by Lila Mina
“How…!” she exclaimed with a broken voice, pointing an accusing finger at him. “How can you tell me something like this? Are you so delusional you need to come up with a ridiculous lie to justify... us, to not feel guilty about it?” It took all her will not to crumble on the ground and cry. That she had been so blind, that she had ended up with such a pathological liar and manipulator made her sick.
Honda took a few steps closer with raised hands, but she shook her head vehemently. “Oh no, you don’t! You stay away, you don’t touch me! If it were a health problem, a borderline disorder or something similar making your temper so uncheckable, I… would be willing to help you, really, I would! If only you hadn’t come up with such a ludicrous story! That’s it! I’m gone! I can raise this child on my own, I’ll figure something out, but I’m out of this, out of this country, and you’d better stay clear from me, from us!”
“Lana san!” Honda exclaimed, almost desperate. She had never seen him so agitated. “I will not force you to stay. Never. I have always told you, you are free to leave, anytime. I don’t want you to go, but it does not matter. But I swear I am telling you the truth! I could not tell you before. Precisely because of… your natural and normal reaction. Again, I believed my predicament would never impact you so directly, so there was no reason in my mind to confuse you, to scare you. But it was a mistake, and there are truly no excuses for my conduct.”
With these words, he kneeled on the ground, bowed to her until his brow rested on his folded hands and remained unmoving for a long while. Lana stepped back and stared, dumbfounded, at his prostrated form. This was getting crazier by the second.
“Stop this…” she hissed, looking frantically around to see if anyone was watching, and angry at his attempt to mollify her with such an incredible show of utter repentance.
Honda raised his head and slowly got back on his feet. “I have proof to convince you.”
Lana threw her hands up, a mirthless laugh escaping her. “What? No no, please, stop with this nonsense! There is no proof! Curses, demons and spirits don’t exist. This is fantasy, children’s tales!”
Honda took two more steps to find himself at arm’s length. “There is proof. And yes, they do exist. I made this cruel and first-hand discovery twenty years ago. I confronted one, unknowing of its real nature, and she gutted me. I have no idea if I can ever step out of it, put an end to this spiral. I am telling you this today because I cannot let you live with the belief that this is a happy accident, and that we are heading toward a bright future, the four of us together.”
He took a deep breath, and his voice turned to a whisper she could barely catch. “You want to leave, it is perfectly understandable. I have broken your trust, I am unworthy of your respect and dedication. But you have to decide whether you wish to confront this on your own… Because to be terribly honest, I don’t know if you can get out of this even if you put an ocean between us.”
They stared at each other for a long time. Lana was at a loss for words. His sincerity and remorse were undeniable, his sadness at the prospect of her leaving wasn’t an act. But proof?
“What can possibly convince me this isn’t a twisted fantasy existing only in your mind?”
Honda removed his jacket and opened two buttons of his collar. “You see it. Even though you have never dared to ask me, I know you do. You always avoid it if you can, you are always hesitant when you touch this area.” His fingers touched his neck.
Lana frowned. “You mean, your scar? Of course, I see it, it’s impossible to miss. It’s so… long and terrifying! Is it sensitive? I’ve always feared to hurt you…”
Honda shook his head. “Yes, it is extremely sensitive, but only now and then. And Yuki cannot see it. Nobody can. You are the first person I have ever met who can.”
Lana took another step back. “What?”
Honda grimaced. “This scar was made by the yokai who cursed me. Onryo,” he said in a low whisper.
“Onryo? Who… what’s that?
“A vengeful, horrible spirit who caused terrible harm to my family, while passing for a human. I attempted to bring her to justice, but it was only then that I learned her true nature, to my shock and utter downfall. Her curse aggravated my… natural tendencies. You have met her.”
Lana took two steps back. “What?” Her eyes grew wide, as memories flashed. “The young woman at the club? Her words were so strange…”
Grim, Honda nodded. “Yes… she can take many forms, many different faces, and at first I didn’t recognize her. Only when… when you reacted so strongly, in such a violent fashion, and I heard her words, only then did I connect the dots.” He rubbed his face and shook his head.
