Chapter Text
Lying down on a bed of flowers, you close your eyes and take a deep breath.
No one’s there to berate you for not covering your open mouth, nor they repeat themselves so that you get started on the job. Actually, you are doing exactly that right now, and a giddy grin grows on your lips at the thought.
Soft petals dance with the breeze, grazing your face, brushing your cheeks. Your nose twitches as you drown in their touch, all over your sprawled out figure. They dance past your naked legs and arms, some of the larger ones manage to kiss the skin freed by your torn clothes. You want to move your arm, to feel them in your grasp, but it’s too heavy.
Your eyes feel too heavy. It’d be a burden to try and open them. Not that you really want to. You’re fine, you’re good.
“I want to know what kind of flowers these are,” you ask the empty space around you. When you are met with no answer, a snort leaves your lips.
The grass isn’t as merciful, scratching while it ignores your groaning. Blades with warmth similar to the flowers, slicing what was previously cared for by the latter. Your leg twitches, body turning sideways, moving into a fetal position by instinct alone. Huffing, your brows furrow, relaxing once a small flower skims past the tip of your nose.
“My legs are gonna be so itchy later,” groaning, your arms stretch out over the colorful greenery. Your fingers can’t grasp the soft stems sprouting, nor the leaves and tresses that taunt your body. Until they catch something, tangled up around them.
Its thin thread contrasts the heat of your body, cool on your skin and smooth as it grazes around your digits. You recognize it. You know what happened.
Your voice, worsening with every few words, croaks out a flimsy lament, “my music…”
A cracked screen flashes across your mind, quick to leave, and the ragged clothes with the warm liquid seeping out of them becomes all too apparent. If it were to have a color, it’d be red; a metallic tang to the taste to follow. You have bathed in such color, numb to its effects now.
When did the heat become so unbearable, and since when has the sun above been so scorching hot? A bead of sweat runs down your forehead, highlighted in red.
Mellow whistling reaches your ears, from your hitched breaths that come with every rise and fall of your chest. Your lungs feel full although wrong; your stomach growls even if it doesn’t get to your ringing ears —turns out the birds aren’t chirping, never were to begin with.
You were supposed to have dinner today, like every other day.
“Come back.” You hear someone’s muffled call through clogged ears, unable to make out the tone in which they refer to you. Almost like a tranquil beg, an emotionless prayer for you to answer. Their breath clashes against your cheek, and a sudden frost invades your face from cradling hands. They sound hoarse through the faint sobs you manage to catch, with each there comes the stroking of a thumb across your skin, with a careful notion rivaling those of the flowers.
He is familiar to you. You have no idea when his silhouette conjured up in your brain. Especially when it must be coated in blood.
When did the red turn to blood?
You badly want to open your eyes and see, to lift up your arm towards him, but it is burdensome to do so. In a place where calm settles in; you are given the chance to breathe, to take in the stench of smoke joining your flooded lungs, an itch crawling down your throat until you burst out into coughs.
You remember where you are, however your head becomes hazy at the sound of another voice, lacking the casual composure it carries —whispering your name as if it were lost— and stripping itself off its protective coldness.
“Please, come back.” Another man, dear to you as well, but farther away.
With how hot your little flower garden feels, the gesture ticks you off. No matter how many times you have asked for his seriousness to be toned down, he goes and chooses the worst possible moment. How stupid —of him of course.
You begin to think about how the red turned to a blazing orange, the green blades of grass now flickering tendrils whose bites are blistering. It’s bothersome, the absence of aggressiveness. Makes you believe you weren’t really worth it.
You are, aren’t you?
Flames embrace you, yet do not consume you.
“I am sure this is it. I have a feeling, a promising one,” an older woman —your grandmother— says to her husband and daughter outside the room hidden by the fusuma. The sliding of the panels was swift, hiding your mother from prying eyes.
The eldest daughter, your aunt, frowns at her mother’s behavior. Never has she allowed one of her children to rest after labor, as such, the amount of cursed energy emanating from inside must come from you, the newborn.
