by Tay LaRoi
“Ms. Yamada…how did you end up like this?”
Ayame stiffened. “That information won’t help you. I took care of that long ago.”
Ingrid’s stomach flipped. “What do you mean?”
Ayame gave Ingrid a look that made her blood run cold, regardless of the type. The young woman had been so casual, almost silly, moments ago, that Ingrid had nearly forgotten what she was.
“Are you sure you want to know?” Ayame demanded.
“I think it might have some useful information”
Ayame took a deep breath and fixed her gaze through the slit in the curtains over the living room window. It was as if that small sliver of blue was a window to a distant time.
“Like I said, I was a college student. I was studying literature, hoping to be a professor one day. My parents didn’t expect that to happen. They figured I’d do what most women my age did—study for a while, meet a nice boy, get married, and become a homemaker while he started a promising career. They used to joke that, this way, they’d get smart grandkids. Lucky for them, quite a few of my classmates liked me. I was actually pretty back then, believe it or not.”
Ingrid imagined that the smile behind Ayame’s mask was quite sad.
“One young man, Sakurai Daisuke, had trouble accepting my rejection,” Ayame continued with a tired sigh. “He badgered me for weeks. One night, when I was walking home from my job in the university library, he followed me.” Ayame’s hands tightened into fists. “He picked the lock to my apartment. When I turned him down again…well…”
She lowered her mask to reveal her gashes. Ingrid felt her stomach churn. This time, however, her heart tightened too. It didn’t relax until Ayame covered her face again.
“He said if he couldn’t have me, no one could. No one could ever find me beautiful. When he…left, he thought I was dead, I imagine. I’m still not sure if I was. I must have been, yet somewhere around two in the morning, I woke up. I remember the time because my grandmother used to tell me that was the witching hour. Suddenly, I was one of the strange things she told me about as a child—a woman neither alive nor dead, completely healed except for her face, running on rage and hatred instead of food and water.”
The apartment suddenly felt ten degrees colder.
Ingrid wet her dry mouth to speak. “Did Mr. Sakurai ever face charg—”
“I hunted him down and killed him.” Ayame sounded like she had just told Ingrid the weather, not that she had committed murder. “Thanks to being what I am, it was easy to find out where he lived. Locked doors mean nothing to me, so I broke into the university, found his address, and ended him like he ended me.”
A dark, sinister snicker escaped Ayame’s mouth, the pain it caused her be damned. “They never suspected that I, the poor missing girl he had fawned over for months, could have done it. Apparently, he was involved with some shady characters, so the police pinned it on them. I don’t remember who they were. I was free, so I didn’t care.
“They knew it was a woman with long black hair and a pair of scissors, though. People saw me before I disappeared. I was careless, but it felt too good walking out of that apartment. That’s how the stories started. How I became the Split-Mouthed Woman.”
Ayame studied Ingrid’s undoubtedly terrified expression. Avoiding her eyes, Ayame got to her feet, taking Ingrid’s plate with her. “I kept to myself after that. At first, I thought killing my attacker might change things, but it didn’t. I visited temples, shrines, and libraries all over the country looking for answers, but never found any.”
Ingrid watched Ayame walk back to the kitchen, still slack-jawed and stunned into silence. So, the Split-Mouthed Woman was as dangerous as her stories claimed, but not for the reason people thought. She had done nothing wrong to become like this.
Okay, she’d murdered a man, but that was after she became what she was.
But if her murderer was dead, what else could she want?
Ingrid’s phone buzzed before she could think any more about it. A Skype message from her older brother read, “Get online.”
Ingrid had nearly forgotten her monthly Skype date with her family. It was always on the first Sunday of the month for Ingrid, the first Saturday for her family.
With a frustrated groan, she opened her laptop and answered her family’s call. They’d get obnoxious if she tried to reschedule. Besides, Ayame didn’t seem to want to talk any more.
All four members of the Smith family exclaimed, “There’s our girl!” at the sight of their middle child.
