“I’ll give it to you.”
Hisaki’s lips were almost brushing against Rina’s earlobe.
“And I can take you out to play.”
She pulled back a little, watching Rina’s expression.
“How about it? Just one nap…… Pretty good deal, right?”
Rina stared at the black card in Kurose Hisaki’s hand. The key to the door.
A passport to the outside world.
It was dangling right in front of her eyes, swaying lazily between Hisaki’s index and middle finger.
Like bait dangling from a fishing line.
And Rina was the fish.
She forced her gaze away from the card, looked up, and glared straight at Hisaki with those sky-blue eyes.
“It’s really just sleeping?”
Her voice was wrapped in twelve percent suspicion and zero percent trust.
“You won’t do anything?”
No answer.
Hisaki tilted her head slightly, black hair sliding off one shoulder, that expression Rina had seen for seven days now—so annoying, never flustered—on her face.
Too familiar.
Rina crossed her arms over her chest, striking a pose that said “I’m not that easy to fool.”
“You’re gonna lure me into bed and then start pushing your luck step by step, right?”
She raised one finger.
“Just holding, no moving.”
A second finger.
“Then you’ll say, ‘Just touching, nothing else.'”
She put up a third finger, her expression getting more and more dramatic, brows twisted together, lips puffed out enough to hang a soy sauce bottle from.
“And then your hand ends up who-knows-where…… Do you think I haven’t seen this trick before? That’s how it goes in every webtoon!” Hisaki looked at her, silent for two seconds.
In those two seconds of silence, Rina felt like something in the kidnapper’s eyes lit up.
How to put it?
That kind of light—caught red-handed but not embarrassed at all, actually finding it amusing.
“Shiro.”
Hisaki finally spoke.
She spun the key card on her fingertip, the motion as smooth as a casino dealer’s.
“The key card is here.”
She paused.
“And the chance to go out is here too.”
She paused again, then tucked the card back into her palm…
“Just one simple request…… Keep me company for a nap.”
Then she stopped talking.
She just leaned back against the chair, legs crossed, one arm wrapped around Rina’s waist—Rina was still sitting on her lap, after all—and the other hand holding the card, those dark red eyes quietly watching the person in her arms.
Rina’s brain split into three factions at that moment.
The first faction was the “Dignity Party.”
Are you kidding me!
Selling myself for a treat?
Am I that kind of person?
Better die than surrender!
Wealth can’t corrupt me!
Power can’t bend me!
The second faction was the “Rational Party.”
Let’s analyze this calmly.
If she doesn’t agree, she won’t get the key card.
No key card, no getting out the door.
No getting out the door, no completing the mission.
No completing the mission, the System will send her back to that hospital bed.
White ceiling.
The smell of disinfectant.
Windows that never open.
The IV drip falling drop by drop…
Rina’s scalp went numb.
The third faction was the “Pragmatic Party,” and that faction had only one line.
“I’m already locked up anyway—what’s one night of sleep gonna do?”
The three factions brawled inside her head.
So annoying.
Rina gritted her teeth.
Isn’t this just threatening me into selling myself?
No key and no conditions to leave…
The System punishment…
Turning back into a useless lump on a hospital bed.
But…
Sleep with the kidnapper
Get the key card…
Can go outside…
A chance to escape…
Complete the mission…
Get freedom and a healthy body.
Two paths—one leads to hell, the other also leads to hell, but at least the second one comes with a key card.
The more Rina thought about it, the more wrong it felt.
This System…… isn’t it messing with her on purpose?
It obviously is!
Why does it pick now to remind her, right when the kidnapper is dangling the key card as bait?
Why does it give the countdown now, right when the kidnapper starts raising the stakes?
The System is pushing her, the kidnapper is fishing for her, and she’s stuck in the middle, like a piece of red braised pork being fought over by two chopsticks.
“System, you’re definitely doing this on purpose!”
She cursed inwardly through gritted teeth.
Then she thought of that hospital bed.
White sheets.
Cold needles.
The unchanging view outside the window.
Her mother holding her hand, her palm warm, but her body slowly growing colder.
She didn’t want to go back.
Those days when even turning over needed someone’s help, those days when every day was the same powerless version of herself…
She’d rather stay here, held by the kidnapper—at least her legs could kick, her hands could move, her teeth could bite.
She could run.
As long as she got that card.
Rina took a deep breath.
The Dignity Party raised the white flag in her head.
“I’ll do it!”
She squeezed those four words out from between her teeth, her voice louder than she expected, exploding in the quiet mansion, carrying a tragic resolve of someone going all in.
Hisaki’s lashes fluttered.
Then she smiled.
She placed the black card in Shiro’s palm, then closed Shiro’s fingers, wrapping her own hand around Rina’s fist.
“It’s yours.”
Hisaki lowered her head, her lips almost touching Shiro’s forehead, her voice so soft it sounded like she was casting a spell.
“But though……..”
Before Rina could even feel the card’s temperature in her grip, her ears perked up first.
“Shiro needs to be careful how she uses it too.”
Hisaki said this with a strange kind of gentleness in her tone, like a reminder, or like a prophecy.
Rina frowned.
What…… does that mean?
“Use it carefully”?
Isn’t it just opening a door?
Insert card, open door, walk out—what’s there to be careful about?
Does this card set off an alarm when you leave?
Rina clutched the key card in her palm, feeling its hard, smooth edge pressing into her skin.
Forget it.
The important escape item is in hand now.
All that’s left to do is……
Endure.
Endure.
Endure some more.
Endure until the kidnapper lets her guard down.
Endure until the kidnapper goes out and isn’t home.
Endure until that perfect escape moment, when no one’s blocking the door, when every condition lines up.
And then she can…
One card in hand, the world is mine.
Nighttime.
Shiraze Rina stood in front of the master bedroom door, her mood somewhere between “a death row inmate being marched to the execution ground” and “an elementary schooler about to give their first speech on stage.”
It’s just a nap.
She repeated that line to herself about the seventeenth time.
Who’s afraid of who.
But her feet refused to move forward.
Then she felt a warm hand wrap around hers.
“Shiro’s hands are cold.”
Hisaki looked down at her.
“Nervous?”
“N-nervous? What’s there to be nervous about! I’ve seen storms way worse than this!”
Hisaki smiled, not calling her out on it.
She pushed open the door to the master bedroom.