Total Available Funds: ¥12,123,000
The Last Supper
That evening, she booked a yakiniku place underground in Okubo.
There was no menu. No front desk. No signboard.
The waiter led her in without asking for a name.
The room was dim.
The paint on the walls was peeling.
A single old air conditioner turned slowly overhead.
She sat in the middle seat.
She had arrived early.
She brought no bag. She brought no phone.
She wore a necklace. It held nothing.
They came, one by one.
Rina came.
She carried clean hands and a box of sweets.
She said nothing. She nodded once.
Ramesh, the curry shop owner, came.
He wore a clean shirt and left a delivery bag at the door.
The delivery boy came.
He kept his helmet on. He sat close to the entrance.
The accountant came.
She brought a notebook and a ruler.
Yuji came.
He wore his usual work shirt, wrinkled.
His hair was still damp.
Liu Zhihong came.
He smoked by the door.
He did not sit.
Hoshi came.
He held a cable bag in one hand, a phone in the other.
Julian did not come.
Still, she left a seat open, at the farthest corner, near the air vent.
She looked around the table. She lifted her cup.
She said, "Thank you for coming tonight."
The grill began to heat.
The fan above turned slowly.
The light in the corner flickered.
She grilled the meat herself.
She turned it, portioned it, filled the bowls, and poured the tea.
Each motion was slow. Each was final.
Midway through the meal, she set down her chopsticks.
She said, "By tomorrow, I may no longer be in the system."
No one replied.
The meat sizzled.
Water struck the iron plate and hissed.
She began to divide.
To Rina, she handed a folder.
She said, "This is your cat's food fund for the next half year.
It is split across banks. Delayed release. Monthly automatic transfers."
Rina bowed her head. She said nothing.
To Ramesh, she said,
"I've changed your gas supplier. You won't need the middleman anymore."
He nodded.
To the delivery boy, she said,
"Do not take your next two jobs.
Too loud. Not for you."
He said nothing. He dipped his head.
To the accountant, she handed a small notebook.
She said, "Of what you've seen, remember only the first three pages.
Forget the rest."
The woman opened the book.
Her gaze froze.
She closed it again.
She looked at Yuji.
Yuji said, "So this is goodbye?"
She did not answer.
She moved the teacup toward him.
She said, "I know you do not believe me.
But you came.
So now you must listen."
She said,
"When I disappear, if anyone comes to ask about me,
tell them you are no longer involved."
Yuji did not move.
He took a sip of tea.
Liu laughed beside them.
He said, "You speak like all of this is already decided."
She turned. She looked at him.
She said, "You may take the shell back.
I no longer hold any position."
Liu did not smile.
He crushed the cigarette.
He dropped it to the floor.
She turned to Hoshi.
She said, "Access permissions will shift tonight.
You will receive a signal.
Complete the task in three minutes.
If not, leave it."
Hoshi nodded.
He did not ask why.
Last, she looked toward the empty seat.
She said,
"Julian did not come. That is fine."
"He is not suited for this kind of dinner."
"If he is still trading, he will know I've exited."
She raised her glass.
She named no one.
She said, "The protocol is complete."
She stood.
No one else moved.
The fan still turned.
The tea was still warm.
The meat was still grilling.
She walked out the door.
The bill had already been paid.
That room was never spoken of again.
That meal became a transaction left out of the record.
That night, in the Kabukicho system, one set of access keys was erased.
One unnamed transfer entered a private key vault.
One cluster of IP addresses signed out.
One trader's name was marked as "No such user."
And from that moment forward,
her name was deleted from the world.
The Denial
After she exited the system, people began to look for her.
At first, they only asked questions.
They asked where her accounts had gone.
They asked whether she had ever touched illegal funds.
They asked whether she was linked to any network in Kabukicho.
Later, the questions became statements.
"Was she your referral?"
"Was she on your team?"
"Did she use an account under your name?"
She did not log in again.
She sent no signal.
She sat in a high-rise apartment somewhere in Shinjuku.
She did not eat at regular times.
The curtains stayed drawn.
The light in the room was low.
The computer was stored in a drawer.
The wallet lay under a book.
The phone had no SIM card.
Her email had been erased long before.
Her fingers still remembered.
They sometimes drew address strings on paper, without thinking.
She no longer tried to reach anyone.
One day, her backup terminal lit up.
It was an old channel.
An old contact.
There were three messages.
All from Rina.
The first read:
I didn't know her that well.
The second came ten minutes later:
I wasn't involved.
The third came at 1:27 a.m:
It's probably a misunderstanding.
She read all three.
She did not reply.
She did not delete them.
She powered off the device.
She placed it in the drawer.
She remained seated.
Her shoulders ached.
Her neck was stiff.
Her chest did not hurt, but something pressed against it.
She was not sad.
She was only tired.
It felt like waking after too long a sleep.
Like waking without knowing what day it was.
She did not blame Rina.
She was not surprised.
She only said, quietly,
"The system leaves no witnesses."
That night, Yuji was stopped outside a convenience store near his home.
A man handed him a blurry photo.
He asked whether he knew the woman in the image.
Yuji looked at it briefly.
He said, "I don't know her."
The man asked again,
"Did you ever work together?"
Yuji said,
"I saw her a few times."
Then,
"Did she ever live with you?"
He shook his head.
He said,
"I don't think so."
He took his coffee and left the store.
He walked down the street behind the station.
He did not look back.
He did not walk faster.
His steps were steady.
He walked for seventeen minutes before entering his home.
That night, he did not sleep well.
He dreamt that someone knocked on his door.
He did not open it.
Outside, it was raining.
Julian, during his third system audit, was flagged for an "unclassified contact."
The system asked him for an explanation.
He opened the response field.
He stared at the blank line.
He remembered the screenshot from that night.
She stood outside a convenience store.
She was holding a can of coffee.
She wore that black hoodie he disliked.
Her face was unclear, as if she had just finished speaking, ready to leave.
He deleted the screenshot.
He typed into the empty field:
Not related.
He submitted the form.
That morning, his room was filled with light.
The clock on the wall ticked one beat slow.
He did not go out.
He sat all morning.
He did not turn on the computer.
He burned the screenshot.
He had no backup.
He did not make one.
That night, he sat by the fan.
He thought of one question:
If she contacted him again, would he answer?
He had no answer.
He was not afraid.
He simply understood that the matter was finished.
Far away, in another room, she sat in silence.
She knew Rina had now spoken three times.
She knew Yuji had denied their shared address.
She knew Julian had written "Not related."
She noted it on paper with a pencil.
Afterward, she erased the line.
Not to hide it.
Only because it was unnecessary.
She said:
"I do not blame them.
I knew from the start.
The underworld of finance leaves no witnesses."