Aya’s words came flooding back. Tatsuya always got his way. Bad things happened to those who kept him from his goals. Yeah, those ‘horrific accidents’ were probably not coincidences. And yet those accidents were drowned out by the “man of culture.” The man who donated his time and money to the community. The man who never forgot where he came from.
Who the hell was he? And more importantly, was he the one behind the shadow? It made sense. If someone needed to meet with a little accident, it wouldn’t be prudent to get his hands dirty himself. That could be traced back to him down the line, no matter how long it took. But something supernatural? That was a little harder to trace. Summon an angry spirit. Promise it something. Make it do your bidding. That was how those things worked, wasn’t it? Or were they working together? A little ‘you scratch my back, I scratch yours’ situation?
But if that were the case, why did it kill that yakuza guy? Something didn’t add up. There was a missing piece. What was it?
“Are you finished?”
I jumped in my chair. “Yes? I’m sorry?” It was the teacher, standing behind me again.
“Your assignment? Have you submitted everything?”
“Oh, yes, no, I was just about to put the last piece in. Thank you.” I quietly closed the browser.
“Okay, well, if you could do that as soon as possible, I’d like to go home.”
I looked around the room. I was the only one there; everyone else had already left. “What the…” The clock said 9:30 p.m. What the hell? How long was I looking at those articles for? Time hadn’t just gotten away from me, it fled like a bat out of hell.
“Oh, oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise the time!” I apologised profusely, and the teacher smiled. “It’s okay. You were very into whatever it was you were reading there.”
I blushed. So she’d seen. “Something interesting?”
“Just… looking up something for a friend.”
“Find what you were looking for?”
“Not really.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. If you ever need any help, that’s why I’m here.”
I nodded and thanked her, submitted the final pieces of the assignment and shut the computer down.
“Again, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise how late it is.”
The teacher shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just glad you got through your assignment without deleting it this time.”
I laughed a painful laugh. “Yes, well, um. Thank you.” I closed the door behind me. “Shit.” Aya. I had to get back. I prayed that she was still sitting safely inside the hotel room and that her brother hadn’t found her yet.
28
She’ll be okay. She’ll be okay. I repeated the words like a mantra as the elevator rose far too slowly towards our floor. I burst out the doors as they opened and ran towards the room we were staying in. It wasn’t a super expensive hotel, but it was still a hotel, and they had all the appropriate security measures in place to keep unwanted people out. There was no way Tatsuya would be able to wander in and take Aya away. Not without someone seeing him, at least.
She’ll be okay. She’ll be okay.
I opened the door and slammed it behind me in my haste to get inside. Aya was sitting in the corner of the room, the same position as when I’d left that morning.
“Oh, thank god…”
“Welcome back,” she said, remote in hand. I threw my bag down on the ground and walked over to hug her.
“How are you? Is everything okay? I didn’t realise how late it was and then I got worried and-”
“I’m fine. Really. How was your day?”
The table next to her was covered in pieces of paper. There were scribblings of dark shadows and splashes of red that didn’t take a genius to figure out.
“Uh, okay. Did you draw these? Of course you drew these, no-one else was here. Unless…” I looked at her expectantly. She looked back and said nothing. “Right. Okay. Well. What did you do today?”
I suddenly felt very stupid. Of course she was fine. While I was at work hating my job and at computer class pretending to work, she was sitting here. All day. Doing absolutely nothing. Nothing but worry about her brother coming to kill her, or perhaps the shadow coming to kill her, or any of the other awful things she was no doubt expecting to happen. Hours upon hours of nothing to do but think. As shitty as my job was, at least it kept my mind off other things… most of the time, anyway.
“Watched TV,” she said. She said nothing of the drawings. I didn’t ask. She pointed at the TV.
“A 35-year-old man was found murdered in Shiraishi today. Police haven’t revealed details, but it’s believed a high school student found him on her way to school this morning. The man’s head was said to have been severed from his body, and his heart forcibly removed from his chest.”
I looked at Aya in horror. That was close to the convenience store. But…
“That wasn’t him. My brother’s business contact was young, only in his twenties. That’s another man. Another one…”
Another murder?
“W-who was it?”
Aya shrugged. “I don’t know. They haven’t given out any other details. But there’s no doubt it was…” Her voice trailed off and the reporter on TV continued.
“With a spat of murders in the area recently, police believe this may be the work of a serial killer. They’re pleading for anyone with details to come forward.”
“A serial killer?” It made sense. The deaths were escalating in violence, but similar enough to be tied to each other. My heart started pounding in my chest. Me. Of course the news didn’t say anything, but the police suspected it was me. After they’d made themselves known a few days earlier, they suddenly disappeared. It was like they wanted me to know they were watching me, but then that was it. They were done. I could go back to my normal life. I could go back to my murdering ways.