She chooses not to comment a single thing, not even when her father chuckles beside her, thanking deities she doesn’t believe in. Instead she sighs, contempt, for she’s aware her little sister can live longer, and you will be given the chance to grow up. The baby your mother has nurtured, smiled at for months even if you couldn’t see her.
“We should be prepared to tell the three clans, I presume,” your grandfather intends to question, taking the hideous form of greed. He rubs his hands together, as he has been doing since the pregnancy was announced and will keep doing so until you manifest a technique.
Not just any technique, their technique.
Your cries echo throughout the engawa and out into the roaring skies, being answered with thunder. The wind blows past the courtyard garden, swaying the plants and disrupting the tranquil waters. A colorless garden, absent of any flowers.
“For the first time since the Heian era, where our name carried weight and power, we will have a child worthy of such a magnificent family.” Your grandmother’s words are absolute, laced in the same ambition she has preached all her life, except that this time, the maddening grin stretching across her wrinkly face imbues her proclamation with possessiveness. “No longer will we remain shoved into the shadows, a spot that never belonged to us and was unrightfully imposed.”
Her speech is nothing but gibberish in your aunt’s ears, sparing a quick glance to the shut off fusuma. Your grandparents’ cackling the background noise to the brewing storm. The perfect match for the darkened skies, dressed in grey.
She should have left home, and your mother should have followed her example.
Those thoughts will spin inside her mind for the rest of her life, they will trail up the same way the vile mesh of vomit creeps up one’s throat, leaving an acidic reek behind.
Her parents abandon their daughter for the celebration that will soon come, and with every clicking step of the geta quieting down, fastening footsteps reverberate over the entire area. They come with huffs and panting, and the desperate shouting of her sister’s name. She always thought that was love.
You are still crying when the man arrives, hunched over with his hands on his knees. Every breath he takes comes with the struggle of catching himself. They are sharp, and the noise he makes is certainly abnormal.
“Why did no one tell me anything?” Fixing his posture, he rolls his shoulders. His hands are on both sides of his head, brows downturned and lips inevitably pulled down into a scowl. “That little girl is my daughter!”
Thunder roars. The sky brightens when lightning strikes.
“There’s no point,” the woman begins, arms crossed and face impassive. The lack of life in her gaze practiced to perfection, a part of her routine, “they wouldn’t have let you inside.”
Both of them knew who they were. Their hearts give out the same wretched beat when they come up, without fail.
“You could have interrupted what is a ritual to them.” Trying her hardest to steady her wobbling lips, it’s the look in your father’s eyes that makes your aunt falter. A fresh pool of tears close to spilling all over his shirt, wrinkled compared to the woman’s kimono.
It must be done, though, and so she tells him what they are all aware of, “you are no one in this family.”
‘And you’ll be no one to your daughter if you keep yourself and my sister here,’ she wants to add, but no other words come out of her gaping mouth.
Your father’s shrieks take hold of yours, despite the fact that he’ll never get to hold you. With the next coughing fit that overpowers him, the engawa is tainted with a vivid red.
The garden is still flowerless.
“Mother says this child is the one we’ve been waiting for,” your mother’s relief doesn’t settle well in her sister’s stomach. She doesn’t slide the panels shut while coming in. She pauses a great distance from the woman holding you in her arms, observes the adoration shining in her eyes, “isn’t it wonderful?”
She should have been a better example, and the belief that her dead siblings may be better off than the three of you doesn’t sound so far-fetched when your mother’s finger brushes the slope of your nose.
Is she seeing a miracle of sorcery, or a daughter born out of love?
Months later the answer comes to her, along with the realization that a human’s heart is as complex as their mind. Both hand in hand.
Your father, a fool in the family’s eyes and a lovesick man in the gazes of the two women that know him, approaches the five of you while out on a walk. His outings turned out to be more apparent, the change inside of him rotten, much like the switch in personality his wife did when you were born.
No longer did he recognize the woman he gave his heart to, and he refused to become acquainted with the puppet that reflects the light of her revolting family.
“Do you love our daughter?” He demands, spitting through gritted teeth. Fists by his sides, trembling ever so slightly. He can’t doubt now, but the quivering that stands by his tone is a dead giveaway. “Or do you just love the curse that might be inside of her?”
