𝐂𝐑𝐀𝐙𝐘 , alice in borderland

今際の国のアリス ── EPISODE ONE

"I didn't expect the reckless little teenager we knew all those years ago to become the CEO of a pretty successful company," Yami said to announce his presence as he pushed through the doors to Miyu's office. He walked over, a gun carelessly in his hand, a multitude of men in dark clothes and armed with bats, guns and knives flanking him. Miyu kept her composure, leaning back in her seat and crossed her legs.

"Hello to you too, Yami," Miyu greeted calmly, glancing in the mirror on her desk and adjusted her tie. "What brings you here? I don't have to pay you until Sunday."

"Well, MiMi, I've come here to make a deal with you." Miyu looked up at him boredly as he stood in front of her desk, knowing that he used the nickname to purposely annoy her. She hated nicknames. Yami tapped his fingers on her desk, leaning on the wood, the CEO noticing the dirt under his nails. "You give me your company, and I won't shoot you and shut your parent's bakery down and all your debts will be settled."

Miyu scoffed, hiding her rising panic as she looked out the window. "That's a ridiculous offer. The way I'm going, I could pay you back everything within a month, with interest." She looked back at him as he pressed the barrel of his gun to her forehead.

"I'm not gonna say it again," He told her, voice low and dangerous. He slid her a stack of papers that were barely held together by a singular paperclip. "Unless the death wish you seemed to have when you were younger has showed back up, I think you're going to want to sign this."

Her fists clenched under her desk as she glared at him. He smirked, digging the barrel further into her forehead. She couldn't press the emergency button under her desk, knowing that Yami would likely have his men crawling the halls and streets that surrounded her building. She bit the inside of her cheek, her pride yelling at her to say no and stare into his eyes angrily as he put a bullet through her head, but her survival instincts yelled at her to just sign the paper and get out.

"I chose this to match your hair." Yami slid a purple, glittery pen towards Miyu and set the gun to rest on the desk, still within his reach. Miyu didn't fail to notice that the safety was off, and the barrel was still pointed towards her. She glared at him one last time, the cocky glint in his eyes making her want to slap him. She dug her nails into her palm before lifting her left hand and picked the pen up and pulled the papers towards her.

The room was painfully silent as Miyu read through the stack of papers, the paperclip long lost between sheets. She didn't miss a singular sentence, her anger growing as she went through the pile. As she reached the last page, she paused, staring at the line that she would have to sign on.

She was basically signing her life. Miyu had gotten lucky with Hayashi Marketing, she knew that. It was supposed to just be a side hustle to earn some extra cash while she was in school. It wasn't supposed to be estimated to earn over ¥5,000,000 in the first year of business, but it had. This was the reason Miyu cleaned her life up, to pay the debts off and become successful. And now she had to decide whether to sign it all away and start from the bottom again, or to tell Yami no and end up dead and her parents without their only source of income.

Miyu picked up the glittery pen and signed on the line.

. . .

Miyu walked around Shibuya Crossing, hands in her pockets. The process of giving Yami Hayashi Marketing hadn't started yet, so she was still getting the money into her bank account. She leaned against a wall, looking at the three men that looked similar to her in age, maybe a bit older, talking about who would win if zombies showed up. She eavesdropped for a minute before getting bored, walking around to find a bar to drown her sorrows. In the process, she flipped a man with facial piercings and his hair pulled into a half ponytail off for cat calling her and muttered an apology for bumping into a tall woman with thick locs.