Reincarnated as the Protagonist of a Legendary Depressing Eroge – I Paired Up My Two Childhood Friend Heroines to Avoid the Bad End, But Their Possessiveness Completely Broke Through the Limits - Episode 03: Mother's Memory / Winter ★

Episode 03: Mother’s Memory / Winter ★

The first time I stepped into that place, I had this heavy feeling that I’d lost something important.

The meeting spot they’d picked was the entrance of a rundown love hotel tucked behind the station.

The neon sign flickered on and off in an uneven rhythm, and the too-bright glow from the vending machine made all my hesitation feel exposed under glaring daylight.

“You’re Saya, right? Twenty-seven?”

The guy sent by the shop looked me up and down like he was sizing up merchandise.

The dark circles I’d tried to cover with thick makeup, the fingertips that still showed every sign of daily life.

“Yeah… Nice to meet you.”

My own voice sounded like it belonged to someone else.

Once we were inside the hotel room, the first order was to take a shower.

The cold tiled bathroom.

Standing under the steam, I scrubbed my arms over and over.

No matter how hard I washed, the shaking and nausea wouldn’t stop—I kept thinking about what was coming next, the “act” I was about to go through.

I wrapped the towel around myself with clumsy hands and went back to the room.

Sitting on the bed was an ordinary-looking man, at least ten years older than me, the kind you’d see anywhere.

The moment the act started, my vision twisted.

—No. This isn’t now.

Heavy. Painful. I can’t breathe.

What flooded back into my mind was that winter during my university days.

A pitch-black room.

That cheap hotel with the cracked ceiling.

The laughter of men I didn’t know.

The feeling of my body being forced open.

It ripped my consciousness away from the present and dragged me straight back down to the bottom of that night.

“…Ugh… uhh…!”

My body went into full rejection.

I shoved the man away like I was pushing off something disgusting, collapsed beside the bed, and threw up sour liquid from my stomach all over the floor.

My throat burned. Tears blurred everything.

“Hey, what the hell is this? That’s nasty!”

The man’s angry shout echoed through the bedroom.

The next second, a hard impact slammed across my cheek.

It took me a few seconds to realize I’d been slapped.

“I paid good money for this? This ain’t some sweet little world, you shitty woman!”

He glared at the spot where I’d vomited like it disgusted him, grabbed a fistful of my hair, and yanked my face up.

After that, it was just mechanical work.

He used me like a tool to dump all his desires into, acting like my heart didn’t even exist, pouring everything he had into me.

When it was over, the man straightened his messy clothes while smoking a cigarette.

Then he tossed a few bills right at my face.

“Listen up, this kind of job isn’t something decent people do. Don’t you feel ashamed?”

After using me up completely, he finished with that “logical” violence and walked out of the room looking satisfied.

Several ten-thousand-yen bills scattered across the sheets.

This was the price of my dignity.

The money to send Iyo to cram school, buy her new clothes, and give her a decent future.

With trembling hands I gathered up the bills and clutched them to my chest.

I no longer had the right to cry.

The clients I met after that were pretty much the same.

One guy wanted my suffering more than the act itself.

“You know, I want to make a documentary about unhappy women like you.”

He said that and turned on his voice recorder, then relentlessly interviewed me about my past.

“Why did you choose this line of work?”

“Do you regret it?”

“Is your current life hell?”

On the other side of the recorder, he was trying to turn my tragedy into material for his “independent film.”

Instead of doing the act, he scraped away at my soul, left a cheap payment, and walked away.

—Then, a little while later.

It came without any warning.

Just like always, I was sent to a hotel room.

The moment I opened the door, I froze.

“Huh? You… Saya, right?”

Standing there was a former classmate from university.

One of the group that had stared at me with curious eyes, spread rumors, and driven me out of college.

He took one look at my face and burst out laughing, clutching his stomach.

“Whoa, for real?! Twenty-seven? How many years are you shaving off your age? You’re still doing this kind of thing even now?”

He laughed at me while conveniently forgetting his own behavior.

“So that incident back then really was because you invited them, huh?”

I wanted to run. But my legs wouldn’t move.

That night, after he finished the act while thoroughly mocking me, he threatened to spread the details on SNS and to the shop.

As a result, I got kicked out of the place.

My age lie had been exposed, the rumors spread, and no decent shop would take me anymore.

“…There’s nowhere left for me to go.”

Only one option remained.

The most efficient, and most dangerous, way—no shop in between, no hotel fee.

Calling clients straight to the apartment where I lived.

I will never forget the crushing guilt I felt the first time I let someone into my home.

While Iyo was at school.

Or late at night, after Iyo had fallen asleep in the next room.

A stranger’s shoes lined up by the entrance.

The smell of men’s cigarettes and rotten-egg body odor clinging to the hallway.

“I’m home, Mom.”

Every time I heard Iyo’s voice, I looked in the mirror to check if my face still looked like a “human” or if I was managing to hide that I was already a “corpse.”

The makeup to cover the dark circles got thicker and thicker.

Scared to meet Iyo’s eyes, I kept repeating like a magic spell, “Mom has work soon, so stay quiet, okay?”

—Iyo, I’m so sorry.

I really don’t want to dirty this house.

I really don’t want those disgusting sounds reaching your ears.

But if I don’t do this, we can’t survive.

So you can stay in the light, I sell off this body that’s become a corpse.

With eyes like a dead fish, I turned back to the mirror.

In the next room, Iyo stayed completely silent, hiding her presence.

Fully aware that I was turning into a hopeless carcass, I unlocked the front door to welcome the next man.