Obedience

I.

The neon sign for Whispers Café buzzed faintly above the entrance, casting a purple glow on the wet pavement. I ducked inside, shaking droplets from my leather jacket. The café was busier than usual for a Thursday night, filled with the low murmur of conversation and the occasional clink of glasses. The scent of coffee and whiskey hung in the air, mingling with cigarette smoke from the designated smoking section in the back.

I spotted my friends in our usual booth—the one with the torn velvet cushion in the corner where the lighting was dim enough to hide our expressions. Mei waved enthusiastically, her auburn hair catching the candlelight. Beside her, Koji adjusted his glasses, a notebook already open on the table. Rina sat across from them, checking her phone, her business casual attire looking out of place among the night owls and creative types that frequented Whispers.

“You’re late,” Mei said as I slid into the booth next to Rina. A half-empty cocktail sat in front of her, garnish wilting.

“Sorry. Manager made me stay to restock the new arrivals.” I shrugged off my jacket, feeling the tension in my shoulders from the long shift.

“At your weird porn shop?” Rina asked, not looking up from her phone. Her tone carried the same mix of disapproval and curiosity it always did when my job came up.

“Adult entertainment store,” I corrected, though I didn’t really care. “Midnight Pleasures isn’t just about porn.”

Koji pushed a whiskey sour toward me. He always remembered my drink. “We ordered for you. Figured you’d need it after work.”

I took a long sip, letting the tart sweetness and burn of alcohol wash away the day. “Thanks.”

Mei leaned forward, eyes bright with anticipation. “So? Any new stories?”

They’d been like this ever since I’d started working at Midnight Pleasures two months ago. At first, I shared funny customer anecdotes—the businessman who pretended to browse the “massage devices” while stealing glances at the DVDs; the couple who argued over which fantasy costume to buy; the nervous college boy who couldn’t make eye contact while purchasing his first adult magazine.

But after a few weeks, my stories changed. Became strange. Unsettling. And my friends couldn’t get enough.

“Come on, Haruka,” Mei pressed, nudging my foot under the table. “You promised us some work stories tonight. Your texts have been weird lately. Something about new rules?”

I took another sip, longer this time. “You guys are obsessed.”

“Can you blame us?” Koji asked, pen poised over his notebook. He claimed my stories were research for a horror novel he was writing. “Normal retail doesn’t involve mysterious rule lists.”

I glanced around the café, suddenly conscious of who might be listening. An old habit I’d developed since starting at the store. “Fine,” I said, lowering my voice. “But remember, you asked for this.”

They leaned in closer, forming a tight circle around our small table. The candle between us flickered, sending shadows dancing across their expectant faces.

“It started during my second week...”

II.

“Nakamura-san.”

I turned from the register to find Takashi-san standing behind me, his thin frame nearly lost in the dim lighting of the store. He always moved silently, appearing and disappearing without warning. As the manager of Midnight Pleasures, he rarely worked the floor, preferring to remain in his small office surrounded by his collection of antique locks and keys.

“Yes, Takashi-san?” I asked, trying to hide my surprise.

“In my office, please. When you’ve finished with the customer.”

The woman buying a stack of manga nodded politely as I handed her change. Once she’d left, I locked the register and made my way to the back of the store, past shelves of DVDs and magazines. Takashi-san’s office was at the end of a narrow hallway, its door unmarked except for a small brass plate with his name.

I knocked twice.

“Enter,” came his muffled voice.

The office was exactly as I remembered from my job interview—small and windowless, with walls lined with display cases of antique locks and keys. Some were ornate and golden, others rusted and ancient-looking. A single desk lamp illuminated the space, throwing long shadows across the floor.

Takashi-san gestured to the chair across from him. “Sit.”

I sat, folding my hands in my lap. Despite the cramped quarters, the air felt strangely cold.

“You’ve been with us for two weeks now,” he said, adjusting his tie. The suit he wore hung off his frame like it belonged to someone else. “Your performance has been satisfactory.”

“Thank you.”

“However, there are aspects of this job I have not yet explained to you.” He opened a drawer and removed a laminated sheet of paper. “These are rules you must follow while working here.”

He slid the paper across the desk. I picked it up, expecting standard retail policies about customer service or inventory management. Instead, I found a numbered list of nine strange instructions:

1. If you see a woman in a red coat and wearing a surgical mask and sunglasses browsing through the doujin section, do not approach her. If she asks you where she can find the third floor, hand her a copy of “Mai-chan’s daily life” from the shelf under your desk, but do not make eye contact. If she accepts it, thank her. If not, tell her that Mount Misen is burning. She will rush out of the shop, and you must immediately put on the closed sign for 5 minutes.

I looked up, certain this was some elaborate joke. But Takashi-san’s expression remained serious, his dark eyes watching me intently.

“What... what is this?” I asked, continuing to read.

2. When clearing the viewing booth, if you find fluids other than semen or female ejaculation, use salted water to clean them. Do not use any other material.

3. If you enter a viewing booth and the monitor is still on, do not look at it directly. Keep your eyes on the ground until you shut the monitor down.

The rules continued, each more bizarre than the last. I felt a nervous laugh building in my throat but suppressed it. Something in Takashi-san’s demeanor told me he wasn’t joking.

“Are these for real?” I finally asked.

“Very real,” he replied, his voice flat. “Memorize them by tomorrow. Your safety depends on it.”

“But why—”

“We don’t ask why the rules exist,” he interrupted. “We follow them. That’s all.” He stood, signaling that our meeting was over. “Keep the list with you until you’ve memorized it. Then return it to me.”

As I left his office, clutching the laminated sheet, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d crossed some invisible line. That I was now part of something I didn’t fully understand.

I spent that night in my small apartment, reading the rules over and over until I could recite them from memory. I told myself it was just some eccentric management style, or perhaps a psychological experiment to see how employees would react.

I didn’t believe the rules actually mattered. Not then.

III.

“Wait,” Rina interrupted, setting down her cocktail glass. “So they just gave you this weird list with no explanation? And you didn’t quit on the spot?”

I shook my head. “The pay was too good. Besides, I thought it was just some strange company tradition. You know how Japanese businesses can be about their protocols.”

“So did you ever meet her?” Mei asked, eyes wide. “The woman in the red coat?”

I took another sip of my drink, letting the tension build. “Three days after I got the rules.”

“What happened?” Koji asked, pen scratching across his notebook.

