The V-tuber Who Became Obsessed With Me

Chapter 110: A promise I have to keep .

(This Chapter is told from Ethan’s pov and a continuation from Chapter 107 where Ethan visited the prison ..it happened the same timeline)

The prison stayed with me long after I walked out of it.

Even as the steel gates closed behind us and the grey walls disappeared in the rearview mirror, I could still see Kuro standing there in that faded uniform, wrists cuffed in front of him, shoulders noticeably thinner than they had been a month ago.

More than anything else, I could not get his eyes out of my head.

Not the eyes of a man afraid of prison.

The eyes of a man afraid of something waiting outside of it.

Jade drove us back without speaking.

Neither of us seemed interested in breaking the quiet.

The city moved past the windows while the late afternoon sun sank behind Harrington’s skyline and stretched long shadows across the roads.

Eventually I said,

"Kuro told me everything."

Jade kept his eyes forward.

"Everything?"

"He asked me to get you out of Harrington."

That made him look at me.

"For me?"

"He was scared," I said. "I’ve never seen Kuro scared before. Not in the warehouse, not when everything fell apart around him. But today the fear wasn’t for himself."

Jade’s grip tightened on the steering wheel.

For a long moment he did not respond.

Then he gave a smile that somehow hurt more than tears would have.

"I know."

The quiet came back.

"I promised him," I said. "I told him I’d get you out."

He nodded slowly.

"If Kuro asked, then I’ll go."

He said it without drama, without hesitation.

"No arguments. If he’s scared enough to ask you then something must be very wrong."

He looked back at the road.

"I trust him. So I trust you."

Something twisted in my chest.

None of this was supposed to happen.

"I’m sorry," I said.

He glanced at me.

"For what?"

"For dragging you into this."

"You didn’t."

His voice was quiet and completely certain.

"If anyone dragged me into this, it was me. I chose him."

A pause.

"And if I had to choose again, I still would."

There was nothing left for me to say to that.

By the time he pulled over outside his building, dusk had settled over the city.

He switched off the engine and sat for a moment.

"What now?"

"Go upstairs," I said. "Pack what you absolutely need. No old phones, no computers, no posting anywhere. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going."

He listened carefully.

"When?"

"As soon as I can arrange it."

He nodded once.

Then he opened the door and stopped halfway out.

"Ethan."

"Yeah."

"Thank you."

He got out and walked into the building without looking back.

I sat in the parked car and watched the windows until his apartment lights came on.

Then I drove away.

Sleep did not come.

I lay in the dark staring at the ceiling while Kuro’s words kept running on their own loop.

Get Jade out.

Keep your family away from Katsuro.

Stay away from Raina.

Each one heavier than the one before.

I turned onto my side.

Closed my eyes.

Opened them again.

The apartment was quiet except for the occasional sound of traffic outside, and somewhere in that quiet I gave up pretending I was going to sleep and sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed both hands over my face.

My eyes landed on the photograph on the bedside table.

Nathan.

Selene.

Jonathan sitting on Nathan’s shoulders with the kind of grin that belonged to children who did not know yet that the world was complicated.

Beside it, my mother.

Smiling at the camera the way she always smiled, like she had been looking forward to the photograph.

A sharp feeling settled in my chest.

Kuro had not just warned me about Jade.

He had said Nathan.

Selene.

Jonathan.

All of them.

The thought of any of them becoming leverage in whatever Katsuro Arashigumi was arranging settled in my stomach like something cold.

Without really deciding to, I reached for my phone.

9:42 PM.

She would be awake.

It rang twice.

"Ethan!"

Her voice filled the room immediately, warm and entirely itself.

"Hi Mum."

"Oh sweetheart, I was just thinking about calling you. I told Selene if you didn’t call me this week I was going to ring you and remind you your mother still exists."

Despite everything, I smiled.

"I’ve been busy."

"You’re always busy."

A brief pause.

