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Chapter 119
Fifth day of confinement
I began keeping a diary today.
Or more appropriately, I was allowed to keep a diary.
Kanako dragged me into a room of her 2LDK apartment. That was probably five days ago. Though I couldn’t say for sure.
While there was a window, the sliding storm shutter was closed, so I couldn‘t look outside. There wasn’t a TV or clock either.
My life was dictated by Kanako. I was only allowed to look at the things Kanako approved, I was only allowed to ask the things Kanako approved and am only allowed to know the things Kanako allowed. Hence, I have not the slightest clue what’s going on outside.
My current world revolves around her.
The section she allowed me to move in was a single part of the room. A single corner. The room itself was six tatami mats big.
However, I wasn’t allowed to move freely either. Around my neck hung a one and a half meter long chain. That was the reach I was granted.
Like a chained dog, I also wore a crude, black leather collar. Its end fixated on the wall. The backside must have been reinforced with lining though, as the spots rubbing against my skin weren’t coarse. While it didn’t dig into my skin, it would have very well impaired my breathing were it to be made one centimeter tighter. What a miraculous collar indeed.
On the clasp hung a padlock. It was chillingly cold and heavy.
I was also handcuffed in the beginning, which brought with it its own share of inconveniences. As it irritated me, I spent most of my time fiddling around with my hands. As a result, they began cutting into my wrists, making them bleed. Kanako pitied me and took them off.
“I’m sorry, Hiro-kun. Your hands must hurt.”
She spoke to me in her usual nasally sweet voice, just as ever. She laughed. She comforted me. It was clear she cared about me from deep within her.
When she took off my handcuffs, her long hair touched my cheek. They filled my nose with their faintly sweet smell.
Her hair looked a bit hard and stiff, at least compared to the other girls. It was loosely permed, dyed light brown and stretched all the way down to her chest.
Her hair tips jumped slightly up and down, caressing my cheek and neck as if they were licking them. All the hair covering my body – that could have been called hair – got erect in an instant.
She took an antiseptic solution out of the first aid kid and poured it onto my wound. The abrupt coldness hit me combined with the stinging pain.
Despite my hands being freed of their chains, it didn’t look like the chain around my neck would be taken off.
That was everything that happened this morning. Though, I have not the slightest idea whether it’s actually morning or not. As the shutters remained closed.
Kanako was about to leave. She couldn’t afford to miss today’s lectures apparently.
I didn’t know which courses she took nor on which days and at which time periods they were held. In short, her behavior gave me not the slightest clue, to determine the time of day.
She put a campus notebook and a 2B pencil – on which the logo of her university was imbued – in front of me.
“Draw something and be a good boy, alright?”
She said in her sweet voice I adored so, before stroking my right cheek. Her thin, graceful finger tickled. It was cold. With her nail she began peeling off the crust on my cheek. I began to itch and felt a rising heat. The wound opened and blood poured out.
“Can I keep a diary?”
I asked timidly, possibly scared of what her response might be.
I aspired to become a manga artist, but I haven’t drawn anything to my satisfaction. Nor have I proclaimed my dream openly. I hated pushing myself. I was a coward. I didn’t want to commit. Kanako was the only one who knew of my dream.
But, did I really wish to be a manga artist? I wouldn’t have an answer to that question. At least, I didn’t feel like drawing a manga. I didn’t even want to draw anything in general.
In me welled up not a single bubble filled with the wish to draw. Could such a person truly become a manga artist? One part of me felt a little sad while pondering about these things, while another part didn’t seem concerned one bit.
Her pupils – under her hidden double lid – narrowed.
“You can.”
“Thank you.”, I said my thanks. I felt it was appropriate to express my gratitude properly. With her approval, I began keeping a diary.
Sixth day of confinement
Every meal had to be taken with Kanako. Breakfast, lunch and dinner; everyone.
During these six days, there were only two times where Kanako went out and didn’t come back even until noon. Yet, no matter how empty my stomach was, I had no choice but to wait. In the dust filled room, accompanied by my growling hunger, I solely waited for her to prepare a warm meal.
It had gotten quite cold. So, a warm meal – which heat gently spread in your belly – was bliss.
We’re sleeping in the same room. A 1.5m big futon was spread on the ground, that’s where I lied and Kanako crawled inside.
As Winter was approaching, the mornings and evenings got noticeably colder. With it came a sensation similar to pain, which haunted my lower feet and tip of my toes. Though when I entered the single futon, I felt her body warmth. She’s warm and soft. I knew her figure well.
The room was incredibly cold, draining my strength if I ever left the futon. I wished to remain in my enticing, hazy slumber. This morning’s coldness pierced deeply into my flesh.
Kanako suffered from low blood pressure, so she always had trouble getting up. Much more in this season. She looked pale, as she sluggishly crawled out of the futon and began preparing breakfast.
Cream stew and butter rolls were served.
I wouldn’t have minded if she had cut corners due to her sleepiness. Yet she apparently made the cream stew from scratch. “apparently” because I actually couldn’t watch her cook. She took a long time for simply heating up pre-made food, so I concluded she didn’t.
In the cream stew swam quite large potato chunks, carrots, onion and pig meat. We had the same deep plate, although with different colors. Kanako’s was dyed in a slight pink, while mine was pea green.
The futon was folded away and replaced by a foldable table, with tableware placed on it.
Around then Kanako also opened her eyes properly. Maybe cooking was some sort of waking up ritual for her.
I spooned a potato piece that stood out of the hot fluid. The starchiness had dissolved, and cream covered the stew’s surface. I took a spoonful. Its steamy hotness burned my tongue.
“Sot!”
As my mouth was also filled with the potato chunk, I could only utter a sorry attempt at the word “hot”.
“I told you. Eat slowly.”
She rebuked me gently, looking like an amused mother – who had witnessed her child’s tiny blunder.
Kanako normally doesn’t wear make-up. Whether she just got up or not, she always looked the same. Her eyes were narrow under her hidden double lid, hence she was often asked if she was still asleep by her friends. However, she hated those questions. At least that’s what her eyes told me.
Those pupils were focused on me, surfacing a bright shine.
She took careful sips of her stew. Not taking her eyes off me, she chewed mysteriously.
I leaped over the table. The spoon produced a clacking sound when hitting the dish. The chain around my neck extended to its limit. I couldn’t go any further. The only choice I had was going sideways or retracting my body again. No other. I couldn’t escape.
She gently wrapped her hands around my face and pressed her lips on mine.
The stew she just ate flowed deep into my mouth. The chewed stew’s natural hotness was almost entirely in sync with her body warmth and consisted only of chewed up fragments. I drank it all. I drank her aroma.
“Was it delicious?”
“It was a treat.”, I replied and tried to laugh. I couldn’t see if I succeeded or not though.
Just like every meal of mine was Kanako’s sole responsibility, my excretion was completely in her care as well. While I was certainly reluctant at first, due to the chain preventing my escape, I had no choice but to obey her.
Whether she got them from somewhere or bought them from who knows where, she supplied me with an iron potty and urine bottles.
“Want to go on the potty?”
She asked me with a teasing tone.
“It’s embarrassing with you here.”
My reply sent her into a muffling laugh as she left the room.
The pot rejected me with its iciness.
Seventh day of confinement
A week has passed now.
I didn’t go to school nor to my part time job. I was wondering to at least some degree how the outside world treated my disappearance. Perhaps no one had noticed.
Whether I was there or not didn’t bear any kind of importance. Even if I die or disappear, no one would have cared. At least, I was essential to Kanako. Or so I wanted to believe. I wanted to be an essential part for her.
