I'll Be Waiting

"Mommy! Mommy! MOMMY!"

The voice of a little 3 year old filled her ears and they twitched. Hisaye turned her head as the young boy continued to call her. She could hear the young boy was crying because of her absence. She had laid the child down for his nap about 3 hours ago and it had taken 2 of those hours to get him to actually fall asleep. Her 3 year old was such a stubborn kid when it came to him going to sleep. She knew that he was tired by how he always rubbed his eyes and yawned! There was no fooling her. With a soft sigh she forced herself away from the computer and comfy couch she had been sitting on. Hisaye brushed her dark hair behind her ear before shuffling her way toward her bedroom. Where was that husband of her's when she needed him? Oh, that's right…she was using her computer to try and catch the baka. While he was one of the most wanted criminals in the world she was the Century's Greatest Detective. Kind of…opposite, huh? But Hisaye couldn't help it, she loved him. She wasn't exactly sure why but she loved the man with all her heart. How he had managed to capture the heart of Hisaye is a mystery in itself. Nobody figured the withdrawn female would love ever again after her heartbreak as a teenager. When she had given herself to one called Fumito and he had been the one she had been trying to capture all along, Kira. It was after that that nobody thought Hisaye would ever love again. Of course, only a few people actually knew who Hisaye was. But those who did had confirmed she would never get married nor have kids. But guess what? Hisaye ended up with both! She hadn't wanted any children but the husband she couldn't resist. She should've known better…with a husband came children. But her husband hadn't wanted the little devils either, yet they still came along! 3 of them! All of them unplanned and unexpected! Hisaye was praying, though an atheist that she did not get a fourth child. Not another one! She did love her children…but in general she disliked kids.

Though Hisaye would hardly admit it, her children meant the world to her. Sometimes they got on her nerves but that was to be expected, wasn't it? All children got on adult's nerves at one point or another, right? But she would do anything for her children, anything at all! If they were to ever get in danger the woman would step in and do whatever she could possibly do to save them. She didn't care if it cost her life just to get them out. Hisaye was a rather determined type of woman but she often kept it inward. There was no need to show it on the outside. On the outside she should just be quiet and calm, collected. That was for work purposes. Now, at home, she would let her feelings slip out toward her family. She was not going to block them off from her feelings. That would end up being awkward…Hisaye shook her head and yawned. It had been almost a full week since she had slept. She was getting ready for a long, three day rest or something close to that. But first she would have to tend to the needs of her kids like she was doing now. When she was sleeping the eldest kid who was 11, Tsukiya, could help out when daddy wasn't home. That was how it had always been and it would, hopefully, stay that way. The eldest would help while mommy was asleep because she finally collapsed from pure exhaustion. It could be written off as a game, right? Kids loved games, didn't they? For Hisaye, though she had 3 kids, she had not one clue about how kids were. She hadn't exactly been the same as most kids when she had been little.

"Ryuuzaki, what's wrong?" Hisaye asked as she opened her door and stepped inside. "Mommy is here now, there's no need to cry." She gave him a soft smile as she moved over to the toddler. Her arms outstretched as she reached and lifted the child into the air and then brought him close to her. "What is it, dear?"
"Mommy disappeared," Ryuuzaki whined, "Mommy stay and sleep with me! Mommy stay!" He gazed at her with his wide, childish blue eyes as he stuck his thumb in his mouth. His mother chuckled softly at him and ruffled his dark hair. Out of the 3 kids, Ryuuzaki had been the only one to get Hisaye's obsidian hair. His older sister and brother had gotten their father's grayish-white hair. Tsukiya, the eldest, was the only one who got Hisaye's eyes while he and Noriko took their father's bluish-gray eyes. But Ryuuzaki's were much more toward the blue color and could just be considered blue.
"Stay?" Hisaye frowned, "but sweetie…I'm busy. Mommy can't stay."
"Mommy stay! Or I go, too!" Ryuuzaki frowned at her and clang to Hisaye tightly. "Staaayy."
"Alright, alright…" Hisaye sighed, "you can come with me and sleep on the couch."
"Yay!" Ryuuzaki smiled brightly as the two headed back for the living room. He cheered, "I'm with mommy!"

