Author's Note: I apologize in advance if the topic at hand may disturb some people. Also, for those who would wish to correct me on my "wrong" usage of Japanese honorifics, I will preempt you and say right now that "-kun" is also used by male teachers for their female students in the higher grade levels in order to maintain a level of formality and emphasize the difference in social standing while avoiding the intimacy that "-chan" implies.
Warnings: certain themes that might disturb some readers
Disclaimer: I do not own Vocaloid or any of the songs referenced in this fanfic. All songs referenced will be identified at the end of the fanfic so as to not spoil the story for any readers.
Mayu stood outside the classroom door, her hand hovering uncertainly over the door handle. She was already fifteen minutes late and, for sure, she would be in trouble for coming in so late. Taking a deep breath and clutching the box protectively to her chest, she placed her hand on the door handle.
Before she could slide it open, somebody from the inside opened the door. She was in trouble now, for sure.
"Ah, Mayu-kun, I thought you were absent," she heard Hiyama-sensei, their class's homeroom adviser and algebra teacher, say.
"I made you a cake, Hiyama-sensei!" she said, shoving the box against his chest before she could falter or think of running away. Her heart was beating so fast inside her chest and she could feel the heat of a blush spreading across her cheeks and reaching for the tips of her ears.
"Is this why you were late?" Hiyama-sensei asked in his ever-patient voice.
Quickly, Mayu nodded as she pushed the cake towards him even more.
Hiyama-sensei looked at the box in her hands and sighed.
"What kind of cake is it?" he asked with a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
"Strawberry cheesecake," Mayu answered immediately. "I heard you like it so I made you one."
Carefully, Hiyama-sensei took the box from her hands, his understanding smile never leaving his face. "Thank you, but you don't have to do things like this for me," he said as he turned to go back into the classroom. "Come on inside. Since it's your first time being late, I won't record it."
Mayu nodded and followed him inside. She didn't disappoint Hiyama-sensei. She was so happy.
Tomorrow, just to thank him for being the best teacher ever and being so nice even when she was late, she could make him something better. She had just bought a new cookbook of cakes and pastries and there were a hundred recipes for her to try before she had to repeat anything. Yesterday, she had made him chocolate chip cookies and, the day before that, she had made red velvet cupcakes topped with cream cheese. If she could find the right ingredients, she would make a black forest cake for him tomorrow. That would definitely make him smile and her day always became brighter when he did.
He was right: She didn't have to make him all these things; she wanted to.
"You're happy today," her seatmate and best friend, Galaco, pointed out when she reached her desk near the back of the classroom.
"Is it that obvious?" Mayu asked self-consciously as she sat down.
"No, but I know you well enough to be able to tell," Galaco said in her unemotional manner of speaking.
Mayu breathed a sigh of relief. Nobody must ever know. She wouldn't know what to do if anybody found out about her secret. She didn't even intend for Galaco to know, but the other girl, perceptive as she was, was able to find out her darkest and most well-guarded secret: Mayu was in love with her teacher, Hiyama Kiyoteru.
"Are you sure nobody else had noticed?" she asked, just to be sure; she would rather die than have anybody know.
"I'm sure," replied Galaco as she doodled on the margins of her planner. "Now, will you stop worrying about it? People would start noticing if you don't."
Mayu pulled her stuffed rabbit, which she had named Usano Mimi, out of her bag and placed it on her lap.
"He was really nice to me even if I was late," she said to nobody in particular.
"Huh?" Galaco asked, setting her pencil down and turning to look at Mayu. "Were you talking to me or the stuffed animal?"
"Both, I guess," Mayu answered. "He didn't even get angry at me."
"He's never angry," said Galaco. "With anyone, at all."
Mayu's grip on Mimi tightened, her fingernails digging into the plush fabric.
"You're probably right," she said softly. Realizing what she was doing, she relaxed her hands and turned Mimi around so the doll faced her. "I'm sorry," she said to it. "I didn't mean to hurt you."
The stuffed rabbit stared at her with its shiny, red button eyes.
"Am I really that hopeless?" she asked, sounding like a lost child.
Mimi continued to look at her without judgement or consolation.
