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The office lights are too bright. Fluorescent hum echoing off beige walls, buzzing like static in her skull. The coffee in her hand is cold. She’s forgotten how many cups she’s had today. Three? Five?
Doesn’t matter.
She’s still here.
Still clocked in. Still reviewing paperwork for a project she no longer cares about.
“Hey, Raiden,” a voice calls from the next cubicle—sharp, tired. “You sure you’re not staying the weekend? We’ve got reports rolling in.”
Ei doesn’t even look up.
“No,” she replies. Voice clipped, final. “I have a birthday to get to.”
“Right,” the coworker says with a note of sarcasm. “The mythical daughter.”
She ignores it. That coworker doesn’t know her. None of them do.
She’s alone now—everyone else has gone home. Her laptop is closed, the last report filed, the final call made. She’s a ghost in this office. Present, never whole.
It’s a tomb at this time. Empty cubicles and the smell of someone’s microwave dinner still clinging to the stale air.
She stares at the clock on the wall.
11:38 PM.
Just enough time to make her 1:30 AM flight.
Ei exhales shakily. Not relief—determination. She’s practiced this routine: finish the job, pack fast, catch the red-eye, be home by morning. Be home for her daughter’s birthday.
She slips her phone from her coat. Missed calls from Yae. A few texts.
"Don’t forget the candles."
"She asked if you were coming. I told her you were."
"Ei, answer me."
She doesn't respond to them. Can't. If she lets herself feel that weight now, she’ll collapse before she starts.
Instead, she grabs her suitcase and strides out into the night.
Airport. One hour later.
The terminal is chaos. Weather delays. Screens flicker red across every gate. Ei stands in front of the departures board, knuckles white around the handle of her suitcase.
Her flight is canceled from harsh blizzard conditions en route.
“Next available option is later in the morning,” the gate agent says. “No guarantees.”
Ei’s vision goes a little glassy. A low buzz crawls up the back of her skull. She was supposed to be in Inazuma City by 9:00 AM local.
“No,” she whispers. “I’ll drive.”
The gate agent blinks. “It’s… on the other side of the country.”
“I said I’ll drive.”
Interior. Rental car lot. Minutes later.
The car smells like citrus cleaner and cheap leather. Ei starts the engine, eyes locked on the GPS. Estimated arrival: 7:56 PM. Cutting it close, but she can make it. She has to. Hopefully Yae allows her to stay up past her bedtime tonight. Just a bit.
As she pulls onto the freeway, she doesn’t look back.
Not at the city.
Not at the airport.
Not at the unopened messages.
Complete darkness on the roads. There aren’t enough streetlights.
Gas station lights flicker like dying stars. Ei squints against the fluorescent glow, one hand braced on the car door as she stumbles out. She’s been driving for five hours straight, maybe more—she’s not really tracking time anymore.
The cake section is sad. Plastic domes over stale frosting and smushed sprinkles. She picks the least offensive one: white icing, pink roses, "Happy Birthday" in sloppy red cursive. It’s the only one that doesn't say "Congratulations Grad!"
She carries it like it might break. The plastic digs into her palms as she holds it with two hands. Has to open the door with her hip. The jingle rings in her ear loudly.
Back in the car, she sets the cake in the passenger seat, buckles it in like a child. A familiar motion. She doesn't remember the last time she’s done that. She pats her passenger down, too. Almost turns on the baby cam. I’m sorry it’s so cold.
Her breath fogs in the air. Shivers run down her body.
She pulls onto the highway again. Her GPS tells her she’s still fourteen hours out. It doesn’t matter. She’ll make it. She has to.
FM radio keeps turning into static. Nothing stays on for long enough.
Siren.
Blue and red lights explode behind her in the rearview.
“Shit.” She panics.
The cruiser chirps once. Short. Sharp. A warning.
Ei’s heart leaps into her throat. She pulls over, rolls the window down with shaking fingers. She tries to breathe through the sudden surge of adrenaline. A female trooper approaches, calm, slow. Bright light from the flashlight in her eyes.
