Then you need this job even more.

Page (1/3)

A job paying one million yen a month.

It sounded incredibly tempting.

And in truth, it was.

But hearing such a salary—comparable to that of a university professor or an ordinary physician—offered by Tsukasa Harano left Shigeeda Shi utterly stunned.

As of Reiwa Year 4, the median annual income of Japanese households stood at just over four million yen. That figure included both dual-income households and families supported solely by the husband’s earnings. Households earning more than ten million yen a year accounted for less than thirteen percent, placing them firmly within the middle class.

If that salary belonged to a single person…

It would surpass that of the overwhelming majority of people in the country.

Still, effort had always been proportionate to reward. The only difference was that some sacrifices were intangible, while others were painfully concrete.

Take pharmacists, for instance—a profession that had risen in popularity in recent years. They worked eight hours a day, and full-time employees could earn around five hundred thousand yen a month. It sounded extraordinarily attractive.

But obtaining the necessary qualification required tens of millions of yen in tuition, along with a tremendous investment of time.

Shi desperately wanted to earn money, but she had not yet lost all common sense. She knew exactly how much her slight frame was worth, and she understood even more clearly that a freshly graduated university student earning an annual salary of ten million yen was not merely wishful thinking—it was pure fantasy.

So…

What kind of job could offer a salary like that?

Shi suddenly remembered a topic her friends had discussed a few days earlier. Around Shibuya and Shinjuku, men often stopped attractive young women under the pretense of being talent scouts. After showering them with praise, they would claim they wanted to sign the girls, promote them, and launch them as idols. Quite a few women, overcome with excitement, would sign contracts without thinking too carefully.

But when they arrived at the filming location, thrilled at the prospect of making their idol debut, they discovered that they were actually there to shoot adult films.

The kind of set with whips.

Sometimes even involving men of other races.

At the thought, Shi swallowed hard. Her breathing grew rapid and disordered, and her legs tensed tightly beneath her skirt.

Yet until she knew exactly what the job entailed, a sliver of hope remained in her heart. It was not hope that Harano’s promise of a high-paying job was genuine. Rather, she hoped she might still make it home safely, without being taken somewhere remote and deserted.

“M-Mr. Harano, c-could I ask what this… this job is…?”

She had already been frightened, and now her mind was filled with sinister fantasies about being forced into the adult entertainment industry. She did not even dare look at Harano’s face. All she could do was force herself to remain calm and timidly ask the question in a halting voice.

Harano gave the matter serious thought. After a long moment, he said, “Something like an assistant, I suppose.”

He paused, then added, “More specifically, a personal assistant.”

Shi’s vision went black.

It was over!

He was not trying to force her into the industry.

He wanted to keep her as a mistress!

An assistant! A personal assistant! And a million yen a month! If that was not being kept as a mistress, then what was?

Shi became even more restless. She was almost ready to open the car door and jump out. She could feel sweat dampening her clothes. After slowly regaining her composure, she could only steel herself and say, “Mr. Harano, I… I don’t think I’m capable of doing this job…”

“Why not?” Harano looked puzzled. He turned his head and glanced at her. “It’s only carrying bags and running errands. It shouldn’t be that difficult, should it?”

“Carrying bags?”

Shi widened her eyes. Looking utterly incredulous, she asked, “That’s all?”

“What else would there be?” Harano asked in return.

Perhaps his expression was too ordinary, or perhaps his tone was so casual that it sounded like ordinary conversation. Whatever the reason, Shi’s tense emotions gradually settled.

She suddenly remembered that Harano seemed to be a civil servant. By all logic, he should not be the sort of person who lured girls into the adult entertainment industry, as she had imagined.

Page (1/3)

Page (2/3)

Even so, a job that offered a million yen a month right from the start was still too surreal for her.

Especially when that job was being his assistant.

Shi’s thoughts were in complete turmoil. She had no idea how to respond. She was worried that Harano might have been joking and that she had simply misunderstood him, yet she was also afraid that she had not imagined anything at all—that he was merely a highly skilled pimp, leading her step by step into an abyss.

After a long hesitation, she cautiously asked, “Are there… any other special services?”

“Special services?”

Harano froze when he heard the phrase.

Then he examined her again.

One look was all it took to realize how serious the situation was.

Shi, who had always been reserved, was now pale-faced and visibly tense. Her hands were buried in the insides of her thighs, and whenever she noticed him looking at her, she immediately averted her gaze. She kept swallowing nervously, as though the man behind the wheel were some man-eating monster.

Recalling what he had said moments earlier, Harano instantly realized that he had fallen into a blind spot in his thinking.

A million yen a month.

He no longer considered that particularly impressive.

But before he had obtained the List of Malice, he had been nothing more than an ordinary company drone in Tokyo, earning a little over two hundred thousand yen a month.

Reality was not a television drama.

Money was not as worthless as people online made it seem.

