A Small Charred Face

by Kazuki Sakuraba

  Still her mouth stayed tightly shut.

  “Just go to sleep, Momo.”

  Momo’s answer was so quiet I couldn’t catch it. What was up with her?

  And then it was autumn. And Momo suddenly grew up.

  “Come on, Momo. Let’s go!”

  “Hold on. Just a little longer.”

  “Huh? How long’s a little?”

  “I told you, I still need to talk to him, Marika.” She spoke to me like she was admonishing a spoiled child, and I looked back in surprise.

  A lukewarm breeze danced around me, tangled with the leaves of the trees, and made my black hair dance like a long tail. Then it set the left arm of my thin khaki coat fluttering. “About what?” I asked, my voice muffled on the other side of the mask that covered my nose and mouth.

  Night was just starting to fall at the convenience store along the national highway running through a provincial city. Momo was standing in front of the magazine racks, talking to a boy in glasses. He had been there the day before too, at the same time. He looked my way with a kind smile, the photography magazine he had been reading still open in his hands.

  I tugged fiercely on Momo’s sleeve, and she looked at me with a sigh. “I said, wait!”

  “It’s just—we gotta get going.”

  “You’re such a pest! God!”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. Impossible that Momo would talk to me like that. I slumped forward and stepped out of the store. With nothing in particular to do, I flitted around in the night sky until Momo finally came out. She waved amiably toward the inside of the store and then started walking briskly.

  A small truck whooshed past on the highway.

  Momo didn’t want to move from town to town all the time anymore. Even though she knew it was dangerous, she wanted to stay in the same place for several days at a time. She’d turned into a grown-up, become obstinate. She wasn’t as docile as she used to be.

  Slowly spinning, I oriented my face so it was upside down relative to Momo and peered at her. “Get it together. Let’s go to the next town already.”

  “Marika. I just—” she started to say, then stopped. But her feet didn’t. She moved steadily forward, her face hard for some reason.

  “Found tonight’s prey!” I joked, still upside down.

  “You look like a calligraphy brush when you fly like that, Marika. It’s weird.”

  “Let’s get that dumb guy from before. You know, the one you were talking to. Say something to lure him outside.”

  “What are you talking about? Honestly!” Momo’s voice was ice.

  I hid my anxiety and kept flying, grinning. Then I whirled around, turned myself right side up again, and started walking alongside her. We were god-of-death wannabes. The perfect pair. That’s what we were supposed to be, right? I gotta keep up with Momo and charge forward into the future!

  “Okay?”

  “…No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because!” She sighed in obvious annoyance.

  The wind blew. Dry and light, the brown leaves danced, shed by the roadside trees. They writhed like dying insects on the asphalt, stirred up by the wind. What on earth was her problem? It was like she just kept getting further and further away from me.

  (Already a hundred years since then. Unnh. I can’t actually believe that much time’s passed.)

  And how many days has it been already in this backwater dump?

  I was pretty sick of this boring provincial town and was worried about being found out. It wasn’t a big place, which meant outsiders stuck out in a pretty real way. And yet Momo was all low-key and laid-back. My patience was wearing seriously thin.

  We were inside a closed, but large, coffee shop along the highway, the place we had made our headquarters. Totally dark and dusty. I was sitting on top of an old square arcade table with a video game built into it when Momo finally came back. Where’ve you been wandering to, Momo? Honestly—huh?

  Someone came in behind her. It was that guy. Wearing his idiot glasses. The one reading the photography magazine.

  Still sitting cross-legged on the table, I slowly floated up to sit in midair. My long hair swung eerily from side to side. I wasn’t wearing a mask, so my shaved nose was in full view. The boy drew back in fear.

  “What’s going on, Momo?” I asked, my voice that of a wrinkled old woman.

  “So, like, Marika?” Momo’s was that of a bubbly young woman. “I need to talk to you, actually.”

  “Talk? Start with what he’s doing here!”