Here he was, enjoying a quiet moment of rest between plans, and the monster inside him was growling. This was slightly inconvenient, but it probably wouldn't get any more convenient no matter how long he waited, so now was as good as any time. He sat up from the blanket he had laid on the hard wood floor as a bed, and looked around. His temporary apartment was barren of all furnishings. He had only rented it for a short time, and under an alias, as he wasn't planning on being here long. Just long enough to do what he came here to do. What his monster came here to do. He was going to play with one of the smartest people on the planet. He was going to play with the World's Greatest Detective, and he was going to get away with it too. How fun!

He had been scoping out this woman (he hadn't expected the World's Greatest Detective to be a woman, but neither did he have much use for gender roles anyways) for quite some time now. She had, surprisingly, three children. One of them was a pre-teen, one a regular child, and the last one no more than a mere babe. This was good. Great, even, because children were magnificent targets. Oh, to play with those so young he can manipulate them for years to come without even being there—it filled him with bliss to discover she had children. How she still managed to be the greatest detective of the century with three kids, he'll never understand, but she somehow made it work anyways.

Admirable, really, but it proved she had a strong connection to them. How many other people could she know? Unfortunately, he had no information on whom the father might be, so he was still somewhat in the dark with that. A shame, he enjoyed couples. They were like powerful magnets to each other, so if he put the right obstacle in the way, they would crush it to get to each other. Even if that obstacle was a precious object or friend to them. But children were even better, he would get to hurt her where it hurts the deepest, and also mold the kids themselves. He wasn't going to kill them, because while it would be fun to see her reaction, it would be even more enjoyable if he drove them insane. Kids were so vulnerable and easy to destroy. Of course, he would later have to kill them as well as their mother in order to erase himself properly, but he could afford to have a little fun until then. No rush.

He stood up from where he lay on the thin white blanket, picked up his large suitcase, and took out the things he needed; his gray suit, his laptop, his (rental) car keys, and his favorite thing of all, the mask that hid the monster. He changed into the suit, put the keys in the pocket, prepared and folded his laptop, and finally, pulled on the mask. It was perfectly made so that he could see out and breathe, but nobody could see in. He felt like it properly portrayed the demon he really was, instead of the very ordinary human face underneath. He had been born with such a perfect disguise, with the face that could become any other. But the face he preferred most was the one made of fabric.

The car drove smoothly, and blended in with the cars around him. It was painted a boring shade of green, with tinted windows so nobody could see the face of the monster driving. Convenient enough, but hardly fashionable. He pulled up two blocks away from the apartment building that the Great Detective lived in, walked the rest of the way, and climbed slowly up the fire escape to the roof of the building, laptop braced under his arm. Once he reached the top, he sat down and looked over the nighttime cityscape, the thinner air breathing cold through his mask. There were dozens of lights, hundreds of lights, thousands and thousands of them expanding in all directions. But he was not high enough to see them, only the windows of the adjacent taller buildings and the occasional rooftop of a shorter one.

He clacked away at his keyboard, patching into nearby IP addresses until he found the one he had caught earlier; that of the Great Detective's personal computer. He started working through the connection, covertly so that he would not be noticed until it was too late, and finally patched in. On the other end, her screen should be going black, and he could type anything he wanted into there in blocks of white text. He disabled all other commands on her system, so that she could do nothing but type right back to him. He didn't want to get traced, after all. He started with a basic message, a greeting and an offer.

Here I am, Great Detective. Do you want to play with me?

She had just found her husband and her eyes glimmered with what seemed like a malicious glimmer. A smirk spread across her face as she tracked his group of criminals. He wasn't going to get away from her because he never did. He just always got away from the police when she put him in their hands. When she caught him she had to remember to ask him if he'd be home in time for dinner, and if he was going to pick up Tsukiya and Noriko from school for her tomorrow. Hopefully there was a yes to both because they needed to replace the kitchen light bulb, again. She'd have to ask him to pick one up on his way home from prison. Hisaye stretched her arm muscles and yawned, she'd have to sleep sometime tomorrow or the day after that, she predicted.

