"You're just a cute little toy I took a fancy to."
"I showed you a little care, and you mistook it for love."
"You and I are people from two different worlds."
"So don't think this is anything more than a ga to pass ti."
Those were the words that Ron heard before a kick to the stomach sent him to the ground.
The alley was dark, stinking of stale beer and garbage. Rain slicked the grimy pavent, turning the neon glow from the street into a blurry, impressionist painting. Ron tasted blood in his mouth, coppery and warm. He looked up, the woman's silhouette a stark fra against the city lights.
Her na was Miko. She was beautiful, in a cruel, predatory way. And he had been stupid enough to fall for her.
Shrine maiden—that's what her na ans—but the girl in front of him was anything but holy.
"You should've seen your face, Ron," Miko sneered, her high heels clicking as she circled him like a shark. "All those pathetic gifts. Those 'I love you'."
She let out a short, sharp laugh.
"Did you really think a goddess like would ever lower herself to be with a... worm like you?"
Ron just lay there, the cold rain seeping through his clothes, mixing with the warm blood from his split lip. He had nothing left to say. He had given her everything. His love, his trust, his savings. And she had thrown it all back in his face, along with a few well-placed kicks.
"You're not even a good lay," she added, her voice dripping with contempt. "Ah!... I forgot we didn't even fuck yet."
She stopped in front of him, tilting her head to study her ruined masterpiece. Her dark hair, usually in a perfect, elegant style, was slightly disheveled. A single, perfect tear traced a path through the light makeup on her cheek.
It was a good performance. She must have practiced it.
Miko's words were like shards of glass, each one twisting deeper into the wounds of Ron's already broken heart. The rain pelted down, washing away the blood from his lip but doing nothing to cleanse the filth he felt coating his soul.
He pushed himself up onto his elbows, ignoring the screaming protest of his bruised ribs. The city's cacophony seed to fade into a dull hum, replaced by the frantic, desperate pounding of his own blood in his ears.
"I... I loved you," he choked out, the words tasting like ash. "Why?"
"Why?" Miko repeated, her laughter a cold, brittle sound. "Because it was fun. Because watching you worship was the most entertaining thing to happen in this boring little city in years. Because I could."
She leaned down, her face so close he could sll the expensive perfu on her skin, a scent that used to drive him wild but now just made him sick.
"You want to know the secret, Ron?" she whispered, her breath hot against his ear. "The whole world is a ga. And people like you... You're the pieces. The pawns. We're the ones moving you around the board."
She straightened up, pulling a small, ornate mirror from her purse. She checked her reflection, unconcerned.
"You should be grateful," she said, not even looking at him anymore. "I gave you a purpose, even if it was just to be my footstool. Now, I'm bored."
She turned and started walking away, her heels clicking a final, dismissive rhythm on the wet pavent.
Ron watched her go, the last of his hope, the last of his love, draining away with the rainwater into the grimy gutter. He was left with nothing. Nothing but a hollow, echoing emptiness and a rage so profound it scared him.
...
What followed after that was a blur of darkness and self-destruction.
That evening, Ron was fired from his job.
Miko's doing.
The reason?
The manager said he looked like he "just crawled out of a trash can."
Ron wanted to argue, but what was the point? The manager was right. He looked like trash. He felt like trash.
He walked ho to his apartnt, a small, dingy box on the wrong side of the tracks. But when he got there, the lock was changed. A note was taped to the door.
It was an eviction notice.
Miko's doing.
Again.
He was drowning. Drowning in a sea of her making.
Fortunately, this apartnt was not in his na; it was Miko's. She gave it to him as a "gift" so he could be close to her.
So he didn't lose much, just the few clothes and cheap furniture he owned.
But still, it was another kick in the teeth.
Ron took the bus back to his original small, two-room apartnt on the outskirts of the city. The one he had abandoned for Miko. The apartnt was left by his parents for him and his sister, a small inheritance that he had been too ashad to use while he was dating Miko.
He fumbled for the keys, his fingers numb and clumsy. He hadn't been back here for over six months.
The door swung open, and the musty, forgotten sll of ho hit him.