I leaned forward, lowering my voice further. “I was shelving new arrivals in the doujin section...”

IV.

The store was quiet that afternoon. Rain pattered against the display window, distorting the neon glow of our sign. I was organizing the new shipment of doujinshi, alphabetizing by artist and circle. The task was mindless enough that I’d fallen into a rhythm, barely registering the soft bell as the front door opened.

A chill swept through the store. I assumed it was a draft from the door, but the coldness lingered, seeping through my thin work shirt and raising goosebumps on my arms. That’s when I noticed the silence—the usual background music had stopped, though I couldn’t remember hearing it cut out.

I looked up from the shelf I was organizing and froze.

At the end of the aisle stood a woman in a bright red coat. A surgical mask covered the lower half of her face, and large designer sunglasses obscured her eyes. She wore gloves despite the summer heat and stood perfectly still, as if waiting for something.

Rule #1 flashed in my mind.

She began moving along the shelves, her movements too precise, too measured. Each doujin was pulled out exactly the same distance, examined for exactly three seconds, then returned to its exact position. Nothing in her movements felt natural.

I tried to turn away casually, to pretend I hadn’t noticed her. But somehow, she sensed my attention. Her head snapped toward me with an unnatural quickness that sent a jolt of fear through me.

“Excuse me,” she said, her voice muffled and strangely modulated behind the mask. “Could you tell me where I might find the third floor?”

My mouth went dry. I kept my eyes fixed on the floor, remembering the rule. Don’t make eye contact. Give her “Mai-chan’s Daily Life.”

“One moment, please,” I managed to say, my voice steadier than I felt.

I walked to the register, consciously keeping my gaze down. Takashi-san had shown me where the manga was kept—a single copy in a drawer under the counter. I fumbled for it, painfully aware of the woman following me, her footsteps making no sound on the tiled floor.

I found the volume and held it out, my eyes fixed on her red boots. They were leather, expensive-looking, and completely dry despite the rain outside.

There was a long pause before her gloved hand took the book. I could feel her studying me, though I couldn’t see her eyes behind those dark lenses.

“Thank you,” I said automatically, following the script I’d memorized.

She said nothing. When I risked a glance up, keeping my eyes on the manga rather than her face, I saw her opening it to a specific page. Her hands were trembling.

“This isn’t the right edition,” she whispered, her voice suddenly different—higher, almost childlike.

I felt sweat beading on my forehead. This wasn’t in the rule. What was I supposed to say?

Suddenly, Takashi-san was beside me, though I hadn’t heard him approach.

“Mount Misen is burning,” he said calmly.

The woman made a sound—half gasp, half scream—that raised the hair on the back of my neck. She dropped the manga as if it had burned her and rushed toward the exit, her red coat flapping behind her like wings. The door slammed shut with enough force to rattle the display stands.

The moment she was gone, Takashi-san flipped our sign to CLOSED and locked the door.

“Five minutes,” he said, his face ashen. “Go to the break room.”

“What was that about?” I asked, my heart still racing. “Who was she?”

He shook his head, bending to retrieve the fallen manga. “Some rules exist because they’ve been tested with blood, Nakamura-san.” He carefully placed the volume back in its drawer. “Remember that.”

When we reopened five minutes later, the strange cold had dissipated, and the music was playing again. I convinced myself I’d imagined the worst of it—the unnatural movements, the childlike voice. But that night, I dreamed of red coats and burning mountains, and woke drenched in sweat.

V.

“Holy shit,” Mei whispered, wide-eyed. “Did she ever come back?”

I nodded, taking another sip of my drink. “Twice more in the months I’ve worked there. Always the same routine. But after that first time, I knew what to do.”

“And Takashi-san never explained who she was?” Koji asked, scribbling furiously in his notebook.

“He doesn’t explain anything,” I said. “None of them do. My coworker Shin, the guy who trained me, just says the rules keep us safe. And Akira, our security guard, pretends not to hear when I ask questions.”

“This is bullshit,” Rina said, though her voice lacked conviction. “They’re probably just messing with the new girl.”

“That’s what I thought at first,” I admitted. “Until I had to clean the viewing booths.”

VI.

The viewing booths are the worst part of my job. Small, private rooms where customers can watch adult videos without being disturbed. Each booth contains a monitor, a chair, a box of tissues, and a small trash bin. Cleaning them is a daily task we rotate through.

One evening in my third week, I drew the short straw. Six booths to clean after a particularly busy day.

“Don’t forget the rules,” Shin reminded me as he handed me the cleaning cart. His burn-scarred hands contrasted sharply with his otherwise immaculate appearance. He never explained those scars, though sometimes I caught him absently tracing the patterns when he thought no one was looking.

“I won’t,” I promised, thinking specifically of Rule #2 about the strange fluids. Though I privately thought it was ridiculous—salt water wasn’t even a proper disinfectant.

The first five booths were standard—tissues to dispose of, surfaces to wipe down. I’d developed a routine: knock, wait five seconds, enter, clean, exit, repeat. Most customers were good about turning off the monitors when they left, thankfully.

But booth number six was different. I knocked, waited, and opened the door to find the monitor still on, its blue light filling the small space.

Rule #3 flashed in my mind: If you enter a viewing booth and the monitor is still on, do not look at it directly. Keep your eyes on the ground until you shut the monitor down.

I fixed my gaze on the floor, feeling my way to the control panel. The sounds from the monitor were strange—not the exaggerated moans or dialogue I’d become desensitized to, but something like static mixed with whispers. My fingers found the power button, but just before I pressed it, curiosity got the better of me.

I glanced at the chromed trash bin, using its reflective surface to see the screen without looking at it directly.

What I saw made no sense. The monitor showed the inside of our store—Midnight Pleasures—from an angle I didn’t recognize. It showed the main floor, customers browsing, staff assisting them. Then the camera panned to a corner I knew well, near the register.

Standing there was me. Not a recording from earlier—me at that exact moment, wearing the clothes I had on, with the cleaning cart visible outside booth six.

But the “me” on screen was wrong. She was staring directly at the camera with a smile I never wear, her eyes too dark, too wide, her head tilted at an unnatural angle.

As I watched, screen-me slowly raised her hand and pointed directly at the real me.

I slammed the power button. The screen went black.

I stumbled out of the booth, my hands shaking so badly I nearly knocked over the cleaning cart. A warm trickle ran down my upper lip, and when I touched it, my fingers came away red with blood.