"The stuffed animal is not going to answer you," said Galaco. "So, I'm obliged to be the voice of reason."
Mayu looked up at her.
"If you really love him, just tell him," she said as if it was the easiest thing to do in the entire world. "It's that simple."
"I can't do that," Mayu protested. He would hate her if she did. "It would be too awkward. I'd die of embarrassment."
"Then, how is he supposed to know?" Galaco looked at her questioningly with her piercing red eyes.
Mayu looked down at Mimi, who sat limply in her lap. "I was hoping he would love me too, eventually," she mumbled.
Galaco sighed. "You have to understand that he would never know how you feel if you don't tell him," she said. "The world wouldn't stop turning if you do."
"It wouldn't be right," Mayu said softly, clutching Mimi closer. "He just broke up with Megurine-san. It's too soon."
"You've been listening in on gossip again," Galaco said with an exasperated tone. "It's not good to gossip. That always leads to trouble. Besides, why does it matter that he just broke up with his girlfriend? He's single now. You shouldn't be having compunctions about this."
"But it's too soon," Mayu insisted. She couldn't take advantage of Hiyama-sensei's heartbreak like that.
Still, Galaco could not be made to see reason. "So are you going to wait until he has another girlfriend before you tell him, then?"
"No!"
Mayu hadn't meant to scream, but the words rushed past her lips before she could stop herself and now the entire class was looking at her with wide eyes as if she had gone crazy; she wished she could just disappear.
"Is there a problem, Mayu-kun?" asked Hiyama-sensei, a mix of surprise and worry on his face.
"No..." Mayu said softly as she slid down her chair a little, trying to make herself seem smaller so that nobody would look at her.
"If you say," Hiyama-sensei said. He turned back towards the board, drawing everybody's attention to the equations he had written across it. "Okay, class, today we will be discussing rational equations and radicals. And, please give Mayu-kun some space."
Mayu felt her cheeks growing red again.
"Okay, I'll tell him after class," she whispered to Galaco, complete resignation in her voice.
"See?" Galaco said triumphantly. "It's that simple."
Mayu looked down at Mimi on her lap and held her closer. "I hope it is..."
The school bell tolled, signalling the end of classes for the day. Students filed out of the hallways, eager to go home, but Mayu lingered behind, standing in front of the music room door. She played idly with Mimi's long, floppy ears as she stood there completely alone, the hallway in that part of the school already deserted.
There was no sound except for the mournful and sweet strains of a lonely piano drifting slowly through the cool afternoon air. It wasn't Hiyama-sensei playing, she knew. The pianist's fingers were too heavy, bearing down much too forcefully on the keys to be him. It wasn't that it didn't sound good, because it did, but it was just different. Mayu had often heard Hiyama-sensei play and she had watched him when he didn't know she was there and his tapering fingers, so much like a lady's, danced lightly along the keys, gliding smoothly from note to note. She was very familiar with his music, knowing intimately the little nuances that differentiated his playing from others' and how it changed subtly with his moods, and she could tell, even without looking, that this was not him. She could hear him playing a few notes, but, today, it was mostly this unfamiliar pianist playing.
She figured out who Hiyama-sensei was teaching today a little while later when a short, black-haired girl, an exchange student from China, came along with a lunchbox.
The girl, Luo Tianyi, offered her a small smile. "Are you waiting for someone?" she asked in her heavily-accented Japanese.
Mayu gave a quick nod.
"I thought Moke was Hiyama-sensei's only student today," Tianyi said, sounding more as if she was wondering aloud rather than making a statement. "Is there somebody else?"
There was a tense silence, the soft piano only serving to highlight it.
"Ah, I see," Tianyi said after a while, a sudden understanding settling upon her features.
Clutching Mimi closer and tighter, Mayu felt her cheeks grow red and hot. Tianyi knew. She knew her dark secret. Nobody was supposed to know. Mayu wanted to die, silently wishing for anybody, or anything for that matter, who might hear to end her life right there, if embarrassment didn't kill her first.
"You do not seem like the type to need tutoring," Tianyi suddenly said.
Mayu stopped wishing for lightning to come out of nowhere and strike her dead.
