The apartment opens to the left of the door. A rectangular space with a panoramic window on the long side of the wall in front of me. A metallic dark blue block kitchenette flush along the right short-side wall. A chaise couch directly to my left, planted flush with the same wall the exit door was on.


    A living room, bedroom, kitchen, and dining room in one.


    At least we had a sight with a view.


    And a balcony, I guess.


    The flatpanel television stood small against the lower edge of the panoramic glass. Sometimes when you watched it you got a double entendre of blindness. One from the setting sun. The other, from the shitty anti-reflex that just had to show you what your fucking wall looks like.


    At least there’s a bathroom.


    The kitchenette to my right was rarely used by Kira. She never understood what any of the appliances did. Honestly, I’m not sure anyone knows in these apartments.


    Each appliance is the same fucking block of dark blue brushed steel. Even the fucking faucet.


    Want a glass of water?


    Then perform the ritual of tapping. Find it within the darkest depths of its’ scriptures!


    The fucking manual of the thing.


    Pop it open. Read through pages ‘planned’ and ‘obsolescence’, realize this thing’s dead on demand.


    Get mad, call their support number, end up at a sex hotline that already knows you’ve not got the ￥ennies.


    Leave thirstier than you started.


    At least we didn’t suffer through the dishwasher. Kira just got take-out, instead.


    She did try to skip the garbosposer, though, as she sent the fucking trash away into the skyline from our balcony. The day she got a mailbox full of cash-on-delivery fan mail from the government, however, she fucking crash-coursed through the garbosposer’s manual like her life depended on it.


    Never got why she made such a big deal out of it. The way it’s connected to the complexes internal disposal system—it’s essentially a garbage toilet.


    Just throw the trash into it’s gawping rectangular maw, close the fucking door, and hear it whir!


    I grab the folding table from underneath the couch, and turn the living room into a dining room when I pop it open. I grab two chairs, one belonging to the table, the other belonging to a fucking junkyard, and prop them west and north of the table.


    I remember Kira telling me she would be home this week. Thing is—it’s Sunday—so unless she pops her pretty milk-blonde hair through that doorway before the next four hours, then she’ll simply be back to the bullshit she did when I was nine.


    Whole fucking month could go by without her showing herself.


    Honestly, I kind of preferred it. Hell, I even prefer it now—more food for me.


    But the damn bitch needs feeding, and I figured she’d appreciate a fucking meal like this. Especially since Ryo-Kata actually put in some fucking effort into the fucking sun and rice-ball rabbit bullshit that I am—


    “Uurnngh…”


    … Speak of the fucking devil.


    <hr>


    The moaning came from behind the chaise of the couch close to the west wall. So I mosey a single step over and—there she was. And boy, was she a sight for the sorest of eyes power washed with road salt. Her dress barely clings to her designed to be lithe frame. At least her legs and arms were. The torso…


    Brain fog coats my thoughts.


    Fuck sake—you could’ve at least put on something ‘less romantic’, Kira.


    I wanted to say that to her. But I didn’t want to ruin her ‘high’ she seemed to have worked up quite a sweat in getting. Hell, judging by her flushed face, her slick skin, and the way she glared a thousand miles past my eyes—either something happened that she needed to fucking escape deep into bullshit, where even her fucking OD-countermeasure cyberware (usually the liver) seem to be working on overtime to kill the thing that is killing her, or she simply fucking…


    Her face—a sly and deliberate design reminiscent of a fox and a snake—was a gift from her pimp, she told me. An inauguration for a new ‘world order’ that later turned out to be a prank. Told me she knew all along, but was afraid to deny him. Sounded like bullshit to me, even back then when I was seven years old.


    I still remember the nightmares. Both of us slept on the couch. Get one bad dream. Seek comfort. Dive head first into the next.


    When she is awake it’s bearable. Her cyber eyes gleam blue, so you can at least look her in the eyes.


    But the moment she closes her eyes?


    Moonlight makes it a curse.


    “Oh. My. God.”


    Look who checked in, I guess.


    “Y-you brought food!” Suddenly got a fucking spring to her feet. “Oh you—“


    She whimpers like a fucking puppy, and takes a single step towards me, which sends her face-first towards the concrete—but I catch her, and raise her towering 15cm above my 164. I see her eyes. No whites. Just the iris floating in that fox-slitted darkness of her faceplate. Guess it hides the bloodshot from potential clients.


    Her pupil grows, microjets across different features of my face. I guess she’s actually kind of relieved to see me—oh.


    Never mind. She’s looking at the canister that’s standing on the table behind me.


