Chapter 18

Yuki stands at the sink, brushing her teeth in silence. When she finishes, she rinses her mouth, splashes water over her face, and straightens up, her eyes catching the mirror. 

Her gaze settles on the marks―faint purples and raw, reddish outlines staining the skin of her neck. Her hand lifts almost on its own, fingers brushing over them like she’s not sure they’re real. Her expression tightens, disgust flickering in her eyes. 

She exhales sharply, but it’s not enough. Dori’s hands. His mouth. His breath on her skin.

Her own breath catches―too fast, too shallow.

She shuts her eyes tight. “No,” she whispers as she tries to steady herself, to reel it back in.

A moment passes. Then she pulls away from the mirror and walks to her room. The door clicks shut behind her.

She crawls into bed and pulls the covers up, her body curling slightly as if trying to make herself smaller.

For a long moment, she just stares at the ceiling. 

She thinks about their chats on c.ai―everything he told her. The stories about his life, his childhood, everything he said he’d been through.

Was all of it really true, like he claimed?

Her mind drifts back to one of their earliest conversations, where they talked about their lives and their childhoods.

Yuki had gone first.

She told him about growing up with Haruka, her grandma―how she was told, from as early as she could remember, that her parents had died in a car accident.

She never questioned it much; she was just a kid. And her grandma.. she was kind. Loving. The kind of woman who baked pancakes in the shape of animals and danced with Yuki in the kitchen to old songs on the radio. They would build forts in the living room with blankets and drink hot chocolate while watching movies at night.

Her grandma made life feel warm.

Still, sometimes, especially at school events, she’d watch the other kids with their parents―a mom and a dad waiting at the gates or sitting in the audience―and something would twist in her chest. A soft, aching kind of longing.

But even then, her grandma filled the space so well that Yuki never had the chance to really sit in that sadness.

One thing always stood out though: there were no photos of her parents. None in the albums, none in frames.

When she’d asked, her grandma had simply sighed and said they’d gotten lost in the move after the accident.

Still, she’d smile and add, “You look just like your mother, though. Same eyes. Same little frown when you’re thinking hard. Especially when you are wearing that pink dress that was once hers.”

Yuki believed her.

Until.. she was fifteen.

She’d gone up to the attic looking for an old costume box. The place was dusty and packed with boxes, but tucked in one corner was a wooden trunk she’d never seen opened.

Inside, she found pictures of her grandma’s younger years. Laughing in a garden. Her arm around a man Yuki had never met. And beside them, a little girl―maybe six or seven years old―blonde hair and blue eyes, and wearing the exact same pink dress Yuki used to wear.

She stared at the photo, something cold creeping into her stomach.

She flipped through more pages. More pictures. The same three people. Grandma, her husband, and the little blonde girl.

They looked nothing like her.

Her fingers hovered over the child in the pictures―the one that was clearly her grandma’s daughter. Her only daughter.

But there was no resemblance like grandma claimed. Not even a hint. No dark hair. No brown eyes.

Her heart thudded as she went downstairs, the photo trembling in her hand.

“Grandma..” Her voice came out shaky. “I don’t think I look like Mom.”

Her grandma turned, saw the picture, and went still. Completely still. Her lips parted, but no words came at first.

“Where’d you―” she stammered. “Sweetheart.. I.. It’s not..”

“Grandma.” Yuki’s voice cut in. Not angry. Just.. tired. “Was I even.. born into this family..?”

Grandma sat down slowly, as if her knees might give out. Her hands gripped the arms of the chair.

“Grandma, please tell me the truth. Who am I?”

For a long time, she didn’t speak. Then she sighed―deep, long, heavy.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll tell you.”

And so, finally, she told Yuki the truth. And she started at he very, very beginning.

She spoke of her husband―a man who could be charming one moment and cruel the next. How he cheated, over and over, and how she kept forgiving him. Not for herself, but for her daughter’s sake.

The girl loved him fiercely, idolized him, and didn’t see the darkness he brought home.

But one night, during yet another confrontation, things went wrong.

He was drunk, angrier than usual. He grabbed Haruka, his hands tightening around her throat, shouting that he’d kill her and marry someone else.

She fought back. It was chaos. They struggled. Then, too close to the stairs―he fell.