I was probably fired from my part time job at the supermarket.
Not that it bothered me. It wasn’t an island of joy in my life by any means.
I was living alone with Kanako for one week. That in itself should have been a reason for joy; it was a wonderful thing. It lifted so many burdens from my shoulders, as I had to no longer deal with annoying co-workers nor be respectful to crude customers.
The downside was that I couldn’t leave. Kanako did everything for me but once she leaves, I had nothing to do. Except writing this diary.
I didn’t feel like drawing manga. At most, some little scribbles in the corner of the page.
She left me a Campus Note and a sharpened 2B pencil, so I could continue my diary.
She was a gentle soul. If she had to chain me up, I wished to at least be chained to her hand.
Here only this white paper and my beloved Kanako exist.
She made boneless pork and Kakuni as dinner. The Shaoxing wine and sweet soy sauce fat swam on the surface and dyed the green onions. Its thick sweetness remained in my mouth and some meat tendons got stuck between my teeth. It was delicious. I expressed its tastiness.
“It’s delicious!”
“Really?”
Kanako blushed from happiness. I was happy too.
After dinner, she filled a towel with hot water, wringed it out thoroughly and washed my body. Since I lost my handcuffs, I could have very well done it myself. I could have undressed myself as well. But, it was Kanako’s wish and I had no reason to refuse her kindness. I let her wash me and had gotten used to the shame by now too.
When she took off my clothes – for some reason – I felt like she was peeling off my skin. It felt weird.
My body had become her sole property. I ate the food she prepared for me and left everything in her care.
It was cold without a shirt.
She rolled up the sleeves of her sweater and began washing my body slowly. A numb pain shot through my body as she touched my bruises.
Eight day of confinement
Nothing in particular – I felt the need to write down – came to mind.
Kanako went to school, came back whenever she had time, ate with me and returned to school. The apartment was two stations away, so the commute took her around 20 minutes, all in all.
I idled around.
123 + 4 – 5 + 67 – 89 = 100, 12 + 3 – 4 + 5 + 67 + 8 + 9 = 100,
1 + 23 – 4 + 56 + 7 + 8 + 9 = 100, 1 + 2 + 3 – 4 + 5 + 6+ 78 + 9 = 100.
What a pain.
I still felt no desire to draw anything along the lines of a manga.
Lunch consisted of a wiener with a basil and garlic sauce, it was delicious. It was a lot more refreshing than I anticipated, I could get addicted to that taste.
Ninth day of confinement
“You know, while I was waiting for the train at the station today, there was a girl standing in front of me. I pushed her down.”
She said enthusiastically without any clear reason.
“I didn’t really want to but when I gave her a light push, she just fell on the tracks.”
My knees were glued to the floor as she was staring at me. She spoke to me in a slightly shrill but sweet voice. Her face was as innocent as you would expect from a girl and her cheeks red from the cold outside. Or was she excited?
“Hey, what do you think happened then?”
Her hair wavered slightly. Her honey-colored hair reflected on her skin, that reminded one more of a walking undead. Her long-sleeved, purple blue cardigan complimented her features perfectly.
“What happened?”, I prompted her for an answer.
“Exactly at that moment a train drove through and hit that girl. There was a loud crashing sound, followed by a fog of blood and a scream. I smelled the brakes rubbing against the iron and burning meat.”
She played with her graceful hair while telling me all that. Her twined around twirls of hair looked like disgusting insects.
“People really die easily, huh? How pitiable.”
She let go of her hair and stroked my cheek.
When she uttered the word pitiable, it almost seemed like she was laughing. How pitiable.
Was she saying it served them right?
I pitied her for only finding comfort in these kinds of things. I also thought she was incredibly adorable, however.
There was no TV or PC. No newspaper or magazine. I had no way to verify whether that incident truly happened or was just a careless story of hers.
Every living thing dies. I too, will die one day.
Imagining death was unbelievably terrifying. I didn’t want to die. I wished someone would die instead of me.
I wondered what will happen after death. What dying truly was like. What dying felt like. Where will those feelings disappear of to after leaving me.
Would I disappear too? Or would I continue in some other form I couldn’t even fathom? Is this consciousness, me? Will I disappear after I died? What did the woman think right before she died? What did she feel? Fear? Or relief? I wanted someone to tell me. I wanted to know.
Why do humans die? Why do living things have to die?
My diary would outlive me.
Kanako and I were holding hands while sleeping.
Tenth day of confinement
After Kanako came back at noon and left again, two demons showed up. With a clicking sound the room got flooded by light. In the shine of the fluorescent lamp stood two demons, a girl and man, both clad in black.
“How did you two get in?”, I inquired in surprise.
Kanako must surely have locked the door.
“If a murder occurs in a secret room, you don’t call a detective but an exorcist!”
The male demon spoke. I couldn’t grasp the meaning of his words. Was it some kind of aphorism?
Both his shirt and jeans were completely black. His feet were clad in black sneakers. He hadn’t taken them off. His skin was tanned and his hair carelessly scattered. He wore a big. shining skull ring on his right index finger.
“We are demons.”, he said with a faint smile, that left me wondering about the seriousness of his words.
“He’s just a crow.”, the female demon corrected him at once..
Her clothes were black as well. Her one-piece was woven from darkness, while her slender legs were wrapped in black knee-high socks and rounded off by shiningly black shoes. She hadn’t taken them off either.
It resembled more of a mourning dress. However, her expression was yet innocent.
Her eyes reminded me of black toffee, contrasting her incredibly white skin. Her hair wasn’t truly silver but void of any color. It was cut short all around except on the left where she had let a tiny part grow out, in order to braid it. A black ribbon finished it off.
Was she some kind of goth loli? I wasn’t too versed in that sub-culture but knew of its existence at least. Maybe they were part of a satanic cult? She being a demon and he a crow were roles then. Speaking of that, he kind of looked like a crow.
But I wonder what that demon and crow stuff is about.
“Our company has great customer service”, said the crow.
“Customer service?”
“Yes. Please stay loyal to ‘Ichijiku’s detective agency’ in the future too.”
The crow offered me a business card. I took it, making my chain rustle.
“Nine’s detective agency?”
I’ve read the letters on the white business card out aloud. Nothing else was written on it.
“It’s ‘Ichijiku’, he said it right now! He just loves to crack that weird joke.”
She snarled at me before folding her hands together and violently averting her gaze. Her braids and ribbon followed her turbulent movement.
I focused on the card once again and after some pondering, I had a theory.
“Because I is the 9th letter in the alphabet?”
“Bull’s eye.”, nodded the crow.
“By the way, you can call me the one and only Ninomae!”
“Because you’re the only one with that name?”
“Affirmative!”, just as the words had left his mouth, the girl sent her black shoe towards his foot.
“Ow!”
He fell on his knees, holding his foot. It must have hurt.
Meanwhile, her face was overflowing with resentment. She sent a razor-sharp gaze towards the man.
“I’m sorry for sullying your ear canals by mentioning the saint’s name.”
He sounded close to tears.
The two didn’t make a detective-like impression in some ways. Were they really? Or was it just some silly joke?
At least they weren’t robbers as they weren’t scouring the place in a frantic search for loot.
But their lack of surprise upon seeing me, in turn, surprised me. I mean, I was chained to the wall.
If it were me, I have never hid my agitation. Did that mean they knew of me?
“Either way, this place sure is cold.”, said the demonic girl with a slightly jittering look. Hands on her hips, she began surveying the place, who’s sliding storm shutters were still closed.
“The cooler is way too strong. Doesn’t it have an eco-setting?”
