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The air in the room hangs so heavy that it presses down on my chest. Each breath is like a shallow struggle. It always feels small here, like a suffocating box. I sit on the wobbly chair by the table, one hand a tense prop beneath my chin, the other a tight fist around a half-smoked cigarette. A thin curl of smoke rises, a pathetic offering of release that does nothing to ease the knot of dread in my stomach.
Across the small table, Mafuyu is a broken thing. Her shoulders hunched inward, her head tilted so that long strands of hair curtained one side of her face. She can't hide the blossoming purple and yellow bruises on her neck or the red scrape below her cheekbone. It’s too much now. Her lower lip is split into a crust of dark brown blood. The oversized shirt drowns her small frame, but the image of her battered body is seared behind my eyelids.
The silence stretches like a suffocating blanket.
Words claw at the back of my throat like a desperate litany. I want to shatter this stillness, even if I need to bombard her with accusations, with desperate pleas.
Why do you let him touch you?
Why don’t you run?
Why are you sitting there with those empty eyes, like this is normal?
But the questions remain trapped, held captive by a nameless fear.
Mafuyu has buried things since high school, since her mother’s control. Pain, fear, longing – she folds them away, tucking them into some hidden corner of her mind and then offers a smile. Once, I admired that resilience. But now, seeing that same buried stillness in the face of this devastation, a bitter rage flares within me, not at her, but at my uselessness.
I am useless. I arrived too late. I can’t shield her from that damn forced marriage, can’t yank her from the grip of that monster. Now, all I can do is witness the wreckage.
Mafuyu swirls the empty wine glass in her hand, the cheap glass catching the dim light. Abruptly, a sound escapes her - a laugh, small and dry. Is it amusement? Or just the hollow echo of despair?
"Mizuki," her voice is a fragile thread, barely audible. "Do I look awful to you?"
That question is a physical blow.
Rage ignites, creating a searing inferno that threatens to consume me. I want to roar, to scream the truth that claws at my insides: " Yes! You look like you've been dragged through hell! You shouldn't look like this!" But my voice is a strangled whisper in my chest. All I can manage is a tight, empty smile.
"Yeah," I say, the word rough and torn. "You do."
I am too weak to inflict more pain on Mafuyu. She is already drowning in it.
"But at least," she says, her gaze fixed on some unseen point beyond me, "I'm not dead yet."
I freeze.
Her words are a blade, plunged deep into my chest.
Not dead yet? Is that her measure of survival now?
My fists clench, my nails digging crescents into my palms - a sharply stinging reminder of my helplessness. I want to shake her, to scream into her face, "Don't say things like that to me!" but my limbs feel like lead.
I just stare into her eyes that once blaze with a fierce light whenever we are together, eyes that used to capture the city's glow like scattered diamonds. Now, they are dull, lifeless.
And emptiness.
I don't know what is more terrifying - the brutal reality of what has been done to her, or the chilling acceptance in her eyes, the utter lack of will to fight.
Outside the window, the city pulses with oblivious life. Towering buildings stand like silent, uncaring sentinels. Cars stream along the arteries of the streets, their lights blurring into streaks of color. Life continues, unaware of the shattered world contained within these four walls.
And a cold certainty settles in my gut.
Tonight, waiting is no longer an option.
Mafuyu reaches for the bottle, the neck of the glass clinking softly against my empty glass as she refills it.
Her hand trembles weakly, almost imperceptible tremor, yet it sends a sharp jolt of unease through me, a cold ripple under my skin.
I know Mafuyu too well, not like that fucking monster. I know she despises the burn of strong liquor, the way it claws at her throat. She only seeks its oblivion when the weight of reality becomes unbearable.
"Do you think if he died," Mafuyu whispers, her voice a breath so fragile it might shatter in the still air, "I'd be free?"
She has never voiced the thought aloud before, never allowed it to take shape in the air between us.
I stare at her, my gaze desperate, searching her hollow eyes for any sign of jest, any flicker of her old, wry humor. But there is nothing. Only a profound emptiness, the gaze of someone who has long since surrendered, who has become intimately familiar with the taste of endurance.
