Mia had wandered around listlessly without purpose, not so much accepting her death, but rather couldn't see how she could even continue living.
Her strength gradually faltered over time, prompting her to close her eyes and accept her death.
"M-Mimi?"
By some miracle, Emi had found her. It had been many years since they had last seen each other, yet Emi recognized her nonetheless.
Mia slowly turned and opened her heavy eyelids to see a grown-up Emi just a few steps away, standing there with a surprised expression. She was dressed quite nicely in frilly pink clothes with a similarly frilly pink umbrella, despite the fact it wasn't raining.
It was quite misplaced in the slums, but it seemed as though Emi cared little about it. She directly dropped her umbrella, ignoring the muddy puddle it landed into, and ran at her.
While Mia was still confused, Emi hugged her tightly, almost like she couldn't smell the scent that came from years of decay or the stains rubbing off onto her clearly quite expensive clothes.
With the last of her strength, Mia eked out words in a crackly voice.
"E...mi?"
And with that, she passed out. Despite how it felt, it wasn't actually a hallucination. As it would turn out, Emi would go to the place where Mia had moved once a week in an attempt to find her.
Even after years of searching, she hadn't given up.
Emi went through the trouble of cleaning her up, getting new clothes, and feeding her proper food and water. At first, Mia went through everything like a robot, just complying with all the things Emi was trying to do, mostly because she just didn't know how to do anything else.
Although it took nearly a year, Mia was rehabilitated into more or less a normal human, albeit one with trauma and some minor eating disorders.
Naturally, her gratitude was immense, but at the same time, the guilt was the same.
At this point in her life, she was already an adult. An adult with no real educational or job experience, or even communication skills for that matter. The economy had long automated many different trivial systems that wouldn't require high levels of education or experience.
Not to mention, even those with education still found great difficulty in finding any real employment opportunities due to most people getting in through connections, and the few remaining judged by their capability were incredibly few.
In other words, it was unrealistic for her to ever repay her anything.
Her previous lifestyle consisted of finding value in even rotten fruit with bugs crawling on top and a worm coming out from inside. Although Emi worked hard not only restoring her physical condition but her mental condition with surprisingly good therapy.
But there were some things that weren't erased.
It was nearly ingrained in her instincts to horde onto everything, but conflicting with that was her innocent values of honor, which made it incredibly hard for her to not repay people in what she felt was an equal way.
Unfortunately, that was frankly impossible.
However, Emi constantly reassured her about that guilt. Instead, asking her to just spend time together as they had so long ago. And as guilty as she did feel, she decided to stay and listen.
To just be appreciative of how far Emi was willing to go for her, and do as she said.
She was willing to do this for the rest of her life, even if it was greedy or unappreciative. Because Emi made her feel comfortable enough to do so. Or perhaps, it was the incessant begging that made her listen instead.
However, those times couldn't last forever.
Unfortunately, partially due to the general economic scenario, Emi had lived with her parents. In other words, it wasn't as though what happened was exactly a secret. And eventually, when finding an opportunity to talk to Mia alone, Emi's mom spoke to her.
"What more do you want from us?"
Mia was unable to say anything back.
"Do you think we are a charity?"
She only kept her head down as she listened.
"Haven't we already helped you more than enough from us? Do you even know how much it costs? I let you stay on behalf of my daughter, but I never expected you to be so incredibly shameless like this! Leave my house. You don't belong here. Stop taking advantage of our kindness!"
All of her insecurities were laid bare. Everything that she had put into the back of her head was forcibly brought back out. The guilt that she had thought to be able to learn from was crushing her.
In the end, Mia just weakly nodded.
"...Ok."
Without staying for another second, she walked away. Once more wandering aimlessly. She couldn't help but think of Emi, and tear up as she left. Memories had filled her that day.
"Mimi! I can't believe I finally found you after so long... I'm so grateful that you're still alive."
"I don't know why I didn't stop you all those years ago. But that's enough of regretting the past."
"Please... never leave me again. Promise?"
Only a few minutes after leaving did Mia feel regret, grabbing onto the sides of her head and curling over. Though she tried her best not to, tears formed and trailed down her face.
She remained there for quite a while, muttering to herself.
"What do I do... I don't know. I don't know."
Her thoughts conflicted between her own guilt, Emi's mother's words, and Emi's actual words. She could still remember the emotion that Emi had when she said never to leave again.
Mia wanted to uphold such a promise, but doubts began to form within her. Did Emi even really want her to stay? She could've just been saying those things. Besides, what had she ever done to help Emi in the first place? It was always the other way around.
The doubts continued to rise one after another, until the crushing guilt that she had suppressed for so long overwhelmed her.
In the end, Mia couldn't bring herself to go back.
She slept on the streets. Although it had been a while since she did so, it also wasn't something too hard to get used to. In reality, the road was relatively hygienic here. At least you wouldn't get your clothes stained from wet mud.
And because of that, it wasn't hard to fall asleep right then and there.
Mia then had a dream. She became rich after a lot of hard work, having all the money she could ever want, and coming back to Emi. She would give her and her parents lots of money and then she would be able to continue living there happily.
It was a dream that made her really happy, a smile had formed on her face even while she was asleep.
But unfortunately, she woke up on the cold road not too long later and was reminded of reality. She was not rich. Even if by some miracle, she could try gambling and win, the problem was she had no money in the first place.
However, she had remembered the rumors of the House of Cards for a while. It was something that you would hear about a lot whether you wanted to or not in the slums. After all, when people got desperate, they had to turn somewhere.
It was a well-known fact that uncannily large amounts of wealth were just one of the many things that people that were able to come out of the place were able to get. Many rumors said that it was possible to get anything in such a place, so long as you looked hard enough for it.
Mia didn't really care much about fulfilling any special wishes, but if such a place could make her rich...
Before she knew it, as though possessed by something, she had taken her chance at such a predatory place. It was only after the fact, did she come to regret her decision.
Once Mia took an action she knew that she couldn't take back, was when she clearly remembered how emotional Emi was when she found her and begged her to stay. Only then did her clouded judgment clear.
While Mia still didn't understand why, just being there for Emi was enough for her. She didn't have to take such drastic action, instead perhaps helping in other ways so that she wasn't a nuisance.
But it was far too late now.
And now, seeing the child version of Emi in front of her, even if it was just an illusion, made her breakdown on the spot. Her guilt for leaving assaulted her with full force as she cried.
"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry. I just don't know what to do."
It was then that the projection of Emi let out a giggle.
"It's ok... it's ok... I'll forgive you if you just use your katana to cut into your neck. That wouldn't be too hard would it?"
Mia's eyes then went out of focus.