lifeinit | a what-if of a what-if

Three days after her birthday, Yaeko finds Ichihara-san.

She wonders if she missed something. She wonders if this was somehow her fault - he was, it often felt, the only advocate she had in the atelier. She knows he wanted out years ago but clung on for her sake. She doubts Nakanohara-san will linger long after this, and then it'll just be her.

Madarame doesn't seem to care, other than telling Yaeko this better not result in a month of hanging corpses getting into her work, and what is she supposed to make of that? She freshly sixteen, and grieving, and quietly terrified that only one line of work will be open to her if she speaks out, and running out of justifications for Sayuri having Madarame's name on it instead of her mother's, and--

She can't take it anymore. She just... wants her happiness. The freedom to do what she loves without the obligation of someone else claiming it all.