She expects nothing.
The sharp click of a key turning in the lock echoes through the small apartment.
The sound is small, nothing much. Yet, it tears the heavy quiet, goes under my skin, like ice down my back.
Mafuyu flinches hard, her breath catches, and her shoulders tighten; her hands grip her shirt, knuckles white. It looks like a shock goes through her.
And then, she bolts with the desperate speed of a hunted animal. Like a primal instinct, she runs towards the closet, a place to hide. Her body knew this fear without thinking.
I’m frozen, watching her as she squeezes into the small space, presses against the clothes, trying to disappear.
In the dim light from the door, her eyes are huge and deep. They show terror without words. There is emptiness, the look of someone who lives with fear.
The air feels thick, heavy on my chest, stealing my breath.
Mafuyu…
How long has she endured this? How many times has that key turning in the lock heralded this terror, this desperate flight into a cramped darkness?
The rage that has been simmering within me erupts, a violent, uncontrollable surge. This time, it will not be contained.
The wooden chair scrapes violently against the floor as I slam it back and stand.
Mafuyu startles, shrinking further into the suffocating depths of the closet, a discarded doll tossed into a dark corner. But she says nothing. Offers no plea, no resistance.
I move, each step deliberate. I walk straight towards the door.
My rage has solidified into a keen blade. It has found its form, its target.
Tonight, he will pay.
The click of the lock reverberates through the small apartment, dragging with it a thick, cloying stench of cheap alcohol that assaults my nostrils. It's coating the air with its toxic sweetness.
So disgusting, not precious for my Mafuyu.
His usual black work bag in hand, his tie hangs loose, a slash of crooked silk. His collar's a stained wreck, his hair's a greasy storm, and cheap, red lipstick smears his lip, a repulsive stamp of his recent actions.
He chuckles wetly, a guttural sound that claws at my throat, a sound so vile it threatens to unleash the bile rising within me.
"Asahina, get out here." His voice is thick, slurred, laced with a possessive snarl.
Mafuyu doesn't move.
I don't need to look towards the closet to feel her presence. She's a small, huddled form pressed into the darkness, shrinking in on herself. Her fingers dig into her own pale flesh, a silent language of terror. She wouldn't dare draw a full breath, wouldn't risk the slightest sound, like a trapped creature pressed into the deepest shadows to evade the hunter's lethal gaze.
He is growing impatient. The alcohol fueling his bloated ego cannot tolerate this perceived defiance, this delay in his twisted ritual of dominance.
"Whore, were you with some other guy? Taking your sweet fucking time." His words are laced with a venomous accusation, a projection of his filth.
I stand, stepping out of the dimness that had offered a fragile shield.
He turns, his bleary eyes focusing on me. For a fleeting moment, he falters, a flicker of confusion in his gaze.
Perhaps in his drunken haze, the edges of reality begin to blur, and he mistakes me for some other disposable body he has recently defiled. He squints, his brow furrowed, looking at me.
His expression shifts, the confusion morphing into a repulsive leer, a predatory grin that reveals the darkness festering within him.
He reaches a hand towards me, his fingers twitching with a sickening anticipation. "Come here, you bitch. Show me your..."
The rage inside me crystallizes, becoming something sharp and absolute.
It rips through me, burning off the last bit of control I had. Now, there's only a cold, clear reason to move forward.
He dares to defile himself with a stranger in the very space where Mafuyu cowers, where her spirit is slowly being crushed.
I take a step forward, the worn floorboards creaking softly beneath my weight.
And plunge.
The knife, cold and heavy in my grip, sinks deep into his abdomen before his alcohol-addled brain can even register the impossible.
His eyes widen, not with pain, but with a grotesque surprise, a dawning comprehension that shatters his drunken stupor.
He roars, a guttural bellow of outrage and shock. He thrashes wildly, his hands flailing, trying to grasp me. But I yank the blade free, the slick resistance a sickening feeling, and stab again.
Each strike is forceful, precise, a brutal punctuation mark at the end of Mafuyu's suffering. Each thrust is a culmination of all the unspoken fury that has been festering within me.