“At the beginning, for several years after the… incident, intensive budo practice was enough to keep my temper and my other drives under control. Later, Yuki managed to handle me. But for the past two, three years, there was no… no respite anymore, only mounting frustration and less and less self-control — bursts of unbridled urges, sexual need, desire to… feel pain, to find pleasure in it, and to inflict it upon others… The demon said my wife wouldn’t be able to help me, condemning me to madness and agony. The only way was to look elsewhere, effectively making me choose between a painful and impossible divorce and betraying my vows. But she didn’t foresee… didn’t take into account… Yuki. Yuki, she...” Unable to continue, Honda looked away, face burning in embarrassment.
Thick silence filled the space between them, but for all that mattered, a bottomless pit could have opened at their feet. Unapologetic, Lana stared him down without flinching, searching his face and body language for any hint of dishonesty.
Walk away now or allow him to continue his story. This is either the craziest truth or an old man’s raving madness.
Memories flashed in the back of her mind, and she flinched. The girl on the train… the rainy night at the shrine… my mad desire to rip that bitch’s head off... What level of crazy do I choose to believe?
She closed her eyes and jumped into the abyss. “I guess that thing didn’t realize the nature of your relationship with Yuki sama, and her willingness to allow you to find solutions elsewhere…” Lana whispered, wistful at the amazing strength of the bond between her partners. “Still, assuming for one second you are telling me the truth. Why can I see your scar then, why can I see her, them? Why me?”
Honda shrugged in frustration. “It cannot be only intercourse because Yuki is oblivious to this side of reality. I thought at first it was our mutual understanding, our similar drives making it possible. But something else is at play. There is something in you as well, which makes you receptive and perhaps even amplifies everything... Until today, I still had doubts, but now...” His voice became a throaty whisper. “Nogitsune.”
Lana did a double take. “What did you say?”
“Nogitsune. This is the name given to wicked fox-spirits who play tricks and curse people. You have heard it before.”
“Yes! Yes… the granny on the day of the earthquake… I couldn’t remember the word afterward, and then I forgot about the incident.”
“This was no ordinary old woman. She was perhaps one his followers, or a yokai aligned with him. You are being watched. Like me. Maybe even right now. At the time I thought it was only incidental she approached you, that it was me she targeted. But even so, you saw her, you interacted with her. What did she tell you?”
Lana’s head spun, and her hand flew to her mouth. “I… It’s so far away now… We talked about you, that’s for sure. She made some kind of joke on our relationship. Ah… yes! She was delighted you weren’t my husband, but my master. She said nogitsune would find it interesting.” She shivered in the warm night. The more she remembered the incident, the more reality sunk in.
Honda growled and clenched his fists. “Anything else?”
It was hard to think straight. Her head throbbed in pain, sweat ran down her back. Even now the night had fallen, there was still so much residual heat in the air, stuck b
etween the buildings, and the asphalt had yet to cool.
“No… but it wasn’t the first time I met her. She taunted me right before our meeting at the love hotel. Also, I found it so odd the first thing she asked me was for some amazake, of all drinks!”
“Amazake? There is one yokai who does this, an old hag who brings sickness with her when you can’t give her any. I guess she was only there to spy.”
Exhausted, Lana buried her face in her hands. As outlandish as it sounded, as mad it was to believe him, figments of nightmares swirled in her mind. Long teeth, piercing pain, yellow eyes…
No! Stay away!
“There is so much I don’t understand… I can’t deny what I’ve heard or seen myself, but how did I get linked to that… thing, or even found myself on his radar in the first place! I’ve been here for less than three years! And in the name of all that is holy, how could it make me pregnant?”
Honda stared at his feet. “The powers of yokai are many.” She had to strain to hear him over the traffic noise. His voice trailed off, and they remained silent for a while, as he attempted to regain his composure.
