Kimura, p.21
Kimura, page 21
The pen came free from her flesh in a gout of blood. She stared at the open wound at the centre of her downturned hand, her ring finger splayed out stiffly from the bruised flesh, and her broken bone protruding from beneath the blackening skin. She felt vomit in her throat and screwed her eyes shut. Her head swam violently. She scarcely detected Yuki’s hand as it came to caress her burning face, not understanding what was happening until she felt the familiar sensation of Yuki’s lips on her own.
The kiss wasn’t a deep one, but thick with emotion – intense enough to make Naoko feel a new degree of physical sickness.
Yuki drew back a few inches so she could look into Naoko’s half-closed eyes. Naoko could smell her own vomit on Yuki’s breath as she started to whisper. ‘I’m going to help you suffer, Nao. I want you to suffer... like I have. It’s a shame I can’t make it last seven years. Unfortunately, I’m limited by blood loss… yours. But, I’m going to try my best to make it slow. I have a great physician who can help me with that. He’s going to fix you, and I’m going to break you again. Over and over until there’s nothing left. That word ‘discipline’ that we spoke of… I’m quite masterful at it.’
Naoko exhaled as Yuki let go of her face and stepped away. She left the sensation of her fingertips on her jaw. At the edge of her vision, Naoko saw Yuki beckon to Matsuda before she stepped through the open doorway and out of the room. The vomit in her throat rose again as her eyes slipped to the butcher’s block surface. Finally, understanding found her.
The prenuptial agreement had been stained a deep and beautiful red. The fine paper was damp and spoiled, its print indiscernible, and the pair of sealing signatures utterly dissolved within the flood of red.
Naoko released another breath as she felt the blindfold fall back over her eyes. She heard a shuffle as Matsuda pulled it tight over her ears and a pair of footfalls as he slipped around to her front side. She cried out as her hand was raised an inch from the tabletop. Indescribable pain shot through her nerves and up into her chest. She cried out again as the bandage slipped under her palm and was pulled taught over her broken hand. She listened to her scream echo back to her as Matsuda checked the dressing with his large hands and stood up. It only took him six strides to reach the door.
There was no jingling as the tubular lamps were shut off. The document and the world plunged into darkness. Again, the door made metallic squeals as its multiple locks were turned.
Naoko closed her eyes as she listened to the abrasive sounds, and transcending all awareness of scrutiny and embarrassment, deep within her own cage, she sobbed.
Chapter 34
Pain
Naoko sunk her teeth into her tongue and bowed her head. Her mind was spinning like a carousel. Every breath was heavy and laboured. She glanced to her left and saw a woman through her distorted vision. The woman was sitting on a stool in the same manner as she was, the only difference being the meat skewer she clutched in her left hand.
Naoko observed her, the second round of nausea already biting on the heels of the first. She retched, but Akari didn’t pay her any heed. She merely threw back the remnants of her highball, oblivious as Naoko groaned and turned her eye from the extravagant firework display above.
They were still at the festival in Kobe. Naoko figured she must have drifted off at some point, a premature hangover already weighing her down. Her tongue felt swollen, and her saliva saline in quality. She was parched. The crowds of bodies still bustled around her, though she couldn’t make out the details of any individual figure. She focused on the sights in front of her. Surely the stall owner would roll into her weak line of sight at any given moment.
She looked around for any stranger who could provide her with the drink she now almost desperately needed. Her pained gaze fell on the head of a dog who was waking from what must have been a deep slumber. She gaped at the yawning animal as its black lips peeled back.
Though a little rough and ready, it was a somewhat handsome beast. She spent a moment appreciating the speckled fur around its nose, the chunk missing from the left forepaw and the waking look in the animal’s brown eyes. She tried on a wan smile. Endearment for the creature filled her heart, and along with her thirst, she felt the queasiness that had gripped her stomach slip a little.
She exhaled deeply as the animal yawned again. The dog must have been quite hard of hearing. That was the only explanation as to why it hadn’t awoken to bark up a storm during the raucous of the display.