He crumples to his knees, his massive frame collapsing like a puppet with severed strings. His eyes are wide, unseeing, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He tries to speak, a gurgling sound escaping his lips, but I don't care. His voice, the instrument of Mafuyu's torment, is silenced.
The air in the room thickens, heavy with the metallic tang of blood, a raw, primal scent that fills my nostrils.
His neck is still warm beneath my hand, the skin surprisingly soft. I can feel the faint, erratic pulse against my trembling fingers, a fragile rhythm that speaks of a life about to extinguish.
I have done it. I have done it. I should feel an unleashed wave of sickening horror at my transgression. But all I feel is a chilling stillness, a cooling of the incandescent rage, replaced by a strange, hollow emptiness.
He is still alive. Not quite gone. The realization sends a jolt of something akin to panic through me.
My breath hitches, catching in my throat. My chest heaves, a frantic below. My grip tightens on the bloodied knife in my hand, the metal slick against my skin.
I had imagined a profound satisfaction in this moment, a sense of release. I had thought that seeing him brought low, gasping for his final breaths, would bring a measure of relief. But it hasn't. The emptiness remains, a gaping void where the rage had burned so fiercely.
Why isn't it enough?
The image of Mafuyu, trembling and broken in the darkened closet, flashes in my mind. The ugly bruises blooming on her skin, the split lip, her voice a fragile whisper, "at least I'm not dead yet."
He doesn't deserve even this last, ragged breath. He doesn't deserve to exist in the same world as her.
The rage surges again, a tidal wave of fury more potent than before. I raise the knife, the weight of it familiar and strangely comforting in my hand. I bring it down.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four…
I lose count of the brutal blows.
A wet gurgle comes from his throat, then nothing. The faint beat under my hand flutters once, then is gone.
I pant, each breath a struggle in the still room. My hands are slick with warm blood, my clothes splashed, a terrible mess soaking through. I look down at him, at his dead eyes looking nowhere.
I have killed someone. The realization is a cold, hard stone settling in the pit of my stomach.
My lips curve up in a strange smile I didn't mean to make, and it feels wrong. I don't know why it's there. Maybe a twisted relief for Mafuyu? Maybe the end of the rage that ate me up? Or maybe just the awful knowing that what I did can't be undone, that I'm stained red inside and out?
Suddenly, a hand clamps onto my wrist, the grip surprisingly strong.
I flinch and spin around, my body still buzzing. Mafuyu stands there, her eyes still big and purple. But now, her blank stare hides everything she's thinking.
Then, silently, she kneels beside the spreading pool of blood.
Her hand touches the thick, dark blood. She pushes his still body like it's just an obstacle she needs to move.
She helps me. It feels like a fresh shock going through me.
Mafuyu doesn't cry. There are no screams, no panicked gasps. She simply does what needs to be done, her movements eerily calm, as if this is the most natural, logical action in the world. As if…she had wanted this too, had envisioned this dark release.
A cold shiver traces its way down my spine, a premonition of something profoundly changed within her.
The room is so silent I can hear the soft, sickening drip of blood onto the worn floorboards, each drop a morbid metronome marking the passage of time.
Mafuyu still kneels by the body, her eyes wide and lost, like her mind can't catch up to how big this is, that it's real and can't be undone. I'm frozen, staring at my hands, shiny with red that won't come off.
Hot.
Sticky
He is dead. The words echo silently in the stillness.
He will never be able to touch Mafuyu again. The thought should bring a surge of triumph, a vindication of my brutal act, but my throat is tight, constricted, and the twisted smile on my lips feels brittle, incomplete.
Mafuyu inhales a shaky breath, a fragile sound that breaks the heavy silence, then slowly lifts her bloodied hand.
She stares at it, her gaze fixed on the crimson stain.
One second. Two seconds. An eternity seems to pass in that silent contemplation.
Then, without a word, she rises, her movements stiff and mechanical. She picks up a damp cloth from the small table, her touch strangely gentle, and begins to silently wipe the spreading pool of blood from the floor.