I stood up and looked out the window. Bile formed in the back of my throat. There was a car parked in front of the hotel. It wasn’t a police car, but there were two people inside. One of them was looking this way.
I closed the curtain and hid behind the wall.
“What’s wrong?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. Just, thought I saw something downstairs.”
I opened the curtain to peek outside again and sighed. The car was gone. It was nothing. My mind was seeing demons everywhere, even where they didn’t exist.
“Are you hungry?” I asked.
Aya shook her head. “But I am tired.”
“Me too.”
We got into bed. Aya grabbed the remote to turn the TV off, but I snatched it from her hands.
“Do you mind if we leave it on? I just wanna watch a movie or something before I fall asleep. If that’s okay with you…?” In reality, I didn’t want to face the silence or the darkness of the room. Light made it safe. Sound made it safe. It was the next best thing to being in a room full of people. It was all the same thing to my mind.
I was scared. I didn’t want to say it out loud, but I was petrified of the darkness. Of what I knew lurked in it. Of what could come for me, or come for Aya, at any time and there was nothing I could do to stop it. But the noise and light from the TV were soothing, and I wasn’t ready to relinquish that just yet.
“Sure,” Aya said and turned away from it. I hugged her close and a short while later, she fell asleep against my chest.
I didn’t want to sleep. Sleep meant nightmares. Sleep meant being vulnerable. Sleep meant the next day would come quicker, and I didn’t want to see what the next day held. I wanted to stay there with Aya in my arms forever. Keep her safe and happy. Part of me wondered if she even knew how to be happy. With a family like that…
My own father flashed through my mind. The only man who never treated me like trash beneath his heel. He took me to festivals every summer, and every spring we went on vacation somewhere new, and every New Year we went to my grandparents’ house in Kyushu. And then when I sta
rted junior high school he was taken from me. A drunk driver, the police said. They never found out who it was, but just like that, the most important person in my life was torn away from me. Without warning and without a chance to say goodbye. The last thing I ever said to him was “I have practice this afternoon!” as I ran out the door for school. I have practice this afternoon…
I hugged Aya tighter. I wouldn’t let anything take her from me. I wouldn’t let our last words be something so insignificant. No, I wouldn’t let there be last words to begin with. Not this time.
Aya tossed and turned in her sleep. I flicked through channel after channel, doing whatever I needed to in order to stay awake. I slapped my cheeks. I pinched my arm. I sat up. I walked around. I sat in the chair. I sat by Aya. I smoothed her hair back as sweat started to bead on her forehead, and I lay with her when she pulled me back down to bed. More and more channels were showing nothing but white noise and I was stuck watching a documentary in a foreign language I couldn’t understand because it was the only thing on. But I would not fall asleep.
The sun started to rise and filter through the bottom of the curtains. I sighed. As long as the night felt, I wished it was longer. I didn’t want to go to work. I got out of bed and made my way towards the bathroom.
“What time is it?”
Aya was rubbing her eyes.
“5:30. Go back to sleep.”
“Are you working today?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Don’t go.”
“I have to.” This was not the conversation I wanted to have first thing in the morning.
“Says who?”
“Says my boss.”
“He doesn’t own you.”
“No, but he does pay me.”
Aya sat up on the edge of the bed and looked at me. I turned away. She could see right through me and I didn’t like it.
“Why do you continue going to a job you dislike so much?”
“Because I don’t have any choice. This hotel doesn’t pay for itself, you know?” I didn’t mean for it to sound the way it came out, but it didn’t change the look on Aya’s face when she heard it.
“I’m sorry I’m such a hassle.”
I stormed over and grabbed her by the shoulders, lifting her off the bed. “Tell me, just once, when have I ever said that you were a hassle?” Her face was just centimetres from mine. I searched her eyes and they weren’t scared, but she looked at me confused. “Never. That’s when. Because I’ve never once even thought it.”
“I’m sor-”
“Don’t.” I let go of her. “There’s a lot going on here that I can’t control right now. And a goddamn lot more that I don’t understand. All I can do right now is simplify.” My father’s words came out as though directly from him. “We need money. I have to make money. To make the money, I have to go to work. I would rather be anywhere, absolutely anywhere than there. But you know what? It’s money. And that’s the first thing on a very long list of shit I’m trying to deal with right now.”
Aya fell silent.
“Let’s sort something out when I get back tonight, okay?”
“Okay. Sure.”
Every fibre of my being was ripping itself apart. My body was rejecting it even as I was walking out the door.
“You’re doing the right thing,” I told myself. So why did it feel like I was doing the complete opposite?
29
“Close the door!”
It was the first thing I heard as I walked back into the hotel room after work. Aya was sitting in the chair by the corner, knees huddled up to her chest. I closed the door and looked around the room in fright.
“What? What is it?”
“It’s out there!”
My heart beat furiously.
“What do you mean? Where?”
