Playing with Fire | Yuzuru Hanyu

22. Changes

Arriving home after the fatidical night felt weird.

Aria was still shaking in fear when the driver dropped her off.

The man had asked if she needed some time or if she had anyone he could drop her off with instead of just leaving her alone at home but she knew that there was no one.

Going to Aliyah would be a mistake. The other woman would only tell her to suck it up and that it was normal.

You see, the other girl had done usual prostitution on the street before entering the current service so she had a far different perspective of things in that aspect.

Aria, however, had easily gotten used to the perks of only working at a high level and never had to endure some of the things that made the job so dangerous.

The first thing she did was draw a bath. Unlike no time before, she desperately felt the need to wash off any reminders of what had happened and fully clean herself.

As the water ran in the bathtub to a pleasant temperature, Aria ran her body under the water of the shower. She didn't want the water in the bath to be dirty at all. It was for her own relaxation, a way to try and calm down.

It was at these moments that she wished she could just call her mom in tears and talk about it.

But she couldn't, not without the risk of having to tell her everything.

Looking at her body in the mirror, the red spots that covered her body from the man's roughness were already evident and sure to leave a mark. It was inevitable to think of how ugly those bruises would probably become in just a few hours.

Aria cleaned her face and breathed in. Thinking about it now would do her no good. It was best to just try to relax and eventually get some well-deserved sleep.

The decision about what she wanted to do now couldn't be made on a hothead. She needed the night to think and consider the full picture.

🔥

Waking up on the next day was as painful as she had imagined.

Aria's body felt like he had taken a beaten. Well, in ways, it kind of did.

The black marks she expected were already scattered all across her and it was with a sigh that she looked at herself in the mirror.

Her thoughts of the previous night hadn't changed.

Maybe the whole experience had been a complete turning point because she felt like going back was now impossible. Once the fear was there, she doubted to ever be able to go into a client's room without trembling in expectation of what could happen.

The decision was pretty much made. Aria knew she had to quit.

No matter how much financial impact it could have on her life, no matter how hard it would be to keep her current lifestyle, continuing was just impossible in her head then.

For hours she stood in front of her laptop, going through her finances and making all the math needed to know exactly what the next steps should be.

It didn't take that much math to realize that the situation wasn't as bad as she initially anticipated.

There were no doubts that she had been making a decent amount of money for a while but she had completely lost track of what exactly it meant. The amount she had saved was more than enough to pay for her remaining degree, the one challenge was keeping up with the rent.

Aria would change places if the need was truly there but maybe she could try and find some kind of part-time job that allowed her to stay in the same place. Moving could be one hell of a headache that she really didn't want to go through at that point.

The logistics took some time but as soon as she figured it all out, Aria quickly informed the company that she was no longer interested in providing services for them.  Had it been some kind of fully legal job, she wouldn't be able to just quit like that but given that they worked on the verge of the law, no one would ever go to her and order her to work for a couple more months before fully leaving.

Her life did a full 360 in the span of a couple of days.

She applied for a job in the closest supermarket and got a response faster than ever expected.

It took just a few days until she was starting out there and learning everything it entailed.

Truly, she felt a bit lost at first. Given how much they paid, it was almost hard to believe everything they expected her to do in the span of just a few hours but Aria wasn't exactly naive, she knew well that her previous job experience wasn't the best to judge what was expected.

The most important change in her new job was how everyone worked as a team.

After months of competing with other women for clients and comparing who made the most amount of money, it was for sure different to suddenly be faced with a team that wanted to help her in every way possible and allow her to grow with them.

Make no mistake, the first few days of the job allowed her to understand that not everything would be as easy as it initially seemed. There was far more information to learn for the job than she ever expected and for once, her good memorization skills paid off in something other than her academics.

From little codes at the cashier to the complete process of work in certain areas of the store, it was easy to forget just how much went into a job like that. On top of everything, she still had to obviously deal with all sorts of customers and uncomfortable situations but when you compared it to the obvious reality of being an escort, all of it seemed mild.

The reality was that the change was better for her than she could have ever expected and for once, Aria could confidently admit to people what her job truly was without a single bit of shame.

So maybe, even if painful, having such a bad client might have been the change she truly needed in her life. The full result? Only time would tell.