She doesn't weep.
She doesn't look at me, doesn't acknowledge my presence in the room.
She just silently cleans, her movements methodical, erasing the evidence of the violence with a cold attitude.
I watch her, a strange constriction in my chest, a knot of unease tightening with each silent swipe of the cloth.
My Mafuyu, the girl who used to recoil in self-disgust for accidentally breaking a glass, is now calmly, meticulously cleaning up the blood of a dead man.
I don't know what it means.
And the unknown terrifies me more than the act of killing itself.
I look at Mafuyu, her face pale and impassive in the dim light, then back at my own bloodied hands, the crimson a stark reminder of the line I have crossed.
I should feel remorseful. A huge fear of what we face should grip me tightly.
But I feel…nothing. An unsettling numbness has settled over me, a void where guilt and terror should reside.
Mafuyu is still kneeling beside the corpse, her cleaning a silent ritual. Her eyes are empty, like she's gone somewhere inside herself that I can't reach.
I look at her, then down at my hands again - the blood is drying now, sticking to my skin in dark, congealed patches, a second skin of violence.
Suddenly, I feel a shortness of breath, a suffocating pressure in my chest.
Not from regret. Not from fear of what I have done.
But from Mafuyu's silence.
I had expected something. An accusation, a word of comfort, even a sob, a release of the terror she must feel. But there is nothing. She says absolutely nothing, her silence a heavy shroud that suffocates the air between us.
We had killed him. The weight of that brutal act hangs in the air between us.
We just snuffed out a life. That should have shattered our shaky reality, made us feel everything at once. But Mafuyu is still and strange like a statue made of ice, far, so far away.
I'd held onto the thin hope that with him gone, her chains would snap. I'd seen her breaking down, tears washing away years of hurt. I'd imagined holding her close, whispering that it was finally over, believing a weak light of peace might break through this darkness.
She simply stands up, her movements stiff and unnatural. She reaches for the bottle on the table, the glass clinking softly against the heavy bottom. She fills a glass to the brim with the amber liquid, then tilts her head back, the muscles in her throat working as she drains it in one long, desperate gulp.
I watch her, a strange, unsettling anger bubbling up within me, a bitter counterpoint to the numbness that had briefly settled.
Why isn't she reacting? Where is the release, the catharsis that should follow such trauma?
Why won't she look my way? Doesn't she understand how big this is, this twisted love that got blood on both of us?
Why do I feel a hollow ache in my chest, the chilling sensation that I have plunged us into darkness… for nothing?
Mafuyu sets the empty glass down on the table with a soft thud, her breath catching in her throat, a barely perceptible tremor.
"I'm... so tired, Mizuki." Her voice is a flat monotone, devoid of inflection, as if the words are heavy stones she is forced to carry.
The anger within me abruptly extinguishes, and what's left is a raw, empty pain, and I'm completely lost.
I fall silent, the unspoken questions hanging heavy in the air. I move closer to her, drawn by an instinct to comfort, to connect. I wrap my arms around her small frame, pulling her close, feeling the fragile warmth of her body pressed against my chest.
She is so small, so breakable. A delicate bunny caught in a brutal storm.
She has endured so much, her spirit battered and bruised beyond recognition.
"Yeah," I murmur, my voice thick with unshed tears and a dawning understanding of the depth of her wounds. "I know."
Mafuyu doesn't push me away. She remains pliant in my embrace, a silent testament to her exhaustion, her utter depletion.
We stand like that for a long moment, enveloped in the stifling air, thick with the cloying scent of blood and the heavy weight of shared guilt.
We sink onto the floor, our backs leaning against the rough fabric of the sofa, the bottle of liquor resting between us like a silent, potent witness to the night's horrors.
I hold my glass, the amber liquid swirling within, a distorted reflection of the chaos that has erupted in our lives.
Mafuyu pours another drink, moving like a machine, not really there. She tips her head back and drinks it all fast, like she's done it a lot.