I was perplexed by her words. It was winter, so of course it would be cold.
“Guess it should have been used more economically.”.
The crow laughed heartily after saying that.
The girl didn’t move a muscle.
And I was unsure what to move…
He laughed for a while before lightly clearing his throat.
“I got a bit carried away there. Though I didn’t have much choice there.”, or so he said.
“In order to prevent organisms from rotting, you have to keep them cold. Especially in summer. Decomposition is the multiplication of the bacteria in a corpse’s intestines, autolysis or self-digestion is the destruction of cells through the human body’s own enzymes. Natural phenomena. The best air temperature is usually between 25°C and 35°C, so turning it down to under 5°C prevents decay. Though, a cooler can’t very well maintain temperatures of 5°C. With Formaldehyde, Ethanol and Glycerine you can create quite the powerful antisepsis to inject the corpse with however.”
What was he on about?
“Hey, why did you two come here in the first place?”
They looked each other in the eyes before the demon girl spouted in annoyance.
“We came to check on you, Hiro.”
Check on me? Did Kanako ask them to?
“But, well, I think you’re doing quite well.” she said.
Her voice sounded a bit lonely and she laughed a bit.
Hearing those two – especially since I didn’t know them – go on about me “doing fine” made me distressed. Yet there was a far more important matter to take care of.
“Excuse me.”, I opened my mouth, accompanied by my rustling chains.
“Can you do me a favor? Can you not inform the authorities about this? That’s what we, well me and her, agreed on.”
I plead, doing my utmost to sound honest and remaining as calm as the circumstances allowed.
The two looked at each other before the girl spoke up.
“Don’t worry. That’s not our intention here at all.”
Her sincere sounding words took a load off my mind.
The crow looked broadly around the apartment. But there was nothing that fancied his eyes.
“A nice room.”
He said, shooting down my expectations.
He added, “You should keep a hamster in here.”.
“Why?”
I inquired. Why a hamster? I was perplexed.
He began drawing circles in the air, on the side of his head with his right index finger. His skull ring shone. I was skeptical about what he tried to imply.
“Look, those things turn like car wheels, right? This room would be perfect with one of those! They turn endlessly without any goal. Futile. They fit humans.”
“Ah…”
His explanations didn’t explain anything to me.
“Do you have anything sweet here by the way?”
He squatted to look me in the eyes as he said that.
“Hm, I think there should be some chocolate in the fridge?”
“We’ll take care of that then.”
After they had vanished for a short while, shouts of joy echoed through the apartment, mixed with an “Ooooh!”.
They returned, stuffing their cheeks with Kanako’s handmade cream puffs.
The little girl helped herself to one, then two of them. They were placed on a big, flat plate and wrapped. Some of the custard cream stuck to the edge of her lips.
The crow too, stuffed one of them into his mouth and nodded.
“Mhm, this is indeed a marvelous creation. The fluffy part in particular is hard to get right. The key is how you heat the butter, as you have to add heat as long as it doesn’t seathe. They won’t expand if you don’t fully commit to it. After that, you have to swiftly mix in the floor, any slowness or shakiness will ruin it. And this cream too! It’s not too firm, nor gets in the way of chewing. Truly a perfect specimen of this dessert!”
“Whaw chow choat ap!”
The little girl’s mouth was filled with cream puff as she uttered those words. I was at a loss, trying to decipher her sounds. Though I concluded that she was probably telling him to shut up.
He shrugged and reached out for another puff.
The girl slapped his hand loudly.
“Hey! You trying to eat them all?!”
The girl remained quiet. Her incredibly white cheeks were dyed slightly red as she heartily stuffed a puff in her mouth.
As she gulped it down, she asked me “Do you want one too?”
She looked at me.
“Why is he allowed to but not me?!”, grumbled the crow behind her.
“I’m good. I don’t really like sweet things.”
However, Kanako adored them, so she might scold me later. I thought.
“Alright, even though they’re so good. Sweetness is great. You can’t go wrong with sugar in every dish.
It sounded like she was talking about the first step to permanent world peace. Weird.
“Red bean paste in rice pasta for example.”
The crow laughed devilishly. I didn’t get what he was on about. Pasta made with red bean paste served like rice…? That didn’t sound edible at all.
She grabbed his ear and pulled him along.
“Ow ow ow! Let go!”
“We’ll be coming again. Have something sweet for us then.”
With those words, they left the apartment. Weird pair, those two.
Eleventh day of confinement
I dreamed last night. But I couldn’t remember what.
I think it was a cruel dream. Cruel but somehow nostalgic.
As painful and disgusting as getting your fingertips grated off with a grater. Rasp, rasp, rasp, it’s grating off the nails, skin, bones. Blood drops and meat lumps dripple down.
But I didn’t have a nightmare. It was too bleak and nostalgic for that to be the case. It felt like I was returning to my hometown. I may have not wanted to return, felt sad – unbearably so – but still incredibly relieved to be back.
It’s the seventh day after I began keeping this diary. Seeing how much I had written – despite not doing anything – surprised even myself. Shouldn’t a diary be like two or three rows at most?
Additionally, I didn’t know how much, on average, one typically writes in a diary. It wasn’t grade school homework though I didn’t want to show it to someone either. I wasn’t even much of the diary type. Writing these sentences showed me that I wasn’t completely incompetent at it. Reading wasn’t problematic either.
I hadn’t drawn a manga yet. I didn’t even think of any story to tell. Maybe a picture diary would’ve been better but that felt like grade school homework.
Why did I want to become a manga artist again? I thought about it for a bit but couldn’t remember. I wasn’t an exemplary human, so maybe the desire to draw a manga became a bridge between me and the current world, akin to a supporting pillar.
I didn’t tell this to Kanako.
I hadn’t any particular desire to share them with anyone. Putting them into concrete words was already troubling. Maybe it would be easier in a manga? I wondered that too.
Kanako looked distressingly melancholic today.
“What’s wrong?”, I inquired but she didn’t reply.
Because she was clouded in a rejecting atmosphere too, I refrained from asking her about the detective duo from yesterday. They did say they were demons, right? That black duo. How did they even get in here? And what did they come for? They just ate Kanako’s cream puffs. Speaking of that, she didn’t say anything regarding their disappearance.
Almost like I didn’t exist, she was spooning a bought container of vanilla ice cream. It looked bumpy, like the vanilla beans were small insects.
I somehow thought of the movie adaption of Stephen King’s “Misery”.
The way Kathy Bates portrayed Annie’s madness was terrific. Though I wasn’t a novelist like Sheldon. My work couldn’t be of any service to Kanako.
Would she crush my legs with a hammer either way?
I tried rubbing my still intact legs. Her crushing my legs would probably make me happy, I think. I loved Kanako. Though the words felt overly shallow, as they lacked the thing – I needed to express the most – to a frightening degree. I loved Kanako, but perhaps her love for me burned exceedingly more powerful.
It made me happy.
Twelfth day of confinement
Kanako brought an album. It contained pictures of us two playing together. They started from senior high school, so around three years of pictures.
Kanako wore a uniform with a short skirt and navy blue knee socks. She was tanned more than nowadays too. Her legs looked healthy and voluptuous. Her hair was short too. She looked a bit childish. The photo was only two or maybe three years old but it depicted a Kanako vastly different to the current one.
“Aren’t you looking at the wrong spots?”, said Kanako, sticking her bottom lip out.
“Nah, I just thought how nice high school girls are.”, said I in a joking manner.
“What? That’s all the more perverted.”. Kanako laughed too.
Licking her fingertips, she turned around one page after another, before arriving at a nostalgic shot.
