Chapter 14: What She Heard

"Since this afternoon," Emi said. "Five o'clock."

"Five o'clock."

Kokone said it flatly, to the window.

"And you didn't tell me. You went to him yourself, with Haruka, and you didn't tell me."

"I wanted proof first."

"It's my life."

"I know."

"It's my name on the contract, and my face in the photo, and my mother's noodle shop on the phone with reporters."

"Kokone."

"No. Not in the car."

The driver's eyes flicked up to the mirror and back down.

They rode the rest of the way without speaking.

Upstairs, Kokone took off her shoes in the hall with careful, tidy movements and put them side by side.

Then she walked to the middle of the dry painting and stood there with her arms crossed.

"Play it again," she said.

Emi played it again, all four minutes.

She watched Kokone listen with her chin up and her eyes fixed on the red tower she had painted herself.

When the recording ended, Kokone did not say a word about it.

She picked up the nearest thing, which was a pink pillow, and threw it across the room.

It hit the wall and fell on the futon.

"Six years," Kokone said.

"I've given him six years."

"I got up at five for him. I smiled with a fever for him."

"I shook hands with men who said things I won't repeat because he told me it was the job."

"And he paid a boy in a yellow jacket to make me cry in a closet."

"I'm sorry," Emi said.

"Don't be sorry. You're the only one who did anything."

Kokone turned around.

Her eyes were full, and she was furious, and the two things sat together on her face without canceling.

"I'm angry at you too," she said.

"Okay."

"You decided I couldn't handle it."

"I decided you'd been hit enough for one week."

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Stepsister Is the Idol Everyone Wants to See from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.