He walked in and collapsed onto the couch, the old springs groaning under his weight.
He was back where he started.
Alone. Broken. And with nothing to show for it but a broken heart and a few bruises.
He closed his eyes, the darkness a welco escape. But even in the darkness, he could see her face. Hear her laughter. Feel the sting of her words.
"I'm... tired," he whispered to the empty room.
He didn't move from that couch for two days.
He didn't eat. He didn't drink. He just lay there, a corpse waiting for the maggots to co.
On the third day,
Ron received news that would send him to the bottom of despair.
The dical fee for his sister's hospital had not been paid for the upcoming three months.
"I-Idiot!" he cursed himself, punching the wall. The plaster cracked, and his knuckles bled.
He had been so blinded by love, so obsessed with Miko, that he had trusted her with his sister's dical fee. He gave her the money and asked her to pay it on his behalf since he was busy with the academy exams at that ti.
And she, being the "kind" and "caring" girlfriend she was, agreed.
But she never paid.
Of course she didn't.
She just took the money and spent it on designer bags and expensive dinners.
Fortunately, Ron had always paid the fee three months in advance, so it wasn't an imdiate crisis. But still, he had only one month left.
"I need a job... and fast," he said, the desperation clawing at him.
And two jobs he found.
First, he worked as a dishwasher in a grimy restaurant.
The hours were long, the work was grueling, and the pay was shit.
Second, he worked as a construction worker.
The work was physically demanding, and the foreman was a tyrant.
But Ron didn't care. He worked like a man possessed. He pushed himself to the brink of collapse every single day. He needed the money for his sister.
Keep in mind that Ron was only 18 years old. Still a teenager, but with his underdeveloped, short, and skinny appearance, he looked more like a 14-year-old.
Miko had always teased him about it.
"You're so cute and small, Ron. Like a little puppy."
And puppy was indeed what she was training.
His life had beco a monotonous cycle of work, exhaustion, and despair. He was a ghost haunting the city, unseen, unheard.
But even then, the world wasn't done kicking him.
The restaurant closed down.
And the construction site—he was "let go" because he was "too weak."
He was back to square one.
No job. No money. No hope.
And the deadline for his sister's dical fee was getting closer.
"I-Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!"
He scread at the top of his lungs, a raw, guttural sound of pure, unadulterated agony. He was standing on the roof of his apartnt building, the wind whipping at his clothes, the city lights stretching out before him like a cruel, mocking galaxy.
He looked down at the street below. The cars looked like ants. The people looked like dots.
It would be so easy.
Just one step.
One step, and all the pain would be over.
No more Miko. No more humiliation. No more despair.
"I... I'm sorry... Akira," he whispered, his sister's na a final prayer on his lips.
Just as he was about to let go, a sudden, strange sound echoed throughout the entire roof.
A paper flapping.
Ron turned and saw a red piece of paper pinned to the wall behind him, held in place by a single, ornate black dagger.
The paper was... calling to him.
He hesitated for a mont, then walked towards it, the wind almost tearing the paper from its mooring.
He pulled the dagger from the wall. It was surprisingly light, the blade made of so strange, black tal that didn't reflect the city lights.
He unrolled the paper.
It was a contract. A summoning contract.
The text on it was written in a language he couldn't understand, but sohow, he knew what it said.
He could make a wish.
Three wishes.
A being from another realm would be summoned to fulfill them,
and in exchange, a heavy price must be paid, but the contract didn't specify what the price was.
"What kind of a joke is this?" he thought, a bitter laugh escaping his lips. "Is this the universe's final punchline?"
He crumpled the paper in his hand, ready to throw it away.
But then he stopped.
He thought of his sister, Akira. Lying in that hospital bed, her smile was fading a little more each day.
He thought of Miko, her beautiful, cruel face, her laughter echoing in his ears.
He thought of the hopelessness, the despair, the suffocating feeling of being a pawn in a ga he never wanted to play.
"What do I have to lose?" he whispered, his voice hollow.
He uncrumpled the paper.
"I wish..."
He paused, the words catching in his throat.
"I wish... for revenge."
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