A Business Night Out of the Usual

This has been a great Friday so far, humed Lila as she was getting out of the Académie for the day. As she walked to the school gate among the other students in the elementary section of the school, she happily recalled the day's best moments : today, she corrected her French teacher thrice thanks to her precious dictionnary, was given back a geography test Class CM1 had done a week prior and, of course, had a perfect score, and she was able to show off with some martial arts basics in P.E. !

Clutching her backpack's shoulder straps with glee, she jumped with every step, ignoring the glares in her back and the mocking whispers of her classmates. What a bunch of idiots ! They were nothing but stupid and snotty brats, why would she bother to listen to their jealous comments ? Disdainful, she was about to shoot them a smug glance, but was stopped in her tracks by the familiar buzzing of her phone.

Vaguely annoyed but also slightly curious, she took her bag off her shoulders and, out of the various notebooks and supplies contained in her bag, she grabbed the object she wanted : it was a rather plain smartphone, small enough to be help fully in her palm. It was an old model, the phone she used for business – not that she had any other phone to begin with.

As she unlocked it, she noted the plain starry sky image she used as a wallpaper – if she had the choice, she would have had a cute kitten, or maybe a cartoon character instead, but having this phone for business meant no personal information on it in case it was to be found – and read the notification appearing on the screen : 1 unread new message from Vénus.

Vénus was Mom's codename. As requested, every single contact she was given had a codename, and a good one on top of that : she didn't knew when mom would take her phone to check what was inside, and mom's contacts were to be respected with suiting, polite names, since they were her colleagues. Lila could have protected her privacy with a password change, but the last time she did, she received a punishment she would *not* forget.

She selected with a light touch the notification to see the message, bracing herself for the uncoming news.

As usual, it was a simple text, with no emojis or lack of ponctuation that would convey any of the sender's personality. It had a stern, firm tone that Lila could imagine being pronounced by her mother with her usual piercing expression : "Go home right after school. I'll be waiting at 5:00 pm. Don't be late."

It didn't look like much, at a first glance, but the child knew it meant there was some work waiting for her when she'd be back. The ride home was about fifteen to twenty minutes so she'd better hurry if she wanted to be there on time. She did *not* want to be late. Who knew what mood mom was in, and what a delay would cost her. Better not to try anything, it wasn't the day to be rebellious.

The ride home was an uneventful one, with no interesting thing going on in the bus and kids screaming, laughing and talking. Nothing unusual. She ate a few bites of a chocolate bar she kept in her bag, not having much to listen to but the quiet crunch of the food in her mouth. No one wanted to talk to her. Pff, whatever, it's not like she *cared* about it. Who needed *friends* anyways ?

When she finally got home, expression devoided of any emotion not to interfere with the job, mom was waiting for her in the hallway, in a revealing cocktail dress and high heels. She glanced at her painted nails in mock boredom, the air around her having suddenly become poisonous, while the quiet scratching of her hand subconsciously communicated her annoyance.

"Say, *honey*, why do you think mom doesn't suit the duke's tastes ?" she snarled, voice full of venom and her words keen and sharp like thin deadly blades. She eyed Lila with condescension and disgust, as if sickened by her daughter's presence, then kneeled to the girl's level.

"Why would *you*, I wonder ? You see, mom wanted to please Duke Thomas Halvangard like the *good girl* she is. But he didn't want *mom* to please him." In an instant, she had grasped Lila's chin with her fingers, forcing her to look directly into her mother's spiteful eyes, and the venom of her tongue seemingly wrapped her in stifling purple smoke, squeezing her throat in a choking motion. "Instead, he wants *you* to please him. A young, innocent girl whose purety hadn't been stolen yet."

