I sat down in the chair next to his bed, still trying to make sense of why I was here. Sai was clearly happy to see me, which only made things more confusing. Why did he care that I came?
“You know,” Sai said, breaking the silence, “I’ve been thinking about what I said to you before. About us being alike.”
I looked at him, narrowing my eyes. “What did you mean by that?”
He chuckled softly, wincing a little as the movement caused him pain. “I just meant… we both have to keep up appearances, right? We both know what it’s like to live in a world where people only see the surface. But there’s more to both of us than what they see.”
I didn’t respond immediately. His words hung in the air, and for a moment, I wondered if he really knew something about me something no one else knew. But that was impossible. No one knew the real me.
Still, his words made me uneasy. I didn’t like the idea that he could see through the mask I had so carefully crafted.
“You don’t know anything about me,” I finally said, my voice cold.
Sai just smiled again, that same infuriatingly warm smile. “Maybe not. But I’d like to. I think we could be friends, Kazuki.”
Friends. The word sounded foreign to me, almost laughable. I didn’t have friends. I didn’t need them. But the way Sai said it, with such sincerity, made something inside me shift. I didn’t like it.
I stood up, ready to leave. “Get better soon, Sai. The agency needs you back.”
YOU ARE READING
The Perfect Mask
Mystery / ThrillerNakamura Kazuki, the son of one of Japan's wealthiest families, has everything: good looks, fame as a successful model, and the image of a perfect man. But beneath this flawless exterior, Kazuki hides a dark secret he is a psychopath. For him, killi...
