The morning sun pierced through the glass windows of a towering office building, but inside, Haruto barely noticed. His fingers moved mechanically over the keyboard, emails and spreadsheets blurring into one endless monotony. Two years had passed since that night, when the weight of love and betrayal had crushed him almost beyond repair. Two years since he had quietly watched Emi drift away toward someone else.
He had thought about leaving her forever, about walking out and severing all ties. But a friend, sensing his pain, had given him another suggestion: throw yourself into work, Haruto. Lose yourself in something productive. Distract the heart, and eventually, it will heal.
And so he had.
The office had become his sanctuary, a place where no one knew about his heartbreak, where the only demands were deadlines and performance metrics. He worked long hours, skipping meals, ignoring calls, sleeping only when exhaustion forced him to. Every spreadsheet completed, every project delivered, every compliment from his boss was a small patch on the gaping wound in his chest.
Yet no matter how much he immersed himself, the memory of Emi never faded. Her laugh, her smile, the softness of her hands… they haunted him in quiet moments. He thought he had buried the pain under layers of work, but it always seeped through, subtle as the morning light across the polished floor.
It was during a late-night project that he remembered the first time he had truly felt debt and obligation. Sophea's father — no, Emi's father — had saved him from a life that had almost swallowed him whole. And the promise he had made, to repay that debt with everything he could give, had once seemed sacred. Even now, Haruto realized, he had honored that promise. Every day, every hour, he had lived in a way that respected that debt — even if it had cost him the love he so desperately wanted.
Still, life carried on, indifferent to his pain. His co-workers rarely noticed the quiet intensity behind his eyes, the way he flinched at the thought of her name, the way he avoided any mention of the past. In this work, he could control something — unlike love, unlike the betrayal he had endured.
Two years. Two years of running from the heartache, of drowning himself in tasks and deadlines. And yet, as he stared at the glowing cityscape from his office window that night, he knew one truth he could no longer ignore: the debt had a limit.
And when that limit came, so too would the reckoning.