“Ma’am, you know how fast you were going?”
“No,” Ei says. And it’s honest. She hasn’t looked at the speedometer in hours. Her eyes glaze over and land on the cake instead.
“Seventy-eight in a fifty-five. You okay?”
Ei nods. Too quickly. “I’m just—I have to get home. My daughter’s birthday. My flight already got cancelled. Delayed.”
The trooper squints at her. “You been drinking?”
“No!” It comes out sharper than intended. “Just tired.”
The officer peers into the car. Sees the cake. Ei follows her gaze. The clock on the dashboard glares at them.
A pause. The flashlight lowers. The trooper sighs. “I’m not gonna write you up. But you need to stop somewhere and rest. You’re gonna kill someone driving like this. Or yourself. There’s a lot of deer out this way at night.”
Ei forces a nod. “Okay.”
Okay doesn’t mean yes. She hears Yae’s voice in her head—you missed your flight, are you okay? It’s probably full of disappointment or worse—gentleness. She doesn’t call. She doesn’t read the text that just came in.
Quiet whir of the car and the road. Occasional shrieks from the rumble strips.
She stops.
Not because she wants to. Because her hands are shaking too hard to keep the wheel steady, and her vision’s starting to halo at the edges.
The motel sign buzzes like it’s mocking her—half the letters dead, the other half blinking VAC NCY in a sickly red. $42.99 A NIGHT. FREE ICE. Nothing about it looks clean.
She doesn’t remember checking in. The guy at the front desk has greasy hair and breath that smells like ramen and cigarettes. She hands him her ID, her credit card. Doesn’t look at his face. Doesn’t look at hers, either, when she passes the cracked mirror in the hallway.
Room 107.
She fumbles the key into the lock. It sticks. The door creaks open like a sigh.
Inside: faded carpet, wood paneling stained with decades of sadness, a TV bolted to the dresser. The air smells like old coffee and bleach. The cake sits lopsided in its plastic dome on the side table, its pink roses sagging like they’ve given up.
She sits on the edge of the bed and peels off her jacket. Her shirt clings to her spine. She breathes in. Out. In again.
She hears the shower running.
“Miko?” she calls softly, not looking up. Her hands are clenched together in her lap. She uncurls her fingers one at a time.
Of course she doesn’t answer. But Ei doesn’t register that right away. It takes a bit. Of course she doesn’t answer.
She’s in the bathroom. She always runs the water too hot. Steam curling around the doorframe. She’ll come out soon, towel in her hair, rolling her eyes because Ei brought her gas station cake and no candles or presents. Didn’t I tell you to bring candles?
“She’s going to love it,” Ei says out loud to no one. “It’s ugly, but… she’s three. She won’t know the difference.”
She laughs. Quiet. Feels it crack something deep inside.
There’s a dip in the mattress beside her. She feels it. The phantom weight of a body that isn’t there. She doesn’t turn to look.
Yae’s voice comes easy now—“You should lie down before your spine turns into rebar.”
“You missed dinner. Again.”
“Come to bed, Ei.”
She obeys. Lays back. Doesn’t change, doesn’t blink. Just stares at the popcorn ceiling like it might start moving.
The cake is still on the table. The roses have melted.
She doesn’t remember closing her eyes.
The light comes in through the wrong angle. Harsh. Unforgiving. Extremely bright.
Ei wakes up fully dressed, one shoe off, the other pressed sideways into her ankle. Her neck aches. Her mouth tastes like metal and old sugar.
The cake is still there.
Of course it is.
The pink lettering has slid sideways, the moisture inside the plastic dome turning it into a foggy aquarium of shame. She doesn’t even want to open it. Just the thought of cutting into it makes her stomach flip.
She sits up too fast. Her head pulses. Not quite a headache—worse. A slow, dense pressure like her brain is waterlogged.
Empty room. The other half of the bed is cold and untouched.