    She gasps like an ice-bath victim, and pushes me aside. She shoots her tips towards the boxes, fingertips barely latching and snatches them to the fucking ground. barely touching them as she tries to grab them, which yanks them towards the ground.


    Mochi Usagi and the Kira-side up egg slather onto the concrete along with snakes of ramen. She throws herself towards after the boxes—belated reflexes sending her after a full fucking second—as she tries to scoop up whatever the floor hasn’t licked. The stuff she deemed inedible will remain exactly where it is until she decides it shouldn’t. At least Mochi Usagi and the Kira-side egg will be together for a while—unless the damn bitch slips on the yolk.


    She digs her chopsticks through the ramen, before exhaling her lungs flat with exasperation which I know is meant to be admiration. Finally, she flashes a failed fucking smile at me—her lips the only soft thing on her face.


    Because of course they are.


    “You literally are the only reason I am alive right now.”


    I fucking smile. Because what a fucking joke this is.


    “Shi… worst joke of the week, mama?”


    Suddenly, Kira fucking snaps her chopsticks up, and lasers them towards my box.


    I push her aside, her chrome groaning as she struggles to earn herself a second dinner-box.


    “Ora! Chill, you munchie-monster!” I say, my fucking lips cramping.


    She doesn’t realize that it doesn’t matter I’ve got no chrome. Like the punks in Roppongi, I can prove it to her, too.


    Kira giggles, and snaps a few ‘teasing’ clicks and clacks at my box from a bated distance. She’s having fun. I’m glad. So glad that it’s almost fucking impossible to see her fucking face through the bullshit that’s suddenly blurring my eyes.


    “Come on, girl!” I finally press out. “Set us up the table—let’s dig in.”


    If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    “Oh, but do I have to!?” she says, with a fucking…


    A fucking sly-foxed, snake-coiled, bitch-barking mope.


    The fucking viper of Shinjuku—the velvet dame with the milk-honey hair. Moping. Pouting. Like a fucking toddler that’s been scolded.


    Her fucking mope—that piece of shit mouth, so intentionally designed to be soft, versatile, and flexible—as if she’s fucking showcasing how many assholes choke the ever living—


    “Fine! Shall I set up two, or three plates?”


    Vision clears instantly. I burn my eyes into hers. Bitch better not be bullshitting me right now.


    “Why three?”


    “Oh—“ she draws out. “—well, no reason in particular.”


    Hand tenses on the shell in my pocket.


    “Did you bring home a fucking client?”


    Her grin nearly flashed her molars. A micro-snarl. She never liked me cursing.


    Tough shit.


    Last time I met her client was out at the glass hallways, where he tried to kill her. His gun hung loose in his holster—before it was in my trembling grasp.


    One bullet—barrel to the ear-canal—head snapped left, blood-jet drawing unevenly dashed red lines, with the other eleven surging into his body in case the first failed.


    I was nine when that happened.


    It always bothered me that his eyes locked on mine after unloading the gun into him. I still see them whenever I walk through the breezeway.


    “Nope!” she says, popping her lips, feeling like she’s full of mischief.


    “… Two plates, then, Kira.”


    She squees silently, as she prances to the dishwasher that held both our clean and unclean dishes.


    She racks through them like cards before she pulls out two, and she places them on the dining table.


    Her hands tremble, chopsticks sliding back and forth with each minor jitter, before she turns and dumps the box onto her plate.


    Chopsticks in her praying hands—slight bow—“Itadakimasu!”


    And she digs in. No, she fucking slorfs in, the slur dirisive and fucking obnoxious. I mean I get it. It’s how you show appreciation here. Guessing she thinks it’s making me feel good that she’s enjoying it.


    “Sweetie,” her mouth is full. “Your food’s gonna get cold.”


    I look down at the box I’m holding, then up at Kira. Screw it—might as well keep her company, I guess.


    I sit down, and roil the contents down onto the plate. Dark-brown parasites pretending to be dead. I can’t discern their edges.


    “Sweetie?”


    A maggot massgrave. Glazed by their own blood.


    “Kumori?”


    … Why are they moving?


    “Hey!”


    I’m so hungry.


    “The fuck are you crying over?”


    It’s been a long day. I wish they would just stop—


    “You’ll—” my head is shoved to the side. “—spoil the fucking food—look elsewhere, damn it!”


    A tunnel of my hair, greasy, soggy, silhouettes the counters I’m facing.


    She was surprisingly soft this time around. Guess she’s grateful for the food, after all.


    I’ll let her finish in peace. No need for her to have her high come crashing down.


    It’s how it usually goes.


    I grab my plate. I grab my sticks.


    I can barely see Kira in the silhouettes of my bangs—well, except for her eyes. Cute. They’ve turned green. Like mood irises.