She was part of the track and field club, so there were – of course – also pictures of her in uniform. Seeing her sweating from her forehead was mysteriously arousing.
“No peeking allowed!”
Flustered, she jumped forward and hid it with her whole body. She laughed, obviously embarrassed.
We looked at other pictures from field trips, culture festivals as well. All of them were engraved in my mind.
No matter which one though, Kanako smiled in all of them. Her narrow eyes are even narrower. You might very well think she wasn’t doing so well, I thought.
But her sleepy pupils were cute. I adored her trifling manner.
Yet in some of them – despite her smile – her eyes looked cold. Maybe I was imagining it. Constant, not like her at all. She was inconsistent. Come to think of it, that might be what I loved most about her.
Thirteenth day of confinement
“Your beard grew.”, remarked Kanako while eating breakfast, facing me.
She pierced the crusty exterior of the sweet French toast with her knife at the same time.
I hadn’t shaved for several days now. My stubbles – as they were left untouched – sprouted from my cheeks, chin and throat. My beard grew.
She reached out to my face and touched my beard.
“It’s shaggy.”
She said and smiled, seemingly tickled by my beard.
But shouldn’t I be the ticklish one here? I slightly twisted around.
“Hey, can I shave you?”
She promptly pulled on my beard with her index finger and thumb.
Without waiting for my answer, she stood up, went into the bathroom and returned with a safety razor and shaving gel.
“Don’t you have an electric one?”
“Hey, those won’t work if the hair’s that long. Raise your head.”
She took some of the gel and rubbed it on my face. She stroked my face like a kid would knead clay. She took the razor with her right hand.
“Hold still or I may hurt you.”, she said.
The gel under my nose smelled uniquely sweet. It was chilly.
“Raise your chin.”
Still doing as she said, I bent my head backwards, exposing my throat. My eyes met with hers. I laughed.
She put the blade on my throat and pressingly moved it bottom to top. You could hear how my beard got shaved off. I was helpless.
She continued shaving me in a rough manner. From time to time, some hairs would get caught and I felt a tiny pain from having them ripped out. The sound of her rough breathing got caught in my ear. My shaved skin was itchy.
When she put her finger right under my chin, I couldn’t open my mouth. Breathing through my nose was harsh, hence I relied on the gaps between my teeth for my oxygen intake.
Suddenly, Kanako mumbled something but I couldn’t make out what. I couldn’t ask her either.
Once she was done with my throat, she continued with my cheeks, chin and under my nose.
“What did you say before?”
I asked her, after a while. “A while” was probably around ten minutes. As she was shaving my beard, she was still careful and serious but also incredibly reckless in her movements. Ten minutes went by. They felt like she just waited for the right moment to slit my throat.
“Before?”
She tilted her head slowly. Her long hair wavered elegantly.
“You mumbled something, right?”
I stroke my shaved face with my fingertips.
She gently wrapped a towel – she had previously wringed dry – around my head. It covered my eyes, making her disappear from my view.
“A plate.”
Fourteenth day of confinement
The rain didn’t seem to end since yesterday. Today, too, was incredibly cold. The fragrance of the onion soup we ate as breakfast remained in my mouth.
“I lent out a movie, want to watch it together?”
She took the DVD out of the video rental store’s shopping bag as she said that. On the folding table were placed Kanako’s self-made cookies, orange juice and her laptop. She inserted the DVD into the drive.
You could hear yelling fans, standing as close together as louses.
Kanako snuggled up to my right side. I could feel every degree of her body temperature. Her hair stroked my cheek.
The movie began. It was an old one. A comedy. I laughed as I watched it. But Kanako was weird. She seemed to focus solely on me and not on the movie at all.
“Meh, let’s stop here.”, she said after fifteen minutes.
“Why? I like it.”
Honestly – watching a video after around ten days without one – amazed me in a novel way. The audience of the Lumière brother’s first movie screening may have felt a similar sensation. People were moving on the screen. How astonishing.
Kanako opened her eyes upon hearing my words. I could clearly see her reed capillaries.
“What are you saying?”
I understood that it had made her anxious. At the same time, she rose up violently, knocking over the laptop and the orange juice cups alongside it. The juice spilled out, the cookies too, were clustered on the floor. The laptop soaked up the fluid oranges.
“It’s broken!”, I stated the obvious. I couldn’t pick up most of the foreign language but I could pick out a few snippets.
“Don’t look at other girls except me!”
She blurted out suddenly, slightly hysterically. As was to be expected from a comedy, it also contained quite permissive female characters.
“I didn’t!”
“You did!”
“I mean, it’s a movie! But it’s not the…!”
She interrupted my search for the right words with her fist hitting my cheek.
“You can’t look at them!”
She leaned forward, pressing her right thumb onto my left eyelid. I felt a faint pressure.
“If you can’t listen, how about I crush them?”
Her delicate, high whisper poured those words into my ear. The pressure of her thumb on my eyelid grew stronger. I felt a faint fear, followed by an indefinable elation. I got a boner. I felt her outside my jeans. She must have noticed my boner by now as well. In my mouth remained the taste of onion soup and blood.
That moment, the bell rang.
She turned pale, turned to the door, then to me. Her pupils filled with fear.
I smiled.
“Don’t worry. I won’t scream or anything.”
I didn’t know how much my words calmed her in reality though.
She nodded lightly, stood up and went to the door.
As soon as she disappeared from the room, I felt both relived and lonely. Touching my left eyelid – that barely escaped its downfall – I wondered what would happen if I would call for help. I was just thinking about it though, not like I actually wanted to do it.
It was a courier.
She unwrapped the wrapping paper energetically before beginning to laugh.
I felt incredible sadness.
Fifteenth day of confinement
Today, my right ear was cut off. Just like in the David Lynch movie.
Because Kanako was lonely whenever she couldn’t be with me.
“Hey, can I?”
She pestered me with her sugary voice until I agreed.
She cut off my ear with a pair of scissors. The large sewing scissors – normally used to cut clothes – bore the same paralyzing coldness as my chains.
The second the two blades snapped together, a sharp pain ran through my body, followed by gushing out blood. I held both my hands on the wound. But the blood kept flowing through the slits between my fingers. It ran down the back of my neck and dropped onto my shoulders. The numbing, overbearing pain hit me like a wave, swallowing me without a chance to resist. I clenched my teeth and endured. Inhaled large amounts of oxygen through short, shallow breaths.
She looked at my ear, happily. Smiling innocently like a child who got his desired toy.
“I can see through it, kind of.”
She was happy. If Kanako was happy, so was I. She would take proper care of my ear after all. If so, she would also save me from this pain.
For a short while, she solely looked at my ear. She didn’t notice how I was stopping the bleeding on my own. After I had lost a worrying amount, she finally began treating my wound. She sang through her nose meanwhile, her breaths hitting my blood drenched neck.
She was pleased. If Kanako was pleased, so was I.
I wonder what I should offer her next. What would make her happy?
I’m sure she would be happy about my neck. I was the martyr Johannes and she Salome. Because Salome was always alone.
Poor Kanako. Lonely Kanako.
I adored Kanako.
Sixteenth day of confinement
I didn’t hear the same anymore. Not solely because my ear was covered with a gauze but rather because my auricle was cut off, preventing sound waves to collect.
I wondered how long my ear would last. Once it rot, Kanako will surely need another part of mine, no doubt.
At that pace, my death will be nothing but imminent.
Death.
How did dying feel like?
I was afraid of dying. I was scared of disappearing.