Shin was waiting in the hallway, as if he’d known I’d need him. His expression betrayed nothing as he handed me a tissue for my nose.

“Did you look?” he asked quietly.

“No,” I lied, pressing the tissue to my face.

He studied me for a long moment, then sighed. “Rule three exists for a reason, Haruka-san. Next time, it won’t just be a nosebleed.”

I wanted to ask him what he meant, what would happen if I broke the rule again, but the words stuck in my throat. That night, my reflection in my bathroom mirror seemed slightly off, as if it moved a fraction of a second too late. I covered the mirror with a towel before going to bed.

VII.

“Jesus, Haruka,” Mei said, reaching for my hand across the table. “Why do you still work there?”

I laughed, but it sounded hollow even to me. “The pay is good. And honestly, once you learn the rules, it’s not so bad.”

That wasn’t entirely true. There were things I hadn’t told them. Like the time I found strange, silvery fluid in booth four—definitely not semen or female ejaculation as mentioned in Rule #2. I’d used regular cleaner instead of salt water, not thinking it mattered.

For three days afterward, I saw faces in reflective surfaces—faces that would whisper my name and press against the glass as if trying to break through.

“Did you break any other rules?” Koji asked, his notebook now filled with his cramped handwriting.

I hesitated, then rolled up my sleeve to reveal the scar on my forearm—three parallel lines, perfectly spaced, like claw marks.

“Rule seven,” I said. “About finding sex toys on the ground.”

VIII.

It happened during a late shift. The store was empty, and I was doing a final walkthrough before closing. In the BDSM section, between displays of leather and lace, I found a vibrator on the floor. It was sleek and black, still in its packaging, probably knocked off the shelf by a careless customer.

Rule #7 was clear: If you find a sex toy on the ground, place it in the hand of the nearest mannequin or human-shaped image, then close your eyes and count to 10. If the item is gone, all is well. If the doll or mannequin’s position has changed, lock yourself in the nearest booth and turn on the monitor and watch whatever is on until it ends.

It seemed like the most arbitrary rule, but after the viewing booth incident, I wasn’t taking chances. I picked up the vibrator and walked to the nearest mannequin—a female figure wearing a revealing leather outfit, positioned near the changing rooms.

I placed the vibrator in its outstretched hand, feeling slightly ridiculous. Then I closed my eyes and counted slowly.

“One... two... three...”

The store was silent except for the hum of the air conditioning and my own measured breathing.

“...eight... nine... ten.”

I opened my eyes. The vibrator was gone.

Relief washed over me—until I noticed the mannequin. It had moved. Not dramatically, not across the room, but enough to be unmistakable. Its head was now turned toward me, though the rest of its body remained in the same pose. And its hand—the one that had held the vibrator—was now closed in a fist.

I backed away slowly, remembering the second part of the rule. I needed to lock myself in a booth and watch whatever was playing.

I never made it to the booth.

The mannequin’s head rotated further, a movement no mannequin should be capable of. Its blank face remained expressionless, but somehow I felt it watching me. Then, faster than I could react, its arm shot out.

I felt a sharp pain as three fingers—now more like claws—raked across my forearm. I screamed and stumbled backward, falling against a display rack that crashed to the floor.

By the time Takashi-san reached me, the mannequin was back in its original position, looking as lifeless and plastic as it should. But blood was streaming from my arm, and the vibrator lay on the floor beside me, its packaging torn open.

“You didn’t follow the complete rule,” Takashi-san said as he helped me up. There was no accusation in his voice, just resignation.

“I tried,” I gasped, clutching my bleeding arm. “It moved before I could get to a booth.”

He nodded, as if this was a common occurrence. “The infirmary. Now.”

I didn’t know we had an infirmary until he led me to a small room behind his office. It looked like a normal first aid station, except for the strange symbols painted on the door and the salt lining the threshold.

As he cleaned and bandaged my wound, I finally found the courage to ask: “What are these rules really about, Takashi-san? What is this place?”

He finished wrapping my arm before answering. “Midnight Pleasures has existed for over fifty years, Nakamura-san. The rules existed before I became manager, and they’ll exist after I’m gone.” He secured the bandage with medical tape. “They keep the balance.”

“Balance between what?”

He looked at me then, really looked at me, and for a moment I saw something ancient in his eyes. “Between what people want and what wants people.”

He wouldn’t say more. The next day, the mannequin was gone, replaced by a new one that looked almost identical. No one mentioned the incident again, but security footage from that night mysteriously disappeared from our records.

IX.

Rina pushed her untouched cocktail away, her earlier skepticism replaced by unease. “You expect us to believe a mannequin attacked you?”

I shrugged and rolled my sleeve back down. “Believe what you want. The scar is real.”

“There must be a rational explanation,” Koji said, though he looked shaken. “Someone moving the mannequin while your eyes were closed, maybe?”

“I was alone in the store except for Takashi-san, and he was in his office on the other side of the building,” I said. “And the security cameras showed no one else.”

“What did the footage show?” Mei asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

I hesitated. “Me closing my eyes. The mannequin moving on its own. Then my scream.”

The table fell silent. Around us, the café continued its normal evening rhythm—servers delivering drinks, customers laughing, music playing softly through overhead speakers. It all seemed so ordinary, so safe.

“There’s more, isn’t there?” Koji finally asked, his pen hovering over a fresh page. “Something worse.”

I nodded slowly. “I haven’t told you about the third floor yet.”

X.

The third floor of Midnight Pleasures is officially for inventory storage. At least, that’s what we tell customers who ask. Only Takashi-san and Shin possess the key cards needed to access it, and the elevator requires a code that changes daily.

But Rule #8 mentions it specifically: The third floor is off-limits for clients between 5PM and 7PM. If someone comes down from the third floor, ask them to clean their hands with the special sanitizer on your desk.

And Rule #9 is even stranger: If a customer asks for the ero guro section, they are not human. Tell them to pay the usual fee, then send them to the third floor.

For weeks, I’d been curious about what was up there. I’d seen customers come down with strange black stains on their hands, their expressions vacant yet somehow satisfied. I’d watched Shin escort certain individuals to the elevator, people who didn’t quite seem... right. Their movements too fluid or too stiff, their smiles never reaching their eyes.