  Momo dropped her head, looking conflicted. And then she pulled her head up again. “Marika. I, like…I’ve decided to stay in this town,” she said, almost as if she were making up her mind right then and there.

  “Huh?”

  “I told him all about me! And his family runs a photography studio. They’re looking for someone to work in the office, and he says they’d hire me! He says everyone should settle down and have a job with responsibilities!”

  “What?! Are you serious?!”

  “I—! I don’t want to travel aimlessly like this anymore. We’ve been doing this for a year, you know. I’m a year older. And I’m tired of it.”

  I can’t even believe this! I was dumbfounded.

  Momo and the boy exchanged looks.

  In other words, she’d found someone new to protect her, so she was done with me. For a second, I didn’t know what to think. My feelings about Momo and my feelings for myself sort of slammed up against each other. But the Momo ones lost pretty quick.

  I’ll take him from you! Dark flames shot through my body. Reaching my right arm up to the ceiling, I spun around at top speed, a juggernaut heading straight for them.

  Now, a night of hunting! The thrill is everything! It’s all old hat to me!

  The boy fled behind the dusty counter, keeping Momo behind him. Old coffee cups and piles of plates crashed to the floor and shattered. I could hear Momo screaming. The wooden counter was brittle from years of wear. I whipped my right arm down as hard as I could to flatten it. I reached out to the boy, grabbed his thin neck, and pulled him up. Momo was yelling something. The boy was shouting, “Momo! Run!” But she turned around.

  “Marika, what are you?! I don’t even know!” Her eyes were wild.

  I looked down on her coolly.

  “Why do you go around attacking people? I’m sick of it! I mean, we do this terrible thing to these grown-ups, total strangers. I hate it. I’ve hated it for a while now. I’ve hated it so much I could hardly stand it! But I was scared that if I left you alone, you’d kill people again. I couldn’t let you out of my sight. So I’ve been dragging myself along after you, all the way to this place… My hands are so dirty…”

  “Huuuh?”

  “Marika, please! Promise me you won’t kill anyone anymore! For my sake. I just need you to promise, and then I can relax. I can stay in this town. I can finally grow up.”

  Anger and sadness surged up in my heart. And also exasperation at this happening now, after all this time. “I-it’s just, I don’t have any choice, do I?!” I shouted back. “I mean, I’m a Bamboo! I-I’m a monster!”

  I turned toward the wall and slammed the boy into it. He bounced and came to a stop on the floor. A chair fell over with a clatter. A moment later, the coffee maker hit the ground, and the glass carafe broke.

  From time to time, I heard the sound of a car racing along the highway outside.

  Momo’s eyes glittered, tears threatening to fall even now. I had absolutely no idea what was making her that sad. Seriously. Seriously. I honestly didn’t get it.

  “You’re wrong, Marika. I mean, the first Bamboo who took me in, he worked a regular job. H-h-he…” she said, like she was squeezing it out, like it was painful. “He was a good person.”

  “What the hell?”

 
“I was a total stranger, and he saved my life. And he died for it.”

  “Huh?”

  “So I—all this time, I felt like I wasn’t allowed to be happy. But I had it backward—that’s exactly why I have to be happy. I figured that out talking to this boy. I can’t keep living this life. I have to actually live for real. For Mustah’s sake. And for Kyo’s. That way, their flames will always keep burning. Right, Marika? I mean, you know that, too. I’m your best friend. There was a time when you loved me, wasn’t there?” Momo pleaded, still looking about to burst into tears. “Right?”

  I glared at her. I don’t know! No idea what you’re going on about, Momo! I’m telling you! For real! S-so—

  “I’ll tell you then!” I roared. My hair practically stood on end, I was so angry.

  I mean, the pathetic kid who had trailed after me that day, weeping sadly, nowhere else to go—she was gone now. That adorable, pitiful Momo had completely disappeared. At some point along the way, she had turned into a regular grown-up. She’d changed. Into this boring jerk. Unreal! We were too cool for this. We were gods of death! We had so much fun. Did you forget all of that? Stupid Momo! Stupid!