The sound was awful. The silence that followed, worse.

Her daughter, Yuna, had seen it all, and from that day on, she hated her mother. Blamed her for everything, and the moment she turned eighteen, she left, disappearing into a life of her own.

No phone calls.

No letters.

Nothing.

Years passed, and the silence stretched.

But Haruka couldn’t stop hoping. She searched for her daughter. Asked around. And one day, she found her again. Tracked her to a small apartment in a distant town.

She went to her doorstep, her heart pounding in her chest.

When the door opened, her daughter stood there. And behind her, she heard the soft cry of a baby.

For one brief second, hope bloomed.

“Y-Yuna.. I―”

But then, Yuna’s face twisted with rage. She screamed. Slammed the door in her mother’s face, and said she was never allowed near her family again. 

Haruka stood outside that door for a long time before walking away.

What followed was a dark year.

Loneliness hollowed her out. She stopped seeing friends. Barely ate. She began to believe the things her daughter had screamed at her. That she was a murderer, and that she had ruined everything.

One night, she wrote a letter. A final letter. She didn’t know if it would ever reach her daughter, but she left it anyway.

Then, she left home and started walking toward the bridge, where she planned to end her life.

It was raining. Cold.

The alley she took was dark and quiet.

And that’s..

That’s when she heard it―a soft sound, like a mewling. Faint.

At first she thought she was imagining it. But then she heard it again. Real. Muffled. Coming from a large trash bin.

She hesitated, then approached, and saw that something inside the bag was moving. She opened it carefully, expecting maybe a cat.

But what she found was a baby, barely a few weeks old, cold and shaking, but alive.

“Oh dear,” Haruka gasped, tears already flooding her eyes. She held the baby close, wrapping it in her coat.

Something inside her cracked open.

She stood there for a long time, sobbing.

And that night..

The bridge was forgotten.

Forever forgotten.

That baby saved her.

And that baby was Yuki.

She might never be able to see her own granddaughter. Might never be forgiven. But fate had given her another chance. And she raised Yuki with every ounce of love she had left. Taught her to laugh again. Taught herself to heal, through her.

○○○

Yuki stared at her grandmother, silent. The old photos still rested in her lap, but she barely saw them now.

Her eyes were fixed on the woman in front of her―this woman who had raised her, who had sung to her, fed her, made her birthday cakes from scratch even when money was tight.

Tears shimmered in Yuki’s eyes, but they didn’t fall. Her breath was soft and shaky, pulled tight into her chest like she was trying not to make a sound. Only a faint sniffle escaped.

“I thought..” Grandma whispered, “if you believed you were born into this family, that you had a mother who loved you once―even if she was gone―it would hurt less than knowing the truth. I didn’t want you to grow up feeling like garbage someone threw away. Like a mistake. I just.. wanted you to feel loved.”

She gave a tired sigh, eyes heavy with years and guilt. “I’m sorry, dear.”

“N-No,” Yuki shakes her head. “Don’t be sorry.”

Her throat bobbed as she blinked back tears. “You literally saved my life. I don’t care if you lied. I don’t care that I wasn’t born into this family. You are my family.”

She took a shaky breath, before stepping forward and hugging the old lady. “And I love you. I love you so much.”

Haruka’s hands trembled as they rested gently on Yuki’s back, her fingers tracing small, uncertain circles. Then tears welled up in her eyes―tears she tried hard to hold back but couldn’t.

“I love you too, Yuyu,” she whispered, “more than I ever knew how to say.”

○○○

After Yuki finished typing out her story on character ai, she stared at the screen for a moment, waiting for the chatbot’s reaction.

“You weren’t even hers by blood, and she still did more for you than some parents do for their own children.. I wish my mom threw me out like that too when I was a baby. Maybe the same thing would have happened to me,” Kuro said.

Yuki frowned.

“What? Don’t say that.. You could’ve died. That alley, that night―if someone hadn’t found me, I wouldn’t be here either.”

“I know that, but.. at least I wouldn’t have gone through.. that hell..”

Yuki paused for a minute, then replied, “What.. happened actually? I mean, it must’ve been really bad for you to say something like that..”

“Yeah, it was. I’ll tell you..”
 
 
TO BE CONTINUED..