One evening, about two months into my employment, I stayed late to help with inventory. As I was counting boxes in the storeroom, I noticed a customer slip into the staff area and approach the elevator. He was a regular—a middle-aged man in an expensive suit who always purchased the most extreme content we carried.

That night, there was something different about him. His movements were jerky, his eyes bloodshot, and his hands trembled as he punched in the elevator code.

I shouldn’t have followed him. Every instinct told me not to. But I’d spent weeks watching people disappear to the third floor and return changed. I needed to know.

I waited until the elevator returned, then used my phone to photograph the keypad. The residual oils from fingertips showed which numbers had been pressed. Five digits. I tried different combinations until the elevator chimed and the doors slid open.

Inside, there was only one button for the third floor. I pressed it, heart pounding in my chest, half expecting alarms to sound. Instead, the elevator rose smoothly, the floor indicator tracking our ascent.

When the doors opened, I stepped into a hallway that looked nothing like the rest of the store. The walls were covered in faded red wallpaper with patterns that seemed to shift when viewed from the corner of my eye. The lighting came from antique fixtures that cast long, distorted shadows.

Most disturbing was the layout. The hallway stretched much longer than the building’s dimensions should allow, turning at impossible angles. Doors lined both sides, each with a different symbol etched into its surface.

I moved cautiously, listening for any sound of the customer I’d followed. The air was heavy and stale, with an underlying scent I couldn’t identify—something metallic and sweet.

The first room I peered into contained shelves of small glass bottles, each with a handwritten label. Looking closer, I realized they were emotions: “First Love,” “Childhood Nostalgia,” “Grief (Parental),” “Sexual Awakening,” “Purest Fear.” The bottles glowed faintly from within, colors swirling like liquid smoke.

The next room housed what appeared to be merchandise that wasn’t available downstairs—but these weren’t DVDs or toys. These were experiences, memories, sensations, packaged and priced. “Six Hours of Dreamless Sleep,” “The Taste of Food You Ate as a Child,” “Your Crush’s Attention,” “What It Feels Like to Die.”

I continued down the impossible hallway, passing rooms filled with things I couldn’t comprehend—objects that seemed to exist in more dimensions than they should, creatures that looked almost human but weren’t quite right, display cases of what looked like preserved body parts that moved when you looked directly at them.

Finally, I heard voices coming from a room at the end of the corridor. I approached slowly, careful to stay in the shadows.

The door was slightly ajar, allowing me to see inside. The customer I’d followed was there, talking to someone—or something—I’d never seen before. The seller was tall, inhumanly so, with features that seemed to shift and blur if I looked at them for too long. They wore what appeared to be a staff uniform, but it hung wrong on their frame, as if their body didn’t match the shape clothes were designed for.

They were negotiating over something called “six extra hours.”

“The price has increased,” the seller said, their voice like grinding metal. “Time is more valuable now.”

“I can pay,” the customer insisted. “I have new memories to trade. Powerful ones.”

“Show me.”

The customer pressed his fingers to his temple, and a faint light emanated from his skin. The seller leaned close—too close—their face elongating as they inhaled deeply, drawing something invisible from the man.

“Yes,” they hissed. “This will do. The memory of your daughter’s wedding. Such joy, such pride. Delicious.”

The customer’s expression went blank momentarily, then he blinked in confusion. “I... what were we discussing?”

“Six extra hours,” the seller reminded him. “For your dying wife.”

“Yes, of course.” The customer reached for a small hourglass the seller held out. “She doesn’t need to know where the time comes from.”

I must have made a sound, a gasp or a step backward, because the seller’s head snapped toward the door. They tilted their head in a way no human neck should bend.

“We have an observer,” they said in that grinding voice.

I ran. The hallway seemed to stretch and contract around me, doors appearing and disappearing, the pattern on the wallpaper reaching out like fingers. I took turns at random, no longer sure which way led back to the elevator, my only thought to get away from that room and what I’d seen.

By some miracle, I found the elevator again. I slammed the button repeatedly, praying for the doors to open before whatever was on the third floor found me. When they finally did, I practically fell inside, punching the button for the main floor.

As the doors slid closed, I caught a glimpse of something coming around the corner—a shape that hurt my eyes to look at directly, moving in a way that made my stomach lurch. Then the elevator descended, and I was alone with the sound of my ragged breathing.

When I reached the ground floor, I half-expected alarms to sound or staff to be waiting for me. Instead, the store was quiet. I checked my watch and discovered that almost three hours had passed, though it had felt like minutes.

The next morning, Takashi-san called me into his office. I thought I’d be fired, or worse. But he just slid a new laminated sheet across his desk.

“Updated rules,” he said. “Number ten: If you go where you don’t belong, you might not come back as yourself.”

I stared at him. “You know I went to the third floor.”

“We always know.” His expression gave nothing away. “The question is, did you learn from it?”

I thought about the customer trading his daughter’s wedding memories for six more hours of his wife’s life. About the bottles of emotions on the shelves and the things moving in display cases.

“I learned that the rules exist for a reason,” I said quietly.

He nodded, satisfied. “The third floor has always been there, Nakamura-san. Before this building, before this city. It finds places to attach itself to. Places where desires are strong.”

It was the most he’d ever explained about Midnight Pleasures, and somehow it only left me with more questions. But one thing was clear—I was now truly part of whatever strange system governed the store.

As I stood to leave, Takashi-san added, “Be careful what you share with others, Nakamura-san. Knowledge is a door that swings both ways.”

I didn’t understand what he meant then. I do now.

XI.

Silence hung over our booth in Whispers Café. My three friends stared at me, their expressions ranging from Mei’s wide-eyed fear to Koji’s intense fascination to Rina’s stubborn disbelief.

“That’s not possible,” Rina finally said, though her voice lacked conviction. “Buildings don’t just have impossible floors.”

“Then how do you explain what I saw?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Hallucination? Gas leak? Maybe they drugged you.” She grasped for rational explanations like a drowning person reaching for anything that floats.

Koji tapped his pen against his notebook. “What did Takashi-san mean about knowledge being a door that swings both ways?”

I hadn’t told them that part. I was certain I hadn’t.

“How did you know he said that?” I asked slowly.

Koji blinked, confusion crossing his face. “You just told us, didn’t you?”

Before I could answer, Mei interrupted, “Haruka, if this place is so dangerous, why do you stay? It’s just a part-time job.”

