Chapter 4

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Chapter 4: Desecration 

Anger wouldn’t destroy someone like Ayase Aoi. Once she calmed down, she would reflect on her actions. Given how important she was in Aoi’s heart, even if they ended things now, once Aoi regained her composure, she would come crawling back to reconcile.  

 

So, if she wanted to utterly crush Aoi’s feelings and make her give up on loving her, she had to strike her with the cruelest truth at her most lucid moment—a slap so loud it would shatter her completely.  

 

Shimizu Sakuya understood this well. She also knew what her words—”Make up with her”—meant to Ayase Aoi.  

 

Aoi was nothing more than a cat baring its claws and hissing, while she was the scum who would strangle that cat to death.  

 

Utter, irredeemable scum.  

 

“Hmm? Who are you talking about?”  

 

Aoi feigned composure, forcing a practiced idol’s smile—one she had perfected over years in the entertainment industry. It was as if that smile alone could armor her against any harm.  

 

“You know exactly who I mean.”  

 

Shimizu stood in the middle of the glass door, blocking most of the neon lights and moonlight, her elongated shadow engulfing Aoi in darkness.  

 

“Sorry, I don’t know who you’re referring to.”  

 

Aoi’s gaze flickered away, ultimately choosing to evade Shimizu’s piercing stare. She turned on the room’s light.  

 

The intricate, ornate European-style chandelier instantly flooded the room with brightness.  

 

Aoi’s room was styled in an elegant, medieval-inspired theme—opulent, romantic, like a gilded cage.  

 

The sudden glare made Shimizu reflexively shut her eyes. When she opened them again, Aoi had already pulled out a half-empty bottle of brandy from her bedside drawer.  

 

Adults faced pressure from all directions, and everyone had their own way of coping. For Aoi, Shimizu’s embrace was her antidepressant, her Prozac. Alcohol, on the other hand, was her sedative, her tranquilizer.  

 

The deep red liquid swirled inside the bottle as she shook it lightly. She patted the bottle and changed the subject.  

 

“Want some?”  

 

“Why did you do that to her? Wasn’t she once your friend too?” Shimizu pressed on, relentlessly.  

 

When faced with questions they didn’t want to answer, people often deflected. Aoi was doing exactly that.  

 

Ignoring her, Aoi smacked her forehead as if remembering something.  

 

“Ah~ I forgot. This one’s a bit too bitter. You don’t like bitter things, do you, Sakuya? Let me add some sweet soda and grab another glass.”  

 

She set the bottle down and stiffly walked toward the living room, deliberately ignoring Shimizu’s questions from start to finish.  

 

Because she had a vague premonition—something was about to happen that would irrevocably change their relationship.  

 

But would that change be for the better?  

 

A pair of slender yet strong arms blocked her path. One hand pressed her shoulder against the cold wall, cutting off all escape routes.  

 

Trapped.  

 

“Do you have to be this cold? Don’t you feel even a shred of guilt?” Shimizu demanded, her tone bordering on coercion.  

 

Aoi’s eyes widened in disbelief. Her body trembled uncontrollably.  

 

“Miss Shimizu, you’re the last person who has any right to say that.”  

 

“It was you—” Her voice cracked, raw with emotion. “—who ran away because you couldn’t stand your own weakness. It was you—who tore the band apart. It was you—who told Saori, ‘I hate lesbians the most.'”  

 

“You’re selfish, cold, stubborn, weak. You’re the one who hurt others without restraint!”  

 

The emotions she had bottled up for so long erupted at once. Her voice broke into a sob, each word dripping with anguish.  

 

That was all so long ago. In the adult world, time was supposed to settle everything.  

 

Nine years—enough to turn the page on past love and hatred. Yet here was Shimizu, delivering the cruelest, nine-years-too-late execution, all for the sake of the person she loved.  

 

How nice it must be to be the favorite…  

 

A sharp, sour ache rose in her nose. Not wanting Shimizu to see her expression, Aoi turned her face away.  

 

But Shimizu forcibly turned it back, staring coldly at the tears welling in her eyes like an unfeeling judge.  

 

“But you were the one who slapped her twice in front of everyone. To Saori, we’re both perpetrators of bullying, aren’t we?”  

 

Shimizu’s gaze was icy, devoid of warmth. The very look Aoi had once adored now filled her with revulsion.  

 

Each word was a knife, carved into her heart, as if Shimizu wanted to rip it out and let the world trample on it.  

 

“Do you even know why I slapped her?”  

 

Her fingers curled anxiously against the wall. Even trapped in this confined space, all she felt was unbearable torment.  

