by Tristan Vick
“What happened to you?” he asked, staring deep into Saeko’s brown eyes.
His azure gaze penetrated her hardness, and suddenly Saeko’s chest grew heavy, her breathing became difficult, and she felt dizzy. It was as though she were drowning in the open air. She couldn’t stand it a moment longer. Shooting Kevin an angry look, she stormed out of the onsen.
Waiting for Saeko to be out of earshot, Kana asked, “Has she always been like that?”
“Brash, stubborn, with a hard exterior … yeah, basically.” Kevin laughed. Saeko’s personality hadn’t changed any, it was just that she was colder somehow.
“No, that’s not what I meant,” Kana said. “I mean, has she always been so devoid of feeling? It’s like she came back to the living but her soul remained dead.”
“I don’t know. She’s just...different somehow,” Kevin replied. “I wouldn’t make anything of it. Not until we know everything that happened to her.”
“Oh, okay,” Kana said. She didn’t want to hurt Kevin by telling him what she truly felt. And what she felt was that they should let Saeko be. They should just leave her to straighten things out on her own and give her the space she needed to do that. As far as Kana was concerned, they didn’t need to know everything that happened to her. It was unnecessary. It had no bearing on their lives. “I hope we can help her at least,” Kana lied.
Smiling at her, Kevin reached around and took her up in his arms. “Me too,” he said. Then he gave her a peck on the lips. Kana smiled and rested her head on his chest. The minute he could no longer see her face she let her overly polite smile dissolve. All she wanted was Kevin, yet she was starting to suspect what he wanted—was Saeko.
51
Insomnia
Aokigahara Village, Near Mount Fuji, Japan
Unable to sleep, Kana’s mind fixated on Saeko, and a terrible envy drove her to the brink of madness. She rolled over, looked at Kevin’s peacefully slumbering face, and decided that she had to do something about Saeko. If she didn’t, then she was quite nearly certain Kevin would leave her for that skinny slut, and Kana couldn’t live with that. Even just the mere thought of it drove her mad.
Sneaking out of their room, Kana tiptoed on her bare feet down the hall toward Saeko’s room. She carefully slid open the rice-paper-enveloped sliding doors as carefully as she could to keep them from creaking, which she desperately didn’t want them to do. But they still creaked none-the-less. Her heart leaped out of her chest from the frightful sound, but she stopped and waited for the blanket of silence to once again settle over everything. Once she regained her courage she silently slipped into Saeko’s room.
Standing over Saeko’s sleeping body, lit only by the dim moonlight shining through the bedroom window, Kana watched the unsuspecting girl sleep. She couldn’t shake the image of Saeko from the bath. She knew it was most likely a mistake having invited her to take a bath with them. And even though getting naked in front of perfect strangers was perfectly normal for Japanese people and the onsen culture, she still couldn’t forget how Kevin stared at his ex—with eyes full of longing. That’s when she knew, he couldn’t let go of her. And how could she blame him? Saeko was gorgeous. Her body was perfect. Even Kana suspected sex with a girl like that would be amazing. And the more she thought about it, the more her jealous hate overwhelmed her.
Kana toiled on how best to do it, when, from the corner of her eye, she noticed Saeko’s knife resting conveniently next to her pillow. Kana slowly bent down and picked up the knife. Careful not to make a sound, she slid it out of the sheath. Then she quietly crawled on top of sleeping beauty.
Not wanting to put too much pressure on Saeko’s chest, for fear of awakening her, Kana gently straddled Saeko’s abdomen with her meaty thighs. As she spread her legs wider to better position herself over the sleeping girl, her sash unfurled and her nightgown slipped open, sliding down around her shoulders.
As her nightgown slipped off her shoulders, her large breasts hung freely out and her chest heaved as she took long, deep breaths to try and calm her nerves.
Ignoring the displaced robe, Kana held the knife firmly in both hands and slowly raised it above her head. She knew it would have to be a quick, lethal blow—piercing the girl’s heart with one mighty thrust of the blade. After piercing Saeko’s heart, Kana planned to slit her throat. That way she’d bleed out quickly and wouldn’t be able to scream for help.
