Coming to grips with the pain, she looked around the room. The man wasn’t anywhere to be seen. He might have been in the living room, but she heard nothing from that direction. The door chain was still unlocked. If she could only crawl that way…
She put a little weight on her feet and was immediately met by a stab of incredible pain. She wasn’t going anywhere.
Maybe someone will come rescue me. She thought of Yukio. That’s right, I have Yukio. As soon as he hears the message I left him, he’ll come.
She felt the blood return to her face. She repeated the thought, trying to make herself believe it—trying to will it to be true. As soon as he hears my message, he’ll come right away. Yukio, come quickly! Come right now!
She clasped her hands in prayer and stared at the door. Come before that demon returns.
Then, as if someone had answered her prayer, the doorbell rang. She heard a key slide into the lock.
It’s Yukio. Yukio came for me.
Yuma sat up, anticipating his rescue. The knob turned, and the door swung open.
“Yukio!” Yuma cried.
This time, it really was him. Kawai Yukio stood on the other side of the door.
When he saw her there on the floor, blood on her feet, his expression filled with shocked disbelief. And then he stepped inside.
“What happened to you?” he said.
Or rather, that was what he started to say. About when he said, “What happened,” a figure silently appeared out of hiding. Before anything else could occur, the man slashed Yukio’s throat with the box cutter.
Air burbled unnaturally out from Yukio’s throat as he collapsed on the spot. When his face struck the carpet with a clap, the wound on his throat split open wide and blood exploded out like fireworks.
The man casually tossed aside the box cutter and said, “That’s what you get!”
“Yukio!” Yuma cried out. Oblivious to her pain, she crawled to the front door, where she cradled her lover’s head in her arms. From the single line that had been drawn across his throat, the blood kept coming out in little spurts.
He had died almost instantly.
Having witnessed the death of the man she loved most, a new emotion sprouted deep inside her. She wanted to kill the man who did it.
Then, that very man pulled Yukio from her arms and tossed him into the bathroom like so much garbage into the can. Yuma picked up the discarded box cutter at her feet and turned a hate-filled stare at the man. He noticed her looking at him and approached her with his arms spread wide.
“What’s wrong, Yuma? I just took care of a man who was pestering you. He tried to spoil things between us, and I punished him for it. You promised you weren’t going to see him again, didn’t you? You should look happier to be rid of him. Give me a smile.”
Yuma shook her head. “You despicable monster. You’re the one I want dead!”
The man was taken aback. “Wh-what did you say?” The veins on his temples stood out. “I’m doing everything I can for you, and you say you want me dead?”
He glared at her. All sense of self-control vanished from his eyes. And then, with incredible speed, he rushed toward her. He yelled, “Before I do anything else, I’m going to make you pay!”
She gripped the box cutter tightly in both hands. She lifted the blade high above her head.
The man, roaring like a wild animal, was nearly upon her.
She swung the box cutter at the top of his shoulder. The blade dug into his shoulder blade and slid down at an angle, shaving off a centimeter-long patch of flesh. She had swung with so much force that the leftover momentum sent her staggering forward a couple steps.
The man held his hand over the wound as the blood came gushing out. “Yuma!” he shouted. His eyes clouded with a cold, shark-like fury. “Yuma! What have you done? You really mean to kill me?”
Blood seeped through his fingers and trickled down his arm. Yuma renewed her grip on the box cutter and glared at the man.
“Don’t come any closer,” she said. “I’ll kill you. I-I mean it.”
Standing on one knee, she held the weapon in front of her. The edge of her short skirt lifted, revealing a glimpse of her underwear.
The man’s lips twisted into an ominous grin. “You’ll kill me, you say? You would kill a man who loves you as much as I love you?” Locking his eyes on hers, he slowly approached her. “Do you really think that little body of yours is capable of killing me?”
The anger vanished from his eyes. In its place came the look of a vulture seeking its prey. He let out an eerie, birdlike cry and charged in to tackle her.
As he ran at her, she brought the box cutter down with her full strength behind it. The blade’s tip sunk into his back. A good hit, but—
The man only grunted.
He kept coming, grappling with her. He took hold of her waist with both hands and threw all his weight upon her.
The smell of sour meat assaulted her nostrils. His flabby body reminded her of a waterbed she’d tried out on a TV show once. His bulk sunk in around her. She flailed her arms and legs, but he didn’t budge.