“Hey, guys,” Ingrid replied, putting on her best smile. “What’s up?”
“Not much,” Ingrid’s father said, scratching his scraggly salt-and-pepper beard. “Oh, your grandmother is out of the hospital.”
“Gave the nurses hell every day she was in, though,” Ingrid’s mother added.
“Hey, at least she’ll be home for Christmas,” Matt, the oldest of the three siblings chimed in. “Unlike Ingrid who’s abandoned us two years in a row.”
“You were in Spain last year, so don’t start,” Ingrid replied. “Nice beard. Which hipster artist did you steal it from?”
Beth, the youngest, cackled. “That’s what I said.”
“My beard rocks, and you know it,” Matt scoffed. His gaze darted to the right of the screen as a curtain of black hair drifted into view. “Who’s your friend?”
Ingrid nearly fell off the sofa in fright once she noticed Ayame. “Can you not?” she exclaimed, clutching her chest. “Or at least make noise when you move?”
Ayame ignored the English words she hardly understood and waved to Ingrid’s family. “Hello,” she greeted cheerfully in the foreign language. “I am Ayame. Nice to meet you.”
“Hi, Ayame,” Ingrid’s mother greeted with a wave. “Nice to meet you too.”
“Why are you wearing a surgical mask?” Beth asked.
Ayame looked to Ingrid for a translation that didn’t come.
“She’s got a cold,” Ingrid explained. “It’s a cultural thing.”
The Smiths nodded in response, accepting the explanation as good enough.
“Ayame, are you Ingrid’s girlfriend?” Matt snickered.
Before Ingrid could stop her, she replied, “Yes, I am girlfriend.”
Ingrid massaged her temples as her family hooted. “Guys, in Japanese ‘girlfriend’ just means a female friend,” she explained. “We’re not dating.”
Beth booed and Matt rolled his eyes.
“Keep it up and I’m ending this call.”
“We’ll be good,” her mother chuckled.
Thankfully, for the rest of the conversation, they were. As they moved on to other things, Ayame drifted away and studied Ingrid’s small bookshelf. By the time the chat ended an hour later, she had picked up a Japanese textbook and leafed through half of it.
“Your family seems nice,” she said as Ingrid closed the laptop. “Is it nice having siblings?”
“It’s nice when they’re not driving me crazy,” Ingrid sighed. “Sorry, it was so much English. Didn’t mean to exclude you.”
Ingrid paused. Why was she apologizing?
Ayame shrugged and put the textbook away. “It’s okay. Family time’s important.”
That suddenly gave Ingrid an idea. Maybe all she had to do was dump Ayame in Gifu and then she’d be free.
“Have you seen your parents since you, uh, died?” Ingrid asked. “Maybe you need that closure to cross over.”
“I can’t,” Ayame said, getting to her feet.
“You could at least check in on them.”
“I used to, but…” Ayame folded her arms and avoided Ingrid’s gaze. “My father died in a car accident about fifteen years ago. My mother passed away from brain cancer about six or seven years later.”
Ingrid’s heart sank, not for her dashed chance to be free, but for Ayame. To be stuck somewhere between life and death, unable to say goodbye to your parents, and then to have the rest of the world warp you into a monstr
ous legend… Even if she had killed the man who killed her, how could she deserve such a fate?
As if sensing the question, Ayame did her best to smile. “Don’t look at me like that. I did this to myself. I died thinking of vengeance and then acted on it. If I had thought of my parents or my friends, or anyone else, God would have had mercy on me, and I would have met my parents when they crossed over.”
“That’s bullshit.” Ingrid hissed as her throat closed up. “Why should your last thoughts damn you like that? That’s not fair.”
Ayame shrugged. “Life isn’t fair. Why should death be any different?”
Ingrid didn’t have an answer. Instead, she blurted out a question. “Is that why you’ve been attacking people all these years? You’re mad at how unfair death is?”
Ayame shook her head. “I kept to myself, remember? Other than Sakurai Daisuke, I’ve never attacked anyone. I’ve left the living alone until the night I met you.”