 

After Shimizu transferred schools, Aoi had struck Saori twice.  

 

The burning sting in her palms—she could still remember it vividly.  

 

But in her heart, those two slaps had landed on herself. One shattered her pitiful, hopeless crush. The other destroyed the band’s summer.  

 

She had once had friends. They composed music together, performed together, went to the beach, played in the waves, and watched fireworks at summer festivals.  

 

All of it crumbled when Shimizu left.  

 

There wasn’t a trace of mercy in Shimizu’s words. She could be gentle with Saori, but to Aoi, she was nothing but an executioner.  

 

“You always dress up your malice in noble excuses. You used me as a reason to hit her, venting your own resentment and jealousy. And you treated me like a toy to play with, didn’t you? Miss Ayase, you’re truly despicable.”  

 

Despicable?  

 

If wanting to monopolize someone’s love made her despicable, then there were no truly good people left in this world.  

 

She was exhausted. Aoi didn’t want to argue anymore. Pain overflowed in her heaving chest.  

 

“Shimizu Sakuya.”  

 

She enunciated each syllable of her name, then took a deep breath, her voice resolute.  

 

“Do you even have a heart?”  

 

“You don’t get to judge me either, Ayase Aoi. You and your father treated me like a breeding tool, didn’t you? You’re even more selfish and disgusting than I am.”  

 

Shimizu sneered, then released her and took two steps back, watching coldly as Aoi’s legs gave out beneath her.  

 

Aoi collapsed to her knees, like a dog with its spine ripped out.  

 

She had realized later than most that children only came from a father and mother being together.  

 

She had no mother. Hers had died in childbirth, and her father never spoke of her.  

 

Whenever she asked, his dark gaze would settle on her as he said:  

 

“A man who stands at the top of the underworld has no time for love.”  

 

She thought her father was heartless, a dragon obsessed only with power and money.  

 

Until one day, she saw him drunk out of his mind, sobbing quietly over the silver pocket watch he always wore—inside was a photo of her mother.  

 

Her mother, hand on her slightly swollen belly, eyes filled with joy for the child soon to come.  

 

Only then did she realize—in fifteen years, her father had never touched another woman, even though he stood at the pinnacle of Japan’s underworld.  

 

When he sobered up, he never mentioned his breakdown. He only told her one thing:  

 

“Unless it’s someone you’re willing to spend your life with, don’t bring a child into this world for them.”  

 

Now, she had found someone she wanted to have a child with. Even if Shimizu didn’t love her, she still selfishly wanted this—because it might be the only way to forge an unbreakable bond between them.  

 

She told her father.  

 

He slapped her—the first time he had ever hit her—then stormed out in rage.  

 

She knelt outside his door for two days without food or water until he finally relented.  

 

But her father, too accustomed to underworld methods, directly confronted Shimizu and forced her into the surrogacy program.  

 

They fought again.  

 

After a sleepless night, his ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts, he finally agreed to let Aoi carry the child herself.  

 

Aoi knew what it meant for an idol to have a child out of wedlock. She knew what bringing a life into this world entailed.  

 

But she didn’t care.  

 

If Shimizu was a fire, she wouldn’t mind being a moth.  

 

Even if she had manipulated and used dirty methods to get Shimizu, she had never thought of her as just a breeding tool.  

 

Plip. Plip.  

 

Warm droplets hit the floor.  

 

Ah… tears. The ones she had been holding back.  

 

She looked at Shimizu, whose warmth had long been replaced by ice. The scars on her heart were torn open again and again, never healing.  

 

Her chest was hollow, her soul drained away with each silent tear.  

 

The opposite of love wasn’t hate—it was indifference. And Shimizu’s eyes had always been indifferent.  

 

Aoi’s expression was dazed, yet she had never felt more awake.  

 

She would sever this painful bond and set her free.  

 

But before that, she wanted to do something she had never dared to do before.  

 

Aoi stood, forcibly grabbing Shimizu’s wrists and pinning her down despite her disgusted glare.  

 

Under the crystal-clear moonlight, their shadows on the wall merged like two gray butterflies taking flight together.  

 

Shimizu struggled violently, but Aoi held her wrists with one hand while gently tucking a stray golden lock behind her ear with the other.  

 

“Just this once. Then we’ll never contact each other again.”  

 

Hearing this, Shimizu stilled. She studied Aoi’s once-bright crimson eyes, now dull and lifeless, then nodded silently.  

 

Aoi had always believed herself too filthy to touch her.  

 

But tonight, she would desecrate her god.  

 

Her sun.  

 

Let’s fall together.