“You smell nice,” he said. “So, this is your smell. It’s delightful.”
The man buried his face in Yuma’s chest and breathed in deeply. His stubble scratched around the tips of her breasts. The sensation was so disgusting that it nearly caused her to black out.
“I won’t restrain myself any longer,” he said. “There’s no turning back for us now. No matter what I do, you’ll always hate me. It’s better for me to act on my true feelings.”
He pulled down her blouse and bra, then brought his lips near her exposed breasts.
“So th-these are your breasts…”
He put her nipple into his mouth and roughly began to suck.
“Stop! Stop!” she cried.
Caring nothing for her protests, he sucked at her nipple so hard that it felt like he might tear it off. The man’s breathing became rougher, and he drew his waist in closer to her. She felt his stiffness against her thigh. For the first time in her life, Yuma cursed herself. She cursed everything that had led her to this moment.
Why did this have to happen to me? What did I do to deserve this? Is it just because I’m an idol?
Even as she gagged at the stench of his body odor, she reached around him and pulled the box cutter from his back.
His fingertips slithered up through the bottom of her skirt, where they impatiently tugged at the edges of her panties. His crooked fingers pressed against her most sensitive area.
Just then, Yuma stabbed the box cutter into his upper arm. The blade sliced through the surrounding fat and mangled the muscles beneath, and she learned that even this monster could screech in pain.
But then, he slapped her with incredible force. The impact was so strong, she felt like it might break her face, but she refused to let go of the box cutter.
“Damn you,” he snarled. “Look what happens when I go too easy on you. You start getting ideas.”
Greasy sweat beaded on his skin as he bore through the pain. He stepped over her and stomped his foot down on her chest. The wind rushed out of her lungs and escaped her lips in a bubbly mix of air and spittle.
Yuma cursed him silently, senselessly swinging the box cutter, slicing across his legs over and over.
The man grunted and put his hand to his ankles. “I can’t move my foot,” he said tearfully. “I… I can’t move it.”
Those wild slashes must have shredded the Achilles tendon of his left leg.
Now we’re in the same position, Yuma thought. She formed a tight-lipped smile as if to say, That’s what you get.
Wriggling her body like a snake, she shifted herself over to the side of the hallway. Following the wall, she crawled like an inchworm, pulling herself toward the front door. She moved even slower than she had thought possible. Her legs were nearly useless. She had to drag herself with only the strength in her arms and hips. Drawing on every energy reserve she had, she advanced—however gradually—toward the door. She didn’t look back over her shoulder, only forward, ever forward.
Holding his hands against ankles that wouldn’t stop bleeding, he looked toward her and said, “Whatever I have to do, Yuma, I’m not letting you escape.”
Yuma nudged the half-open door with her head, creating enough space for her to pass through, into the outside hallway. She turned toward the elevator and willed strength into her leaden arms. She was not all that muscular to begin with, and the fierce fighting had exhausted her limbs to the point of numbness.
And then, she couldn’t move them anymore. She tried to reach for the handrail that ran down the hall, but she couldn’t lift her arm. Her body was overcome by total exhaustion.
I need to rest, she told herself. With one final effort, she sat up and leaned her back against the railing, to give her body the respite it needed. Sitting there, slumped against the wall outside her apartment unit, she looked out the window and saw several stars twinkling in the sky.
Night had fallen without her knowing it. Cars honked their horns in the distance. A cool wind comforted her weary body. She heard what sounded like a nighttime baseball game coming from a TV on an upper floor.
Yuma felt keenly aware of the irony around her. Just a tiny distance away waited a wide-open world where she could be the idol Kawasaki Yuma, living in pampered comfort and basking in admiration. But here, in these confines, she was trapped in hell. Hades had Cerberus, but this hell had its own, even more relentless, jailer.
Why… why does everything have to be so tragic?
As she gazed at the twinkling stars, she began to weep.
But reality was not going to allow her any time for sentimentality.
Her apartment door opened like a creaking coffin, and the man’s head peered out from within. His head snapped in her direction. “There you are,” he said with a smile.
Yuma put her head in her hands and said, “No more, no more…”
But then, forcing her arms to move again, she began crawling to the elevator.
With only the use of his left arm and right leg, the man emerged into the hallway and came after her. Reaching the elevator, Yuma stretched out her arm to press the call button. But the man was already upon her. His hand closed around her calf.