Chapter 9: Ment
The laughter around the table had become a dull roar in Ren’s ears. Each clink of a glass, each burst of giggles from Mina, felt like a needle pressed into his temple. The velvet dress was a furnace. Hikaru’s thigh was a line of burning heat against his own under the table. He couldn’t breathe.
Escape. He needed a door, a window, any exit not guarded by a pink-haired harpy.
His eyes darted to the back of the izakaya, past the bustling servers. A hallway. Restroom signs. The men’s room. A plan, clumsy and desperate, formed in his mind. An emergency exit might be through there. Or at least a window wide enough to climb through. Anything was better than this velvet coffin.
He cleared his throat, a tiny, strained sound. “Um.” No one heard. He tried again, pitching his voice higher. “I, ah… I need to go to the bathroom.”
Mina blinked. “Okay! It’s back there, Rena-chan!”
Hikaru leaned back, studying him. Her gaze was a searchlight. “Feeling unwell? You look a little pale.”
“Fine. Just… you know.” His mind raced, scrabbling for a believable excuse. His phone was still in his hand from a pointless scroll. A sponsored ad for feminine products glared up at him. He blurted it out before his brain could veto. “I just need to replace my pad. It’s… time-sensitive.”
The table went quiet for a beat. Mina’s eyes widened in empathetic understanding. “Ooooh, right! The worst! Go, go, take your time!”
Suki gave a slow, sympathetic nod from behind her bangs.
Hikaru’s expression didn’t change, but something flickered in her eyes—amusement, or suspicion so deep it bordered on certainty. She merely gestured with a graceful hand. “Don’t get lost.”
Ren fled. The hallway was narrow and dimly lit, smelling of fried food and industrial cleaner. He saw the sign for the men’s room and pushed the door open without thinking, driven by a lifetime of habit and the singular focus of escape.
The bathroom was small, two urinals, one stall, all gleaming white tile. It was empty. The window above the sink was, predictably, sealed shut and too small for a cat. His brilliant plan evaporated, leaving only the cold reality of his situation. And another, more pressing reality.
He actually, genuinely had to pee.
The conflicting instincts warred in him. The deep, biological imperative, versus the towering, mortifying absurdity of his appearance. He stared at the urinal. He was in a men’s room. He was a man. Logically, it was his domain. But the reflection in the smudged mirror above it showed a girl in an expensive red dress, with artfully applied eyeliner and lips stained a delicate pink.
“Screw it,” he muttered, his voice dropping back into its natural register. It was a relief to hear it. He was alone. He could just be quick.
He was fumbling with the unfamiliar skirt, trying to figure the logistics, when the door swung open with a force that bounced it off the tiled wall.
Two men staggered in. Salarymen, ties loosened, faces flushed with drink. They were mid-conversation, their words slurring into each other.
“—told him the numbers were all wrong, but does he listen? Like talking to a brick wall, I swear—”
The first man lumbered toward the vacant urinal. The second leaned against the sink, sighing, and finally his bleary eyes focused on the figure frozen by the other urinal.
Ren had gone statue-still. His hands were hidden in the folds of his skirt. He stared straight ahead at the white tile wall, praying to any god that would listen, even the god of gaming he’d just fired.
There was a long, liquid silence, broken only by the sound of the first man relieving himself.
The man at the sink squinted. His gaze traveled from the long, black hair, down the red velvet dress, to the strappy heels Yuna had provided. His drunk brain processed the information with the speed of cold tar.
“Hey, Sato,” he said, not taking his eyes off Ren.
“Huh?”
“This… is the men’s room, right?”
The first man, Sato, zipped up and turned. He blinked several times. “Course it is. What’re you—oh.”
Two pairs of drunk, confused eyes were now locked on him. Ren felt a drop of sweat trace a path down his spine, under the velvet.
“Uh,” the second man said, scratching his head. “Miss? You lost? Ladies’ is next door.”
Ren’s mouth was desert-dry. Every fiber of his being screamed to run, but his legs were locked. He managed a tiny, stiff shake of his head. The movement made his hair sway.
Sato took a clumsy step closer, peering. “You feelin’ okay? You look… really tense.”
It was the understatement of the century. Ren was a live wire of pure, undiluted panic. He knew he had to say something. A voice. Any voice. ‘Rena’s’ voice. He opened his mouth. A choked, unconvincing squeak emerged.
The second man’s confusion was slowly morphing into drunken concern. “Seriously, did you have too much to drink? Should we get your friends?”
This was it. This was the catastrophic game over screen. He was going to be escorted out by two drunk salarymen, handed over to Hikaru and Mina, and the entire fragile lie would shatter in the most humiliating way possible. The shame was a physical weight, crushing his lungs.
“Yeah, we were worried!” the second man added.
He stayed there for five full minutes, listening to the distant chaos of the restaurant. Then, mechanically, he pushed himself up. He straightened the stupid red dress. He walked to the women’s restroom, entered a stall, and sat there in the silence, staring at the locked door. A different kind of trap.
Finally, he emerged, washed his hands avoiding the mirror, and walked back to the table. Everyone was putting on their coats, the bill paid.
“All good?” Mina asked cheerfully.
Ren nodded, not trusting himself ever again.