I tried to grasp what it meant for my consciousness to disappear; with all my might. Though I didn’t know what kind of existence I was. They were all but productive thoughts, I thought. My ear was me, but even without my ear, I was still me. Yet I felt like both didn’t suffice to describe me. My clothes, my name, all of them are me. So, there’s no definite way to define me.
Death. Once I tried imagining it, my heart began racing. I couldn’t keep calm.
I was scared. Preposterous. Perhaps I couldn’t bear the concept.
Seventeenth day of confinement
When I opened my eyes, she was already gone.
Today, the two demons showed up. Or detectives, I guess.
The two persons in black.
The man wore a black shirt and jeans, had his black hair standing up and wore a big skull ring on his right index finger.
The girl wore a black one piece and high knee-socks. Her hair was abnormally white and her hair silver. She had her left side grown out and braided, rounded off with a black ribbon.
Just who were these two?
“You don’t have any more cream puffs?”, said the demon in female form.
“I can’t check for you.”
I shrugged my shoulders. My metallic chain rustled numbingly.
“Is your right ear alright?”, said the crow man, pointing at my right ear. His skull ring shone.
“More or less… So, why did you come here? And who are you to begin with?”
“Didn’t we tell you? We’re demons.”
“You’re just a dumb crow.”, spat the girl right after, before looking at me.
“If you can’t serve us cream puffs, we can’t serve you either.”
She turned around, letting her braid whirl in a circle.
“Hey, are you leaving already?!”, spit the crow towards the girl.
“You were the one who wanted to come in the first place! Don’t be so willful!“
“Your cawing sure is loud. Shut it, Ninomae!”
“What’s with the backlash? I really like your interest in humans, honestly. That’s why I’m sticking with you! Don’t just abandon that halfway through!”
“Then explain it yourself! I’ve had enough.”
Back still turned to me, she crossed her arms and stared into the air.
The crow shrugged, before turning to me.
“In two days, at night, Miss Kanako Tokitou will bring along a girl – Azusa Shimamoto – along with her.”
So he said.
“Azusa… Shimamoto…”
I heard that name somewhere. Azusa. Azusa… Shimamoto?
I knew her. She was the same age as me but one class under me.
We had a lecture together and ate several times. Together. I went out with her, brought her home after a drinking party. Azusa Shimamoto. Who is she?
Azusa Shimamoto was my girlfriend. We were dating.
Or did we? Something felt off. That can’t be. The only love I bear is towards Kanako. No one else. I wasn’t allowed to bring her pain. I wasn’t dating Azusa Shimamoto. Indeed. I didn’t know that girl.
It must have been a misunderstanding.
I raised my head, the crow looked at me, deeply fascinated. The lamp was directly behind him but his whole face remained dark. Yet I could clearly see his jet-black eyes which were fixated on me. I wondered why.
“You seem pretty flustered.”, he said and smiled lightly.
“Miss Kanako plans to murder Azusa Shimamoto before your very eyes. For that reason, she will bring her here, alive and well. First, she will stab her in the back. Next, she will turn her over before stabbing her frantically in the chest. That will be the end. Kanako won’t come here after that.”
“Why?”
“The Japanese police isn’t totally incompetent, as unfortunate as that might be.”
“Will they arrest her?”
“Not directly. She will try to escape. But what will become of you?”
“Me?”
“The police will find this apartment in five days.”
“Five days…”
“Only a short delay, but that’s fatal for you, right? No one will take care of you. You will be all alone. Chained to this place.”
I couldn’t react instantly.
What were they saying? I couldn’t believe any of it.
“Well, I guess it’s a bit too much to simply roll with, huh?”
The crow laughed.
So, was it another joke? A wicked one at that.
Suddenly, something hit my chest. It fell on the floor and I tried picking it up. It was candy, strawberry milk flavored. It was sweet.
“What?”, I inquired.
The crow too, had turned his back to me. The one who threw the candy at me was the demon girl. She began speaking, in her unmistakably sharp voice.
“If Kanako Tokitou won’t return, you won’t eat. Starving is a horrible way to go out.”
Starvation.
“Will I die?”
“You’re already dead.”, said the crow himself before bursting out into a cawing laughter. I held my stomach and cowered down.
Then,
“Ah…!”
The girl’s black, round shoe’s hard heel crashed down onto the crow’s head.
He held his head and ran around the apartment.
She merely watched him in disdain, not uttering a single word. As last time, she began walking towards the exit once again.
“W-Wait a moment!”, said the crow, laughing.
He did a surprisingly good imitation. He was definitely hard to get down, or rather, shameless? At least he could recover quickly. He chased after her. While he disappeared from my field of view, he looked at me one last time.
“The master of manga, Osamu Tezuka, imbued two big themes into his manga.”
He held up two fingers. It must have looked like a V from the camera. His skull ring shone.
“First, the discord between humans. Second, the question of life and death. He was scared of dying, he was opposed to it. So, he apparently thought, head held high. Don’t you think that’s such an earthly concern for a god, however?”
I smirked faintly at his words.
“Speaking of him, in his book ‘How to draw manga’, he spoke about ‘Examples of bad 4-koma manga’. Specifically, he’s heavily against using lewd topics or the ‘it was all a dream’-ending.”
“Wow.”
“Oh, waking up from a dream is similar to this philosophical problem. ‘Brain in a vat’, do you know it? It’s about things that happen for real, or rather, made to feel like they’re really happening. But in reality, the brain might just be in a vat filled with culture fluid, with the events merely existing in the brain tissue. Through electrical shocks, it seems real but it may just be an illusion. In short, is this reality truly reality? Can you proof or refute this?”
“What are you trying to say?”
I couldn’t see his point, so I inquired.
“Whether this reality is the real reality, basically.”
“Okay…”
“Oh, by the way, there’s an ironclad rule in novels: Never resort to angels and demons!”
“Really?”
“Similar to how a director shouldn’t explain his own movie.”
He left me with a farewell and left the apartment.
Kanako has taken a while to come back. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Or maybe she just wanted it to look that way.
“Hey, Kanako.”
I wanted to tell her. Tell her? But what? Definitely not everything, so I decided.
“What?”
She gently put her hands on my cheek and tilted her head. Her hair followed.
I opened my mouth but closed it again, before opening it once again.
“I love you.”, I said.
I wanted my feelings to reach her.
“I love you too, Hiro.”
Eighteenth day of confinement
Today was the eighteenth day since I began this life in confinement and the fourteenth of keeping this diary.
Today too, Kanako was out since morning and today, too, I was staring at the diary to pass the time. Just as usually.
But today, an idea for a manga crystallized inside me. But it wasn’t concrete at all. I really did have no talent.
All the manga I’ve tried to draw were filled with pain and only pain. They overflowed with it, as I was solely drawn to them as well. I tried putting those fragmented words and pictures together but couldn’t complete anything.
I remembered how a famous manga artist said his pictures always turn black, when drawing his manga. If you’re dealing with the background and screen tones on a computer, that’s an easy thing to do. Due to how easy it is, he could apparently add little extra things too.
Everything’s faster with a computer, you can even obtain information a lot easier. At the same time, everything becomes equally reachable and valuable. In the end, the supposedly precious things get mixed together with the miscellaneous stuff, until you can’t tell them apart anymore. People say that too.
What should I draw? A question I knew less and less the answer to.
But I knew one thing. That I wanted to draw something. I just didn’t know how to express it on paper, despite my many attempts. The picture just turned black. So, it wasn’t a problem of skill. But maybe that blackness was me in some form.
Kanako wore a black mini skirt, over knee socks and a mohair sweater. She stood before me, looking down on me. I could almost see under her skirt.