She knows that. She knew that. But something in her chest still drops like she’s just realized it. Like missing the bottom step of a flight of stairs.
The mirror above the dresser shows someone she doesn’t want to look at. So she doesn’t.
Instead, she splashes water on her face in the bathroom. The faucet leaks. The water pressure sucks. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.
She grabs her keys, leaves the room key on the dresser. Doesn’t check out. Doesn’t say thank you. Just walks out into the late morning air—
The parking lot is covered in snow. And mostly empty.
She finds her car to be the sole pile of white. With a large hole in it. A cavern of snow. She’d forgotten to roll up the window.
She starts frantically uncovering her car using her arm. Scoops out piles of snow from inside.
Numb. Soaked sleeve. Desperation. Cold air.
She climbs onto a melting snow pile and feels her spine freeze. Blasts the defroster. There’s no time to waste.
Sets the cake in the backseat this time. It doesn’t deserve the front. You shouldn’t be sitting up front yet.
GPS says she’ll make it by 2 AM if she keeps moving. She missed the birthday. A stone drops into her stomach at the realization.
But she can still show up.
She grips the wheel until her knuckles go white. Slowly rolls out of the parking lot. Snow audibly crunching under the wheels.
She drives.
Everything is damp and soaked. The tiny window of visibility slowly grows until she doesn’t have to crouch over her fingers to see the lines.
The roads stretch out flat, endless. Radio off. No music, no voice. Just the dull thrum of tires on asphalt, the occasional rattle of her rental’s aging frame.
Ei hasn’t eaten. Doesn’t feel hunger, just an emptiness lodged somewhere behind her ribs. The kind that hums, like a bad wire inside her chest.
She’s half a second too slow.
A deer bounds from across the median. She swerves. The brakes catch late. A sharp jolt—bam—metal scraping something. She fishtails slightly, overcorrects, and slams the car into a ditch full of gravel and weeds.
The air goes still.
Ei breathes in. Out. In again. Her hands won’t let go of the wheel.
She’s not hurt. Not really. Just jolted. No bleeding. No airbag. No injuries. A little bruised.
But when she twists around in her seat, heart in her throat—
The plastic dome of the cake found its home wedged against the backseat footwell, and the frosting—
It’s chaos. Smeared pink and white and red against the inside of the container like someone exploded a birthday party inside a snow globe. The layers have crumpled inward. The letters are just a red sugar smear now. No letters left.
Something inside her snaps.
She slams her fists against the steering wheel. Once. Twice. Again. She screams—full throat, ugly and raw—until her voice breaks. She screams at the seat, at the cake, at the car, at herself.
Then she sobs. Ugly, heaving sobs that wrack her chest. She presses her forehead to the steering wheel.
No restraint, no shame. Just broken, childlike sobbing that curls her inward like she’s trying to vanish.
She sits like that for a long time. Engine still on, quietly rumbling in support. One headlight flickering. Gravel crunching quietly as the car settles.
After a long time, she wipes her face with the back of her wrist. Reaches for her phone with unsteady hands.
Missed calls: Yae Miko (3)
Text from her: “Call me when you get a minute. Please.”
Voicemail, 42 seconds.
She presses play.
Miko’s voice is calm. Tired. The edge of frustration softened by worry.
“Ei. I’m not trying to pick a fight. I just want to know you’re okay. I know this job matters to you. But so do we. She keeps asking if you’re going to make it. I didn’t know what to tell her. Call me, alright? Please. Just talk to me.”
She listens again. And again.
By the fourth time, she has the words memorized. But she doesn’t call. She doesn’t text back. Her thumbs hover over the screen like they’ve forgotten how to type. Over the call button.
The sky starts to shift, bleeding toward evening. She finally gets out, checks the front of the car. One headlight’s busted. The bumper’s cracked but holding.
It’ll make it.
No one stops to check on her from the interstate. Her phone feels like lead in her hand. She watches a single car speed by.
Gets back into the car.
