Liza: Hey Sam-chan 💖 Don't be late~ I got us a table with a good view! Hehe 😉
The message glowed on the screen, an artifact from a world I no longer inhabited. It was so perfectly, painfully Liza—the cheerful greeting, the playful threat, the casual heart emoji. It was a language I used to speak fluently. Now, it felt foreign on my tongue.
My disguise, the one Akemi had provided, felt like a cheap costume. The gray hoodie was too big, the black face mask smelled of sterile fabric, and the sneakers felt clumsy on my feet. I was a spy playing a role, an imposter walking among the blissfully ignorant. The train pulled into Shibuya station with a prolonged hiss, and I was swept out onto the platform in a tide of chattering, laughing humanity.