Work dragged on, and the entire day I was filled with a sense of foreboding I couldn’t shake. I skipped out on karate class and ran straight to the hotel instead, and it appeared I’d made the right choice. I pulled the curtain back and looked outside. Nothing was there.
“I don’t see anything.”
“It’s out there! I’m telling you! It’s been there all day. Watching me.” She shuddered. “It knows we’re here…”
I didn’t see anything. No dark shadows. No police cars. No thugs. Nothing.
“I’m not doubting you saw something, but I don’t see anything out there. If it was there, it’s gone now.”
“I can’t leave. I have to stay here. I can’t leave this room.” She was rocking back and forth on the chair. I knelt before her and grabbed her hands.
“Hey, hey, calm down. It’s okay. You don’t have to leave. It’s okay.” That was a lie. A quick look at my bank account during lunch told me that we had perhaps one more day, tops. That was it. I was about to enter the negatives and it wasn’t payday for another two weeks.
“It’s out there. It’s waiting for me. I can’t leave.” Aya was wrapped up in her own world. It broke my heart to see her like that. I stood up and wrapped my arms around her, but she continued rocking on the chair. I brushed her hair back and forced her to look at me.
“Hey. Aya. Look at me.”
Her eyes focused on mine.
“You’re okay. I’m here now. Nothing’s going to happen.”
She shook her head. “This is what it does. It shows itself before it strikes. It wants me to be scared. It’s coming…”
There was nothing I could say. I sat by her side and held her hand, listening to her ramble. We couldn’t stay there much longer. Not only for the money, but being locked in this tiny room with nothing to do was sending Aya mad. I had a cousin a few prefectures over who dealt with strange cases like this. Maybe she could help?
“Hey. Aya. What do you say we take a trip?”
She looked at me and shook her head. “I can’t leave. It’s out there.”
“I know it’s out there, but Aya, we can’t stay here forever. I’m not going to let it touch you while I’m here, okay?” I didn’t believe that. If that creature really wanted her or myself dead, there was nothing I could realistically do to stop it. But, first things first. Simplify.
“I have a cousin. She lives a few prefectures from here. She deals with unusual cases. I don’t know if she’ll be much help here, admittedly, but it can’t hurt to try. At the very least, it will get us out of town, and give us a little more time to think. An extra mind can’t hurt, an outside perspective, yeah?”
I didn’t know exactly what it was my cousin did. I knew she primarily helped people with ‘lost items,’ whatever that meant, but she was knowledgeable when it came to things not of this world.
Aya considered my proposal and then looked at the window. The curtains were drawn. “Can your cousin help? Really?”
“I don’t know, like I said. But she has experience with these sorts of things. It certainly can’t hurt to try. I think she might be our best bet right now.”
She considered it further.
“And she lives out of town?”
“Yes. A few prefectures away. Outside of your brother’s grasp. It’ll give us time to come up with a new plan. I don’t think he’ll find you there.” Last I heard, my cousin worked out of a little indistinct shop in a very traditional town out in the countryside. The front was a tea and sweets shop. The back was… something different.
Aya stood up and moved to the window. She pulled the curtain back and started searching for something outside.
“How soon can we go?”
I sat in the other chair. “Well, I don’t think we can get any tickets tonight, but we can head out first thing in the morning.” Taking the train to visit my cousin in another prefecture would get me fired. Of that, I had no doubt. It was a risk in more ways than one, but I decided. Helping Aya was more important. My money was gone anyway. I had nothing left. Maybe a bit of time with my cousin would do us both some good. Hey, maybe she had some odd jobs that could bide me over. The results of my computer course w
ere just a few weeks away. What was family for, if not helping each other out of tight spots in times of crisis?
“There! It’s there again!” Aya was pointing outside. I jumped up and threw the curtain back.
“Shit.” She wasn’t lying. On the other side of the street, there was something standing in the alley between two buildings. Something dark. Something tall. It rose to full height, slowly, as though forming itself from the shadows around it. A head, arms, torso and legs took shape. Then it turned and looked directly at us.
“No! No, no, no.” Aya dropped to the ground and hid her face. The shadow continued to stare. My blood boiled.
“I’ve had enough of this.” I grabbed the key and ran for the door. I threw it open, despite Aya’s protests, and ran downstairs before she could stop me. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I was too angry to care.
This needed to end. Immediately.
30
I ran out of the hotel and across the street, but the shadow was nowhere to be seen. There was something else waiting there for me though. Something I wasn’t expecting.
Tatsuya.
I knew his face from the photos plastered all over the internet, and he stood the same height as the man I saw Aya with at the club. There was no doubt. It was him. My heart beat wildly.
“So. You’re the one keeping my sister from me, huh?”
I stared at him, unable to make my tongue form any words. He was large and imposing. Not muscular, not at all, but there was a presence to him. An aura. It was overwhelming. Not quite unlike standing before the devil himself.
“I… I…”
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