It was a question I’d asked myself many times. “At first it was the money,” I admitted. “Then curiosity. But now...” I hesitated. “I think I stay because I’m already part of it. And because someone needs to follow the rules to keep whatever’s there contained.”

Rina snorted. “Listen to yourself. You sound like you’re in a cult.”

“Maybe I am,” I said with a shrug. “But there’s something else you should know. Something I discovered recently.”

I reached for my phone and opened the camera app. “The rules don’t just apply in the store. They follow you out.”

“What does that mean?” Mei asked, her voice small.

“Watch.” I held up my phone and took a photo of my whiskey sour, then showed them the screen.

In the image, there was something floating in the liquid that wasn’t visible in the real glass—something that looked like a tiny, screaming face.

“Check your own drinks,” I said.

They each hesitantly took out their phones. Mei was the first to snap a photo, and she screamed, dropping her phone on the table with a clatter. Koji picked it up, looked at the screen, and went pale. Even Rina, after taking her own photo, pushed her untouched cocktail away with trembling hands.

“What the hell, Haruka?” she whispered. “How did you do that?”

“I didn’t,” I said. “It’s Rule #11: Once you’ve worked at Midnight Pleasures, you see things others don’t. And eventually, they start to see you too.”

Koji stood abruptly, his chair scraping against the floor. “I need some air.”

He headed toward the exit, but I barely noticed his departure because my attention had been caught by something—or someone—at the entrance of the café.

A woman in a red coat had just walked in. She wore a surgical mask and sunglasses, despite the late hour.

My blood ran cold. She moved to the bar, her movements unnaturally precise, and ordered a drink with a voice I couldn’t hear but knew would sound wrong.

“We need to leave,” I said, grabbing Mei’s arm. “Now.”

Rina frowned. “Why? What’s—”

“Don’t look at her,” I hissed. “The woman in red. She’s here.”

Mei paled. “The one from your story?”

I nodded, already gathering my things. “Get Koji. Tell him not to make eye contact with anyone on his way back in. We all need to leave together.”

Mei slipped out of the booth to find Koji, while Rina stared at me with a mixture of fear and defiance. “This is ridiculous. I’m not running out of a café because you’ve scared yourself with your own ghost stories.”

“Please, Rina,” I begged. “Just this once, trust me.”

She sighed dramatically but stood up. “Fine. But I need to use the restroom first.”

“No,” I said sharply. “We leave together.”

But she was already walking away. I started after her, but froze when I saw where she was headed. Next to the actual restrooms was a door I’d never noticed before in all our visits to Whispers.

It had a sign: “Viewing Booth 5.”

“Rina, stop!” I called, but my voice seemed to travel through molasses. The café noise had faded, and everyone but us had gone still, like paused video.

“Rina, wait!” I tried to move, but my legs felt heavy, as if I was wading through water. I watched in horror as she reached for the door handle of “Viewing Booth 5.”

Mei returned, dragging Koji by the arm. “What’s happening?” she asked, her voice sounding distant and echoed. “Why is everyone frozen?”

“We need to get Rina,” I said, finally managing to push forward. “Something’s wrong.”

But it was too late. Rina opened the door and stepped inside Viewing Booth 5, closing it behind her.

The moment the door clicked shut, the café resumed its normal activity—people talking, glasses clinking, music playing. It was as if nothing had happened. But the booth door remained, though I was certain it had never been there before tonight.

“Where did Rina go?” Koji asked, confusion clear on his face. “That’s not the restroom.”

I felt a presence behind me and turned to see the woman in red had left her seat at the bar. She was walking toward us, her movements jerky and unnatural, like a marionette with tangled strings.

In her hands was a copy of “Mai-chan’s Daily Life.”

And suddenly, with a clarity that felt like ice water in my veins, I understood.

I’d never left work.

The café, my friends, this entire evening—it was all happening inside a viewing booth on the third floor of Midnight Pleasures. I was still there, experiencing whatever “product” that customer had purchased.

“Haruka?” Mei’s voice sounded far away. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I couldn’t answer because the truth was lodged in my throat like a stone. The walls of Whispers Café began to shimmer and distort, the edges peeling away to reveal the cramped interior of a viewing booth. The monitor flickered before me, showing my own terrified face reflected back at me.

And behind that reflection, something was breathing—something tall and shifting that had been watching me all along.

Rule #12, the one Takashi-san had never told me but I suddenly knew with absolute certainty: Sometimes you’re not the employee. Sometimes you’re the merchandise.

I felt a cold hand on my shoulder and knew without turning that it belonged to the impossible seller from the third floor.

“Your shift is over,” came that grinding voice, confirmation of my worst fears.

XII.

I blinked, and I was back at the register of Midnight Pleasures. The transition was so abrupt that I gasped, my hands clutching the countertop to steady myself.

“Are you all right, Nakamura-san?” Takashi-san asked, appearing beside me. His expression showed genuine concern, unusual for his typically stoic demeanor.

“I... I was somewhere else,” I stammered. “At Whispers Café with my friends. There was the woman in red, and a viewing booth appeared, and Rina—”

“Breathe,” he instructed, guiding me to a chair behind the counter. “When did you last sleep properly?”

I tried to remember. The days had begun to blur together, my dream life and waking hours becoming increasingly difficult to separate. “I don’t know.”

He studied me carefully. “The store affects everyone differently. Some more than others.”

“What’s happening to me?” I whispered.

Instead of answering directly, he asked, “Have you been to the third floor recently?”

I nodded, not bothering to lie. “Last week.”

“And did you touch anything? Open any doors?”

I thought about the rooms I’d explored, the strange merchandise I’d seen. “I looked into some rooms. I didn’t take anything.”

“But you saw,” he said, his voice heavy with resignation. “And in places like the third floor, seeing is a form of transaction.”

Before I could ask what he meant, the front door chimed. A middle-aged man entered, a small dog trotting beside him on a leash. I recognized him immediately—the regular mentioned in Rule #5.

Takashi-san straightened, professional mask back in place. “Handle this customer, then take your break. We’ll continue our discussion later.”

As he walked away, I forced myself to focus on the present moment. The man approached the counter, the dog unnaturally quiet at his side.

“Booth five is ready for you, sir,” I said automatically, following the rule.

He nodded, not speaking, and headed toward the viewing booths. The dog followed obediently, but as they passed a display of BDSM equipment, it turned its head to look at me. Its eyes seemed too intelligent, too aware, and for a moment I could have sworn it smiled.