“You must be craving a bath, don’t you? Sorry for forgetting!”, she said while removing the chain.
My collar – speaking from the perspective of an observer – likely evoked the image of a master and her pet.
I stumbled. I had almost forgotten how to walk. I could have stumbled with every step. I was wondering how I should plant my foot or when my sole should hit the ground but couldn’t find an answer. The deeper I spiraled into my thoughts, the heavier every step became.
One could have just as well pulled me along. It took me a long while before finally arriving at the bathtub. Maybe a temple pilgrimage would have been easier.
Even though I wasn’t held back by a chain anymore, escape was futile. I didn’t want to escape in the first place either.
After being held captive in her apartment and seeing the same room day after day, the journey to the bathtub invoked feelings unknown to me. Like I had just returned home from a long hike. I knew every crook but yet did not. I felt nostalgic, yet appalled. Those conflicting emotions welled up in me.
I went into the shallow bathtub of the prefabricated bath. I was exhausted. Despite only walking here, my breath was in disarray.
She stroked over the end of my chain before hanging a padlock on it. It was golden, one you could have gotten everywhere. The snap echoed overbearingly through the small bath.
“Hey, I’ll undress you:”
Just like when she washed me, she took off my shirt, before locking the stopper and letting in the hot water. She wet my hair and massaged in the shampoo. Her thin fingers stroked over my head. It felt great.
“Dear customer, does it itch you anywhere?”, she asked.
“Yeah, the sole of my foot!”, I replied jokingly.
I snickered silently. It wasn’t funny, yet I laughed. But maybe that’s because it was funny in some way in the first place.
Then, she kissed me; shortly. We merely pressed our lips together for a short while; nothing more.
I stretched out my hand, wetting her clothes and making her shriek back. I didn’t let her escape. A clang reverberated, as the chain reached its limit, keeping me away from her.
“Be a good boy.”, she said.
She slipped behind me and peeled off the gauze from my right ear, before she started fiddling with my wound. She licked it, poked her nails into it and before long made blood flow out. Diluted by the water, my blood dripped down along my body’s curves.
The wet, blood-covered bathtub didn’t bother her seemingly. She continued washing me meticulously. I was somehow happy about being part of this sad, dream-like scenery.
“I’m taking good care of your ear. It’s always in my bag.”
Her whispers blended together with her sighs.
She hugged me tightly from behind and bit into my left ear. Did she want to rip that one off as well, I wondered? I wouldn’t resist.
Meanwhile, I couldn’t do anything except staring at the water drops hanging from the ceiling.
For some reason, I had the desire to hurt Kanako – just a little bit though – as she hurt me by taking my ear.
Little waves splashed against the bathtub. The drops of water fell down and on my cheek. I got goosebumps. The drops ran down my chin and dripped off.
That moment, I noticed something. I wasn’t sure but I was almost sure that I felt this emotion before.
My whole being was composed of hatred towards Kanako.
I looked at my mirror image when I left the bathroom. My face wore a slightly idiotic expression. My eyes were seemingly swollen. My lips cracked. My right ear is non-existent. My body is covered by purple bruises. Some spots were sewed together as needed. I looked like a corpse. An utterly rotten one at that. I got sick.
Kanako’s hair was wet from her shower, making it look awfully black.
I didn’t tell her anything.
Nineteenth day of confinement.
Another morning – like any other – woke me up. Kanako had left, I was all by myself. I opened my diary and began filling it with words. I didn’t want to draw a manga either. Same as ever.
That’s fine. These peaceful days could have gone on forever, honestly. Only us two. No one to interfere. I was satisfied with this life. Satisfied.
It got dark outside. I heard clattering. Like someone opened the front door. Then voices. Kanako’s voice. It sounded sweet, slightly nasally as it was.
“Get up.”, she said.
Was someone there? I couldn’t make out their response.
Footsteps followed. Indeed, I heard at least two people thudding down the hallway. A quiet cry echoed from the floored floor. Only a short way set me and the front door apart.
I tensed up and thick drops of sweat poured out of my pores.
Soon, the room’s door was opened and light flooded in.
It was Kanako and behind her—Azusa Shimamoto.
Azusa’s eyes yet weren’t accustomed to the dark, hence her lacking reaction towards me as she set foot into the room.
“It sure is dark.”
Her voice was stiff.
“Sorry, I’ll turn on the light.”
She pressed the switch with a click and directly after the lights flickered on.
Right then, a shrill shriek of terror escaped Azusa’s lips. She turned vigorously to Kanako, shouting “What is this disgusting…!”
That’s as far as she was allowed to speak.
Something flashed brightly.
It may have been hard to recognize the object on a moment’s notice but I knew exactly what it was. Yet, what followed escaped my reasoning altogether. Without a second thought, I shouted.
“Watch out!”
Set aside, whether or not I actually meant those words, Azusa – trying to look at me – staggered and fell over.
Kanako cut through the air with her kitchen knife. She closed in again, trying to bring the knife down onto her. Azusa kicked around herself, hitting Kanako and making her fall as well. She got up in an instant, now attempting to mount the wild Azusa.
“Just because you’re alive. Only because of you.”
Kanako muttered in a low, gloomy voice.
“Aaaaaah, noooo!”, Azusa uttered briefly, without raising her voice. She seemingly had a spasm, as only her hands and legs moved violently.
Kanako readied her knife before plunging it into Azusa’s hands. Though she didn’t leave a fatal wound.
“Kanako.”
I stood up, walking towards her. Again, the chains prevented me from reaching her.
The next second, Azusa shot towards Kanako with her arms, grabbed her wrists tightly and made her drop the knife.
“Ah.”, muttered someone.
The kitchen knife’s blade hit the floor with a damp thud, while the blade flashed brightly.
Azusa tried to grab it in an instant. As if her life depended on it.
Kanako reacted similarly but couldn’t reach it in time. Azusa, now in possession of the knife, swung it vividly, and opened a single, blood-red wound on her opponents left arm.
Kanako, oblivious to what had occurred the last seconds, simply stared at her arm.
“Kanako.”
I yelled out to her. Chained down. Chained to a place far away from her. She didn’t look at me.
Azusa, shaking heavily and screaming things I couldn’t understand, stabbed Kanako.
The knife went deep into her stomach. Kanako – simply dumbfounded – flumped on the ground.
Azusa held the knife, her hand shaking. Even if she wanted to throw it away, too much depended on it. Or so I thought. Yet, she simply let it fall onto the ground, before making one slow step after the other. Slowly but surely, she left the apartment.
“Kanako?”
I called out to her.
Her face was pale. She held her stomach. Blood gushed out of it without end.
“Kanako!”
I called out to Kanako.
But she didn’t acknowledge me. Holding her stomach, she bent on the ground.
“It hurts. It hurts so much, Hiro!”
She said, without looking at me.
I stretched out my hand to her. My collar cut into my throat, strangling me.
“Ka-Kanako!”
I heard a slam. Though Azusa Shimamoto should have left the apartment already, I thought in a corner of my mind.
Though I didn’t really care about her.
Kanako is dying! I must save her! I value her after all! I pulled and rattled on the padlock hanging on my chains. But trying to break it was pointless. Still, it had to come off. It had to.
That moment…
“Yo.”
A voice – utterly unfitting to the tone of the scene – echoed through the apartment.
I turned to the speaker.
It was the man in black. He wore a black shirt and jeans, his black hair stood up, his skin tanned. He wore a skull ring on his right hand’s index finger.
Next to him stood a girl. She wore a black one piece, black knee high socks, had her silver hair braided and white skin seemingly devoid of any blood circulation.
