◆Amnesia: Battle of Wits◆Toma◆

◆08◆ The golden truth

"How are you feeling, Michiyo? You good?" 

She looked at Toma with a disappointed look, and she turned away from just to spite him. She was drugged as a punishment from the last battle of wits, how could she not be angry with him?  

"You're angry, huh? I can't blame you. But you have to see why I have to do things this way." Toma had taken away her phone, disconnected the wifi, and taken away his spare key. He allowed her freedom only in the apartment of his. He refused to let her out of his apartment, even if she requested to go out. It had gotten to the point where if she wanted anything, he will go get them after she had written a list for him. 

She was bored, she's not even allowed to open the door to the balcony and have fresh air. Outside could be raining, windy, or even humid for all it mattered. However, the outside world was all blocked off. 

She wondered why Shin stopped coming over. Shin seemed to want to help her, so why didn't he come here? She could only suspect Toma must have done something to make Shin not dare to come here.

"I'm off." He needed to go to her place to clean up that letter box of hers and then check at Michiyo's place to see if there's signs of vandalism.

"...have a nice trip." 

Toma looked back at her to see her just sitting on the bed without looking his way. Honestly, he felt a slight tug in his heart when she said that to him; even though he's restricting her freedom, she showed no signs of hating him. 

"Michiyo..." 

"What?" 

"...sorry. Sorry that your older brother is this sort of person. Someday, I'll be able to let you go. Not now, but soon...when that happens, I'll happily walk out of your life." 

She looked at him, "Did you even ask me if I want that?" She stood up and she walked up to him. "Toma-" 

Toma stopped her, "Don't cross beyond that line." He even taped the ground where she was off limits no matter what. 

She was unable to reach him. The last time when she crossed the line, Toma ended up nagging her about the line. When she jumped side to side on it just to spite him, Toma handcuffed her to the bed as a form of punishment. She didn't dare to spite him with the taped line because she didn't want to be cuffed to the bed. 

"Just letting you know, it hurts me here when you do this to me." She pointed to her heart. "I hope you're happy about it." 

"I'm not." Toma wanted to cross the tape and touch her, but he couldn't...he had lost all rights to touch her. "There's no way you can get out. Don't bother doing anything funny. There's no phones either, I've disconnected all things that can communicate." Toma's hand was on the handle of his front door. "Michiyo, you're someone very important to me. I might seem cruel right now, but I wish for your happiness much more than anyone else in the world. Please remember that." He said before leaving her completely alone.

Now alone, She had no means of escape...or that's what he wanted her to think. 

"10 minutes..." In 10 minutes, she will initiate her first escape attempt. But first, she had something she must do. 

Toma waited for a total of five minutes at the entrance to the apartment building. He needed to do this just in case she initiated some sort of escape plan. He could have made things easier by installing a camera, but he saw no point of it when she had nothing in the apartment that could unlock the door. "I guess I should go." 

Ever since he had drugged her and restricted her freedom within his place, every day was like a battle of wits. Toma was even a little reluctant to go to sleep before her.