“Lana san, nogitsune is a dark force, but today I remembered he also has healing abilities. At first, when you told me about the baby, I was absolutely delighted. But today, at the clinic, when the doctor explained the extent of your injuries, the amount of scar tissue, I realized things are much more complex. If you are also affected in one way or another…”
“Healing…” Lana whispered, eyes wide. Without thinking, she clutched his sleeve. Her anger abated, only a feeling of urgency remained, of desperate need to figure out what it meant for her, for them, for the baby. “Do you remember that night where things got more out of hand than usual, where you were so… gone. What we did, what we said?”
Honda sighed and nodded somberly. “Yes, of course I do… Please, believe me: those words I used, I sincerely meant them. When you give yourself to me, you do heal me and bring me relief and peace... for a while. While I am still under tremendous pressure, my downward spiral has eased somewhat since we began our relationship. But that night, when we cut each other like we did, when we shared so much, and dug so deep and let out so much… perhaps something more powerful was roused up and made conception possible.”
A sob wracked her from head to toes, and her brow came to rest on his shoulder. “But then something positive, something good came out of our predicament,” she whispered urgently. “Tell me, please, I’m begging you! Tell me this doesn’t affect the baby!”
With a heavy sigh, Honda carefully put his hand on her neck. She didn’t shrug him off. “I don’t know, Lana san,” he whispered back. “All these years, I tried to find answers. I believe you are part of it, for the better or the worse. Maybe this baby as well… or not at all. Is there even a purpose to this? Is it only a particular condition we must endure until our final days? I have no answer to give you.”
Eyes squeezed shut Lana bit her lip. Terror and despair flooded her, followed by a raw need to run and hide under a blanket.
As if this has ever helped or solved any problem… grow up girl!
“It would be sheer madness for me to leave the country. I want to understand, even if those answers take five, ten years to come out.”
Honda’s grip on her neck slightly increased. “Yes… But it goes without saying you shouldn’t stay at our home, you don’t have to be with me anymore. I will make sure right away you get an appropriate place to live and pay for all your needs.”
Lana sighed and raised her head. He was still staring at the ground. Resolutely, she cupped his cheek and turned his face toward hers; she winced at his obvious pain.
“Is there anything else you want to share that affects me like this? Something you decided to keep for yourself? Any other… deep, dark secret?”
“No.”
“Does Yuki sama know?”
“No, she knows nothing about it.”
Lana shook her head. “We need to tell her.”
“I don’t think —”
“Yes, we do. Not now, not while we’re still figuring things out, but before the baby’s birth. I am livid you didn’t tell me, either about you or your suspicions about me. She is your wife and you have kept this from her for fifteen years. It must stop. She deserves the truth.” Honda remained silent; she had driven her point home. “Anyone else, like Inoue shihan?”
“No. He is aware of my instability and needs, but not of this aggravating factor. Nobody else knows.”
He had fought this alone. Men!
Lana fell silent, letting everything sink in. A whirlpool of feelings battled with her reason. She listened to what her body told her, even though she wasn’t sure she could trust it anymore. Perhaps it was wrapped into mystic binds leaving no space to her autonomy. But Honda’s face showed only misery, anxiety and a sadness he didn’t even bother to repress.
Despite the lump in her throat and the pit in her stomach, she grabbed his shirt. “Perhaps I’ll regret this all my life, but no, I won’t leave you today. I won’t abandon you and Yuki sama. I need your support and strength to confront whatever is out there, threatening us and the baby. I understand you didn’t try to deceive me. And yes, I wouldn’t believe you if I hadn’t seen… things with my own eyes far too strange for my brain to explain.”
Shivering despite the moist heat clinging to her skin, she leaned against him, relishing the full contact between their bodies and hating herself at the same for time for craving it so much. Her voice turned into a rough whisper.