I shuddered and turned my attention to restocking the register. Five minutes passed, then ten. Everything seemed normal, ordinary—until I heard a sound that made my blood freeze.

A dog barking, somewhere in the store.

Rule #5 was clear: If the dog runs off into the store, lock yourself in the employee lounge until the man leaves the booth.

I quickly flipped the “Back in 5 Minutes” sign on the counter and hurried toward the employee area. As I passed the BDSM section, I saw movement from the corner of my eye—the dog, standing on its hind legs, examining a riding crop.

I ran the rest of the way to the lounge, slamming the door shut behind me and turning the lock with trembling fingers. The small room contained only a table, a few chairs, a mini-fridge, and a coffee maker. I collapsed into a chair, trying to calm my racing heart.

On the wall opposite me was a vent, its metal slats allowing air—and sound—to circulate. From it came a strange noise, a wet, rhythmic sound punctuated by what might have been whimpers or laughter, too distorted to tell.

Despite every instinct screaming against it, I found myself moving toward the vent. I knelt before it, pressing my ear against the cool metal.

The sounds grew clearer—not quite human, not quite animal. There was something else too, a voice speaking in a language I didn’t recognize but somehow understood. It was asking for something. Offering something in return.

I took out my phone and, using the flashlight, angled the camera to see through the vent slats. What I captured in that brief glimpse would revisit me in nightmares for months to come.

The dog stood upright, its front paws now more like hands, holding something small and wet and pulsing. The man knelt before it, head bowed, arms outstretched as if in worship or supplication. Between them on the floor was a circle drawn in a dark substance, symbols etched around its perimeter that hurt my eyes to look at directly.

I dropped my phone, scrambling backward until I hit the opposite wall. I remained there, knees hugged to my chest, until Shin knocked on the door an hour later to tell me the customer and his “dog” had left.

When I emerged, shaking, he took one look at my face and nodded in understanding.

“The first time is the worst,” he said, his scarred hands fidgeting with his name tag. “It gets easier.”

“I don’t want it to get easier,” I whispered. “I want to understand.”

He glanced around to ensure we were alone, then rolled up his sleeve. The burn scars I’d noticed on his hands extended up his arm, forming patterns that weren’t random. They were symbols, similar to the ones I’d seen through the vent.

“Some of us learn more than others,” he said quietly. “I wanted answers too. But Takashi-san is right—knowing too much is dangerous. The rules exist to protect us, not just from them, but from ourselves.”

“From becoming like them?” I asked.

His expression darkened. “From becoming merchandise.”

XIII.

The café seemed painfully normal after my shift ended. Whispers was busy, as always, the Friday night crowd filling nearly every table. I spotted my friends in our usual booth—Mei and Koji already nursing drinks, Rina nowhere to be seen.

I approached cautiously, half-expecting the surroundings to dissolve into the walls of a viewing booth again. But everything remained solid, real.

“Haruka!” Mei called, waving me over. “How was work?”

I slid into the booth beside Koji, who was scribbling in his ever-present notebook. “The usual,” I lied. “Where’s Rina?”

“Date night with her new boyfriend,” Mei said, pushing a whiskey sour toward me. “We ordered your usual.”

I stared at the drink, remembering my hallucination—or whatever it was—of the tiny screaming face in the liquid. “Thanks,” I said, but didn’t touch it.

“You look like hell,” Koji observed, finally looking up from his notebook.

“Rough day,” I admitted. “Haven’t been sleeping well.”

Mei’s expression softened with concern. “More weird stuff at the store?”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. How could I explain that I wasn’t sure if this moment was real? That part of me feared they weren’t really my friends but constructs in some elaborate product being sold on the third floor?

“Tell us,” Koji prompted, pen ready.

I took a deep breath. “I need to know something first. Does this feel real to you? This moment, this café?”

They exchanged worried glances.

“What kind of question is that?” Mei asked.

“Just answer. Please.”

Koji adjusted his glasses, studying me with increased interest. “Yes, it feels real. Why wouldn’t it?”

“Because I’m not sure anymore,” I said honestly. “Things have been... blending. Work and not-work. Dreams and reality.”

“Haruka,” Mei said gently, “maybe you should talk to someone. A professional, I mean.”

“Would a professional believe me about the third floor? Or the woman in red? Or the dog that walks on two legs?” I laughed bitterly.

“Maybe not, but they’d help you separate fantasy from reality,” she suggested.

“That’s just it,” I said, leaning forward. “I don’t think I can separate them anymore. And I don’t think I’m supposed to.”

Koji set down his pen. “What does that mean?”

I reached for my phone, hesitated, then decided to risk it. “Let me show you something.”

I opened the camera app and took a photo of my untouched whiskey sour, then turned the screen toward them.

The image showed just a normal drink. No tiny face, no distortion, nothing unusual.

Relief washed over me, followed immediately by doubt. If this was real, then my episode at work had been a hallucination. But if this was the illusion, of course it would appear normal to keep me trapped within it.

“What are we supposed to be seeing?” Mei asked, confused.

I shook my head. “Nothing. That’s good. It means this is real.” I hoped.

“You’re not making sense,” Koji said, concern evident in his voice.

“Sorry. I just...” I trailed off as my gaze drifted to the entrance of the café.

A woman in a red coat had just walked in.

My heart hammered against my ribs. “Do you see her?” I whispered, not taking my eyes off the figure now making her way to the bar. “By the entrance. Red coat, mask, sunglasses.”

Mei and Koji both turned to look.

“The one ordering a drink?” Mei asked. “Yeah, kind of odd to wear sunglasses at night.”

She was real, and they could see her. This wasn’t in my head.

“We need to leave,” I said, keeping my voice low and steady despite the panic rising in my chest. “Right now.”

“Because of some random woman?” Koji asked, but he was already gathering his things, responding to the urgency in my tone.

“Trust me,” I pleaded. “Please.”

We slid out of the booth, making our way toward the exit. I kept my head down, praying the woman wouldn’t notice us. We were nearly to the door when I heard her voice—that same unnatural, modulated tone that haunted my dreams.

“Excuse me,” she called. “Could you tell me where I might find the third floor?”

She wasn’t talking to a server or bartender. She was looking directly at me.

I froze, Rule #1 screaming in my mind. But I didn’t have a copy of “Mai-chan’s Daily Life.” I wasn’t at work. The rules shouldn’t apply here, in the real world, outside of Midnight Pleasures.