Her hand shakes a little as she puts the empty glass down. It shows how much she's fighting inside, even though her face doesn't change. But she doesn't stop, doesn't even look at her shaking hand.
The silence stretches, cold and vast, a chasm opening between us.
Strangely… a perverse, unsettling flicker of satisfaction. The memory when the knife slicing through his flesh, the wet, yielding resistance. The moment his breath hitched and died, the blank stare of his widening eyes. The undeniable knowledge that he will never again inflict his cruelty upon Mafuyu.
I swirl the liquor in my glass, the soft slosh against the sides a morbid lullaby.
"Mafuyu," I begin, the word a hesitant whisper, unsure of what I want to say, what comfort I can possibly offer in the face of such darkness.
Mafuyu rests her head against the back of the sofa, her eyes half-closed, her hand clenching the empty glass so tightly which makes her knuckles white, bone-like protrusions in the dim light.
I look at her, a lump forming in my throat, a choked sob I cannot release.
"How are you feeling?" My question is weak in the heavy silence.
A beat of silence stretches between us, heavy with all the hurt we aren't talking about and the big space between us.
Mafuyu slowly opens her eyes, her gaze unfocused, drifting somewhere beyond me, beyond the bloodstained room, perhaps to a place where the pain is momentarily absent.
"...I don't know." Her voice is a whisper like an echo in the vast emptiness that has consumed us both. "I don't know what I'm supposed to feel." Her words hang in the air, a question without an answer.
She inhales sharply, a ragged breath that hitches in her chest, as if searching for the right words in the wreckage of our actions.
"I think... I should be scared," Mafuyu continues, her voice much more trembling now, a faint tremor that betrays the turmoil beneath her detached exterior. "But I'm not."
She pauses, her gaze unfocused, lost in the labyrinth of her own fractured emotions. Then, she shakes her head slowly, a small, bewildered movement.
"Or maybe I am scared, but not in the way I should be."
A faint, twisted smile touches her lips with a fleeting expression, a chilling acknowledgment of the dissonance within her.
"I don't know if I'm scared because we just killed someone, or because I feel... relieved that he's dead." The admission hangs between us, stark and unsettling.
I tighten my grip on the glass in my hand, the cool surface a small anchor in the turbulent sea of my own emotions.
It feels like a dark current is churning within me. It’s a maelstrom of guilt, fear, and a strange, but I am adrift, without a compass to navigate its treacherous depths.
I lift the glass to my lips, the amber liquid a temporary balm, and drain it in one swift, desperate swallow.
As I set the empty glass down on the floor beside me, I realize my own hand is shaking, a subtle tremor that mirrors Mafuyu's.
Not from the immediate fear of the consequences of our actions.
Not from the crushing weight of regret.
But I know, with a chilling certainty, that from now on, there is no turning back. We have crossed a moral Rubicon that has been irrevocably altered.
And…a perverse sense of ease settles over the initial shock, a disturbing calm in the eye of the storm.
I had thought it was over the moment life left his eyes.
I had thought his death would be the final act, the key that unlocked Mafuyu's prison.
I had foolishly believed that from now on, she would finally be free to heal, to find some semblance of peace.
How utterly naive I had been.
The bathroom stinks, an acrid smell stinging my nose. Mafuyu is hunched over the toilet, her whole body shaking with violent shudders, the retching echoing in the small, tiled room. I stand in the tub, the cold porcelain under my bare feet, scrubbing hard at the bloodstains on my skin, but the crimson won't easily wash away.
Disgusting.
The act, the aftermath, the lingering taint of his presence.
Everything that belonged to him is repulsive, a contamination.
Mafuyu isn't disgusting. Mafuyu never belonged to him. The thought ignites a fresh wave of protective fury within me.
My hands clench tightly around the cold metal of the showerhead and my knuckles turn white, the bone pressing against my skin.
I don't want to believe the chilling detachment in Mafuyu's eyes, the unsettling calm amidst the storm. But my body had reacted before my mind could fully process the implications of her words, her lack of expected horror.
I kneel beside her, the cold tile pressing against my knees. Gently, I push the damp strands of hair plastered to Mafuyu's forehead away from her pale face, feeling the icy chill of her skin beneath my trembling fingertips.