"Hm," she murmured as she typed a message to the police through an anonymous email. The circles under her eyes were especially dark, almost as pitch black as her hair. It was sort of scary yet amusing to see it through the reflection of herself on the laptop. It seemed a reflection liked to make things look 10 times worse then it really was. Her eyes looked ready to just snap shut and never open again in her reflection. Maybe she really was looking like that but had never realized? Her kids wouldn't notice much because they were used to her looks. Maybe she should go out and see some random kid to see if they're so terrified of her because of her looks that they cry? Because Hisaye was quite sure there were points in time she could do that. Just look at a little kid and make him or her cry just for the fact she looked at him or her.

"There, now Kabuto and his little friends are going to be foiled yet again," Hisaye giggled as she sent the email. Her crimson eyes shifted over to Ryuuzaki then and they grew soft. The young boy had cuddled up against her and had fallen back asleep. She hesitantly moved her hand to his back and touched it, not sure if she should or not, and began to rub his back. He was such a sweet little boy, when he wanted to be. Then there were the other times when he was the little 3 year old that all 3 year olds were. So noisy and demanding! Why couldn't they learn to take care of themselves? Hisaye shook her head and sighed softly, then looked at the clock. Where were those other two of her's? They were older and liked to play outside a lot more. Then, of course, she would usually go fetch them and make them help out around the house. Hisaye was not what you would call very well at being a 'housewife.' Though that's the role she pretended to be because she seemed to always be home except for a few times, anyways.

Hisaye was about to work on other things when the screen went black. She frowned, what was going on? She tried to make it go away but her computer was refusing to listen. Someone was hacking into her computer…Hisaye's eyes narrowed slightly. But who? She read the message as it was typed onto the screen, and it sounded rather childish. Play? This person wanted her to play with him or here? And how did he know she was who she was? It was nearly impossible if not impossible to find out this information. She bit her bottom lip thoughtfully and decided to keep the message going. Maybe she could track it somehow once she got her computer commands to work again. She had to figure out first how this person was blocking her commands and then work on overriding them. But for now she would respond to this person and try and get some clues.

Her fingertips lightly tapped keys as she wrote back to him, Who are you? How did you know who I was and what are you trying to pull?

He sighed. The Great Detective's response wasn't as fun as he wanted it to be, but it wasn't like he had expected anything else. To be as great as she was, she had to be an inquisitive person. Of course she'd want to get to the bottom of it. Fortunately for him, the pit he was about to pull her into was nothing less than his own bottomless pit, with no end and no final discovery. Nobody who had once known his name was alive; there were no records of him anywhere, either. He did not exist, because he was the fictional monster that dwells in nightmares. And everybody knows that fiction wasn't real, not something that could be touched or held or hit. He was one such being. And what did fictional monsters do? They destroyed, they harmed, they did damage and created chaos. He wasn't going to fight the monster inside of him, he never had, he'll just vanish someday—or let it grow bigger and bigger until it explodes.

How best to respond to her questions, though, he wondered? She hadn't really answered his question. Odds are, she would drag this on and try to edge some information out of him. She'd probably try something else if he outright refused to answer her, so he had to give an answer for her to answer. One for one, but he'd of course hold back enough so that nothing could be truly figured out about him. Not that there was anything to find, even if she did catch him—he was the nameless monster. There was no past, no present, and very little future for him. He considered what he could say for a moment before typing back to her, in much the same manner as before.

I am the monster that does not exist. Now, do you want to play, Detective? I promise I'll make it fun, just for you.

He liked being playful with the people he toyed with. It threw them off. Serious monsters were a dime a dozen, but a joyful one was so much more satisfying and unique. If you didn't enjoy what you did, what point was there in doing it at all? Especially something as complicated and detailed as the things he had to do in order to satisfy the monster. Besides, there was something so entertaining about being childish to the people he ruined. They always seemed to be more frightened in front of a smiling face than of a horrible one. Maybe it was because he was taking away their one refuge, the refuge of happiness; he could tear away absolutely everything if he took that away from them.