If he put himself in her position, and a neighbor who could barely be called an acquaintance suddenly offered him a job paying a million yen a month despite his having no particular talents, Harano would not merely refuse to believe it. He would consider it a success if he managed not to call the police.

He had simply taken too much for granted.

Yet if he wanted to complete his act of malice, determine whether this girl might become a long-term strategic partner, and give her the money she needed to treat her father in a mutually beneficial arrangement, then perhaps he had no choice but to play the villain.

There would be no physical act involved, but if the girl before him was truly a good person, then tormenting her mind and dignity would probably be unavoidable.

Harano fell silent.

The inside of the car suddenly became quiet, save for the faint, insignificant sound of cool air being released from the vents.

Shi did not dare speak either. She barely dared to breathe. Sitting ramrod straight like a grade-school student, she waited anxiously for Harano’s answer. Her mind was a complete mess, and she had no idea what she was thinking. She only knew that the day had become utterly absurd.

In truth, she wanted to refuse outright.

But…

She did not dare.

She could not tell whether the man beside her, who seemed highly likely to have attempted suicide, was mentally unstable. What if she angered him and he suddenly wrenched the steering wheel, taking her with him?

The seconds crawled by.

The atmosphere gradually grew more oppressive.

After a long while, the sedan came to a smooth stop before a crosswalk.

Harano moved his gaze from the red light ahead to the side, looking at Shi, whose expression was distinctly panicked. After a brief silence, he asked calmly, “Would sleeping with me count as the special service you were referring to?”

Shi was completely stunned.

Her mind went blank.

She stammered instinctively, “M-Mr. Har—”

Before she could finish, Harano had already turned his gaze away. As he pressed down on the accelerator again, he suddenly asked, “Does your family have someone who’s ill?”

Shi’s eyes widened abruptly.

Page (2/3)

Page (3/3)

She looked as though she had seen a ghost. Trembling with shock, she unconsciously dug her fingertips into her palm.

“H-How… how did you know?”

“Last time, I happened to see you carrying a medical examination bag from a hospital. I wasn’t certain then, but after seeing you leave early and return late every day while working so desperately hard at your part-time jobs, it wasn’t difficult to figure out.”

“I… I… You guessed correctly…” Shi’s mind had gone completely blank, and she began to speak incoherently.

“Is it your father or your mother?”

“I… I don’t have a mother. It’s my father…”

“What kind of illness is it? Is it serious?”

“M-Multiple myeloma.”

“What exactly is his condition? Could you tell me more?”

Without realizing it, Harano had taken control of the conversation. Shi did not have time to react.

Her head was still spinning, and she had not yet recovered her senses. Almost instinctively, she began answering.

“It’s… it’s a blood disorder. He suddenly came down with it a few years ago, without any warning. Ever since then, Dad hasn’t been able to get out of bed and walk normally. The pain makes him break out in a cold sweat and convulse all over, and sometimes it’s so severe that he loses consciousness. The doctors said it would be very difficult to cure…”

“He used to undergo chemotherapy, but even after we sold our house back home, we still couldn’t afford to continue. And the everyday medical expenses alone are already enormous in Tokyo.”

“He needs regular dialysis, and with the cost of medication and hospitalization, my earnings from part-time work are only barely enough to keep us going. But his condition has worsened recently. The doctor said that a hematopoietic stem cell transplant might give him a chance, so I started looking for even more part-time jobs.”

“But…”

“If we want the transplant, the medical expenses are simply too high. No matter how desperately I work, there’s no way I can…”

Her voice grew softer and softer.

There was even a trace of despair in it.

That was only natural. There were countless cases of serious illnesses dragging entire families into ruin. And in a single-parent family like hers, Harano could not imagine how much suffering she had endured over the past two years just to make it this far.

He had never heard of such a disease.

But anything called myeloma clearly was not a minor illness. And as far as he knew, blood disorders were never easy to treat.

Just as the girl had said.

Hospitalization, medication, dialysis…

Those were merely the unavoidable daily expenses.

Based on Harano’s current medical knowledge, the best treatment for an illness like this would probably be a bone marrow transplant. But finding a compatible donor was one problem, and paying for the operation after finding one was another. Clearly, the girl sitting beside him—who had not even graduated from university—could not bear such a burden.

An ordinary person did not possess that kind of power in the real world. The sort of cinematic plot in which someone could casually make a fortune simply did not happen. Even survival itself could crush a person’s spine, let alone a bottomless illness that demanded an endless supply of money to fill it.

To put it more realistically—

For someone in Shi’s situation, the best possible outcome might actually be for her father to pass away before he could continue dragging her down.

Because this truly could destroy her.

It was no joke.

Leaving aside how far a young woman’s body could be pushed through relentless work, the mere existence of a bottomless pit that could never be filled must have cast an unbearably thick cloud of gloom over the girl’s heart.

And so…

Harano brought the car to a stop, turned his face toward her, and smiled.

“Then you need this high-paying job all the more.”