“Do it,” Saeko whispered, without opening her eyes.
Kana let out a fearful gasp as her heart practically jumped out of her chest. The soft glow of moonlight bounced off her perfectly shaped breasts and illuminated her purple nipples, which stood erect from the adrenaline-fueled panic.
Saeko’s eyes shot open and then she was staring up at her, watching her with an intensity so penetrating that Kana felt chills shoot up and down her spine.
“Do it,” Saeko repeated.
Kana didn’t know what to do. All she could do was freeze with fear at the realization of the terrible crime she was about to commit. She was caught in the middle of a jealousy-fueled plot to murder Saeko. Perhaps worse than this was the fact that the damned girl wanted her to go through with it—and for whatever reason—unexpectedly—she just couldn’t.
Reaching up with her hands, Saeko gently wrapped her fingers around Kana’s and drew them nearer and nearer to her chest. As the razor-sharp edge of the blade pressed against the soft skin of her left breast, Saeko gazed up at Kana’s apprehensive eyes and quivering bottom lip and then, without saying a word, forced Kana to press the knife down even harder into her flesh. Soon the tip of the blade had penetrated Saeko’s skin by about an inch and blood began trickling out from her left breast.
“Wait …” Kana whispered in protest. “Please, stop.”
Saeko ignored her and continued to apply more pressure to Kana’s hands. The knife easily cut into her breast, sinking deep into her meaty flesh, until it hit the bone of her breastplate.
“You have to push through the bone,” Saeko said in a voice that was void of any emotion.
The feeling of the knife grating against bone was too much for Kana to handle. It was like fingernails on a chalkboard. She pleaded again, “No, please. He’d never forgive me for it.”
Losing all nerve, Kana jerked her hands away as hard as she could and dropped the bloodied knife onto the floor. Her hands trembled horribly as she straddled Saeko’s pelvis and the two women gazed at one another with jealous rivalry.
Slowly, Kana stood up, wrapped her breasts back up in her robe, and cinched it tight. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Please, don’t tell Kevin about any of this.” With that, she scurried out of the room and didn’t dare look back.
52
Words of Wisdom
Aokigahara Village, Near Mount Fuji, Japan
As the sun came up over the horizon, igniting the sky in a hot pink and bathing every cloud with a white halo, Kevin yawned and rolled over to see a very pregnant woman sleeping next to him. The old man had let them stay in what he called his “guest house,” but it was just a storage hut with a thatched roof. They weren’t complaining though. Finding this oasis, a refuge away from all the insanity in the world, was miraculous, to say the least.
Kevin looked over in time to see Saeko tiptoe into the kitchen, grab her smokes, and tiptoe back out in nothing but the bathrobe she’d acquired the night before. Kevin looked back at Kana sleeping beside him. Poor thing, she was exhausted. Now was his chance. If she was sound asleep he could finally get Saeko alone and ask her all about all the things he’d secretly been dying to ask her.
Carefully, Kevin slid out from under the covers, climbed over Kana, who was dead asleep, and headed out the door. Once there, he looked back one more time to check to see if Kana was still snoring, which she was, which meant she’s be asleep for a while longer. Satisfied that she wouldn’t wake anytime soon, he followed Saeko.
As she smoked on the back porch, Saeko felt his eyes burning into the back of her skull
. Without looking back, she grumbled, “What?”
“How? How are you even alive? I saw you die. I saw you get torn apart and eaten alive.”
Saeko turned toward Kevin and frowned. “Why are you even asking me that?”
“Because,” Kevin said, his voice wavering in his throat. “I need to know.”
“So, we’re going to do this now?”
“Did you have another time in mind that’d be better?”
“Gee, let me check my schedule book and get back to you,” Saeko sarcastically quipped.
“Well?”
“Fine,” Saeko grumbled. “What do you want to know?”