“What changed?”
Ayame shrugged. “I got bored. I figured I’d try to be the monster they thought I was. At least that way, for a few moments, I’d get to talk to people. And since you learned the truth, I figured you’d be a good person to break the curse. No point in still existing if I’m just going to be a run-of-the-mill, boring, forgotten ghost.”
“So, you were lonely,” Ingrid corrected, “not bored.”
Ayame went rigid and narrowed her eyes. When Ingrid said nothing more, she picked up Ingrid’s notebook and flipped to an empty page. “You can read Japanese, right? Your fridge is nearly empty. If I’m going to stay here, the least I can do is cook for you.”
“Now that I know the truth, what makes you think I’m going to help you?”
Ayame’s eyes darted up to Ingrid with a glare that would have terrified her hours ago.
Instead, Ingrid scoffed. “Drop the act. We both know you’re not going to follow through, Ms. Yamada.”
“So, you’re saying you won’t help me?”
Ingrid swallowed any possible responses she had been forming. After all she had learned, how could she refuse? Besides, Ayame seemed pretty resilient. Odds were she could stick around and annoy Ingrid for quite a while.
“That’s what I thought,” Ayame said. “And if that’s the case, just call me Ayame. What sort of roommates call each other by their family names?”
“What sort of English teacher has an urban legend for a roommate?”
Ayame tapped the pencil against her mask. “That’s fair, but I’m Ayame all the same.”
Four
Ingrid had plenty of time to think about her predicament on Monday, since her students had tests to prepare for. Her mind wandered out the windows toward her apartment where Ayame was probably planning meals for the week.
“You really don’t have to do this,” Ingrid had assured her that morning.
“I don’t mind,” Ayame replied, browsing Ingrid’s bookshelf again. “I loved cooking when I was alive. Plus, it keeps me busy.”
Ingrid didn’t need her busy. She needed her gone. So, once school got out, Ingrid stopped by the cafe again and tried to find out more about Yamada Ayame. She could go straight to the source, but she didn’t want to pry anymore. Ayame acted unfazed by her past, but Ingrid didn’t buy it. Not with a history like that.
The case of the missing Nagoya University student, Yamada Ayame, popped up on the first page of search results. Sakurai Daisuke’s murder wasn’t far behind. Apparently plenty of people knew about his obsession with her, and the police investigated their connection after all.
They found Daisuke’s fingerprints in Ayame’s apartment, but nothing about Daisuke’s death pointed to Ayame as the killer. There were no fingerprints, no sign of forced entry, nothing besides Daisuke’s mutilated body. The only leads they had were eyewitness accounts concerning a young woman leaving the premises during the early morning of July 21, 1977. Just to cover their bases, the police looked into Ayame’s past, but she had a squeaky clean record.
The case went cold after that. There were a few Kuchisake-Onna copycats through the years, which scared people enough to have teachers escort children home in groups, but just like Ayame said, there were no murders, copycat or otherwise.
Ingrid leaned back in her chair and massaged her eyes. She wasn’t used to processing Japanese related to criminal investigations. At least she had the full story now.
Too bad Ayame was right. It didn’t help their situation. She got revenge, but had no family to check in on. What else could Ayame possibly want? She hadn’t mentioned being interested in any of her other suitors. Lost love would be an obvious lead. She would have said something if there was someone.
Then again, if she was lonely, maybe she didn’t want to cross over just yet.
A group of giggling young women distracted Ingrid as they entered the cafe. Between their fashionable clothes, caramel-color dyed hair, and talk of term papers, Ingrid figured they were college students. Their conversation quickly turned to weekend plans: window shopping, karaoke, a part-time job, maybe a date with a guy named Yuki.
Of course.
Ayame never got to finish college or any of the fun stuff it entailed. Watching generations of young people enjoy themselves while she hid in the shadows would definitely get lonely. As Ingrid packed up her stuff and paid for her coffee, she realized that it sounded crazy, but what about her situation didn’t?