Yet I knew with absolute certainty that if I ignored her, something terrible would happen.

“Mount Misen is burning,” I said clearly, meeting her gaze despite the rule against eye contact.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then her face—what I could see of it above the mask—contorted in what might have been rage or fear. She stood so quickly her barstool toppled over, and she rushed for the exit, shoving past us with enough force to knock Mei into a nearby table.

And then she was gone, the door swinging shut behind her.

The café fell silent briefly, then resumed its normal hum of conversation, as if nothing unusual had occurred.

“What the hell was that?” Koji demanded as we stepped outside into the cool night air.

“One of the rules,” I said, scanning the street for any sign of the woman in red. She had vanished as completely as if she’d never existed. “They’re following me out of the store.”

“Haruka,” Mei said, touching my arm gently, “you’re scaring me.”

“I’m scaring myself,” I admitted. “Look, I should go home. Get some sleep.”

“I don’t think you should be alone right now,” Koji said. “Let me walk you.”

I almost accepted his offer, but something held me back. The rules were bleeding into my personal life. What if I put my friends in danger by keeping them close?

“I’ll be fine,” I assured him, forcing a smile. “I’ll text you both when I get home.”

They reluctantly agreed, and we parted ways at the corner—them toward the station, me toward my apartment building a few blocks away.

As I walked, I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. The streets were busy enough, Tokyo never truly sleeping, but none of the passersby paid me any attention. Yet the sensation persisted, a prickling at the back of my neck.

I turned a corner onto a quieter residential street and noticed something that made me stop mid-step.

A door stood in the middle of the sidewalk.

Not attached to any building, just a freestanding door frame with a familiar sign: “Viewing Booth 5.”

I blinked hard, certain I was hallucinating again. But the door remained, solid and real, illuminated by a nearby streetlight.

I approached it cautiously, circling around to confirm that yes, it was simply a door frame, standing impossibly in the middle of the sidewalk. Behind it was just the continuation of the street. But from the front, through the frame, I could see something different—a dimly lit corridor that didn’t exist in the reality I knew.

As I stood there, paralyzed with indecision, my phone buzzed with a text message.

It was from an unknown number: “Some doors find you. Rule #13.”

I had never been told a Rule #13.

As I stared at the message, another came through: “Open it. See where it leads.”

The rational part of my mind screamed to turn around, to run home, to lock my door and never return to Midnight Pleasures. But another part—the part that had been changed by my time at the store—was curious. And something told me that even if I walked away now, the door would find me again.

I reached for the handle, cool metal beneath my fingers, and turned it.

The door swung open to reveal the third floor corridor, with its shifting wallpaper patterns and impossible geometry. Standing in the middle of the hallway was Takashi-san, his expression unusually grim.

“You’re late,” he said. “Your shift started an hour ago.”

“But I just finished my shift,” I protested. “I was at the café with my friends.”

He shook his head slowly. “No, Nakamura-san. You’ve been here all along.”

The door closed behind me with a final-sounding click.

XIV.

“This isn’t real,” I said, the words sounding hollow even to my own ears. “I left the store. I was at Whispers with Mei and Koji.”

Takashi-san’s expression softened slightly. “Reality is fluid on the third floor. Especially for employees who don’t follow the rules.”

“I did follow them,” I insisted. “I’ve memorized all of them.”

“Not all.” He gestured for me to follow him down the impossible hallway. “Come. There’s something you need to see.”

I trailed behind him, noting how the corridor seemed to stretch and contract with our movement, doors appearing and disappearing along the walls. We stopped before a door I recognized—the one that had led to the room where I’d witnessed the customer trading memories.

“In here,” Takashi-san said, opening the door.

The room beyond was different now. Instead of the strange merchandise I’d seen before, it contained only a viewing booth setup—chair, monitor, control panel—and sitting in the chair was... me.

Or rather, a perfect copy of me, staring blankly at a screen that showed Whispers Café, Mei and Koji sitting at our usual booth, looking worried as they checked their phones.

“What is this?” I whispered, unable to take my eyes off my doppelgänger.

“Rule #12,” Takashi-san said quietly. “Sometimes you’re not the employee. Sometimes you’re the merchandise.”

“I don’t understand.”

He sighed, the sound heavy with something like regret. “There are many Harukas, just as there are many versions of all of us. Some are products, experiences that can be purchased and consumed. Some are employees who maintain the boundaries. And some are customers, though they don’t realize it.”

“Which am I?” I asked, though I feared I already knew the answer.

“That depends on which side of the door you’re standing on,” he replied cryptically. “Right now, you’re experiencing what our most popular product offers—‘A Glimpse Beyond the Veil.’ The momentary understanding that reality is not fixed, not singular.”

I looked back at the other me, still staring at the monitor, unaware of our presence. “And her?”

“She’s been here longer than you have,” he said. “She thinks she’s the real Haruka too.”

A chill ran through me. “How many of us are there?”

“As many as are needed.” He moved to the control panel, adjusting something I couldn’t see. “The woman in red, the dog, the booth that appears where it shouldn’t—they’re all symptoms of boundary degradation. Signs that the walls between realities are growing thin.”

“Because of me? Because I broke the rules?”

He shook his head. “Not just you. Every employee who looks when they shouldn’t, every customer who asks for what isn’t listed, every curious passerby who notices our store when they shouldn’t be able to see it—they all contribute.”

On the monitor, I watched Mei and Koji leave the café, their faces concerned as they checked their phones again. No message from me. Because I was here, not there.

“Can I go back?” I asked. “To being just... me? To my normal life?”

Takashi-san was quiet for a long moment. “There’s one more rule you should know. Rule #13: Every door is two-way, but the path back is never the same as the path forward.”

He turned and left the room, the door closing behind him with a soft click.

I stood there, staring at my other self, watching as the version of me in the chair finally stirred, as if waking from a trance. She—I—looked around in confusion, then directly at the camera.

“Hello?” she called, her voice distorted through the speakers. “Is anyone there?”

I reached forward and pressed the intercom button. “I’m here,” I said.

Her eyes widened. “Who are you?”

“I’m Haruka,” I said. “Just like you.”

She shook her head in denial. “No. I’m Haruka. I work at Midnight Pleasures. I was just at Whispers Café with my friends.”

“I know,” I said. “I was there too.”

She—I—looked terrified. “What’s happening to me?”