Immediatly, all color was washed away from Lila's face and she fell to her knees, mouth open and frozen in an absolutely horrified expression at the realisation. *W-What he wanted was... H-He wanted her t-to use her quirk and... S-She was going to...* She clasped her trembling hands against her mouth, suffocating the pitiful, wet sounds escaping it, and held back her tears the best she could. *She shouldn't cry she shouldn't show weakness she was a bad girl but the man was going to do things to her like men did with mom but she didn't want to do it she didn't want to do it she didn't want to–*

The tears were soaking her cheeks now, joining the snot coming out of her nose and shaking her body with ugly, bitten down sobs. She felt like a leaf caught in a hurricane, a fly in a spider's web, fighting as she saw her predator approch to eat her while she fought against it with all of her might, in vain. She couldn't fight. *She couldn't fight.* It was mom's source of money, this business. She *had* to comply and she *had* to be a good girl by being *useful* to her. Mom had let her be born to be *useful*. As she said once, when Lila was barely three of age and going to her very first missions, her mother could have easily choked the newborn to death if she judged her to be dead weight. She had to be thankful to be alive.

A sweet, maternal hand brushed her cheek, and dried her fallen tears gently, hushing soothing sounds to ease her. Looking up once more to meet her motherly figure with a vision still blurry from the crying, she relaxed a bit in her hold, and listened.

"Be a good girl and do it for mommy, okay ? I'll buy you *tons* of toys, books and sweets with the money, sweetie. You see, the duke is a big client and mommy can't afford to make him mad. He's *loaded* with money, and mommy can't let such a good client go away. They're hard to find these days, you know ? One day, when you'll have your own business, you'll understand, honey..." she spoke in a gentle, sickeningly sweet tone that felt so real and fake at the same time, as she flicked Lila's hair and let her hide her face in her shoulder. There was just something wrong with her voice, but she couldn't grasp it. She felt too tired for it anyways, and let her body go limp in her mother's embrace, as she was carried in her room to have help changing.

Mechanically, she transformed into her adult self, only eighteen years old today, and put on the pretty dress mom had bought for her. The woman in charge had regained her good mood and was blurting advice to make sure Lila's first – and hopefully, last – performance would be perfect. All the while, Lila made sure to express she was listening to her mother's excited speech, focusing on erasing completely any feeling, emotion, thought, *anything* that could hinder her job. She only let one single thought slip as she was putting on shoes, looking at herself in the mirror, before going outside to get in their car.

*'I wish you would have choked me to death when I was a baby.'*

From this point, she stopped registering everything. She didn't notice the silence of the car as mom drove them to the place. She didn't notice how the manor the duke lived in, although seen through the back door, reminded her of fairytales she read in class to practice. She didn't notice the perverted way the old man eyed her and acted around her. She didn't notice how the dress sticked to her skin and made her want to scream for every curve, every millimeter of skin it was showing. She didn't notice as static filled her head when mom let go of her hand so she could be guided to the room she would sleep in. And as his wrinkled fingers playfully caressed her so loathsome skin, she let go of everything and let herself drown in the static of her mind.

(The next morning, when she went home and transformed back before reaching her limit, she locked herself in her room and hid under her pink quilt to cry. When mom got out to buy her the promised toys, books and sweets with the newly acquired money, she screamed and screamed and screamed until her throat got raw from the screaming and she smashed the mirror on the ground out of utter fury. Mom didn't say a thing as she picked up the pieces and fixed them back together, but she did slap her later in the evening and call her names.)

(When she went to school again, the next Monday, she acted as if nothing had ever happened. She raised her hand to speak, corrected the teachers, scored perfectly at every test and displayed how amazing she was to everyone around. What a good girl she was. What a good kid she was. *She was such a good child, right ?* Even Mr. Blanc could tell how good she was, as he asked her to meet him Thursday at a specific location to talk about an organization. She would come, because she was so good of a kid.)

(She did hid herself in the bathroom to cry as this other kid called her a whore, and she suddenly couldn't breathe and glance at her own reflexion on the windows because all she could see was her naked body with a mocking sultry expression, enjoying every second of the old man's embrace, *but that didn't happen, right ?*

(She wasn't feeling bad about it. She was fine. She *had* to be fine. It was only a job, nothing out of the usual. She had *nothing* to recover from. She was fine, perfectly fine, as fine as her mother wanted her to be.)

(Because after all, she was such a good child, right ?)