Moves the cake to the passenger seat, as if to apologize. Her hand comes off sticky with frosting.
Turns the key.
And drives.
One headlight out. No music.
Just guilt.
The gas station hums under flickering lights, some time past midnight. One of the overhead bulbs stutters like it’s dying, throwing pulses of light across the concrete.
Ei pulls in crooked, one headlight cutting through the dark like a weak torch. The pump beeps at her, mechanical and cold.
She steps out, legs stiff. The two steps to the pump are both accompanied by multiple cracks from her knees.
She jams her card into the reader, shoves the nozzle into the tank. The pump clicks, and fuel flows. Distant country music plays from a speaker with water damage. The lyrics are warped. She doesn’t try to understand them.
Another car pulls in across from her. Beat-up sedan. Faded yellow paint. Driver’s door creaks when it opens.
A man—maybe in his sixties—shuffles out. Pajama pants, hoodie, slippers. Gas station coffee in one hand. He doesn’t glance at her at first. Just stretches, like his body’s forgotten how.
Then he looks over.
“Hell of a night to be out,” he says casually, like they’re old neighbors.
Ei doesn’t answer at first.
He notices the busted headlight. Her soaked slacks. Coffee stained blazer. The sag in her shoulders.
“You good?”
She hesitates. Then shrugs. “Just trying to get home.”
He nods, like he gets it. Sips his coffee.
“You missed a motel back about twelve miles. I almost stopped myself. Figured I’d keep going.”
“Same,” she says. Her voice cracks. “Didn’t feel like stopping.”
He glances at her again. Not judging. Just… seeing.
“You on the run?” he asks, light but honest.
She huffs something like a laugh. “No. Just late. For something that already passed.”
He whistles. “Oof. Been there.”
They fall into silence, listening to their respective pumps tick upward. Gasoline smells sharp in the cool air.
“I once missed my kid’s graduation,” he says suddenly. “Not by a day. Just an hour. Plane got rerouted, and I was stuck in the terminal with four businessmen and a crying baby. Whole damn thing live-streamed. I watched it on my phone.”
Ei doesn’t say anything, but her throat tightens.
“She forgave me,” he adds. “Eventually.”
“I don’t know if I’d forgive me,” Ei murmurs, mostly to herself.
The pump clicks. Tank full. She doesn’t move.
The man tosses his empty coffee cup into a trash bin. Misses. Doesn’t bother to fix it.
“Try not to let the guilt turn into penance,” he says. “You show up. That’s what matters.”
He climbs back into his car. The door creaks again. Engine sputters to life.
Ei stands there another minute. The air is too still. Too sharp. Her hands are still cold.
She gets back in the car. The ruined cake is still there, silent in its dome. She glances at it. Doesn’t touch it.
“Try not to let the guilt turn into penance,” she echoes under her breath.
She drives off into the dark.
One headlight.
Almost there.
The clouds roll in like a warning.
It starts as a whisper against the windshield. A few stray droplets that dot the glass, scattered and shy.
Then the sky opens up.
A sudden, furious downpour. Sheets of rain hammer the car, and the remaining headlight casts a dull cone of visibility into a blur of silver streaks. Wipers squeak in protest, barely keeping up. The road ahead turns ghostly, obscured in the storm’s gray veil.
Ei leans forward, grip tight on the wheel. Her shoulders are stiff. Every muscle pulled taut. Her eyes sting, not from tears this time, but from the ache of staying open too long.
The world outside is all noise—thunder rumbling distantly, the rhythmic slap of rain, the occasional splash as she hits another shallow puddle.
Inside, it’s quiet. The ruined cake container shifts slightly in the passenger seat as the car weaves. It’s just a shape now. A memory of what it was supposed to be.
She talks to it.
“I was gonna bring you balloons too.”
Her voice is hoarse. She doesn’t know why she said it.
“I saw some in a shop window. Bright ones. But I didn’t want them to pop in the car.”
She swallows. Her hands stick to the wheel as she adjusts her death grip.