I thought about Takashi-san’s words, about Rule #13. Every door is two-way. “I think we need to find the path back,” I said. “Together.”

The other Haruka stood, approaching the camera. “How?”

I had no answer, but as I watched her, I noticed something on the wall behind her—a door where none had been before. A door marked “Viewing Booth 5.”

“Behind you,” I said. “Do you see it?”

She turned, gasping when she spotted the door. “It wasn’t there before.”

“I think we need to go through it,” I said. “Both of us. At the same time.”

“And then what?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But it’s the only way out I can see.”

She nodded, reaching for the handle. I turned to find that the same door had appeared in my room as well, in the exact same position.

“On three,” I said into the intercom. “One... two... three.”

We both opened our doors and stepped through.

XV.

I woke up behind the register at Midnight Pleasures, my cheek pressed against the cool countertop. I jerked upright, disoriented, looking around the familiar store.

Everything seemed normal. Customers browsed the shelves, soft music played overhead, and sunlight filtered through the front windows, indicating it was daytime.

“Bad dreams?” Shin asked, appearing beside me with a stack of new releases.

“Something like that,” I murmured, rubbing my temples. “What time is it?”

“Just after noon. Takashi-san said to let you rest. You collapsed during your shift last night.”

Last night. The woman in red at Whispers. The door on the sidewalk. The third floor and my doppelgänger.

“Was it real?” I asked, not really directing the question at Shin.

He set down the DVDs and looked at me with an unreadable expression. “Define ‘real.’”

Before I could respond, the front door chimed. A customer entered—an ordinary-looking woman in her thirties, nothing unusual about her.

She approached the counter. “Excuse me,” she said in a perfectly normal voice. “Could you tell me where I can find the ero guro section?”

Rule #9 flashed in my mind: If a customer asks for the ero guro section, they are not human. Tell them to pay the usual fee, then send them to the third floor.

I hesitated, studying the woman more carefully. There was nothing obviously inhuman about her. She looked like any other customer—tired eyes, casual clothes, a wedding ring on her finger.

But rules existed for a reason.

“The usual fee is ¥15,000,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “The elevator to the third floor is through that door, past the staff room.”

She smiled, sliding her credit card across the counter. As I processed the payment, I noticed something odd about her reflection in the card reader’s screen—it shifted and blurred, as if she were made of smoke.

“Thank you,” she said, taking back her card. “It’s nice to see the same faces again and again.”

“Excuse me?” I said, a chill running down my spine.

“Oh, nothing,” she replied with another smile. “Just thinking aloud.”

As she walked toward the staff area, I turned to Shin. “What did she mean? About the same faces?”

He shrugged, but wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Some customers are regulars.”

“No, it was like she recognized me specifically,” I insisted. “Like she’s seen me before, many times.”

Shin was silent for a long moment. Then, “Rule #13, Haruka. Every door is two-way, but the path back is never the same as the path forward.”

“Takashi-san told me that,” I said, surprised. “On the third floor. But I thought that was a dream.”

“Maybe it was,” Shin said, his scarred hands fidgeting with a DVD case. “Maybe it wasn’t. The thing about Midnight Pleasures is that dreams and reality are poor categories here. Better to think in terms of rules and boundaries.”

“And if the boundaries are breaking down?” I asked, remembering Takashi-san’s words about boundary degradation.

Shin’s expression darkened. “Then we contain the damage as best we can. That’s what the rules are for.”

The rest of my shift passed without incident. I helped customers, restocked shelves, and tried not to think too hard about doors that shouldn’t exist or copies of myself in viewing booths. When closing time came, I was almost disappointed by how normal it had been.

As I was preparing to leave, Takashi-san emerged from his office. “A moment, Nakamura-san.”

I followed him back to the room of locks and keys, bracing myself for another strange conversation. But he merely handed me an envelope.

“Your paycheck,” he said. “And a bonus.”

I opened it to find significantly more cash than usual. “What’s this for?”

“Hazard pay,” he said simply. “For your experiences on the third floor.”

So it had been real. Or real enough to warrant compensation.

“Takashi-san,” I began hesitantly, “the other Haruka I saw... what happened to her?”

A hint of a smile touched his lips. “You don’t remember?”

“Remember what?”

“Opening the door. Both of you, at the same time.” He studied my face, seeming to find something interesting there. “Interesting. Partial memory integration, but not complete.”

“What does that mean?” I asked, growing frustrated with his cryptic responses.

“It means you’re not quite the same Haruka who started working here two months ago,” he said. “Nor are you the one who followed a customer to the third floor. You’re... a composite. A new version formed from fragments of multiple realities.”

I should have been terrified by this information, but somehow it made a strange kind of sense. It explained the gaps in my memory, the moments of déjà vu, the times when I knew things I shouldn’t have known.

“And that’s... okay?” I asked uncertainly.

“It’s not uncommon,” he assured me. “Most of our long-term employees undergo similar experiences eventually. The store changes people. It’s the nature of boundaries—those who guard them must sometimes cross them.”

I pocketed the envelope, still trying to process everything. “So what now? Do I just keep working here, following the rules, pretending everything is normal?”

“That depends,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Do you want to?”

It was a good question. The rational choice would be to quit, to walk away from Midnight Pleasures and never look back. But something told me it wouldn’t be that simple. The store had changed me, marked me somehow. The rules would follow me regardless.

“I think,” I said slowly, “that I understand why the rules exist now. And why it’s important to follow them.”

Takashi-san nodded, seemingly satisfied with my answer. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow evening for your shift.”

As I left the store, stepping out into the busy Tokyo street, I felt strangely at peace. The world around me seemed more solid, more real than it had in weeks. Perhaps knowing you’re partly unreal makes reality more precious.

My phone buzzed with a text from Mei: “Whispers tonight? Usual time?”

I hesitated, then replied: “Sure. But let’s try somewhere new.”

Some doors, once opened, can never be completely closed. But perhaps I could avoid the ones I know lead to viewing booths that shouldn’t exist.

For now, at least, I had rules to follow. And in a world where reality itself was negotiable, rules were the closest thing to safety I could hope for.

I tucked my phone away and headed home, careful not to look too closely at reflective surfaces or doors that seemed out of place. After all, Rule #14—though no one had told me explicitly—was clear enough:

Once you know the truth about Midnight Pleasures, you can never truly leave it behind.

I just had to learn to live with that.