The owner of a nearby ramen stall stooped to scratch the dog’s head. Recalling her purpose, Naoko tried to call out to him. He ignored her. Hard of hearing too. Beyond helpless, Naoko watched the dog’s pink tongue lolling out as it accepted the stranger’s affection. The black lips again rolled back, revealing a set of razor-sharp canines. Naoko had always liked dogs. She experienced no disgust towards them as she did towards humans.
The man offered the mutt a last head rub and then plopped down the water bowl he’d been holding in his other hand on the gravel. Naoko watched him leave, her still-hazy attention wandering back to the dog as it proceeded to lap thirstily from the bowl. Her head began to pound rhythmically as she watched the tongue plunge in and out of the bowl. The sickness was creeping into her stomach again. She shifted on her stool, thirst tightening around her throat as she watched the dog slake its own. She could see the water sloshing inside the bowl, the undulating liquid catching the light, her temptation to snatch the bowl from the creature sudden and overwhelming. Before she could process anymore, she felt her body paralyse. A ghost had hit her.
There was something in the bowl. It was floating there suspended, pushed below the waves and bobbing back up with each plunge of the dog’s tongue. Naoko found she was suddenly standing. She was walking over to the animal, her eyes fixed on the bowl, its depthless contents becoming clearer with every unheard step. The dog stopped and rose to watch her as a rocket exploded overhead.
The severed finger floated limply in the bowl, the water around it illuminated briefly by the dying sparks above. The voice followed immediately after.
‘Have you come to hit me again, strangle me, or use me?’
Naoko raised her gaze in a stuporous state. Terror clutched her throat as she looked into the animal’s dead eyes. She couldn’t question it. All along, somehow, she had known it was her.
‘Yuki?’ she whispered, aware of the quiver in her own voice, ‘that’s not it.’
The dog made an infernal sound in the back of its throat as it rose onto its hind legs. ‘Not it?’ it mocked, its black lips stretching into a grimace. Naoko could smell the stench of rotting flesh wafting on the coastal breeze. ‘Then why don’t you stop?’
Naoko took a step back, her eyes locked on the tightening jaws. ‘I can’t do that. I need help.’
‘Help?’ the dog growled dangerously, shifting its weight aggressively onto its mutilated forepaw. The step upset the water bowl. Naoko watched the contents slosh over the ground in a black spill. With sudden momentum, the shuddering animal advanced towards her, its paws tarnished with the black stain. ‘The last time I checked your body was still in one piece. Why would you be the one who needs the help? Who was there to help me?’
‘Yuki.’ Naoko found herself struggling, ‘you don’t understand.’’
‘It’s all too easy to understand!’ the dog bayed, anger palpably jolting through its muscular frame. ‘You’re the one who made me into this. Mutilated me and then trapped and bound me in a monster’s form. And now glare at me in the gutter, with contempt!’
‘For god’s sake Yuki! If I could take it back I would!’ Naoko screamed back, losing the last of her calm. ‘I’m sorry! Please, just forgive me?’
The dog stopped. Naoko could see plumes of its breath condensing in the sharp night air. It growled a low and cruel noise, fixing its brown eyes at hers. ‘I’ll forgive you. You have become all I can think about these last years. An obsession. You. My sole obsession, Nao. Just to get a chance to forgive you properly… an eye for an eye, and so much more.’
The dog was upon her before she could utter one pleading word. She felt its colossal weight throw her to the floor, the harsh concrete fracturing her shoulder blades as she struck the ground. The red hot pain of broken bone pulsed through her body, the desire to writhe died off as she looked at the image of the creature that had mounted her. All its teeth were bared, saliva dripping off them in stringy webs, the rotting breath at its foulest.
There had been no long-drawn sense of anticipation. The dog drove its fangs straight through the fabric covering her abdomen. Her blood splattered the animal’s cheeks, the pain incomparable as she felt the teeth rend her flesh and pierce her lower intestine. She vaguely sensed the vomit trickling from her lips as the dog began to pull. She screamed as the threads that bound her flesh were lacerated one by one, finally understanding there was no hope of phasing out, that no help would come, that she would feel everything.