  I drifted along, parallel to the floor, and then righted myself next to the boy lying on his side. I went around behind his head and brought my heel up. The usual way.

  And Momo shrieked. She charged at me. So quick I was dumbfounded. Are you Bamboo, too? Slammed into me. Tangled together, we crashed into the dirty window. The glass broke, and the cool outside air poured over me. We tumbled to the floor, covered in shards that glittered like ice. Momo was at my back and had both hands wrapped around my throat, and she was not letting go. She absolutely would not let go. I bared my tapered teeth and howled for all I was worth. I shivered from the chill of the cold air.

  “This! This! This!” Momo hit me. “I won’t let you kill people anymore! Marika! I won’t let you be a murderer! I mean, like, not a single person in this world deserves to be murdered. E-e-everyone—they’re trying as hard as they can, just to make it through this life. I finally get that now. Uh-huh. I didn’t understand it before. I thought human beings were dumb, worthless. Which is why—I can’t travel with you anymore. I can’t be with you for even one more night. This—!”

  She’s so weak.

  “This! This!” she shouted, straddled over me lying on my back as she continued to whack me with her pathetic tiny fists.

  “I won’t let you do this!” I stared up at her. “I’m totally taking you with me, Momo! We’ve got forever ahead of us! You can’t fight that. You got some nerve for a human!” I put a little effort into it and rolled across the floor so that I was on top of her now.

  She stretched out her skinny arms and slapped my face, still yelling. “You damned vampire! I hate you! You suck! Murderer! Pervert! You always have to take them down with a kick to the back of the neck with your heel, huh? And you always look like it’s sooooo much fun! It’s not just that you want blood—you actually love preying on people. Why, okay?! Why is that the only thing you do?!”

  “I killed the dog.”

  “You pervert! Is it that much fun? A hundred years of kicking people in the back of the neck? Go to hell! Vampire! …Wait, ‘dog’?”

  “I killed Fal,” I said abruptly.

  (It was me. I had done it. I still hadn’t been punished for it.)

  “…What are you talking about?”

  Shaking, I got down off of Momo. I crouched on the floor. The boy staggered toward us, and Momo got up, coughing. They stared hard at me. I started speaking in a small voice.

  My little brother was born. I was jealous. Fal did his usual playful frolicking, wagging the half a tail he had left, following me around. We were super close. Maybe I made him do it. Maybe he was just curious too. Fal went over to my brother’s bed. I watched him and grinned. My brother started crying in terror. This happened three times.

  My father called me in to see him. Because the third time, my brother got hurt. It was shortly after he’d been born. My mother wailed and screamed like she had lost her mind.

  “It’s your dog. Take responsibility and dispose of it.” My father always got right to the point. I couldn’t disobey him.

  He didn’t tell me to take the dog to the pound. He just left it to me. I couldn’t go home with Fal.

  That evening, thinking it was our usual walk, Fal was really excited, running and wagging his butt along with the half tail. We slipped through the expensive residential area, out to a field spreading out behind the neighborhood that he liked. I dreamed about how far I could run with him. That’s what I really wanted. If only this childhood could last forever.

  An hour passed, and the sun finally started to set. Before I’d gotten Fal, this was the time of day I’d have been playing with my friends in town. Once he was gone, I guessed I’d go back to that. If only this childhood could last forever. I stood stock-still. I saw my father’s imposing face in my mind. Fal looked back, smiling. He realized I was crying and cocked his head to one side. But his mouth was still grinning happily. At that moment, I brought my heel up. A quiet cry slipped out of me. “Aah.”

  He looked up at me like he couldn’t believe it. His noble eyes were clear, firm in the belief that the girl who was his super best friend would protect him forever, that nothing bad could ever happen when we were out walking, that he was safe. Those eyes.

