Chapter 1: A Father's Mistake
The key turned in the lock, a sound like breaking glass in the quiet apartment. The door swung open and hit the wall with a soft thud, followed by the heavy stumble of boots on linoleum. Toji Fushiguro leaned against the doorframe, his broad shoulders filling the space. The fluorescent light in the hall behind him cut a harsh silhouette, doing nothing to hide the slump of his form. He reeked of cheap whiskey and cheaper cigarettes, a cloud of regret that preceded him into the kitchen.
Inside, the air was stale. A single bulb flickered overhead, its sickly light dancing over a landscape of neglect. The sink was a tower of unwashed plates, crusted with the ghosts of meals he hadn't been here to eat. Takeout containers formed little cardboard monuments on the counter. The whole place smelled of old beer and something sweet gone sour.
Megumi stood by the fridge, a statue in the disarray. She was clad in a thin white tank top, the kind meant for sleeping in, and a pair of plain cotton panties. The light behind her outlined her lean frame. Her arms were crossed, her face a mask of cool disapproval, but her dark blue eyes were alive with a fury that burned cold.
"Seventy-three days," she said. Her voice was flat, a blade honed on silence.
Toji blinked, his vision swimming. He grunted, shoving off from the doorframe and lumbering toward the counter. His movements were loose, uncoordinated. He found a glass, one that wasn’t completely clean, and reached for a bottle of amber liquid with no label.
"Seventy-three days since you last darkened this door," Megumi continued, not moving. "The rent was due on the first. I paid it. The electricity got shut off for two days last week. I got it back on. Your phone goes straight to voicemail.Always does."
He poured the drink, the liquid sloshing over the rim. "You gonna bill me, counselor?" His words were thick, slurred at the edges.
"I’m not your secretary, Toji. And I’m not your mother." She took a step forward, into the jagged shadow of the flickering light. "Look at me. I’m your daughter.Remember?"
He raised the glass to his lips, his sharp green eyes focusing on her over the rim. The drink burned its way down. His gaze, bloodshot and hazy, didn’t meet hers. It drifted lower, sticking to the front of her tank top. The fabric was thin, worn soft from too many washes. The light from behind her caught it, rendering it almost translucent. He could see the sharp lines of her collarbones, the small, defined shape of her breasts, the dark shadow of her nipples against the white.
A strange stillness settled in him. The alcoholic fog in his brain swirled, grief and lust and a profound, aching loneliness twisting into one unrecognizable knot. The sharp line of her jaw, the defiant set of her shoulders… it was wrong, but in his haze, it was right.
"Kaa-san…" The word slipped out, a whisper raw with whiskey and want.
Megumi flinched as if struck. "What did you say?"
He didn’t answer. He set the glass down with a deliberate click. The distance between them, just a few feet of grimy floor, seemed to shrink. He took a step.Then another. He moved with a different kind of intention now, the predatory glide of a man who’s decided what he’s hunting.
She didn’t retreat. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic bird in a cage.This was wrong. This was so profoundly wrong. But his eyes were on her, really on her, for the first time in years. It was a vile, hungry attention, but it was attention. It was presence. And his absence had been a colder thing.
He stopped an inch away. The smell of him—sweat, smoke, booze—was overwhelming. She could feel the heat radiating from his big body. His hand came up, not to strike, but to hover near her cheek. His calloused thumb brushed the air beside her lips.
"You look just like her," he murmured, his voice a low rumble that vibrated in the hollow of her stomach. "When she was angry with me. She’d get that same fire in her eyes."
"This isn’t her," Megumi said, her own voice trembling now. The cold fury was crumbling, revealing the scared, lonely girl underneath. The girl who just wanted her dad to come home."It’s me. It’s Megumi."
His other hand lifted, his fingers tracing the line of her shoulder, down the strap of her tank top. His touch was shockingly gentle. "I know," he breathed, but he didn’t sound like he knew. His gaze was locked on her chest, rising and falling with her quick, shallow breaths. "Small.Pretty. Just like hers were."
A wave of nausea, hot and sharp, rose in her throat. "Stop it."Why?" he asked, his head tilting. His green eyes, so like her own in shape but so dead in spirit, finally rose to meet hers. There was no fatherly warmth there. Only a deep, broken hunger. "You want me to leave again? That what you want? I walk out that door, I’m gone. Another seventy-three days. Maybe forever this time."
The threat hung in the toxic air. It was the lever he’d always used, the only one he had. Abandonment. Her greatest fear, weaponized.
Her defiance shattered. A single, traitorous tear escaped, cutting a path through her stoic mask. "No," she whispered, the word barely audible.
"No, what?" he pressed, leaning in. His lips were close to her ear. His breath was hot.
"Don’t go." It was a surrender. A plea from the deepest, most broken part of her.
A slow, terrible smile touched his mouth. It didn’t reach his eyes. "Then tell me to stay."She swallowed. Her mind screamed in protest, but her soul, starved and pathetic, clung to the simple, devastating fact that he was here. His hands were on her. He was looking at her. It was a nightmare, but it was a shared one. "Stay."Where?" His hand slid down from her shoulder, over the thin cotton covering her ribs, his thumb brushing the lower curve of her breast. She jerked, a full-body spasm, but didn’t pull away. "Where do you want me, Megumi?"Her eyes squeezed shut. More tears fell. She felt herself splintering. "Here," she choked out. "Just… be here."
His large hand cupped her face, forcing her to look at him. His expression was unreadable, a storm of grief and depravity. "I’m here," he said, and his voice dropped to a dirty, intimate whisper. "Daddy’s home, girl. Now show me you mean it."
He leaned in, his intention clear, his world reduced to the pale curve of her neck and the intoxicating, forbidden scent of his own daughter. Megumi stood frozen, caught between the searing need for his love and the chilling reality of what that love had become. She didn’t move as his shadow consumed her.