Chapter 115 - A Bridge Between Realities

Through the loud music playing in her earphones, Ai failed to hear the sound of the doors to the skyscraper rooftop open. When suddenly, she wasn't alone anymore.

"You'll catch a cold if you stay up here."

Ai, at once pulled out of her state of reflection, immediately sat upright with an exasperated wail, to see a suavely presented young man: Dressed in a crisp, black suit and green luxury tie, with a matching-colored pocket accent. His hair, colored a deep red-as-blood hue, was neatly slicked back against his head. His orange-tinted shades were absolutely Gucci. And the several-carat gold watch he wore, on its own, was probably worth more than Ai's entire living situation.

She dropped one of her earphones in the process of briskly turning—thusly bombarding her unannounced intruder with the blasting, distorted chorus of a jaunty pop song.

"Ah, and I've also heard that it's bad for your hearing to listen to loud music with earphones on," said the young man, abruptly halting the long drawn-out, meticulous strides he'd been making toward her, in his pair of perfectly polished black dress shoes. "You don't have the look of someone who struggles with taking care of herself."

Ai bristled at his words, casting him a skeptical glare. "What's it matter to you anyway, you creepy bastard?"

The young man chuckled. "Well, I guess you can say that I have a vested interest in anyone that I meet." The young man smiled, adjusting his shades. "There's no telling how much importance you'll play in my immediate, or future advancement. Like, judging by your school uniform...you might have a parent who's working for me, who'll work more diligently with the knowledge that I looked out for their daughter. Or, it could be you have an older sibling enrolled in the university, who might come under my employ in the future."

"Mister…" Ai gawked. "Just who are you?"

He extended a hand, offering to help her to her feet. "Who knows? But it could be that I might also prove valuable to you in the future."

After staring up at him for a while with uncertainty, Ai smirked. "Ha. Well, at least you're upfront about it." She said, brushing his hand away and standing just fine without this help, posed with one arm on her hip. "You only help people for purely selfish reasons, on the off chance it might payoff to your benefit later."

Thinking she had him all figured out, she turned away with a smug look.

"Everyone's the same, deep down!"

However, the young man tilted his head quizzically. "Even if that's the truth, isn't that better than being uncaring of others for no reason?"

"What…!?" Ai exclaimed in a hushed voice, feeling struck by his words. 'Although,' she took a moment to consider, 'I've never met this weirdo before in my life. So, it's not like he's speaking to me directly.'

And yet...she couldn't help but feel like...

Shaking her head with an annoyed growl, she plugged her earphones back in and began storming away from him, hands clenched into fists at her side, toward the door.

"Where are you going?" asked the young man.

"I'm here for an appointment!" she snapped back in answer. Only pausing as she clutched the doorknob between her fingers, grumbling under her breath, "he's never kept me waiting like this before…"

She slammed through the door, hurried down the gray stone steps, and proceeded to course through the solemnly quiet, lavish amber and gold-gilded, red carpet-lined hallways of the Akira Corps. building's upper floors. All the while, unable to shake the suspicion that she might've just missed her only shot at scoring her biggest catch to date—thinking back to the strange, mystifying presence of the well-dressed young man.

Whoever he was, he sure seemed important, if not merely self-important: someone who thinks they have all the answers to finding 'success' in life, always preaching to the peasant masses about why they're struggling. Even though...

'He mentioned that he has people working for him, but that can't be right,' she mused. Then mulled it over a while, before smiling to herself with a derived answer: 'I wasn't born yesterday; if anything, his dad is a big shot higher-up around here, and he was just trying to impress me.' In which case, she would've preferred to cut out the middleman entirely: opting, instead, to simply become a mistress to his hypothetical greasebag millionaire CEO father.

That's because, out of all of Ai Shinazawa's various intents and purposes, for playing such a dangerous game…

Money was secondary: only to the thrill. A thrill, thus far unmatched in any other areas of her otherwise dull life, driving the anxious throbbing of her heart in her chest as she rode the shuttle-shaped glass elevator down; down to the floor of the hotel room where her client would always arrange for them to meet.

"I'm at the hotel, now..?" Ai uttered aloud in disbelief. 'Wasn't I just in an office building?'

She stepped out of the elevator to stand in the middle of the hallway. Where, after looking back and forth a bit—confused, but ultimately at a loss trying to think up an explanation for what had just occurred—there was nothing else to do but give a half-hearted shrug, before then turning on her heels and warily proceeding: with the last several paces needed to arrive at the all too familiar door of her destination.

Although, upon opening the door, she was immediately met with a sight that was far different from what she expected…

It was a girl: Dressed in a different school uniform from Ai's. Possessed of a small, but not quite petit slouched stature, with narrow shoulders and unbrushed dark hair. From where she'd been seated, at the foot of the double-wide bed, she instantly jolted up at Ai's emergence: holding up her arms—cowering—with a fright-filled look, as she reared herself back against the luxuriously white window-balcony curtains.

"W-who are you?" the scared-looking girl questioned, with a trembling voice.

"I should ask you the same thing," Ai returned.

Looking her up and down, Ai paid special heed to the details of the uniform she was wearing: with its nice grey jacket, red and white plaid decorated pleated skirt, and full-length black leggings. "You're a private school girl."

"Um, y-yes," she replied, timidly averting her gaze while pressing the tips of her two index fingers together in front of her. "I hate it, but dad doesn't give me a choice."

"Your folks must be pretty well-off, to be able to afford the tuition."

"Yeah...he's a manager at Akira Corps."

Ai blinked, wide-eyed. "Is that so?" she said. "What a weird coincidence…"

"What is? What's weird?" the quaking private school girl said quickly, with a growing tone of desperation. Like a wild animal that just woke up inside a cage, railing against the walls. "Please don't say I'm weird, because I'm doing my best!"

"This all feels weird," Ai said, crossing her arms, idly scanning her eyes across the room for anything else that was out of place. But the room was just as she remembered it; sans the presence of an overweight, balding, bespectacled specimen of a man, fallen on his knees, begging her to take her shoes off so he can smell her feet. For 5 thousand dollars.

"That disgusting worm I was supposed to meet here—he's a manager at Akira Corps., too."

The girl stirred. "Ah! So you think it was my dad you were going to meet? But what for...?" she asked innocently. "What business does a high schooler have with a middle-aged man in a hotel room?"

Ai snickered. "Stick around, and you might find out," she said. Then, leaned toward her with a teasing smirk. "And depending on how much your old man is willing to pay, you might even be able to join in. They say 'three's a crowd,' but I say 'the more the merrier.'"

"Ow...what are you even saying…?"

"It's nothing. Besides, you still haven't told me why you're here. Or your name."

"I came...because I had to learn the truth. And my name…" She paused mid-reply, bringing her thumb to her mouth to suck on it. "You already know my name. Because we've already met before, Ai-san."

Ai scoffed. "Don't screw with me! I would remember if—"

"No. I just didn't realize it before, since your avatar looks so different from how you did in the real world." She paused, narrowing her eyes in concentration with a sad frown. "We were friends, once."

"Friends?" Ai laughed. "No offense, but you don't seem like someone I'd be friends with."

"Long ago. When we were kids."

Ai froze, staring at her in bewilderment. Yet still, Keiko was resolute in her words.

Keiko wasn't sure how, but…

It was as though she was living in two different realities at once: The one that existed in her memories, of the time when she confronted both her father and his mistress; and the reality of the present, in which she was known as Kiki.

"So it was you…" she said. "You were my father's mistress, all along. Ai-san."