Tangerine ~ Bullet Train

16 - "I'm sorry, I can't do this."

Yuina and Lemon felt their hopes being crushed more and more the further they got up the train. So far they didn't manage to find the case, and the possibility of it being already off this train seemed too damn high. Moreover, Yuina felt anxious about Tangerine's well-being, up to the point where she could almost not take it anymore.

She was crazy for caring so much and letting herself getting dragged into this. Maybe this wouldn't be healthy for her. Maybe she needed to stop.

She thought about the looks her fake friends gave her when Lemon and Yuina walked through their wagon. They managed to look away from that Momomon creature for a few seconds, so they could look at her walking away with this man. Yuina knew Akira would make word to her threat; if Yuina would tell her mother how they had treated her, she would tell everyone that wanted to hear about her leaving with not only one, but two men now.

A huge part of her didn't care about it at all. Her mother wouldn't care about her being mistreated by them, so why should she care about her mother's reputation? Still, she knew this would end one way or another. She could die on this train or at the surrounding platforms, by the hands of this mafia boss or his employees, or she would live by getting off this train. The problem was that she couldn't really decide which option would be living.

If she would stay, she would also take the fall. She would spend her last hour alive in complete anxiety and eventually agony, when she would be ripped apart by this White Death. She would pain herself by looking at Tangerine's face when he would get back, him surely feeling guilty about dragging her into this. But she would feel something.

If she would leave, she would eventually be dragged into this boring life again, delivered once again at the demanding attitude of her parents. She would have to hang out with her fake friends once again. And even worse: she would never know what became of Tangerine and Lemon. She would most likely live with the realisation that they died an agonizing death whilst she escaped it all, letting them suffer alone without helping them, or at least trying.

Yuina wasn't capable of doing anything when Lemon and her reached the last wagon and stumbled upon another dead body. She didn't quite understand why, but this one seemed to hit different. It felt like she was running around in fog, only to be waking up again now. She had sat next to a dead body and now she was looking at yet a corpse as well. She was suddenly completely fed up with this all.

'My friends and I have to get off on the next stop,' she managed to say in a dull voice, whilst in reality she felt awfully shaken. 'What?' Lemon replied. She couldn't be serious, could she? 'I'm sorry,' she said whilst turning around to avoid looking at the dead body of a man, 'I can't do this.'

'You came to your senses after all, huh?' she heard Lemon say just before she left the wagon. She managed to walk a few wagons further on to get some distance between herself and the dead body, and reminded she would once again have to face another corpse when getting to her own wagon to grab her stuff. She felt really sick and could only just manage to get into a bathroom, before bending over the smart toilet and emptying her stomach. Not that there was much in it; only a little fluid, but she felt her body contract once again.

She finally reached the point where she couldn't take it anymore.

In the meantime, Tangerine almost sprinted through all the wagons, searching for his brother and Yuina. It was in the last wagon when he finally found Lemon, frustratingly searching through the room to find the case. 'Where is Yuina?' was the first thing he could say whilst throwing his brother's phone back to him. Upon catching it, Lemon replied: 'She left. Couldn't take it anymore.' He shrugged whilst nodding towards the body of a man called The Wolf, a man who worked for the Mexican mafia.

'What do you mean "she left"?' Tangerine managed to blurt out in shock. 'Has she...' He almost couldn't find himself to speak out the words, but he had to know. 'Did she leave the train?' He thought about those men he only managed to leave behind. If she had stepped of at that stop...

'Not yet,' Lemon replied whilst shrugging once again. 'She gets off at the next stop.' Tangerine couldn't believe what he heard. Although he pleaded for her to leave the train before, he couldn't imagine her actually doing so. He couldn't deal with this without her, but he knew it would be better for her. That didn't make it any less painful though. 'Any news on the case?' Lemon asked tensely. 'Seems like you were struggling a bit.'

'The case is behind the trash can,' Tangerine said whilst turning around and walking towards the door again, not even checking if it were true. 'Where are you going?' Lemon asked. Tangerine didn't reply, because he had no second to spare. He had to find Yuina before she would leave. He just had to see her one more time. No, that wasn't it; he wanted with all his might to try and stop her, because he couldn't breathe without her.

How did he manage to get through all those wagons without meeting her?

'No,' Lemon said whilst grabbing his arm, 'you're not going to do this.' Tangerine tried to shake himself loose, but Lemon got at him once again. 'You can't! The case isn't there!' Tangerine felt torn apart. 'The case isn't fucking there!' Lemon yelled. 'We have no time for this, we have to find it!'

Yuina took some mints from the bathroom to calm her stomach and cleanse her breath, before making her way to the wagon she originally sat in. Whilst doing so, she realised that with each stop, there were only people going off and not on, resulting in the train getting more and more empty. Something just didn't feel right, apart from the obvious. Yuina and her fake friends needed to get off at this stop, because the tickets up until Kyoto were already sold. But by whom? There was nobody getting in.

'Yuina,' Himari said when she made her way through their wagon and saw them again in the hallway. 'We didn't think you would come.' Yuina didn't think so either, but here she suddenly was, planning to get off the train with them, the people she despised. She couldn't help but feel like she was making a big mistake, but what could she do? Should she let herself be killed for people she didn't even know? Should she keep living the way others had planned for her?

She didn't have a hold on her luggage yet when the doors opened and her fake friends stepped out. 'Well,' Akira said like nothing happened, whilst in reality she stood almost exactly there when she told Yuina these things, 'aren't you coming?' Out of the corner of her eyes she could see a man making his way past them to get outside. She didn't recognise him; he was just a plain looking man with casual clothes on, but he did hold a briefcase in his hand. Yuina could just see the side of a little blue train sticker on the handle. She didn't even think anymore.

On impulse, she grabbed her own briefcase and walked outside, ignoring her fake friends and bumping right into the man, managing them to both drop their cases. 'Oh, I'm so sorry sir!' she told in shame. 'I'm a little hasty, since the doors would soon be closing! This is Nagoya station, right?'

'Uhm, no,' the man replied, seeming to be in a hurry himself, 'that would be the next station.' Yuina pretended to be surprised and shocked. 'Oh!' she called out. 'How stupid of me! Well, I should get back in then. I'm sorry to bump into you like that!' She grabbed the case and hurried back to the doors again.

'What are you doing?!' Akira asked in shock. 'The doors are closing! Grab your stuff and come on!' There was a slight panic in her eyes when she realised Yuina wasn't planning on joining them, so she got right into threatening Yuina again. 'What do you want me to say to everyone?'

Yuina absolutely didn't care at all anymore. The moment she decided to get off this train it felt wrong, not like she was choosing life but leaving it behind. No matter what would become of her, she wouldn't get out with these people to get back to that life again.

'Why don't you just tell them that I couldn't wait to have him inside me?' Yuina said whilst putting up her middle finger. Her fake friends looked at her in shock, but they weren't the only one. When the doors would close, the casually dressed man discovered that he wasn't holding the right briefcase anymore. He tried running towards the train, but the doors had already been closed and the train started moving again. Yuina looked at the shocked faces of the group and sighed in relieve when the train left them behind.

She leaned against the wall and looked at the case with the little blue train sticker on the handle. She had traded her most valuable possession, her expensive and good quality pencils and markers, for this.

Although she chose to do so herself, Yuina suddenly felt very empty.