The pain jolted her to consciousness for the third time in the last two hours. Her scream this time had been unvoiced. She slumped back into her chair, mouth still open, and allowed the fire in her palm to spread out in throbbing waves. The burning sensation would dim at irregular intervals, leaving the ache in her finger to be the dominant expression of pain. Even that pain would shy away temporarily if she kept her hand perfectly still. But even so, after about thirty seconds it would well up and become unbearable regardless of whether or not she held it still.
Inevitably she’d give in and twitch, setting off a fresh cycle of pain lancing through her palm. Some cycles were worse than others. Naoko knew a bad one was about to come again.
Before it could, she closed her eyes and forced herself to sleep. She knew that to the bound and gagged woman who sat across from her, it appeared as though she’d been perfectly unconscious for the last few hours. Selfishness urged her to keep it that way. Discussing a means of escape would require dragging herself from this limbo of consciousness into stark reality, something she couldn’t handle right now. She wished she could tell Akari she was sorry.
Chapter 35
Hope and No Hope
The warehouse groaned in the wind.
Akari opened her eyes to the darkness. Her head hurt.
She blinked. But her head still ached. It ached like she’d been having two conversations at once, both overwhelming, both incessant and both unwilling to stop until her skull had been lanced open under their twin pressure. She shifted her attention from the sporadic pain. There was a cloth covering her vision. She focused on it. She ignored the ache.
There was a stench, a stench she recognised. It was mingled with the memory of something cloying and fragrant. Incense perhaps?
Her attention was diverted again as she became aware of the cloth’s itch. A thousand tiny fingers constantly drummed against her temples. The scarcest of movements from her caused the unbearable sensation to pick up tenfold.
Just like the room, the cloth smelled too. It was stiff with something rancid, something foul, and once-living.
‘Akari?’
A sense of thrill jolted up her stiff neck as she registered the sound of her name in the darkness. She was quick to relax her body against the metal chair she was bound to. Even in her stuporous state, Akari was aware of how close she teetered to the onset of a ruthless cramp.
‘Nao, thank God.’
There was a pause and a creak to her right as Naoko shifted in her chair. ‘I have a few other words for God at the moment.’
Akari could tell the degree of pain she was in from her voice alone. ‘Can you see?’ she asked, thrusting away the ugly memories welling up inside her.
Another pause followed. ‘I managed to get the blindfold off before I fell asleep.’
‘Is there a way out?’
Naoko shook her head. ‘It’s pitch black in here.’
Akari didn’t take the words well. She dug her fingernails into the butcher’s block, screwing her eyes shut against the sudden bolt of anger that struck her in the navel. Her fingernails made a futile scratching sound in the darkness until Naoko spoke again. ‘Lean over here.’ Confused, Akari drew herself upright in her chair, her inert mind struggling to make sense of the abrupt and peculiar words. There was a tiny creak as Naoko shifted her weight again across her iron seat. Sure then of what she had heard, Akari leant as far to the right as her bound wrists would allow.
She waited in the darkness, her head slightly tilted, unsure if she’d moved in the wrong direction. Just as she considered pulling back, she felt the heat of Naoko’s face against her cheek. She twitched in shock. Naoko’s skin wasn’t just warm, it was utterly burning up. She had to stop herself from recoiling in discomfort as she felt the heat of Naoko’s ridiculous fever touch her again.
Maintaining her stillness, Akari felt Naoko’s face come to rest gently against her cheekbone. Then, she understood. She waited patiently as she felt Naoko’s jaw shift. The blindfold covering her temple rose slightly. It fell back down again almost as quickly, drawing a strained sound from Naoko as she moved to bite the cloth again. Akari heard another grunt of exertion reverberate against her right eardrum. There was a pause. Then for the second time, the fabric started to rise. Naoko’s voice was muffled as she told her to pull back in the other direction. Akari felt her hair rise up over the blindfold as she leant back into her chair, the tight cloth finally slipping from her eyes. She opened her eyes as the blindfold tumbled over the crown of her head, freeing her, at long last, from its incessant itch.
But the sense of jubilation was brief. Just as Naoko had foretold, the world was still black.
She blinked, her darting eyes rapidly adjusting as the pitch darkness turned into pale darkness. Even then, Akari was soon at the point where the darkness would lighten no further.