It is then that your mother’s eyes widen, showing the thin red lines that walk all over them. Shrunk pupils, shaking at the audacity to question her presence. She doesn’t dare turn around to face her parents; her decision is imminent.
“You don’t understand,” she counters in quick haste, tripping over her own desperation. Shaking her head, her arms tighten over your wrapped up body, bringing you closer to her and letting your head rest on the crook of her neck, “it is not a curse!”
“Answer the question then!” Your father barely lets her finish, raising his voice so much so the regret is instant when your closed eyes twitch. Your aunt glares, and in the distance, the sky’s colors begin to darken.
Even the birds take their leave as silence settles, their shadows a moving painting over a background of vibrant orange and specks of purple. Clouds don’t play around the sleepy sun, and the moon takes its time.
Your father’s shadow stretches towards the two of you, falling short.
Your mother takes a step back, instantly rectifying her posture when her back bumps against your grandfather’s chest. Her flinching is gone in a flash, but does not go unnoticed. She can’t utter a single word, a muted choice that drops heavy on her heart.
“She loves the blessing that is her daughter, a product of her hard work.” When your mother bows down her head, allowing your grandmother to stand in front of her, the reason behind her glistening pupils is clear. “As should you, too, love her.” You start to babble, swinging your arm his way. Nevertheless, the cold hand of your grandmother stops you, urging your mother to do something with it. Hers slides up to her free shoulder, squeezing the clothed flesh before turning her back on your father. “You have done well.”
Not a look to spare, no emotion to her praise, and yet it gives new life to your mother’s face. Her lips curl up, a curve too perfect to be true, one that erases care and craves for it. The true essence of the family he married to, of the shadows merging together against his own, facing the opposite direction.
The air stills, no wind blows.
Your father forces down his coughing, jaw clenched, eyes solely on the woman directly ahead of him. They scan your bundled form, softening at the airy snores you let out. He cherishes the sound, stuck in his memory forever.
“You’ll never understand our world, so you are free to leave.” He doesn’t bother with your grandmother’s sentence, a know-it-all that doesn’t know a thing. He keeps looking at the two of you, engraving the sight into his mind. After all, this might as well be the last time he’ll see you both.
“Your job is over, and you are not needed.” She concludes, and although it isn’t supposed to be insulting, the poison your grandmother’s tongue holds makes a jab at the defenseless man. She stands above, with her family beside her. A mess of their shadows morphed into a single one behind their shapes. “Live and then die.”
“Mother—” Her counter, which comes without hesitation, doesn’t have the time to settle. Her mother swats it off, an annoyance of a fly merely buzzing around her.
“You will not take her away from us.” Her head turns, displaying her profile starting to wear down with age. Her hair, a contrast of youth eaten by thin strands of grey, is compacted into a bun. Your parents have never been able to watch her eyes smile, unless her leer pulls the strings to a sickening grin. “You cannot push her out of a world that will soon belong to her.”
A gasp comes after her declaration, the recoiling figure of your mother clinging to your tiny body. Her hand holds the back of your head; eyes unblinking and frantic as they observe the man leave without looking back.
His movements are robotic, but the dread growing in his heart by simply being in your family’s presence is enough to yearn for his humanity. If it means your abandonment, then so be it.
He’d rather have you miss him as a human than fear him as a monster.
Holding on to the hope of his daughter’s memories is all he has now, all he’s been reduced to. All he has ever been, but never realized.
That day was the first time your aunt held you, she was the second person to ever do so.
Better at hiding her emotions, letting them simmer on the darkest crevices of her mind, she stands with a blank stare and inscrutable expression on her hardened face. Aware of the uselessness of her voice and self, she can’t do anything but watch her sister’s heart break into pieces in front of her. Until said sister places her daughter on her arms with endearment, not looking back as she chases after the man, stepping all over the fragments of herself she allowed their mother to toy with.
Glimpsing down at your sleeping form, your lashes graze the soft skin under your eyes; parted lips breath in and out, a small rough sound following suit most of the time. Your aunt smiles, crinkling eyes affectionate in their view.
