Chapter 2: Trust
Ren stared at his sister’s retreating back, the word “Now” still hanging in the static-charged air of his dark room. The only light was the gloomy blue glow of his battery-backed monitor, displaying a taunting “DEFEAT” screen. A god of adverse circumstances, huh? This felt… theological.
He groaned, slumping back in his chair. The apartment was silent except for the frantic, skittering beat of his own heart. That look in her eyes. He knew that look. It was the same look she’d had right before she’d convinced him to model a hand-knit, neon-orange poncho for her fashion blog two years ago. The photos still haunted certain dark corners of the internet.
With the profound weariness of a soldier heading to the gallows, he stood. The floor was cold. He padded out into the hallway, following the trail of jasmine steam toward her domain.
Yuna’s studio wasn’t a room; it was a dimension. The power was still out, but the light from the massive windows overlooking Tokyo’s nightscape painted everything in streaks of electric blue and neon red. It illuminated the mannequins, turning them into silent sentinels. It glinted off a thousand sequins, a hundred rhinestones, making the air seem to shimmer even in the dark. The scent was overwhelming: synthetic floral perfume, new fabric, and the sharp, clean bite of acrylic.
She was standing before a large, industrial rack, her silhouette sharp against the window. She didn’t turn.
“Come here,” she said, her voice conversational, as if asking him to pass the salt.
He edged forward, his socks whispering on the polished concrete floor. The rack was packed with garments, a riot of lace, satin, and tulle in colors that had no business existing in nature: bruise-purple, atomic pink, vantablack sequins that drank the light.
“This,” Yuna said, her hand hovering over a confection of ivory lace and black velvet, “is Hana’s costume for the opening number. ‘Gothic Symphony.’ It has a twenty-pound skirt. She trained for six months to dance in it.”
She moved down the line. “This is Aiko’s. ‘Cyber Lolita.’ The wiring in the hem powers the LED constellations. It shorted out during dress rehearsal and shocked her. She cried, then nailed the choreography on the next take.”
Her finger traced the sleeve of a third outfit, a deep crimson with gold filigree. “Mirai’s. ‘Scarlet Empress.’ The crown pins into the wig. She gets migraines. She takes the pills anyway.”
Finally, she stopped at the fourth outfit. It hung slightly apart, empty, a ghost waiting for a body. It was a masterpiece of deconstruction. Layers of sheer, gunmetal-gray tulle over a base of sapphire-blue silk. Silver chains dangled from the corset, each holding a tiny, delicate die. Gaming dice. One sleeve was long and trailing, the other was just a whisper of lace on the shoulder. It was terrifying. It was magnificent.
“This,” Yuna said, finally turning to look at him, her face a calm mask in the multicoloured dark, “was for our fourth member. Who is currently sobbing into a toilet, claiming the universe is a fractal of despair.”
Ren’s throat was very dry. He let out a weak, choked sound that was supposed to be a laugh. “Wow. Yeah. That’s… rough. Poor kid. You should, uh, go comfort her. Team spirit and all that.”
Yuna’s stone-cold smile didn’t waver. It grew, if anything, more serene. She stepped closer. In the dim light, her platinum hair was a silver helmet. “The show starts in eighty-two minutes. The venue is eighteen minutes away by taxi if we hit no lights. Hair and makeup for a look this complex takes a minimum of forty-five.”
He took a step back. “Yuna. No.”
“The investors are there. The streaming deal. My career. Our rent, Ren. The rent I pay for the apartment you live in, with the electricity you blow out trying to overclock your way to digital Valhalla.”
“I’m a guy!” he squeaked, the protest sounding pathetic even to him.
She tilted her head, her eyes scanning him from his tangled hair to his socked feet. A slow, deliberate appraisal. “Are you?” she mused, her voice dripping with faux curiosity. “Right now, in this light, with that hair and those eyes? You’re a canvas. A very, very pretty canvas having a pointless existential crisis.”
The calm in her voice was the most frightening thing he’d ever heard. It was the sound of inevitable victory. He saw the plan fully formed in her gaze: the tulle, the makeup, the stage. Him. On a stage. In front of people.
Panic, pure and electric, shot through him. It overrode every dormant instinct for dignity. He spun on his heel and ran.
He heard her sigh behind him, a sound of mild disappointment, like a chef watching a soufflé collapse a minute too soon. He didn’t care. He bolted down the hall, slammed into his room, and locked the door. The cheap click of the latch was the sweetest sound he could imagine.
He leaned against the wood, chest heaving. The darkness of his room was familiar, safe. The glowing ‘DEFEAT’ screen was a comforting tombstone. He’d done it. He’d escaped. He was a god of tactical retreats.
After a minute, his breathing slowed. The silence from the hallway was absolute. No pleading. No yelling. Nothing. Maybe she’d given up. Maybe she was already on the phone, devising a plan B that didn’t involve traumatizing her brother.
A grin spread across his face. He’d won. He sauntered back to his throne, dropped into the chair, and reached for his mouse. He’d queue up again. He’d show PwnMaster69 what a real comeback looked like.
He clicked. Nothing. The game client was frozen. He frowned, tapping keys. No response. A cold trickle of dread started in his stomach. He minimized the game. His system tray was a wasteland of red Xs. No network connection.
He tried to refresh. Nothing. He rebooted the router in his mind. He opened a command prompt with trembling fingers, typing in the old diagnostics. Timeout. Request failed.
He stood up so fast his chair wheeled back and smashed into his bed.
“You can stay in there,” she said, her voice calm as still water echoing through the door. “You can live in the dark, with your dead computer. A digital exile. Or,” she continued, her eyes glinting like the sequins in her studio, “you can put on a very pretty dress, help your sister save her career, and be back online in time for the late-night EU server queue. I hear the drop rates are fantastic after midnight.”
Ren Matsumoto stared at the closed door of his sanctuary. The ‘DEFEAT’ screen seemed to pulse in his memory. He looked down the hall towards the glittering cave of fabrics, towards the costume with the tiny dice.
He swallowed, the sound loud in the utter quiet. The god of gaming was offline. And the only login available was on a stage, under lights, in a dress.