She scanned the greyed expanse before her, her vision magnetically drawn to her left, catching the slightest of peeks at the uncovered shrine of weapons nearby. When she turned to look at it fully, the darkness would just as quickly consume its sinister shape, leaving her to doubt if it was even there. After repeating this process three more times, the details became trivial. Akari cast her attention at the other person in the room.
Naoko’s body was hard to make out, the soft outline of her head slipped down to what Akari assumed must have been her neck. Akari blinked again, begging her eyes to gain a sliver of clarity with every blink. Sure enough, she was soon able to discern the blocky shape of the chair Naoko was bound to. Her body was arched as far as the ropes binding her midsection would allow, her wrists still strapped to the block in front of her.
She looked back at Naoko’s face. Even with the ashy features of her face mostly hidden by the darkness, Akari could tell she was turned to face her. If she squinted, she could even make out the charcoal shadows of Naoko’s eyebrow ridges, nose and chin.
She heard a soft flop. It was accompanied by the strip of fabric falling from Naoko’s clenched teeth and onto her lap. Akari watched as Naoko’s body moved with a few deep breaths. As she repeated the tedious cycle, the exertion of turning her neck to face Akari became too much. She dropped her head as her neck finally gave out, the slick shadows of her dishevelled hair falling in front of her face as she stared down at the desk her hands were bound to. She remained in this slackened position, her discomfort slightly eased, and finally spoke. ‘Welcome back.’
‘Jesus, Nao.’
‘How many hours has it been?’
Akari paused. ‘Two, three, five – I’m not sure. I’ll admit I drifted off a few times, but I’m certain it’s been at least two.’ Akari looked back at the outline of the shrine again as Naoko mulled over her words. ‘We need to get the hell out of here.’
‘I know,’ Naoko said.
She paused again, as if considering whether or not she should go on. Eventually, she did.
‘Whilst you were out of it, Yuk – she – spared a couple of minutes to explain the nature of this room.’ Akari swallowed as Naoko turned an inch to face her. ‘This is where she brings those labourers who don’t think they’re being treated fairly.’
The wind howled against the metal rivets of the outside wall.
‘What kind of hell is this?’ Akari whispered. ‘I know she was never the most amicable person, and that the trauma would have had some effect, but never could I have imagined she would...this is hell, Nao. My God.’
Akari stared blankly at her lap as Naoko fell back into silence, her difficult breaths the only sign of her continued existence in the room with her. The air had taken on a forlorn quality.
Akari drew her gaze over the butcher’s block. She set her attention on her right wrist and tensed her hands. She could feel the thin cords that bound her wrists to the block beginning to rake and cut at her flesh. Just like Naoko, there were two separate ropes restraining her. One binding her midsection to the block in front of her and the other her wrists. She hopped slightly in her seat. The chair scraped violently along the concrete floor, setting her teeth on edge. In the end, she had moved less than an inch.
Naoko was utterly silent in spite of the invasive noise. She waited patiently for Akari to come to the conclusion that her experiment was useless.
Akari stared downwards again, nodding and humming as she surveyed the darkness. She looked about herself, scanning the ground in front of her with purpose and curiosity, as though she could see something more than the muddy, depthless grey. Naoko waited patiently. Akari looked deeper into the darkness, giving another hum of curiosity for good measure.
Akari found she could only arrive at one conclusion.
They were fucked. So utterly and irrevocably fucked that it hurt even to try and imagine otherwise. She could feel Naoko’s eyes on her, could tell Naoko was holding her breath to avoid distracting her.
Still desperate to produce some fruit from the sweat of her mental labour, desperate not to let the other woman down after all they’d been through, desperate for anything beyond this shitty darkness, Akari dragged her feet across the concrete floor restlessly. Had she expected to find the answer down there? Perhaps a shard of strewn glass to cut her restraints? Maybe a match forsaken from a previous torture session? A lighter, a means of communication, a hope, a prayer? Akari almost laughed as she considered the thousand and one prospects deux ex machina could so lazily throw her way. She’d even done the hard part of thinking up the scenarios. All divine intervention had to do was idly drop the object of her fantasy across the path of her restless feet, let her collide with it in a triumphant scuff and then cry out in joy as she braved death by a whisker.