In the distance, your mother screams your father’s name. Tripping in her pursuit, he’s forced to stop and face her when a thud resonates and she falls to the grass below. Her grip on its short blades roughens, pulling on the green strands and tugging them off the ground. She stands back up, unbothered to wipe down the remnants of dirt smeared all over her kimono.
“Do you love me?” She wonders, desperate. Darkness begins to prey on the warm colors shading the sky, the canvas of their separation taking form.
He notices her one bare foot, her pristine appearance crumbling down in front of him. Unkempt hair and heavy bags under a misty gaze, specs of dry blood all around her nails, and the vibrant irises dulled down to a mute color.
He laughs.
Brimming giggles leave his lips first, frantic and messy, dying down to chuckling worn down by his uncontrollable wheezing. He must appear worse off than his wife is, taking all of his energy to maintain a rigid posture and not fall over. His laughter grows lively, but is interrupted by the melancholy he can’t hide.
“Please, don’t leave,” whispering, your mother longs for his arms to wrap around her and stop her shaking. So contagious it gets to her voice, “I don’t want to die alone.”
Her plea ends in a sob, one no amount of adoration in your father’s eyes can comfort.
Above, the sun disappears, but it’ll come up again, as it always does. Time will keep on going without stopping, and both of their hearts will keep on beating despite rupturing.
“You have your entire family beside you,” he tells her, the ghost of his laughter painful and mocking. Its corpse is a saddened smile, lips closed and avoiding her eyes, “and my daughter.”
‘Love is a curse,’ was her confession. The moon was full that night.
‘I’ll love you regardless,’ he answered her. Back when the pressure of her family was nothing more than a myth, an obstacle they were to get rid of together.
Your father lets his words tremble, their attacks feeble but relentless to the woman as torn as he is. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, lingers on the darkness surrounding them, on the trees spectating and their dispersing shadows all in the same pool. He rejoices in this moment, and commits the image of your mother to mind.
“She stopped being yours the moment you didn’t answer my question.” Trailing down the side of his face, a single tear drops. The new moon stands proud over his disappearing figure, hands full of his heart.
Able to hear your mother’s cries, your aunt makes quick work to cover your ears. Your grandparents had already left. With nothing left to do but to throw a wish to the starless sky, your aunt hopes for a peaceful death. Of whom, she does not know.
Grandmother was right, your birth was special. Unfortunately for them, two years later a boy shook the world as they knew it, and your family was forced into the shadows once more.
Alas, your grandmother kept insisting on the wait being worth it, and she had been right once again.
The only memory you retain of your mother happened when you were five.
She kneels down on the engawa, hands on top of her thighs, and watches you run around the garden with the koinobori you seem to treasure. The obsession will only last hours, but its contrast on the blue canvas enveloping such a sight made it worth it.
Here and there you’d giggle, and with each full circle made your mother’s hands grow more restless. By the time she calls you over, they grasp the high-quality silk like a lifeline, fidgeting as they do so.
Compared to the vibrant flare of your wear, the garden’s sombre appearance resembles a graveyard. Stones are subdued amongst the greenery’s tendency to darkness, and the slow flow of the water isn’t clear, succumbing to a lustreless landscape. Flowers are still not present, their colors plastered over your kimonos instead.
“Did I do a bad thing?” Your childlike innocence’s uncanny for this place, your mother notes, watching you climb up and crawl over to her side. The obedience causes her eye to spasm, a shiver inching up her back and making said spot its home.
You peer up at her, a shining curiosity sparkling over your eyes, your frown genuine. Spending so much time with her own parents made her forget children tend to honesty. She might have been the same, if she were to remember it.
Shaking her head, that morning’s conversation replays in her mind like a broken record. She could feel their glares in the shadowed corners, rubbing their hands together, towering over the two of them.
Honesty led her to this point, and it will be her piled up mistakes that demonstrate her failure as a mother.
“Not at all,” she consoles you in the silence of the estate. Something would creak, perhaps the wood below your legs, and yet her hand redirects your head to hers. The hold on your chin isn’t demanding, but faint. Only the hissing winds stand by, “but I wish to tell you something.”