Ingrid arrived home to find Ayame in the early stages of dicing tofu.
“Welcome home,” the young woman said. “Did you stay late?”
“Sort of,” Ingrid replied, taking her shoes off in the entrance way. “I’ve got an idea to help you cross over. When you were alive, what did you like to do?”
Ayame thought it over as she continued to cut. “Normal stuff, I guess. Read and hang out with friends, shopping…” A smile came to her face, but Ayame winced from the pain and it disappeared. “I never had a lot of money for shopping, though. I would blow it all on karaoke. It drove my friends crazy sometimes.”
“Well, I need to be drunk for karaoke, and it’s Monday. How about we start with shopping? I need to buy Christmas presents for my family anyway.”
Ayame’s eyebrows pulled together. “Don’t you have to prepare for classes tomorrow?”
“My students have tests all day.”
Ayame’s eyes lit up, and she quickly shoved the half-diced tofu into a plastic bag. “Just give me a moment to clean up.”
“Take your time,” Ingrid replied on her way to the living room. “I need to change.”
“That reminds me,” Ayame called through the door. “Can I borrow an outfit? It might help me blend better.”
As Ingrid changed into jeans and a T-shirt, she silently agreed. Since she gave the police Ayame’s description, they might still be watching for someone with her profile, but their height difference was going to be a problem. Even for an American, Ingrid had always been tall, and Ayame was quite short. Ingrid had high school students taller than her.
Thankfully, Ingrid had noticed that baggy tops were rather popular with Japanese girls. She dug out the biggest sweater she owned, matched it with a belt and leggings, and handed it to Ayame along with a hair tie.
“Maybe don’t pull back all your hair,” Ingrid suggested. “Just leave it long around your face to cover your scars.”
Ayame nodded with enthusiasm and went to change. When she came back to the kitchen, Ingrid had to silently admit that her strange roommate was actually kind of cute. Especially with how happy she seemed. Ayame tightened the messy bun on top of her head, slipped on her shoes, and stood in the doorway while Ingrid readied herself.
“Aren’t you going to be cold?” Ingrid asked as she slipped on her coat.
Ayame shook her head. “I can’t feel cold. My coat is just for looks. Besides, I need to look different, remember?”
That was true enough. Ingrid just hoped it wouldn’t get cold enough that a girl in just a giant sweater would raise eyebrows.
“How come you speak Japanese, anyway?” Ayame asked as she bounced in her seat like an excitable child. “Did you study in college?”
“A bit,” Ingrid answered. “I took it as an elective all four years. I was an English and journalism double major. I added the journalism part at the last minute.”
“So why the Japanese elective?”
“A family in our neighborhood were from Hokkaido. I was, still kinda am, friends with their daughter, Kyoko. They mainly spoke Japanese in the house, so I tried to learn as much as I could and studied on my own.”
“What do you mean ‘still kinda’?”
“Well…” Ingrid made sure no one was paying them any mind. “Senior year of high school I told her I was gay,” she muttered. “It made things awkward. We still talk from time to time, but something about me coming out messed things up.”
“Did you like her?”
“No. She was like a sister.”
“Maybe she liked you.”
Ingrid couldn’t help but scoff. “I doubt it.”
“Why?”
Ingrid gestured to herself, as if that answered the question. “I’m kinda plain. And indecisive, which doesn’t help. I’m twenty-three and can’t decide what I want to do after this. I don’t want to teach forever, but I don’t know how I feel about any sort of international journalism career now, or grad school.”
“I don’t think you’re plain,” Ayame said. “Or uninteresting. You’re just still, if that makes sense. I like it.”
“Tell that to my exes,” Ingrid chuckled, taking a sip of the green tea she had bought at the train platform.
“I’d be more than happy to,” Ayame huffed under her breath. “I like girls too, so they’d have to believe me.”
Ingrid choked on her tea and tried to avoid spilling it down her front. “You didn’t think to mention that yesterday?” she hissed.