°• Rock Bottom

Ding-ding-ding-clink-clink----- whrrrrrr--KER-CHUNK.

The pachinko machine spat out a final, tragic cough before going dead silent. Coco blinked. Then blinked again. "…That's it?" she whispered, as if the machine might reconsider if she sounded hurt enough.

She slapped the side lightly, her voice rising. "Hello? I just emotionally invested seventeen minutes of my life into you!" With each click, her confidence dimmed, and by the time the last ball vanished into the abyss of failure, her shoulders slumped in dramatic despair.

"This machine is clearly rigged," she muttered, glancing sideways to the old man next to her with a sheepish smile. "Right? I mean, I was totally about to win. You saw it." The man said nothing. Coco slumped further. Persuasive with people, maybe? but apparently, not with fate.

As Coco lay sprawled in defeat, limbs dangling off the stool like a tragic noodle, the old man beside her finally stirred. He didn't look her way just gave a tiny scoff and muttered, "Skill issue." His voice was dry, but the smug little grin tugging at the corner of his mouth said it all.

Coco's head snapped toward him like a hawk locking onto prey. "What did you just say?" she hissed. The old man, still not sparing her a glance, flicked another silver ball with the ease of a man thirty years deep in pachinko glory.

"You heard me, missy." His cocky smirk widened. Coco gasped like she'd just been slapped by fate itself. "Wow. Wow. Okay." She stood up so fast her chair squeaked, scattering empty pachinko balls to the floor. "I don't need this kind of negativity in my life." Which is pretty contradicting since she was gambling a second ago.

With an overly dramatic flourish, she spun on her heel and stormed out of the pachinko parlor, arms swinging and pride in shambles.

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Coco stood in the narrow doorway of the apartment, staring at the chipped paint on the frame like it might give her a reason to turn back. The building groaned in the night breeze, one of the hallway lights flickering overhead like it, too, was judging her life choices.

It was 1 AM, her wallet was lighter, and her dignity was somewhere on the floor of a pachinko parlor. She hovered there, debating if sleeping in a park was really that bad until the wind picked up and slapped her with cold reality. 'It's okay coco you just need to sneak in and not make a sound.'

With a groan, she pushed open the door. It creaked like it was warning her. And then "COCO MIZUNO!" Her mother's voice came slicing through the darkness like a blade. Coco flinched, immediately regretting all of her life choices and considering whether jumping back outside was still an option. Too late. The wrath had been awakened.

Coco froze mid-step like a guilty raccoon caught with its paw in the trash. "H-Hi, Mom," she said, forcing a wobbly smile. "Didn't think you'd still be up! I, uh… took a really long walk. Very therapeutic. For the soul."

Her mom leaned against the kitchen counter in her old housecoat, arms crossed, her eyes tired but alert. "Were you gambling?" Coco laughed, way too loud. "What? Gambling? Noooo. That's some Bold assumption! You think I, a responsible adult woman, would--"

"Coco."

Her mother's voice was calm. Stern. It was the voice of someone who had known her daughter since the moment she came into the world and could smell a lie from across the prefecture. "…Yes. It was pachinko," Coco admitted at last, her shoulders sinking like deflated balloons. "But technically, I wasn't bad at it. The machine was just mean."

The room went quiet. Too quiet. Her mother didn't yell. That was worse.

"You dropped out of college," her mom said quietly. "You've been unemployed for nearly a year. You don't help out at home. And now you're out at one in the morning, wasting money we don't have on pachinko machines?"

Coco's heart sank, but her fists clenched. "You think I don't know that?"

"Then why keep doing it?"

"Because.... " she started, then stopped. Her throat was tight. She couldn't meet her mom's eyes.

"Because i know and YOU know how hard it is out there!" she finally burst out. "You know what it's like right? Every job I apply for wants me to already be an expert before I even start. They want degrees I couldn't afford. Experience I never had time to get. And I dropped out of college because I saw the bills, Mom. I saw you skipping meals when you thought I wasn't looking. I didn't want you working yourself to death just so I could sit in some lecture hall pretending to be normal."

Her voice cracked. "I'm not lazy. I'm not trying to fail. I'm just… tired. And scared. And everything feels like a dead end." The silence that followed wasn't sharp this time. It was heavy. Soft.

Coco wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from crying harder. "I know I'm a mess. I know I'm not the daughter you wanted. But I'm trying. I really am."

For a long moment, her mother didn't say anything. She just stared at Coco, her lips pressed in a thin, pale line. Then she turned, slowly, and placed her cup down on the counter with a loud clack that made Coco flinch.

"So that's it?" her mom said, voice low. "That's your excuse?"