“Whatever the cause, however non-natural this could be, there is something in me that needs this as much as you do. And this existed even before we met. Of this I am certain. You didn’t ensnare me. Agreeing to your proposal only opened a window that allowed me to see myself truly for the first time.”
Honda’s arms went around her and from light, their physical contact became quickly intense and hard to control.
“Swear to me that if my situation continues to degenerate, if I become unmanageable and a real threat, you will leave and take the child and Yuki with you.”
“Stop this…”
“No! If a line is crossed, this will be over. I will do what is necessary to protect all of you. If my presence, my existence becomes a threat to you, any of you, then I will end it. But you might have to leave before I reach this point, and you need to protect them!”
With a snarl, Lana twisted his shirt and pulled hard. “No! I won’t have you commit suicide over this! There are other solutions!”
Honda growled and bared his teeth. Suddenly, they were back into their usual dynamics. “Suicide is a perfectly valid and honorable solution. It may be the only way. And if I had not been such a coward, I would have taken this road many years ago, instead of risking Yuki’s health and exposing someone else, you, to this.”
A wave of anger shook her. Before she knew it, her hand slapped his face hard. “I don’t care about valid and honorable,” she spat while pressing a finger to his chest. “You won’t take the easy way out, not with a child on the way, not with two partners who would do anything to help you find a solution. We have time, and you aren’t alone anymore. Promise me you’ll fight this, that you will never give up! If I can stay and face it, so can you!”
Bewildered and rubbing his reddening cheek as if it were some kind of alien material, Honda stared at her. Heat painted her cheeks red; she couldn’t quite believe what she had done. But he deserved it — and certainly more — after what he had put her through for the past hour.
To her astonishment, he didn’t burst an artery. “Of course, I will confront it, but if it comes down to that, you must understand why I have to do it.”
With shaky hands, Lana let out a long breath. “I… I know why you say this. But… it goes beyond what I can accept without a fight. I’m sorry, on this… I cannot follow bushido.”
“I disagree and regret it, but I understand. But why do you help me then?”
Lana scoffed
and quirked an eyebrow. “Because I’m a damn fool? And don’t play the ignorant. You know why. It’s the reason you don’t want to hear about. But this is the only good reason, the only reason that matters.”
With narrowed eyes, he towered above her. “It is a bad reason. It blinds you, will make you weak and make the worst decisions.”
She snorted and pushed herself up until their breaths mingled. “Oh, because you’ve made all the right choices so far, hmm? You follow your code. I follow mine. I don’t ask you to support it, but to trust it just a little bit, as I trust yours can also help. Maybe, just maybe, combined together, they will get us out of this mess alive. Now, there’s nobody around, and it’s dark. Are you going to kiss me or what?” she challenged him with a growl, eyes unwavering.
They couldn’t go home to Yuki without taking care of the tempest of dark emotions tugging at them, of anguish and sadness, of dull pain and fear drilling through their stomachs. With a grunt that resonated throughout her body, his mouth crashed on hers. Her nerves lightened up as he took back what had almost escaped him, what she had been so close to deny him for good, what she had almost lost herself.
“The car. Now.” Honda barked, breaking their smoldering kiss. Her only reply was to wrap her arms and legs around him to let him carry her while she continued to devour him.
Even with tinted rear windows, they were taking a huge risk to do it in the backseat on a public parking lot. If police caught them, they would end up in jail. But whether it was their natural drives, the desperation to reconnect and prove to themselves they were not done, but alive and kicking, or this otherworldly influence aggravating everything, neither cared. Given how fired up they were, it wouldn’t take long in any case.
Honda blindly fumbled with the handle, opened the rear door and threw her inside on the leather seats. Lana crawled away to give him enough space to join her. The cabin was dark, barely illuminated by the CVS and the passing lights of cars on the street behind them. Outside noises were muffled. It was as if they were underwater, in a bubble cut off from the world. With the engine off, it was already hot, and perspiration broke all over her body in a few seconds.