The crow and demon…
The crow opened his mouth.
“Ah, how unexpected. Who thought you would save Azusa Shimamoto?!”
He pointed his finger towards me like a pistol. His skull ring shone.
“I saved her…?”
The girl began talking.
“If you hadn’t warned her just in time, she surely would have died. So, you saved her.”
“This is… my fault?”
I looked at Kanako. I looked at the blood on the floor. I looked at her, rolled together in the middle of it. If I had saved Azusa Shimamoto, did that mean I hurt Kanako with my words?!
“Kanako.”
Muttering her name, I looked at the duo, clad in darker dark than darkness itself.
“Please, save Kanako! Call an ambulance! She’s dying! Please! Anything!”
I implored without end.
They looked at each other.
“Do you know what it entails? Making a wish to a demon, I mean.”
The girl inquired.
I shook my head.
The crow continued pitifully.
“You must still doubt us being demons, correct?”
“You’re just a crow.”
Spat the girl on his track. Kanako, having lost sense of her feet, lamented.
“Don’t say that every damn time!”
“I’m just pointing out the truth.”
The crow held his hands up in submission before looking at me.
“If you make a contract with a demon, you can wish for one thing. Though in exchange, your soul shall become the demon’s property after you die. It shall never be salvaged; for all eternity.”
Hell. The first that came to my mind. I have seen it in countless movies and manga already and all these scenes came passing by my eyes once again.
“Are you fantasizing…?”
“Hell is a lot different than the suffering you humans think of. You can’t even describe it with your words either, honestly. Hell, and all others are just for your own convenience. Suffering means to suffer but everyone has their own definition of suffering. And even then, it’s a lot more painful than everything you could imagine.”
“And? Do you still want to form a contract?”
The girl asked in a sad voice.
“Honestly, that girl’s already dead. Even if she were to survive a little longer, there’s no way to save her. Letting her die here is better or rather, it’s merciful. The only thing you’re prolonging is her unbearable pain. Her death is her salvation, in this case, wouldn’t you agree?”
“…”
“Are you attached to her?”
“Yeah…”, I said, my voice shaking.
“Then, you don’t want to see her suffer, right?”
“…Yeah.”
“So, you know what to do.”
The girl pointed at Kanako.
Following her slender, white finger, my eyes met Kanako.
She was hyperventilating. Her blood puddle grew by the second.
She’s dying. And not interfering is the best way? Really? Her death is her salvation? Why should that be? But maybe it was. I pondered. But if she were to die, everything would end here and now. The curtain would fall. Yet, shouldn’t it be possible to cope with your past and find a way to continue? No matter what hardships and pain one endured. It should, shouldn’t it?
Well, I didn’t know for sure. I didn’t know anything about reality.
So, I…
Looked back at the girl and wished wholeheartedly.
“Please. Save Kanako.”
…
…
…
..
.
Twenty third Day of Confinement
The morning came and soon after, the night.
Kanako was sleeping. Ever since then, she hadn’t opened her eyes. But she was alive. My beloved Kanako was indeed breathing calmly and consistently. She had been my biggest priority. Maybe that girl was right. Maybe Kanako should have died. Maybe it could have been her salvation. But I didn’t want her to die.
I was alive. I hadn’t eaten anything, but I wasn’t hungry either, for some reason.
Weirdly, I was happy. I also continued the diary.
But, how would I get by in the future?
The demons saved her. But they didn’t take off my chains. I kinda thought them freeing me was a given but I also didn’t wish for it.
I couldn’t get out of here. At least until Kanako would wake up.
But if she wouldn’t, my existence may very well slowly fade away by the day. Remembered by no one nor known by anyone, would this apartment be left behind and forgotten with time.
Was I sentenced to the same fate?
Jellyfish dissolve in the water when they die. Souma – a girl who attended the same cicada class as me – told me so.
Disappearing. To leave no trace behind.
I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want Kanako to die.
But what did it mean to live? Was it fun? Maybe because of the sheer amount of time to kill, those thoughts popped up all the time. I never had an answer. I just went in circles. Thinking about a problem you don’t have an answer to is the worst. Perhaps, one should live in a way that would dodge all these thoughts. Who knows.
However, maybe that’s what it meant to be alive. Trying to not die. Maybe that’s life.
Dying was scary. One part of me did want to disappear though. Being alive wasn’t all that fun after all. But dying was scary. What even did I wish for?
Funneling these emotions into a manga would have been ideal.
That’s what I thought.
It was funny somehow, I laughed.
The doorbell rang and echoed through the apartment.
I stopped laughing and readied me, looking fixated into the pitch-black darkness. But no matter how much I tried, I saw nothing but black. Still, I continued writing.
I heard someone pounding against the door.
But I couldn’t make out even silhouettes in this overbearing darkness.
I tasted a sourness in my mouth as I was assaulted by fear. I was scared.
I thought this was the end.
I thought whoever was on the other side of that door would save me. Take care of me. Setting an end to this confined life.
Maybe they would even give me delicious treats to eat. Maybe everyone would be kind to me. Maybe I could live on after all. Maybe I could become a manga artist if I just kept on trying.
While all this shot through my head, a mysterious sadness shot through my heart.
The door…
The door opened. I heard the metallic sound of a bell.
The man in black entered.
He was spindly. He wore a black shirt, had his thin body wear a black jeans and black sneakers to go along. His black hair was styled carelessly. His skin was tanned and he held a black notebook under his right arm, while wearing a skull ring on his index finger.
“I’m baaack! I slept the whole noon but now it’s time for business!”
He sat on the leather sofa on the other side of the glass table. Big and small shelves were covering the walls of the reception room. The door – the man in black had just opened – had frosted glass inlaid into it with “Ichijiku’s detective agency” written on it.
The agency was on the second floor of a multi-tenant brick building. Though the building itself was at the end of a small side street. It was a wonder any customer would have found his way here, especially since it was the only store in the area.
“I’m not sleeping. I’m just relaxing my eyes.”
Laying on the sofa with squinted eyes, the girl answered. One way or another, they seemingly still didn’t take their job seriously.
She wore a black one-piece and black knee-high socks, seemingly dyed with ink. She had taken off her left shoe as she lay there lazily. She was a girl clad in complete blackness.
Only her skin was incredibly white, as if void of any blood circulation. Her hair too was void of color, almost as if silver and her bangs were short enough to reveal her eyebrows. She only let her left side grow out to braid it. A black ribbon rounded it all off.
“Didn’t you leave the TV on too? Come on, Ichijiku. Were you watching TV? Did you have no interest in anything human-made?”
“It just turned on by itself. I didn’t do anything.”, answered the girl called Ichijiku violently.
“Hm? Oh, because you’re lying on the remote! Hey, get up.”, he said while grabbing her at the nape of her neck and pulling her up.
“Wha-! Hey, Ninomae! Cease this mockery!”
Once the man called Ninomae got a hold of the remote, he let her free.
“Ugh!”
The girl – having fallen on the ground back-first – let out a noise akin to a run-over frog.
The man laughed. Though ceased this too upon noticing her piercing gaze and began talking.
“Lucifer was dragged down to the center of the world by the weight of his crime. To this day, he – from the bottom of the earth’s bottom – is tempting humans. Humans are living here because of him, because of their magneticity, you could say. The magnetism of their own sins. They even found an explanation through science. Every particle attracts every other particle with a force inversely proportional to the square of their distance and directly proportional to the product of their masses. So, Newton’s law of universal gravitation states.”
“And now?”
She stared at him while rubbing her back.