“I thought about writing a card. Didn’t know what to say.”
She chuckles. It’s a brittle, cracking sound.
“I miss you.”
Her knuckles are white on the steering wheel. Her foot eases off the gas.
Just for a moment.
She lets the car coast, lets the storm swallow her whole.
Time doesn’t move the same in the rain.
She thinks of Yae—how her voice sounded in the voicemail. Not angry. Just tired. Talk to me. Please.
She thinks of home. Of their little kitchen table. Of a child’s drawing stuck to the fridge with a magnet shaped like a fox.
She thinks of the moment she walks through the door.
And she drives.
Not faster.
But with purpose.
Sickening sweetness wafts by her nose. Rarely. Just a few times when a hand comes up to brush hair out of her face.
The rain has slowed to a drizzle by the time she pulls into the driveway.
The porch light is off.
No balloons. No decorations. Just the quiet shape of their home, dark and asleep. It’s 2:28 AM. The dashboard clock glows dim blue, reminding her of how late she is.
Ei sits there for a long moment, engine idling. Her head rests against the steering wheel. Breath fogs the glass.
Then, she turns the key.
Silence.
She opens the door. The air is cold and wet. The storm has washed the world in gray.
She retrieves the cake. The container is smudged, fogged, icing everywhere inside. It looks pathetic. She holds it like it might fall apart.
The house creaks as she lets herself in. Shoes off at the door, keys on the hook. She moves like a ghost. The living room is still, lit only by the faint orange glow of a nearby streetlamp sneaking in through the blinds.
No signs of life. The little paper banner they hung up last year still sits folded on the bookshelf. The kitchen’s clean, spotless. A faint smell of something lavender, something toasted—bread? Tea? Your favorite. Black tea. No sugar.
She places the cake on the kitchen table.
The note she writes is messy. Rushed. The pen scratches awkwardly on the paper.
“I’m sorry I missed it. Happy birthday. I brought you cake. I love you. I’ll be back in two weeks. —Mama.”
She folds it once and tucks it beneath the cake container.
Then, she turns. Grabs her coat. Heads back to the door. The house doesn’t stir.
And stops.
Yae is there. Silhouetted in the hallway. Barefoot, hair tousled from sleep. She’s wearing one of Ei’s old T-shirts. The one with the fraying neckline.
She doesn’t say anything. Just watches.
Ei swallows. She thinks she might cry.
“I was going to leave,” she says softly. “Didn’t want to wake anyone.”
Yae steps forward. Her voice is low.
“Were you going to sneak in and out like a thief?”
A beat.
“You look like hell,” Yae adds.
“I missed it,” Ei says in response.
“I know.”
“I ruined the cake.”
Yae looks at it. Her expression doesn’t change. “I see that.”
Ei grips the doorknob. Doesn’t turn it. Her voice trembles, cracked and thin.
“I don’t deserve to be here.”
She doesn’t answer immediately. She picks up the note. Reads it. Sets it down carefully.
Yae crosses the distance between them slowly. Not angry. Not smiling either. Just tired. Real.
“You work too much,” she says.
Ei flinches.
Yae takes her hand off the doorknob. Holds it in both of hers.
Ei’s eyes brim with something sharp. She doesn’t let it fall.
Silence wraps around them, soft and heavy.
“I’m sorry I didn’t answer your calls,” Ei whispers, voice broken.
“I know.”
“I’ll be back in two weeks,” Ei says again, like it’s a promise. Like it means something. “I mean it this time.”
“You meant it last time,” Yae replies.
Her eyes sting. “But this time I’ll do it. I’ll take time off—for real. And I’ll answer your calls.”
“Mm.”
“I’m sorry,” Ei repeats.
A quiet moment passes. Yae leans her forehead against Ei’s. Their hands still intertwined.
“I don’t want you to promise me that,” Yae whispers. “Just come back with something left of yourself.”
“Okay.”
“She needs you alive.”
I need you.
Outside, the rain stops completely.