And the monster loved seeing them break. Lapped it up, really. He personally didn't care much, but the monster inside got a little more full every time he crushed a life, and if the monster was full then it wouldn't start hungering for him. It was survival for him, but not unpleasant. He liked the planning, sure, but that warm glow he felt when he watched all his carefully-placed dominoes fall one after another was unmatched. It was the one time he felt truly fulfilled, or rather, the one time he felt anything at all.

Her eyebrow arched at his response to her as she wondered if he was mental. Or was he merely a very childish person? This person sounded like the type of person a two year old would look at and start to cry. Huh, sort of like her…except her personality didn't reflect it. This person's personality would probably creep mostly anyone out. So, she was dealing with a creep? A soft frown spread across her lips as her question was not answered fully. How had he found her? Hisaye bit her thumb and thought about it. School records or birth certificates of her children could've given her away? No, the world merely knew her as 'H' so how would he know 'Hisaye' was 'H?' Was it a far-fetched assumption? There was absolutely zip information that could've possibly led him to her. Or was there something she missed? It was actually sort of frustrating because now she'd have to look back through everything and cover her tracks even more. Or maybe he was right, maybe he was some monster? No, that was utterly impossible. If he was a monster that didn't exist then how could he be typing to her now? It had to be just some human who was toying around with her and calling himself a monster. What an annoyance this was turning out to be.

He was offering her to play with him, and promising to make it fun. This did draw Hisaye's attention and she was slightly interested from that statement. What kind of game would he play with her? How entertaining could this be? Also, could she solve who he was? Yes, she was sure that she could. She just needed evidence and what not, something that would lead her to his identity. That…or she needed to see his face and get out alive. That would be very risky but if it came down to it…what would she do? It was still way to early to be thinking about that right now. She still had many other possibilities before having to jump to last resorts.

Hisaye removed her thumb from her mouth and started to respond to him. She would have to be careful with her words. She had to think carefully over what she said…

A monster? Such things do not exist and you obviously exist. Now, I will ask again, how did you find me? As for your offer and promise, what kind of game are you wishing to play?

If she had been in front of him, he would laugh at her right now. She thought he existed? Ha! Just because he was in her computer didn't make him a human being. Just because he still had this weird human body didn't mean that inside, he was anything less than the kind of monster you only see in the most terrifying stories. This meat puppet he walked around in was so unfitting, too. Monsters needed big arms to break things, big bellies to consume their victims, and sharp teeth to chew them up with first. But he just looked like an ordinary man, and was constrained by the same limits. No, that wasn't exactly true. He was a monster, so he could do some things that humans wouldn't dream of without waking up in a cold sweat. But he had the same physical limits, and the only way he could strike terror as a monster did was by being smart and always, always wearing the mask. He typed his reply.

Silly, everybody knows monsters aren't real. I can't exist. If you win, I'll show you, but only if you promise not to tell on me. If you don't want to play, that's fine, you don't have to. I'll be really sad, though. When I get sad, I play with lots of different people to cheer myself up. I don't think they've found all the messes I made.

If you want to learn how to play, go to the park next to the candy shop three blocks down and look for a car with this bumper sticker.

Under that message was a temporary image file displayed, entirely encrypted, of the insignia he wore on his mask. It was an eye, with an upwards-pointing hand inside of it, and another eye in the middle of the hand. He made it himself.

Bring your cell phone, but don't bring any of your friends. This game is two-player only, even if the other players are little. Do you wanna play, Great Detective? Do you?

He had parked the car near the park two days earlier. It had the bumper-sticker with the symbol on it, and in the front seat was a mannequin wearing the same mask and clothes that he usually wore. He had taken the car from one of his previous playmates, but he long since had discarded the license plates and thoroughly wiped it down and cleaned it out. There were a few of his fingerprints in there, but because he had gotten rid of the files of his fingerprints, they couldn't be traced to a single living human being. It would serve as proof that he didn't exist if she found them; no database in the world held any record he existed. He was, literally, the monster without a name.

And right now, he was ready to play.
He really, really was.