“That it’s not my fault! You said I should stop, I did and you fell – due to gravity – on the ground. Can you really blame me?”
She laid on the sofa, obviously annoyed, rubbing against the leather.
“Hey… you angry?”
Not uttering a single word, she pierced him with her stare.
He shrugged, sat on the sofa – on the other side of the glass table – and began staring at the TV.
An afternoon gossip program was on. The moderator and many commentators stood side by side.
The overly serious female announcer began speaking.
“Next is a truly cold-blooded crime. Hiroto Ootsuki – who went missing longer than a month ago – was finally discovered. However, he was already dead upon arrival. Kanako Tokitou – who went to the same university as the victim – was arrested under the charge of murder and corpse dumping. She apparently invited the victim home and killed him in the bathtub.”
“Heeey, Hiro’s on TV!”
Ninomae was pointing at the TV, his skull ring shone.
“Who cares.”, said she bluntly.
“The incident was reported by Hiroto Ootsuki’s girlfriend Azusa Shimamoto. The suspect brought Shimamoto to her home, however, she could escape and fled to a nearby civilian residence. According to the prefectural police however, Shimamoto suffers from a grave psychological disorder – due to the incident – and left the scene before the.”
“Her memories are likely in disarray as well.”
The male announcer spoke.
“Indeed, that’s truly a shocking incident after all. She should get professional help.”
“The weekly newspaper also reported on it. Shocking how Hiroto Ootsuki’s body was found in the fridge with his limbs cut off. Hard to think anyone of sound mind would be capable of such a thing. How would you describe the psychological state of the culprit?”
The psychologist answered.
“I think it’s a childhood trauma. Miss Tokitou’s parents apparently divorced while she was still young and she never received sufficient parental love in this sensitive time. She stopped growing inside. She also seemingly suffered from grave abuse by her mother she was living alone with. There are many reports of a crying child around the area where she was raised. I’m sure she wanted to raise her child properly but her exhaustion from work transformed her into an abusive mother.”
The announcer nodded vigorously.
“Maybe society should support single mothers more going forward.”
Ninomae watched the program with great interest.
Whether Ichijiku was listening or ignoring it remained impossible to tell. Her toes were restless, and she swung her legs, having taken off her right shoe as well.
“I wonder.”
The man – who was titled ex-investigator – spoke frowningly.
“The killing methods or rather the motives for which people become murderers sure seem to escalate in recent time. People don’t think of others as people. Even if she had a trauma, it doesn’t excuse her actions. I too was hit by my father. But it didn’t make me a murderer. Modern kids grow insane right off the bat. Maybe because they’re only consuming video games, manga and so on and have problems communicating with others. We should discuss the depiction of violence in aforementioned media as well.”
“That may be necessary.”
Said the female announcer from earlier. That exchange made one think they may just be following a script.
“The suspect – at least in some parts of the internet – is called ‘Yandere’. Do you know that word?”
The announcer also took out a white board – plastered with things straight from forum boards – at the same time.
“Shouldn’t Maki be familiar with that?”
The male announcer waved to the gravure idol beside the commentator seat. She began speaking with sparkling eyes.
“First, there was Tsundere but Yandere is a variation of it. She’s both twisted in her mind – what you would call ‘yami’ in Japanese – and lovey-dovey – what you would call ‘dere’ in Japanese slang – and by combining the two words, you get Yandere, basically. A parody of pure love, if you will. A woman, so fixated on her love for someone, that she grows insane over it.”
“But I don’t even know the word Tsundere.”
“In short, it describes a girl who loves someone but can’t be upfront about it towards this person. She wants to be in a romantic relationship but just can’t say it.”
A small smile surfaced from the screen.
Not from Ninomae however. Ichijiku – eyes closed – was still lacking any reaction, simply tapping with her feet in a mysterious manner.
“Are those stereotypes popular nowadays?”
The questioner seemed amused.
“There’s certainly a trend towards them. Many romance games also feature them as heroines and so on. They love the protagonist so much, they end up killing him.”
“The suspect appeared to have confessed to the victim multiple times as well.”
“They went to the same school, didn’t they?”
“Indeed. Apparently, they were even dating for some time.”
“But they broke up some time and the victim started dating Miss Shimamoto.”
“Not many years ago one would’ve called Miss Tokitou a stalker but even that got replaced by a new creation.”
“Though the suspect did her utmost to preserve the remains of the victim in her fridge. That much is clear.”
“I wonder what went on inside her.”
“No surprise, she appears to have suffered in various ways from the breakup. She even chained a doll to one of her walls. There were leftovers all over it, as if the suspect had fed the doll like her own child.”
“I don’t even want to imagine that.”
“Maybe she thought of it as a replacement for her beloved Hiroto Ootsuki.”
“A true detective that person is!”
Ninoame pointed towards the TV and exclaimed.
“Though it’s the kind of situation you could just blabber out without much thought.”
No one on TV seemed to have bought into that wild theory.
“Not like that doll was Hiroto Ootsuki.”, said Ichijiku.
“True true, that was ‘Hiro’, a totally different entity. Something born only for Kanako Tokitou. Her very own Hiro.”
That night, Kanako invited Hiroto to her home. It will be the last time, she said countless times to convince him. She told him how irreplaceable he was for her in every minute detail. Maybe she wished for him to put an end to them. Or maybe something inside her wished to return time, make everything as it was. Deep inside her she was hoping a miracle, while relentlessly convincing him. On the day, she greeted him in her best clothes, looking more enchanting than ever before.
But he refused her. By coming to her apartment, he truly intended to end it all. Don’t ever let me see your face again, he said. Don’t bother Azusa either, he added.
Hence, she killed him. Did she desire this outcome from the start or was it an unforeseen accident? Who knew.
After killing him, she wanted to follow suit. She brought a knife to her throat. But she didn’t die, merely scraping off a thin layer of skin.
Then, she made a pact with a demon.
“I want my very own Hiro. One that won’t break and won’t ever disobey me.”
So, she wished while cutting off the limbs of Hiroto Ootsuki with her knife and saw. She cried while puking out her wish. And so, the demons did their part.
“Hey, Ichijiku.”, said Ninomae.
“Hm?”
“Aristoteles said the human emotions can be divided into two parts. One is fear, the other compassion; apparently. The fear of dying and the compassion towards people who are dying, as they imagine them in the other’s place.”
“And?”
“If he’s right, don’t you think our Hiro was pretty human-like?”
“Who cares.”
Ichijku spit it out mercilessly.
Ninomae, shot down, shrugged his shoulders. He opened the notebook in his hand and nonchalantly skimmed through the pages. There was the meticulous proof of a pure love towards Kanako and the fear of impending death. Truly marvelous paragraphs. For a doll, at least. So he thought.
And suddenly, arrived at a peculiar question. He lowered his left eyelid, lifted his right one in a moment’s time, crossed his arms and bent his neck.
“Hey, Ichijiku.”
“What now? Can’t I sleep for a second?!”
So, she was sleepy.
Unconcerned, he began.
“We made a contract with Hiro too, right?”
“Ya.”
“And he was a puppet?”
“Ya.”
“Does he even have a soul?”
She suddenly opened her right eye and looked at him.
“Our contract with Miss Kanako was a done deal, so we could have collected her soul even if she had died back then, right? The contract will just be delayed alongside her death. But what about the other? Does Hiro’s soul count? If things go south, we might have made a pretty big mistake…”
Ichijiku – eyes already closed again – turned her back to him in an attempt to sleep. Only a single, chopped up sentence escaped her lips.
“A doll can only ever be one.”
That concession. Did she know it all from the very start?
CClaw Translations 