In my sleep I move, unlike in the waking world. There are places I can go, places I can’t. There are more locked doors and walled off corridors than I remember there once being. I’m restless… and this space seems to be dark now more often than not.
There’s someone standing there, and for a moment my heart leaps that it’s Hajime but he’s too short –
And then the figure laughs, and a chill runs down my spine. I know that laugh, it’s a laugh I associate with the sound of crunching bones. -My- bones, specifically.
The imposter steps into what passes for light here and his appearance – he’s wearing a crudely drawn paper mask of what his face once looked like – a cruel parody of Souji’s – and what must be a wig, given the unnaturally vibrant color and that it looks askew.
“Oh ho, who do we have here?” I can’t see his grin so much as hear it. “How healthy you look – what sort of magic did you use to fix what I did? Even that ugly hair of yours is growing back, not that it -helps-.” He laughs again, but then suddenly stops.
“Mine never grew back, not after that man burnt me the first time, and especially not this time. All my magic, and nothing, nothing fixed…” His tone has gone from light to grimly muttering in an instant. “I was a -very- beautiful man, why he had to go and ruin it all… not once but twice.. that bastard…”
He flips again, almost as if remembering that I’m here. “Quiet one, aren’t you?”
I find my voice. “Where is this place?”
“Oh, you -are- dumb,” he laughs. “Going off wandering in all sorts of dangerous places. Looking for your lost love, I suppose?” Laughter again. “He’s not here. This is just where he throws away things – people, objects, whatever… it comes here. People move on, I guess, but I’m a bit magical so I’ve stayed behind – unlike Asato. She faded right away!” In a grumble, he asks, “why are people in such a hurry to go to the afterlife?”
He continues. “Nobody stays so it’s not much fun here. There was a headless guy who was here for a -while- but he disappeared.” The imposter shrugs. “Boring, can’t even talk. Tried to attack me, but it’s not hard to parry a man who can’t even see.”
“However, what does stay is… oh, treasure. Lookie!” He pulls a bag from his kimono and it’s hard to see in the dim light what all is there.
But then I see his hands moving, and a glimmer in the dim light. His hands are covered in gloves, but he’s now wearing two rings – neither sliding down all the way thanks to the gloves – but I know those rings right away. Then he pulls out a chain, and there’s a watch.
“Give those back!” I yell at him, in the darkness. “Those aren’t yours!”
“Ah ha ha, finders keepers, Mibu Girl,” he tuts, admiring the gold. “They’re not fancy or that nice but oooh, the -weight- of -feelings- on these. Passion, love, jealousy, disappointment… It’s… delicious.” His voice goes into a purr. “Enough magic to give me power for so many years.”
He then pulls out a scrap of paper and I realize it was one of my pictures, an intimate one. “Ewww,” he says, with a dramatic shudder. “Simply disgusting. Disgraceful, for a Japanese woman to be so… Really. But, again, magic -” it seems to float in the air, and he makes a movement and the picture starts to burn, the image of my naked body and loving expression licked by flames. “Even this disgusting thing will keep me warm for -years-.”
He points up in the air, and I look, too, at the little familiar scrap of fabric, floating in a breeze not felt down here. “That one must be -good-, I can’t get to it – it just won’t descend like the rest of my pretties.” I see glints, in the low lights, and I realize they’re swords, or parts of swords, also swirling in the air above our heads.
Again, he splays out his fingers to admire the rings, and twirls the watch like a toy on a string. The grin comes out again, in the cruelty of the voice, “that pretty cloth didn’t belong to you, did it? The one thing he can’t let -quite- go. I hear in this place he’s had scads of lovers, you’re just one of many.” Laughter. “You’re not special at all, just -stubborn-.”
He takes off his mask, finally, and I see his face – scarred and pink and black and red, the eyes and mouth are just black holes, now a face of horror. The imposter laughs at both my reaction and at his own words. “Soon enough you’ll be thrown away here as well, you and those precious little -girls-! What -fun- we’ll all have!” He makes a little spin. “Do you think they’ll like my pretty face?”
I stare at him. “No! We won’t be ‘thrown away’, we won’t be here.”
His scarred face is mobile enough to show the pitying look he gives me. “Yes you will. You know you will and it’s driving you mad.” He moves fast, and he’s so close that I could feel his breath, if he were breathing. He smells like smoke – not cigarettes, but the nauseating smell of roasting human flesh.
“You know it, don’t you? That love is for fools, hope is for children and that -all- is lost. He sees the sham you are, that you’ve always been.” His lips twist into something like a smirk. “Who knew the fairy tale would end with the wolf and the princess at each other’s throats?”
Then he laughs, the one that makes me remember the searing pain he once caused me. “Go now, won’t you? We’ll be roommates soon enough, Mibu Girl.”
I run. I run back to awakening, staring at the ceiling above me in Ueda-sama’s house, hearing my daughters’ breathing in the dark, moonless night.
I turn onto my side and curl up, feeling cold. Moving a hand to my stomach, to where there’s a heart beating I can’t yet feel. I feel out for the heart beat of another, and it’s there, faint and slow.
His sleep must be deep and dreamless, I think. For if it were like my sleep… I’m either in the memories of the golden days, of sunshine and kisses, or seeing… dark places. Maybe it’s just a nightmare and not a real place. Or a “real” place.
I’m lonely and missing him so much. I’m not in peril, even with Naito-kun lurking around and… whatever Tokio could be up to, not like when I was taken to Osaka. I’m mostly just waiting, falling into the holes carefully being dug for me, but waiting.
I wish he was here.