"Mafuyu," my voice is rough, raw from the liquor and cigarettes, from the lingering shock that still presses heavily on my chest, a suffocating weight.
She doesn't respond, her body convulsing with another violent heave.
She just retches, a painful sound that tears at my heart, her purple eyes rimmed with red, reflecting a physical and emotional agony that words cannot fully capture.
I swallow hard, the lump in my throat a painful obstruction.
"Mafuyu," I repeat, my voice softer this time, each syllable drawn out, as if speaking too loudly might shatter the fragile, precarious reality we are teetering on. "How long has this been going on?"
Mafuyu rags gasp. Her vacant eyes stare at some unseen horror within herself. Her trembling hands clutch the cold, porcelain edge of the sink, her knuckles white against the stained surface.
"...Three weeks." The words are barely a whisper, a confession dragged from the depths of her despair, yet they strike me with the force of a physical blow.
Three weeks.
Three fucking weeks.
Twenty-one days.
An eternity of silent suffering that I had been oblivious to.
In that moment, I feel my entire body turn to ice, a cold, paralyzing dread seeping into my bones, a vise tightening around my chest, stealing my breath.
"No…" I whisper, the denial a pathetic, futile sound against the crushing weight of her revelation.
Mafuyu says nothing. Her silence is a heavy shroud, suffocating the air between us.
She just looks at me with an empty, lifeless stare that reflects a profound disconnect, as if she cannot believe this horrifying truth.
No. This can't be.
No.
I had killed him for her.
I had ended his life with my own hands.
He would never be able to hurt her again. There wouldn't be anything left of his vile touch clinging to her anymore.
But…
Perhaps I hadn't acted soon enough. The chilling realization hits me with the force of a physical blow, a sickening wave of self-recrimination.
I want to scream at the injustice, at my blindness. I want to destroy the bathroom, shatter the mirror reflecting our broken images.
But all I do is grip Mafuyu's shoulders, my fingers digging into her pale skin, the pressure almost bruising in its intensity. A desperate attempt to ground her, to feel some connection in this abyss of horror.
I can't bear it. The weight of her suffering, the crushing realization of my delayed intervention, the horrifying implication of her words.
It is too much to bear.
I shove my hands away from her as if burned, leaping to my feet with the frantic energy of a cornered animal.
"Why...?" My voice is raw, torn, a desperate cry lost in the suffocating silence. I don't even know who I am asking, what answer I expect in this moment of profound despair.
Mafuyu remains kneeling on the cold tile floor, her hand resting on her stomach.
I see it. The subtle, almost imperceptible gesture. The unconscious cradling.
And a cold, sickening wave of understanding washes over me.
And I hate it. I hate the implication, the undeniable truth that her gesture reveals. I hate the unseen life growing within her, a seed of his cruelty, a constant, horrifying reminder of his violation.
"Do you want to keep it?"
My words slice through the tense silence, each syllable cold and sharp, a blade aimed at the fragile hope I still harbor.
Mafuyu looks up, her eyes dark and wounded, mirroring the turmoil within me.
I want her to deny it, to recoil in horror, to scream that she would never allow that seed of his cruelty to take root within her. I want her to cling to me, to seek solace and a shared path out of this nightmare.
But she doesn't.
She just bites down hard on her lower lip, a thin line of white appearing against its pale fullness. Her hand clenches the fabric of her shirt over her stomach, a protective, unconscious gesture that sends a fresh wave of nausea churning within me.
I feel like the world is fracturing inside my head, the edges of my reality dissolving into a swirling vortex of rage and despair.
"Mafuyu." My voice is low, dangerous, the barely suppressed fury vibrating beneath the surface. "Tell me. Do you want to keep it?"
"I just... don't know," Mafuyu breathed, the words barely audible, a whisper lost in the sudden, stark silence. The lack of comprehension in her voice was a palpable thing, a void where a normal reaction should have been.
Don't know? The words echo in the suffocating silence, a devastating blow to the fragile hope I had clung to.
