Ace leaned back, his expression unreadable as he absorbed the weight of Yuri's words.
"So you're saying… these other kids are the children of your co-workers?" His tone was calm, but there was an underlying sharpness to it.
Yuri gave a slow nod, her fingers tightening slightly around the thin blanket covering her.
"This is messed up," Ace muttered, shaking his head. "Do they not care about their own children?"
Yuri's lips curled into a bitter smile as she looked down at her hands.
"They don't have a choice," she said softly. "Whenever a girl gets pregnant, she's taken care of, fed, given a brief reprieve until she gives birth."
Her voice trembled slightly. "And then… then they send her right back to serving guests, we don't know what happened to the kids we birth."
Ace said nothing, but his fingers tapped against the armrest of his chair, a subtle sign of his irritation.
He then asked a question without hesitation.
"Do the women know their children are still alive?"