Kevin rubbed the back of his head. “I guess it’s just, well, I just don’t understand what the hell is going on. My whole world turned upside down the day I lost you. The next thing I knew…it’s just…I’m…God, I dunno. It’s all messed up.”
Saeko rolled her eyes, turned back around, and took a long drag. She couldn’t stand his bleeding-heart speech, especially knowing it came from the lips of a hypocrite. If he had cared as much as he said he did, he wouldn’t have fucked the first surviving woman he came across. She held the tobacco smoke in her lungs as long as she could, then breathed it back out through her nostrils.
Suddenly Kevin’s hand was on her shoulder. “I need you to know something.”
“Save it,” Saeko snapped. She was through pretending she wasn’t mad. She was downright furious.
“I never stopped loving you. I just...I did like you had me promise. I moved on.”
“No kidding.”
“What? Are you saying you wouldn’t have done the same?”
Saeko turned to face Kevin squarely. “I don’t know what I would have done! There, are you satisfied?” Tears gushed out of the corners of her bloodshot eyes, and she hit his chest with both fists balled tight.
Kevin stumbled back. Saeko tried to hit him again but this time he caught her wrists and pulled her close into his body. His embrace silenced her little tantrum. Suddenly she was sobbing into his chest until she could gather herself together. As she let it all out, Kevin bent down and kissed the top of her head.
Looking up, Saeko gazed into his crystal clear blue eyes and suddenly found herself standing on her toes. Then, unexpectedly, their lips touched.
Suddenly the paper sliding door swooshed opened, and they both jumped up in alarm, like two teenagers getting caught by their parents doing something they were expressly instructed not to do.
Neither of them could have explained the relief they felt when they realized it was just the old man. But neither of them was embarrassed by the forbidden kiss. In truth, the kiss had felt perfectly fine to. Actually, it was better than fine—it was perfect.
Kevin sighed with relief as Saeko regained her self-composure and broke away from his embrace. She bowed politely to the old man and then left the them standing on the back porch of the house, watching her storm off.
“You get around, don’t you?” The old man smiled up at Kevin with his mostly toothless grin and winked. Kevin simply shrugged. What could he say? He loved each of them. How was he supposed to choose who he loved more? That just seemed too unfair. It wasn’t a competition. It was just, well, it was just how he felt.
The old man handed Kevin an onigiri, a rice-ball wrapped in dried seaweed, and then looked out over the valley.
“Just be careful, lad. Where there is passion there is always a flame. Somebody usually ends up getting burned.”
Kevin nodded in agreement and took a generous bite of the onigiri. After a moment of chewing, he swallowed and said, “You know something? I never did get your name, sir.”
“The name is Tamagawa,” he said. Laughing in his usual jovial manner, he continued, “I’m the mayor of this village. I used to be the local monk, but when the people sought leadership and counsel, well, I guess any old religious man will do.”
“Well, it’s nice to finally have a name to go with the face,” Kevin said, taking another bite of his rice-ball. “And on behalf of the girls and myself, thanks for your hospitality, Mr. Tamagawa.”
“It’s my pleasure,” Tamagawa replied, and he slapped Kevin on the back. Hard. Chuckling to himself, he took his leave and left the porch. As he departed, he couldn’t help but feel all these young people and their never-ending dramas were too exasperating for his taste. It made him thankful for being old.
53
On the Verge of Madness
Aokigahara Village, Near Mount Fuji, Japan
As the days wore on, Kana attended to her menial chores and did much of the cooking. She didn’t mind being a homemaker; it rather suited her. But she couldn’t stand Kevin’s wandering eyes, and she was keen to note that they were always fixated on Saeko. In fact, she half-expected the two had been sneaking off together for quite some time, but she’d never confronted him about it. Maybe she should.
Of course, Kana’s envy grew deep and festered, and she took out her anger on Kevin in little passive aggressive ways. She was aware she was doing it too, but if she didn’t get on his case about things, he’d just wander off and strike up a conversation with Saeko again. He had a very bad habit of going back to her, even though he knew it drove Kana insane.
