Aoi owned an enormous amount of real estate in Tokyo, but this place alone was her favorite.
In this cramped and costly commercial district of Tokyo, she had built this lavishly decorated, golden cage of a room with a panoramic view of the city—for the purpose of keeping her canary.
No one had turned on the lights. Shimizu Sakuya looked at the expressionless Ayase Aoi. In Aoi’s eyes, the dim silver moonlight reflected clearly, and the beauty mark under her left eye appeared unusually distinct, as if she were on the verge of tears.
“She called you to go see her too, didn’t she? Little Aoi, make up with her. After all, you used to be a member of the band too, didn’t you?”