Don't know? How can she not know?
I take steps back, creating a physical distance that mirrors the growing chasm between us.
It feels like I am falling into a bottomless abyss, the darkness closing in, the weight of my actions dragging me down.
I had killed him for her, sacrificed my morality, plunged us both into darkness, just so she could escape his clutches.
And now… this?
Mafuyu looks at me, her eyes finally meeting mine, filled with a raw mixture of pain and a desperate, pleading fear.
"What am I supposed to do, Mizuki?" Her voice breaks, the fragile dam finally giving way, tears beginning to spill over, tracing wet paths down her pale cheeks.
She hadn't cried when he hit her, hadn't shed a single tear in the face of his brutality.
She hadn't cried when I killed him, when life drained from his eyes.
But now - she is crying over the unwanted life growing inside her, a constant, horrifying reminder of his violation.
I feel a violent wave of nausea rise in my throat, the bile burning.
I want to break things, to shatter the mirror reflecting our brokenness, to scream until my voice gives out.
But instead, I just stand there, my arms hanging limp at my sides, a terrible, hollow ache expanding in my chest, a void where my heart used to beat with fierce protectiveness.
"...I don't know." My voice is hollow, a mere echo in the vast emptiness that has consumed us. It feels like a part of me, the part that believed in a clean escape, has died in this very moment.
Mafuyu remains hunched over, her hands clutching her shirt as if it were the only tangible thing tethering her to a reality that has become unbearable.
I look at her, a simmering rage warring with a profound despair within me, the fury unable to ignite fully, choked by the sheer weight of her suffering.
I want to scream at her, to demand answers, to ask the impossible question: Why? Why had she let herself fall into this?
A bitter taste rises in my throat, a harsh reminder of the truth.
It wasn't her fault. Mafuyu hadn't chosen this violation, hadn't invited this horror into her body.
Her right to choose had been stolen from her, just as I had stolen his life.
The bitterness twists into a warped kind of emptiness, a hollow resignation. A small, broken laugh escapes my lips, half-mocking, half-tragic.
I tilt my head, my vision blurring through the haze of cigarette smoke and the throbbing pain behind my temples.
"Whatever," I say, my voice flat, almost apathetic, but the bitter edge in every word is unmistakable. "Congratulations, you're gonna be a soon mother."
Mafuyu freezes, her small frame rigid with shock.
She doesn't answer, doesn't meet my gaze.
She just trembles, a silent, violent shudder that wracks her entire body.
Slowly, instinctively, she wraps her arms around herself, a futile attempt to shield the unwanted life within, as if trying to shrink into an invisible speck in this broken world.
She doesn't look at me.
She doesn't want to look at me.
I don't blame her.
I don't want to look at myself right now either.
Because if I looked directly into Mafuyu's eyes at this moment…
I am afraid of what I would see reflected.
The irreparable break between us, the chasm of unspoken resentment and despair that has opened with her devastating revelation.
The room is steeped in shadow, the weak glow of streetlights filtering through the window, casting long, distorted shapes on the cold floor. The air hangs heavy with the lingering scent of dried blood and the stale ghost of cigarette smoke. I stand with my back against the wall, my heart pounding a slow, heavy rhythm, each breath a leaden weight in my chest.
Mafuyu sits in the middle of the room, a small, broken figure, her hands resting limply on her thighs, her head tilted slightly to one side. Her eyes silently follow the dark stain spreading on the floor tiles horrifying contrast against her pale skin. An eerie stillness permeates the air, a false calm that belies the violence that has just transpired.
I take a hesitant step forward, then stop, the distance between us feeling insurmountable. Mafuyu doesn't move, or she doesn't even acknowledge my presence. She simply reaches out a trembling hand and lightly touches the edge of the bloodstain, her fingertips tracing the dark outline as if searching for an explanation for the horror that has consumed us. Or perhaps, simply acknowledging the stark, undeniable reality.
I don't know. I don’t want to know.
I know, with a sickening certainty, that from this moment on, there is no turning back. The path we are on leads only into deeper darkness.