    I give a curt bow.


    I walk out to the balcony and see sunrays barely peeking through the skyline. The air is moist, and the sun basked the underbelly of the overcast in a peach-rose hue.


    Sixth floor. I’m on the balcony on the sixth floor.


    Where a single step is all it takes for it to stop.


    Let’s see how long it will take before reaching the bottom.


    A parasitic maggot ballet show, limbs stretching out with the centrifugal force, before bouncing in a rebound spin—sprinkling soy sauce allover the place.


    The ramen is swallowed by the night.


    Chairs and tables crash to the ground from inside. Steps stumble and hurry to the balcony door. A slam nearly sends the thing off its hinges, failing to open.


    “You stupid little shit!”


    Her voice is muffled, but oh so mad.


    ”Are you out of your mind!?”


    Door screeches open—she figured it out.


    Her heavy breathing flows through her teeth, turning her panting into whispered snarls.


    “Y—“


    She swallows, her face darting around, before landing on the miniscule shards below. This amped her up again.


    “You ruined perfectly good food—!”


    “So go eat it off the ground, then.”


    Like the fucking whore you are.


    She chokes on the rest of her words, face losing all semblance of rage.


    All that chaos silenced in an instance. She looks over the railing, eyes squinting for a reason to amp herself up again.


    “You do realise that we’ll get fined for that, Kumori!”


    There we go.


    She clamps, and rattles the balcony railing, the vibrations echoing into my soles. The usual divebar bravado.


    “Are you fucking listening to me!? Do you know how many times the government has—HEY!”


    Imagine caring about that. Wouldn’t have put us in this situation to begin with.


    She simply stands there, her glare reaching for a glower that never comes. Her whole torso, shoulders included, ramp up with each deep pent up pant of ‘subdued rage’—a pathetic mimicry of how much she really thought I cared.


    She crosses her arms, form melting into despondency. Leaning against the railing, she shakes her head and LPas she looked a thousand yards into the panoramic window into our living room.


    “I thought I raised you better,” she says, letting the hushing of the dockyards speak for once.


    “I work—” she chokes up, her crocodile tears almost drying her eyes up, “—so hard to keep us afloat—” one arm uncrosses, as she lightly chops in the point, “—alive! In fact, I—” she snaps her fingers at the revelation of the century.


    And now, she’s finally quiet—‘devastation’ eating up her words.


    “You are the only reason I am still alive.”


    The echoing of the dockyards is drowned in thick tar. My throat constricts, teeth nearly cracking from the sheer pressure of my locking jaw. My arms hang loosely on the balcony railing. Out of the corner of my eye, her serpent amber eyes peer into my blurring vision. She glances at my arms. Then at the bottom. Then back at me.


    Her pale face is framed by the overcast sky with an underbelly of red light behind her. A weak light you stare at for too long—everything darkening around it, the silhouette amplifying it all.


    My ears are ringing. My skin cools from the cold sweating.


    “… Say something, you little cunt—”


    <hr>


    There’s a saying I’ve heard so many times that I’ve never quite understood. One that’s kind of specific. But used in… so many different ways.


    It’s used when someone wants you to forgive them.


    It’s used when someone needs to express bravado.


    It’s used when someone wants you to fear them.


    It’s used for someone who is manic.


    It’s a saying that, like many others, can disperse any form of hope within the person hearing it. A saying that pertains to the last thing we want to see.


    I’m seeing red.


    “YAMERO!!!”


    If only it were true.


    I would be spared the color of her dress that barely covered her corpse-porclaine limbs.


    I would be spared the yellow mold still growing from the trash that cost us three months of rent… that had her awol working for more than a month.


    I would be spared the fact that the red on her cracked faceplate is actually my fucking blood—the titanium-faced fucking whore—the fucking chipped out cunt. Just like those fucks at Roppongi, I am the one who ends up looking guiltier, despite being more bloodied.


    She is liquefying herself into the corner—as if it’ll pop, and break her through.


    I can feel the goosebumps from the very thought of her shin snapping from under my heel. I can feel the pain in the joints of my hands—the pain from wrestling the urge of pressing my nails into her throat.


    I can feel the fucking—


    … The fucking… The fucking pain in my throat.


    … Need for her to just…


    … I wish.


    I just wish… she would get up, and make all of this stop.


    I wish she would get up, and hold me.


    I wish she would just once… be the one that understands that my throat also can constrict.


    I wish that just once she would use her hands to wipe my ears—not my will to live. I just wish she would understand that the only reason I am alive today—is because I was afraid of what would happen to her if I didn’t survive.


    … And yet all I want to do now is keep her alive for as long as possible…


    As I slowly kill her.