Chapter 20: F
The studio lights hummed with a lazy, post-lunch torpor. Ren, his fingers still remembering the phantom itch of the Lolita dress from the previous night, fumbled a simple chromatic run on his practice keyboard. The note clashed, a sour bleat in the warm-up session.
“Distracted, Rena-chan?” Hikaru’s voice was syrup over ice. She hadn’t mentioned Suki’s confession directly, but her eyes had held a new, dissecting quality all morning.
“Just tired,” Ren murmured, keeping his gaze on the keys. The memory of Suki’s vulnerable, drunken weight against his shoulder was a persistent ghost.
Mina was attempting vocal scales while stretching, her voice wobbling comically. “Team-building… was fun, right? We bonded!”
Suki, at the grand piano, said nothing. She moved with a fragile precision, as if her bones were glass. The shadows under her usually hidden eyes seemed darker, visible even through the fringe of her bangs.
The rehearsal door hissed open on well-oiled tracks. Akira stood there, his usual producer’s scowl deepened into something graver. The casual energy in the room solidified and dropped.
“Suki,” he said, his voice cutting through Mina’s next scale. “There are two gentlemen here to see you. At the private rear entrance.”
The air conditioning seemed to roar to life. Suki’s hands froze mid-arpeggio, hovering above the ivory keys. They didn’t tremble. They just stopped, as if all signals had been severed.
“Who are they?” Hikaru asked, the playful lilt gone from her voice.
“Didn’t give names. Said they were from Kyoto.” Akira shrugged, but his eyes were on Suki. “They’re… insistent. Suits. Old-money suits.”
The color drained from Suki’s face, leaving her the shade of printer paper. She slowly closed the piano lid. The soft thump was final. “I’ll just… see what they want,” she whispered, barely audible.
A knot of cold formed in Ren’s stomach. This was it. The ghosts from the plum-wine confession had followed her to Tokyo. He watched her stand, her petite frame looking impossibly small, and walk with stiff, obedient steps towards the door Akira held open.
The silence she left behind was thick and ugly.
“That’s not right,” Mina blurted, her cheer evaporated. “She looks like she’s going to her execution.”
Hikaru was already moving, her long legs carrying her to the door. She peered down the empty hall. “Private rear entrance. Why not come to the main lobby? Why be ‘insistent’?”
Ren didn’t think. He just moved. A deep, prickling instinct—the same one that told him when an enemy player was lying in ambush in a dark corner of a map—screamed at him. This was a cutscene you couldn’t skip. He brushed past Hikaru.
“Rena?” Akira called, confusion in his tone.
Ren didn’t answer. He slipped into the hallway, his soft-soled idol shoes making no sound on the polished concrete. He caught a glimpse of Suki’s retreating back as she turned a corner towards the rear service corridor, a place of dumpsters and delivery bays.
He followed, keeping to the wall, his heart a frantic drum against his ribs. He wasn’t Rena right now. He was Ren, a lurker in the shadows.
The service door was propped open with a cinderblock, spilling a rectangle of harsh daylight into the dim corridor. He pressed himself into an alcove housing a fire extinguisher, his frilly top catching on the bracket.
Two men stood in the loading bay, flanking Suki. They were exactly as Akira described: suits of a severe, traditional cut, their postures rigid. They weren’t thugs; they were functionaries. Their faces were impassive, polished masks. One, older with silver at his temples, spoke. His voice was low, courteous, and utterly inflexible.
“Miss Yamato. Your parents are deeply concerned. This… interlude has gone on long enough. The arrangements in Kyoto await your return.”
Suki’s voice, when it came, was a strained thread. “I’m not finished. I have a contract.”
“An indecorous commitment with a pop music troupe,” the younger man stated, his distaste clear. “It has brought no honor, only gossip. Your grandfather’s health is declining. Your presence is required.”
“Required,” Suki echoed, the word hollow.
“The car is here. Your things from your apartment have already been collected.”
Ren’s blood went cold. They’d already been to her home. This wasn’t a request; it was an extraction.