Coco blinked. "…It's not an excuse, I'm just trying to explain--"

"No. You're trying to make yourself the victim," her mother snapped, turning to face her fully. "That's what you always do. Nothing is ever your fault, right? It's always the job market, the school, the world, never you. You didn't drop out to protect me. You dropped out because you're weak. Because the second life got hard, you ran." Coco stared at her, stunned.

"And now look at you," her mother went on, the words coming faster, sharper, like knives she'd been holding back for years. "Unemployed, aimless, staying out all night gambling like some good-for-nothing brat. You're not a child anymore, Coco. But you still act like one! Selfish, clueless, always chasing some fantasy to escape the reality you helped create."

Coco's throat tightened. "Mom, I'm trying--"

"Tried what?" she snapped. "You can't even keep a part-time job. You can't stay in school. You lie to my face about gambling, then stand there crying like I'm the villain. I look at you and... God-- I wonder where I went wrong." Coco took a step back, as if the words physically hit her.

"I should've raised you better. I should've been stricter. Maybe then you wouldn't have turned out like… this." She turned away again, shaking her head, muttering now more to herself than to Coco. "Sometimes I wonder if I even love you anymore… or if I just pity you."

The silence after that was deafening.

Coco stood there, eyes wide, chest hollow. She couldn't even cry she felt too numb. Like her insides had just cracked open and spilled onto the linoleum floor. Her lips parted, but no sound came out. There was nothing left to say.

Just the soft buzz of the old refrigerator, the flickering of the kitchen light above, and the sound of her heart breaking in her chest.

Coco didn't say anything. Not a word. She just turned around quietly, like she wasn't even really there and walked down the narrow hallway to her room. Her feet moved on their own, legs numb, shoulders heavy. She closed the door behind her without a sound, not even bothering to turn on the light. The moon outside her window cast pale streaks over the cluttered mess of clothes, empty ramen cups, and crumpled job flyers she never called.

She collapsed into bed face-first, curling up like a wilted leaf. The blanket was thin. The room was cold. Her pillow smelled like old tears.

And then they came again the voices in her head. Not the kind you hear with your ears, but the kind you feel like claws scratching at your insides.

"It's okay. You're just tired. You'll try again tomorrow."

"What tomorrow? You said that yesterday too. And the day before."

"You're doing your best!"

"Your best is pathetic."

"You're just going through a rough patch..."

"No one cares. Not even your mom. You heard her. She hates you."

"You're not a burden. You're just… lost."

"You are a burden. And everyone would be better off without you."

Coco pressed the blanket over her head, her fingers digging into the fabric. Her body shook with silent sobs.

"Shut up…" she whispered.

"You're nothing."

"You're strong."

"You're useless."

"You're still here. That means something."

"You don't belong anywhere."

"Shut up… shut up…" her voice cracked as her whispers turned desperate.

"Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up!"

But the voices didn't stop. They never did. Not really. And all she could do was cry harder, curled up in the dark, gripping her pillow like it might hold her together. The walls didn't answer. The silence didn't save her. And sleep didn't come.

Thirty minutes passed.

Or maybe it was an hour.

Coco didn't know. The crying had stopped. Her tears had dried, leaving behind a dull ache in her chest and a pounding in her head. Her eyes were open, but they didn't really see anything just the soft blur of moonlight on her ceiling and the shadows stretching across the room like they were reaching for her.

Everything felt distant. Like she was watching herself from the outside.

There was no fight left in her. No anger. No sadness. Just… silence. Like the inside of her head had gone completely quiet.

Slowly, without thinking, she reached out toward her nightstand drawer and slid it open.

Inside, among receipts, broken pens, and a tangle of old earbuds, was a small orange bottle. The kind with the white childproof cap. Her fingers wrapped around it numbly, like muscle memory had taken over.

She sat up. Unscrewed the cap. The rattling sound of the pills inside was too loud in the quiet.

The label was worn, barely legible. A prescription from months ago leftover from a time when she thought a little medication might help. It hadn't.

Coco stared at the pills for a long time. Her hands trembled slightly, but not from fear. There was no dramatic thought behind it. No final words. Just that same unbearable emptiness.

She poured a handful into her palm. She didn't count how many. And then, one by one, she began to take them.

The bitterness spread across her tongue, but she barely reacted. Her chest felt tight. Her throat was dry. But she kept going.

A small part of her, buried somewhere deep, whispered: Stop. Please.

But the louder part said: It's okay. This way, you don't have to try anymore.

She didn't cry. She didn't flinch. She just swallowed. And when it was done, she laid back down. The ceiling above her looked the same. The shadows hadn't moved.

Her breath slowed.

The numbness stayed.

She didn't expect anything to change. Not really.

But something did.

The moment her eyes closed, the room began to warp. The air shimmered faintly, like heat rising off asphalt. The sound of the world faded not into silence, but into something unfamiliar. Something… not her apartment.

And just before everything turned black, she heard it:

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