You nod, your pouting curling up into a grin. Leaving the koinobori to lay forgotten by the plants until whistling gusts tug at him to play. Nearby, the furin rings, its high-pitched chime reminiscent of the peaceful guise of your mother.
“I want you to grow up strong, and as your mother—” Cut off by her own stomach betraying her, she’s forced to gulp down the unpleasant gag threatening to come up. Placing a hand over it, your mother’s breath is cut short when the warmth of yours settles above hers. The concern plastered all over your face shouldn’t feel sickening, but it’s hard to hide the cold sweat and frenzied gaze.
However, if she doesn’t finish this, the next conversation with her mother will end in agony.
A strand of hair falls out of place and over her face; she almost blows it away if she didn’t notice the streaks of white concealing themselves. She isn’t that old, at least she believes so.
“As your mother I will do anything to ensure you are alright,” it shouldn’t be so hard to say that, but the weight of it haunts her. She exhales, a long sigh uttered, and resumes, “and I have to make sure you let me do that.”
She repositions herself so that her body faces yours, raising her arm between you both and hiding all her fingers except one. It points at you, and you tilt your head sideways at the gesture in return.
“Promise me that you will let me do whatever it takes so that you can get to grow up.”
Your mother sounds so sure of herself, for someone whose hand won’t stop wavering.
“It’s a pinky promise,” she explains, and you listen, even when your heart begins to beat faster, “so take mine and seal my words.”
When you shake your head, refusing to meet your mother’s eyes; drawn to your closed hands on your legs, you paid close attention to what your heart was telling you. The rejection eased the churning of your stomach, but it fueled your mother with ire, flashed a light to the choices she had to make, a word she never knew the meaning of.
“Do not make my life meaningless!” Reverberating through the empty space, you wince at her shrill howling. She has to catch her breath afterwards, and while she tries to regain the composure she’s been building ever since you were born, a finger —trembling just as much as her— interlocks with her pinky.
Before lighting comes thunder, and before your mother’s stream of tears comes the fruition of the relationship she holds with you.
“Give me all of you,” you struggle to say, the pronunciation a bit off —what comes with age.
Shaking shoulders and suppressed sniffles gain control of your mother, her free hand wiping all over her face, searching for a facet she doesn’t have anymore, one he took away with him forever. When she does find her own voice, at least, she manages to choke out the curse that will follow you for the rest of your life.
“I give you all of me.”
Death sat down with you two that afternoon, albeit left no bodies behind.
A year later, your aunt takes you out for a walk in the city. Gone is the soothing nature, replaced by bustling streets and buildings that reach for the sky. Everyone walks with purpose, hurried and oblivious to what goes on around them. Honking cars and hateful yelling crowd the area you make your way past, head snapping around to catch a glimpse of every conversation, every event and reunion that takes place.
“Stay close.” Your aunt snaps you out of your trance, taking your hand in hers.
Every step taken makes for your sneakers to light up in shades of pink and purple. If your aunt gets distracted, especially when someone comes over to ask for directions, you stomp all over the floor in circles, the colors reflecting in the black of your pupils. It makes your skirt fly up, showing the ends of shorts attached to it. Almost reaching your knees, the white fabric pairs up nicely with your shoes. Nonetheless, your choice in shirt couldn’t have been uglier, the vomitive orange a sight for sore eyes, with a little acorn right in the middle and the kanji messily scribbled below it.
Your mouth waters at the smell of takeaway food, people sitting in the outdoor tables to eat their takoyaki or yakitori. It’s inviting, but your aunt wouldn’t approve after having practically devoured three taiyaki all on your own. Keeping the whining to yourself, you grumble and match her pace.
As you make your way forward, the smell transmutes into something more pleasant. Abandoning all traces of smokiness and grilled meat, your nose catches a whiff of repose, a serene scenery coming to mind. Opening your eyes, unaware that you had closed them, you come face to face with a wall full of colors, their aromas invasive, but meaning no harm.