"How are you? And don’t say fine in that voice."

"What voice?"

"The one that means you’re not fine but you don’t want me to know it."

I leaned back against the headboard.

"I’m tired."

"You’re working too hard again."

"Maybe."

"Not maybe. Definitely."

She sighed in that particular way she had, the one that managed to communicate both exasperation and love in the same breath.

"You young people think everything collapses the moment you stop."

"Sometimes it does."

"It doesn’t."

She said it with the complete certainty of someone who had seen more collapses than I had and was still here to discuss them.

"The world keeps moving regardless."

We talked for a while about nothing consequential.

Selene had painted one of the rooms in Nathan’s house a colour Nathan hated.

Jonathan had decided he wanted to be an archaeologist after watching something on television.

The garden was doing better than expected this year.

Normal things.

Ordinary things.

Then she asked,

"How’s Raina?"

The question landed in the silence before I had time to prepare for it.

"Ethan?"

"Yeah."

"Everything alright between you two?"

My fingers tightened around the phone.

How was I supposed to answer that.

How do you explain to your mother that the woman she had welcomed into dinner and called family and asked about every week was someone she had never fully known.

How do you tell her that Felix, the disappearance that had sat in the background of my life for years, was connected to the same woman in ways I still did not completely understand.

I could not.

Not tonight.

Maybe not ever.

She had been through enough.

She had come home from a hospital and was still going to rehabilitation sessions twice a week and getting her strength back and she deserved to do that without another layer of damage being added to it.

"We’re okay," I said.

"You hesitated."

"I’m tired."

A longer pause this time.

Long enough that I knew she was deciding whether to push.

"Mothers know things," she said finally.

"I know."

"If something’s wrong, you’ll tell me."

"I will."

Not entirely true.

Not entirely a lie.

She accepted it.

"Good."

A shift in her tone, something lighter coming through.

"Now promise me something."

"What?"

"Stop just surviving."

She said it simply, the way she said things when she had been thinking about them for a while.

"I didn’t raise my son so he could spend every day getting through it."

"My health is better now."

"You don’t have to carry everything by yourself anymore."

A pause.

"Live a little, Ethan."

"Rest."

"You’re allowed to be happy."

My throat tightened.

"I’ll try."

"No."

"You’ll do better than try."

I could not help smiling at that.

"Okay."

"I’ll do better."

"That’s my boy."

She sounded satisfied.

"Oh, I’m making tomato sauce and mashed potatoes this weekend."

"You’re coming over."

"Mum—"

"No arguments."

"You’ve gotten too thin."

"I can hear it."

"You can’t hear thin."

"I gave birth to you."

"I can hear anything."

I shook my head.

"You always win."

"I know."

Then, quieter,

"And tell Raina she doesn’t need an invitation."

"She’s family."

"She can visit whenever she wants."

The words landed differently than she could have known.

"I’ll tell her," I said.

"Good."

"No more living on coffee either."

"Real food, vegetables, protein."

"No excuses."

"Yes Mum."

"Say hello to Nathan."

"I will."

"I love you, sweetheart."

I looked at the photograph on the bedside table.

"I love you too."

The call ended.

The apartment went quiet again.

I sat with the phone in my hand for a while.

My mother still thought Raina was part of the family.

Nathan still thought life was more or less normal.

Jonathan still had that grin that belonged to someone who trusted the adults around him to handle things.

I wished I felt like someone who could handle things.

Eventually I let out a long breath and scrolled through my contacts.

Protecting Jade.

Protecting my family.

Keeping the promise I had made inside a prison visitation room.

I could not do any of it alone, and there was only one person I trusted enough to call.

My thumb found the name.

Susan.

I pressed call before I had time to second-guess it.

She answered on the second ring, her voice carrying genuine surprise.

"Ethan."

"This is unexpected."

"I know," I said.

"I’m sorry to ask this."

"But I need a favour."

The lightness left her voice immediately.

"What kind of favour?"