  The sun went down. I sat there for ages.

  I dug a hole with my hands and buried Fal. My dog. The dog who had saved me that day. My dog, only mine.

  I stood up slowly. And then I went back to my house.

  The minute I was there, standing in front of my house, I knew something was different somehow. I thought it was all in my head, that it was me that was different. But that wasn’t it. The door was open, and a Bamboo was standing there. I smelled blood.

  He attacked me, and when I woke up in the morgue…

  “I was a Bamboo.”

  Which is why.

  No one knows.

  I still haven’t been punished.

  Even though it’s been a hundred years.

  “My little brother, an orphanage took him in. He grew up, he lived, he died.”

  “Marika…”

  “Fal’s long since turned to dust. He’s nowhere in this world. My best friend. That little dog’s gone now.”

  “Marika.”

  “I can’t forget his face that time.”

  “So then you were doing that over and over again? Attacking when they were safe, kicking their necks to take them down. Stealing their blood and their money. Night after night,” Momo said. “You have to stop it already! I feel bad for you, but I can’t keep doing this.”

  “Momo—”

  “Marika, I want you to stop attacking people.”

  “But I—! I think I’ve only got another ten years to live! At least stay with me till then. I promised I’d show you flowers blooming in the end, didn’t I? Did you forget?”

  “No, I’m telling you I can’t—”

  “That’s not what you promised!” I clung to her, desperate like she had been that night. When had our positions been reversed? It was like I was the kid with no place to go now.

  But Momo shook her head stubbornly. “It’s time to say goodbye. I have to claim my own life.”

  How dare she?! Talking like a self-help book or something?!

  “Momoooo! You big stupidhead!” I shouted. No way. This is totally not how it’s supposed to go.

  We glared at each other. And then Momo averted her eyes uneasily.

  The sound of a car horn, then an engine, came from outside. No one said anything.

  And then, from far away, trembling, the boy said, “Um.”

  “Shut up!” I scowled at him.

  “Wah? Ah?” He jerked his head back.

  “This is none
of your business! This is all because you had to come along and butt in!”

  “I’m sorry…”

  Silence hung over us once more.

  “Um, I…” Ever so timidly, the boy started to speak again. “Marika, I don’t think it was your fault. Um! About what you said before. I mean, your father shouldn’t have said that. You, like…you were just a kid.”

  I looked at the boy out of the corner of my eye and shook my head. “I’m the one who kicked him. It’s my crime.”

  “But—”

  “What?”

  “I forgive you. If I were the dog, I’d forgive you.”

  “Huh?” I stared at the boy. “You’re not the dog! You idiot!”

  “I’m sorry… But.” The boy cleared his throat. He lowered his eyes, momentarily confused. And then he lifted his face.

  I said nothing. The boy and I stared at each other.

  “I’d have…forgiven you…a long time ago.”

  The wind blew in through the missing window. After that, the boy, Momo, me—none of us said anything anymore. Like any further discussion was completely forbidden, something that didn’t belong in this world.

  Time flowed like cold water.

  The sun came up. Time to say goodbye.

  Momo stood slowly and then set up the blackout tent before gently guiding me inside it. I gripped her slender wrist and looked up at her.

  “Marika, before…” She gently shook my hand off. “You were really going to kill him when you brought your heel up, weren’t you?”

  “What? …Not telling.”

  “She wouldn’t have, Momo. Marika’s not that kind of girl. I know it.”

  “I know Marika better than you do!”

  “Momo—”

  “I am the one! I know her better than anyone!”

  “S-sorry…”

  I couldn’t say anything. I stared up at Momo, her back turned to me now. But suddenly I reached out for her pale legs from inside the tent.

  “Momo! Don’t go! Stay with me! I get it! He can stay with us too. It can be the three of us! Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me in a place like this. If I don’t have you, I—” I squeezed it out: “I’ll be so alone.”