Each bundle of respective shades stand separated from the rest, differing in shape and height too. You scan over all of them, halting right at the cluster of white flowers at the top of the large stem. Its sweet scent lulls you over, and bites you once its built up a sneeze. Rubbing your nose with the back of your hand, the voice of an old man makes your head turn to him.
“Do you like flowers?” Your shrug, and your aunt, who had been on the phone with your mother, stuck preparing dinner, makes her way over when she notices you let go of her hand.
“Those are pretty, we don’t have flowers in our garden,” she comments when she arrives. You turn to her, frowning.
“Grandma says they are for dead people.” You only offer them one last glance, leaving the man behind you to choke at your admission. “We don’t need them.”
Your aunt’s left speechless at your ignorance, blinking at you with slightly parted lips as you jump in place with your colorful sneakers. The old man near the entrance clears his throat, wiping his hands on the apron he wears.
“Flowers are for everyone, even for you.” Tapping the top of your head with a single finger, he takes a hold of a lone flower, the one you’ve been in a staring contest with for the past minute, and gives it with a broad grin. “Here, a carnation.”
You take it with two of your fingers, twisting its stem side to side. With your other hand you touch its core, mellow in the pad of your index finger. You sneeze again, but pull your head up with a toothy smile to the man in charge of the shop.
“Thanks!” You exclaim, opening up your mouth and bringing the gift to it, but before you can take a bite out of it, a hand closes itself around your wrist and pulls your arm back.
“Don’t eat it!” Your aunt hisses, bowing to the dumbfounded man and the new clients about to enter the shop. He stands with widened eyes, grounding his feet to the ground so that he doesn’t jump at you for almost ruining what he considers his perfect flowers. “We are so sorry.”
She pushes your back as she apologizes, bringing you down to a bow as well, “so sorry,” you repeat, not sorry at all.
Returning to your stroll, you wave at the shop owner with the carnation in your hand. The white flowers stand out amidst the mass of people crossing the street.
“I will be back!” You promise, and he only sighs in response.
“I’ll take that as a threat.”
The next time you stop, it is with you squeezing your aunt’s hand. In your other hand you hold the flower, but you free a finger just to signal the display within your sight. She takes a look at it, the medium sized black box with the sony logo written on it, a note right next to it announcing its release.
“That’s a walkman.” You look up at her with a single brow raised, enough to get her to go on without getting to technicalities. “People use it to listen to music, and take it with them wherever they go.”
Observing the way your eyes light up at the explanation, unable to part ways with the box, your smile grows bigger when she pushes the door open with her free hand, purse slipping off her shoulder.
“Guess it wouldn’t hurt to look around.” She smiles back, creases around her eyes.
Inside, different types of electronics line up in various sections. New customers tend to gravitate towards the televisions, some go for the recently advertised fifth generation consoles. Your aunt goes on ahead to the former, trusting you to remain inside.
A low tune drowns out the shop, the man at the counter writing something down on a notebook, placing the pencil in the back of his ear once he’s done. You want to ask him if you could have the box, give him the flower in exchange, but out of the corner of your eye there flies a creature, its shrieks piercing your ears.
Doubling over, you grit your teeth with so much force the pain climbs up to your head. Your heart is stuck to your throat, its beating erratic against it; you can feel it even in your fingertips. You try to steady your breath, a deep inhale that fills up your lungs, accompanied by a sharp pang to your gut. You blink, once, twice, and the next time you open your eyes, you are face to face with a being that you know isn’t human.
Protruding eyes, bulging out of their sockets, they glare at you —at everyone they can get a hold of. You can hear it sniff, taking sharp intakes despite its lack of a nose, a downturned mouth full of perfect human teeth, bigger in size than they should be. The distance between his eyes and mouth isn’t normal either, a face long enough it stretches down to the lower half of your legs.
It possesses no body of its own, a mere mug which morphs into a long tail painted in the most hideous green. Your garden comes to mind, and you are quick to shake the image off. The thing burps, but no one turns an eye and you are forced to deal with the stench alone, one that has the taiyaki you ate regurgitating.