“No,” Suki said, finding a sliver of steel. “I’m not going. Tell them I…”
The older man moved with startling efficiency. He didn’t grab her roughly. He simply took her arm above the elbow, his grip like a vice, and turned her towards a sleek, black sedan idling at the curb. The younger man opened the rear door. It was a smooth, rehearsed maneuver.
“Please do not make a scene, Miss Yamato. For the family’s dignity.”
Suki resisted, a feeble pulling against the immovable force. Her head turned, and for a split second, her gaze swept across the open service door. It wasn’t a look of hope, but one of sheer, stranded desperation. She saw him. Ren was sure of it. Her eyes, wide and terrified, locked onto his camouflaged shape in the shadows. Then she was guided, almost politely, into the depths of the car.
The door shut with a sound like a vault sealing.
Ren didn’t breathe. He watched, frozen, as the two men slid into the front seats. The car, a silent, expensive phantom, pulled away from the curb and merged seamlessly into the Tokyo traffic, disappearing as if it had never been.
The Loading Bay was suddenly just a loading bay again, gritty and ordinary. The only proof was the fading scent of expensive car wax and the echo of Suki’s helpless glance.
Ren stumbled back into the corridor, his legs unsteady. The facade of Rena felt like a suffocating skin. He had to tell someone. He ran, the frills on his outfit fluttering absurdly.
He burst back into the studio. Three faces turned to him: Akira’s impatient, Mina’s worried, Hikaru’s sharply interrogative.
“They took her,” he gasped, his voice cracking, forgetting to modulate its pitch. It came out rough, almost masculine.
“Who took her?” Akira snapped.
“The suits. They… they put her in a car. They said her things were already packed.” The words tumbled out. “She didn’t want to go. She looked at me. She didn’t want to go.”
Hikaru was across the room in moments. She gripped his shoulders, her fingers tight. “Where? Which way?”
“Down south, towards the main boulevard. A black sedan. License plate…” He cursed, his mind, usually so good at details, blanking on the numbers. “I didn’t get it. It happened too fast.”
Mina let out a small, panicked cry. “What do we do? Do we call the police? She’s an adult, they can’t just…”
“They just did,” Hikaru said, her voice cold and clear. She was looking at Ren, really looking, not at Rena but at the raw, frightened person underneath the makeup. Her eyes narrowed, not with suspicion this time, but with a fierce, calculating focus. “You saw it. You were the only one who saw it.”
Akira was already on his phone, barking into it. “Security footage, loading bay, last five minutes. Now.”
The studio door flew open again. Yuna stormed in, a whirlwind of avant-garde fabric and agitation. “Akira, what is this panic on the group chat? I was in a fitting!” She saw the faces. Saw Ren, still breathing heavily, supported by Hikaru’s grip. Her professional mask slipped for a microsecond, revealing a flash of genuine alarm for her brother. “Rena? What happened?”
“It’s Suki,” Hikaru answered for him, finally releasing Ren’s shoulders. “Her family retrieved her. Against her will, by the looks of it.”
Yuna’s shock morphed into something harder, a stylist’s analytical gleam. “A kidnapping. How dreadfully dramatic.” She focused on Ren. “You witnessed it?”
He nodded, unable to speak.
A deep, unsettling smile touched Yuna’s lips. “Perfect,” she breathed, almost to herself. Then, louder, to the room: “This isn’t a tragedy. It’s a storyline. A missing idol, a mysterious, traditionalist family… the fans will be obsessed.” She pointed a commanding finger at Akira. “Get legal on the line. We need to understand her contract, her rights. And someone start drafting a statement—full of concern, but hinting at outside pressures.” Her gaze swept over them all, landing finally on Ren, who felt a chill that had nothing to do with the air conditioning. “C4 isn’t losing a pianist. We’re gaining a mission. And we,” she said, her eyes locking with Ren’s, “are going to get our girl back.”
Ren stared at his sister. In her eyes, he saw no outrage for Suki’s plight, only the glittering pieces of a new, more compelling narrative being arranged. The game had changed again, and the stakes had just become terrifyingly real.