But what could Kana say or do about it? Saeko had all the leverage. If Kana so much as even looked at Saeko the wrong way, well, then she could just tell Kevin the awful truth of Kana’s hidden nature—of what she really was—and what she had tried to do.
Kana didn’t dare push her that far. After all, she didn’t want to lose Kevin, and if he somehow found out about that, he’d almost certainly leave her for Saeko.
After weeks of endless complaints and nonstop bickering with Kana over nothing, Kevin’s patience was beginning to wear thin. He was starting to think living in the rot and ruin beyond the borders of the village would be a lot less emotionally painful.
Things were simpler then, when every day was a struggle to survive. They didn’t have time to dwell on their emotions or, for that matter, get tangled up in them. Kevin rather missed the simpler days. But he didn’t say anything to Kana about it for fear she would tear him a new one. After all, he was the one who suggested they leave in the city in the first place.
As to be expected, Kevin was in two minds about whether Saeko’s coming back into his life was a good thing. He knew it was selfish of him to miss being with her so much, and he knew it wasn’t fair to Kana that he’d been spending so much time chatting with Saeko recently, but they were good friends. Old friendships didn’t just die because someone new entered your life.
What he had to figure out was how to balance his time and responsibility to both sets of friends while remaining loyal to each of them. Kevin was still trying to figure out just how to manage his time so he could spend it equally with two women who were constantly competing for his affection.
Kana groaned from back pain and set the wet basket of laundry down on the table. She pressed on the small of her back with the palms of her hands and stretched. She was tired, her feet were swollen from her pregnancy, and they ached terribly for no good reason at all. Moreover, she knew that this additional stress wasn’t good for the baby. To compound things, she was feeling horny again. That’s when she looked out the window and saw Saeko laugh and touch Kevin’s arm.
“That bitch!” Kana said out loud, her ire shooting into the red-hot boiling range.
She knew that Saeko knew she could see them too, which made her all the angrier. She was doing it deliberately to toy with her and piss her off. Kana almost regretted not going through with it that night, but something deep down inside her was terribly afraid of Saeko. Even if she had carved Saeko’s heart out, what’s to say the girl wouldn’t just resurrect again? It was a no-win situation for Kana, and Saeko knew that just as well as she did.
Kana felt it was better to bide her time. Let Kevin have it both ways for now. But while he and Saeko tramped around, pretending she didn’t exist, Kana plotted her revenge. She’d find ways t
o turn the community against Saeko. And whether it took her another year to complete her master plan, or five, she’d persevere. Seeing Saeko be humiliated and ostracized would be well worth the wait.
Saeko had found Kevin hanging up laundry when she conveniently interrupted him. Saeko smiled at him and brushed the loose strands of her hair behind her ear. “Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” Kevin answered. His eyes met hers and he returned the smile. Going back to hanging clothes, he asked, “What’s up?”
Glancing over her shoulder, Saeko noticed Kana policing them from the window of the house off in the distance with stern glances and smoldering eyes, but she ignored them. Saeko couldn’t care less for what the heartless bitch thought of them. Kevin deserved better. Maybe not Saeko, but certainly not that heartless, scheming witch he was with now.
And the worst part of it all was that Kevin didn’t even realize how evil Kana was beneath her two-faced mask. Whenever he was around she acted like the perfect angel. But Saeko knew better. “I was just thinking, I mean, if you wanted…” Saeko said, patting the pommel of her sword, “maybe we could resume our training together.”
Kevin’s eyes lit up. “You really mean that?”
“Of course,” Saeko laughed. She touched Kevin’s arm softly and brushed another strand of wayward hair behind her ear, but it just as quickly became dislodged again and fell across her face.
Caught up in the excitement, Kevin picked Saeko up by the waist, whisked her off her feet in a loving embrace, and spun her around before setting her back down again.
Laughing some more, Saeko looked at him with a demure grin. “What was that for?”
Stepping back, Kevin felt that he had acted a little too impulsively. “I apologize. I don’t know what got into me.”