You take a step back, watering eyes focusing in and out, but it doesn’t follow suit. Trailing over its rugged skin, you see that it’s attached to a man’s chest, wrapped around him. His sunken gaze pays no mind to the thing surrounding him, choosing to take slow steps towards the counter, shoving you out of the way mindlessly.
It squawks, wailing louder. He stops in front of the man, who pushes up his glasses when he doesn’t say a word.
Your breath falters. The lights flicker before they fully turn off, turning on right afterwards.
“Need something?”
The carnation within your hand would cry if it could feel your hold on it.
“I want all the money,” he doesn’t bother shouting it out to the entire store, placing a single hand on top of the counter, “now.”
His palm faces outwards, extended out to the owner. Thin lines run over it, hints of dried blood giving them color, showing their cracks. The being that stays by his side wraps itself around him one more time, crushing him. A moan full of distress escapes him, and he glares at the man who has backed off.
“Give me all the fucking money, you deaf?” No longer a nimble mutter, his command jolts up the customers scattered within reach, you included. A condescending smirk covers most of the thing’s flesh, its teeth unusually large.
“Wha—“ The poor man stumbles upon his question, so feeble it crumbles before anyone can hear it, “what?”
His next move gathers the attention of everyone present, for he grabs the back of your shirt and brings you forward so that your back presses over his front. It takes a hold of your shoulder, your shoes lighting up below you, drawing the creature to run its tongue through them. You cringe, attempting to kick it away from you.
Your aunt cries out your name, running at the man before having to stop on her tracks the moment the glint of metal glistens in her gaze. Its cold tact taunting the skin of your neck as you flail around in desperate measures to get rid of the monster nobody can see, their eyes on the one towering over you.
“I’ll kill her!” He lets everyone else know, bloodshot eyes avoiding their hatred, rejecting their disgust. One of your kicks gets to his shin, and he responds by drawing a thin line of fresh blood along your throat.
The tears don’t take long to come, leaving wet trails all over your face, some getting into your mouth, the saltiness melting in your tongue. You search for your aunt, finding her close to you, gawking at the thing that’s fixated on your sneakers, but she does nothing to get rid of it.
With the way all light has abandoned her gaze, how it remains undeterred, you comprehend she won’t do a thing.
Snot begins to run down your nose.
Someone calls for the police, and next thing you know the sunrays blind you and the mosaic of voices spaced out throughout the street overbears you. Still in his grasp, the man turns side to side —stringing you along— finding a crowd of people in every escape route possible. And when he inevitably moves again, a rough twist of his body that even leaves the curse whining, you slip out of his arms and into the street, chest hitting the asphalt and leaving you breathless.
You can’t see much; the blazing scratches on your knees and palms prevent you from falling asleep. Every sound blurs together, and you wonder if you had that walkman, would it feel different. You ponder on it, its stupidity making you crack a smile that doesn’t show on your face.
Screeching tires are the only thing you can grasp in your senses. Everything goes black when rugged rubber runs over your head, applying so much pressure your skull cracks. Worsening once a second tire takes your splattered head as a bump, and the blood bursts into a puddle beneath you.
Exploding in brain matter, remains soaking the shoes of the spectators, there’s not much more to your head other than a single eye rolling out of its place, the empty socket as dark as the sky the day your father left.
The carnation still rests on your easing hand. White flowers dressed in death.
It stares right at your aunt, laughing at her, a dead stare similar to the one she had when she saw her first curse spirit, one your grandfather took care of for a special occasion. The same curse spirit sneering at your corpse. The same one hugging the screaming man to death, attempting to eat the knife in his hand.
A young woman begins to mumble incoherences, her brows twitching with every twist of her lips into a frenzied grimace. Your aunt forces herself to stare at her, her pointed finger straight to the scene of the crime.
When the rest follow the shaky path she shows, the yelling converts into shocked gasps, and your aunt drops her purse when hues of pink and purple shine up ahead.
Your body’s on all fours, pushing itself up. Clearly missing a head.
She can only imagine how her mother would have reacted, had she been here.
Rather, your grandmother decided that she’d offer company to your mother as she works on dinner. She’d pitch in a few tips here and there, dishing out orders on which vegetable to chop next, diligently abided by your mother.
Never has she shared a space like this with her, doing something as mundane as cooking. Having her gaze on her back in the silent kitchen, birds chirping outside and the vapor from the boiling broth warming up the room, she feels at home, she’s at ease.
And yet, the loneliness within her heart persists.
She doesn’t understand why, having done everything she could. Unable to glue the fragments of her heart, she still lived with a smile on her face, and took care of the daughter she gave her parents. And loved her as her mother, endlessly.
Grabbing the knife, staring back at her reflection, she takes an onion and begins to cut it. The chopping’s monotonous, the chorus of the chiming furin ringing in the background amongst the open windows. The tea kettle starts to burn up as well, choosing her mother’s favorite blend to give her. Turning her head to the side to spare her a glance, the older woman remains seated, eyes on her.
Your mother’s smile becomes more genuine than any other she has given. A small gesture only you have seen before.
Sharp, crunching sounds come from her slicing knife. Her eyes get glossy, vision hazy with each precise cut. A high-pitched shriek escapes past the narrow sprout of the kettle, the steam mixing with that of the broth. It becomes confusing, the smell.
It is the knife that falls first, displaying the shock in your mother’s expression as it slips out of her hand. Falling with a resonating clang, an abrupt impact as it bounces with rhythmic clinks and settles on the wooden floor. Her gaze unfocuses just to focus back on the palms of her hands, spotting no blood.
A relieved exhale. She will not have to apologize for her inconvenience.
Your grandmother doesn’t say a thing.
Your mother’s hands begin to tremble, and the keen heartbeat that threatens to jump out of her chest is the tell-tale sign, clear as day to her. Her smile dies out, a flickering flame snuffed out by your grandmother, who was never there to spend time with her to begin with.
The loneliness never disappeared, but was merely ignored by the temporary happiness she chased after.
Every vein from her neck up inflates so much they could burst, their imprint on her skin more evident than ever. Her throat closes up, leaving her to choke, to take short and desperate breaths to taste what life is for a little longer. To see her husband’s face at least one more time. Her eyes well up, finally letting out what she’s been trying to blink back, but they do not get far.
Sloshing flesh tears itself apart in a big explosion, the squishing from inside her body the only warning issued. Splashing all in blood: the knife, the perfectly cut vegetables, the tea kettle, and up to your grandmother —who sits in silence. The broth turns to a reddish tinge, the smell of death mingling with the food, while your mother’s headless corpse stands upright. It drops to its knees, and rests limp next to the knife with a deafening thud.
Chiming once again, the furin sings its song, and the chorus this time is your grandmother’s maniacal cackling, like nails to a chalkboard.
She yells her husband’s name, her triumph transparent, “call the three clans! Tell them that the technique of control has never perished, it was simply dormant!”
The squelching sounds of your skin rebuilding itself mimic those of your mother’s. The muscles and tissues dance a different tune as they rebuild themselves from scratch. A web of nerves, where your eyes are uncomfortably tangled up in, stares at the man who did this. Paralyzed, he’s reduced to a pleading man on his knees, his forehead planted on the ground.
You release a childish chuckle, one that screams ‘found ya!’ to a hiding friend in the playground. When the man looks up, your appearance is free from the scratches and his previous assault to your neck, still intact and with the color back to your skin.
In between his eyes points your finger, your thumb standing upright. The bloodied carnation is still in your grasp, having never let go of it.
The monster’s elongated face is next to his, scowling at you. And the crowd awaits with their hands over their mouths and broad eyes.
“Bang!” You say, and the upper half of the man’s body regurgitates before it detonates into a cascade of blood. The cursed spirit from your mother and aunt’s childhood blows up as well, an event everyone misses, too concerned over the blood raining down on them.
His legs fall flat, and the creature leaves no trace behind.
Your aunt knows, as you search for her hand and take it in the weapon that is yours, she is the only one preventing you from falling right into your grandparent’s clutches. Preventing you from growing up as a corpse, like her sister was.
Grief will walk by her side forever, along the guilt that came with your birth.
‘I will make you weak,’ she thinks to herself, kneeling down and pulling you into a hug, ‘and that will make you strong.’