"I always thought you were one of the best at algebra in class," Tianyi added.
Mayu had to disagree. If anyone in their class was the best in algebra, it was Tianyi, but the Chinese girl was always so modest about her capabilities.
"You know, back in China, I have a friend named Ling who told me once that, sometimes, students apply for tutoring just so they could spend more time with a teacher they have a crush on," Tianyi said before Mayu could contest who the best algebra student was. "But you're not like that, right?" she added with a warm, innocent smile.
Mayu couldn't answer. Her heart had jumped into her throat and she couldn't find her voice. She couldn't even nod in affirmation.
She was so preoccupied in her thoughts, trying to will her heart back into her chest, that she hadn't noticed that the music had stopped and somebody had opened the door.
"You're doing well, Moke-kun," Hiyama-sensei said as he stepped out of the room. "Keep practicing. I'll see you for lessons on Monday and we could work on your glissandos."
Mayu felt her heart suddenly drop back into her chest, but the feeling of having it beat wildly against her ribcage was just as painful as having it stuck in her throat.
Tianyi immediately ran towards Moke, offering him a steaming baozi from her lunchbox while saying something in Mandarin. Moke peered around Tianyi at Mayu and offered her a small smile almost as if he was sorry for her and she was sure that he had figured out her secret too.
She was frozen in place. Much too many people knew. It wouldn't be long before the entire school knew and it would bring shame on Hiyama-sensei. She couldn't do that to him.
"Enjoy the weekend, you two!" Hiyama-sensei said as Tianyi and Moke waved goodbye and left for their accommodations. Then, his chocolate brown eyes settled on her and he seemed to notice her for the first time and smiled at her; she wished people would stop smiling at her today. "Do you need anything, Mayu-kun?"
"I...I...uh..." She couldn't remember what she was supposed to say. She couldn't think with him looking directly at her. It should be easy, like Galaco said. All she needed to do was say it. Her heart continued to beat rapidly in her chest and she could feel her face and ears heat up as if she had a fever. Surely, he could see her blush and hear her heartbeat for it was so loud, but he probably kept it to himself to be nice; Hiyama-sensei was always so nice to everyone. "I...I..."
Before she could say anything more, the sound of heels clicking hard against the hallway tiles drew Hiyama-sensei's attention away.
"I love you," she managed to say, much too softly, much too late; Hiyama-sensei had not heard her.
"Kiyoteru, we need to talk." It was Megurine-san, the school librarian. "If you're not busy."
Hiyama-sensei looked apologetically at Mayu. "Would it be okay with you if you could wait for a while?" he asked her. "I promise this won't take long, and then you could tell me what is bothering you. Would that be okay?"
Mayu looked up at him, then at Megurine-san, tall, beautiful and, most of all, confident, everything she could never be. "It's okay," she said, forcing a smile onto her face. "It's not important, anyway."
She turned on her heels without waiting for a reply and began to walk away, each step trembling as she told herself that she had to take another. Tears obscured her vision, but she told herself not to cry. She was barely halfway to the stairs when she could no longer hold back her tears and a sob escaped her lips.
"Are you okay, Mayu-kun?" she heard Hiyama-sensei say.
She swallowed hard and forced the smile back onto her face although he wouldn't be able to see anyway. "I'm okay," she said, trying to sound like she truly was, although her voice cracked. "You don't need to worry about me."
"Are you sure?" She could no longer tell if he had actually asked her that or if she had imagined him saying it, wishing he cared enough to worry.
Without a reply, she ran as fast as she can, her tears flowing freely. She had been presumptuous to think that it would be as easy as Galaco said it would be. Hiyama-sensei still loved Megurine-san; she could tell. She could never hope to ever compare to her. She was stupid for even hoping. All she had managed to do was fool herself into believing that he could love her as she did him and that was her most fatal error.
The latest batch of brownies she had made tasted salty although she had followed the recipe exactly. She wiped at her reddened eyes with the back of her hand. With a sigh, she set them aside to cool on the countertop and went to get more ingredients.
She opened her cupboard and reached past the jar of gummy candy eyes left over from Halloween, in different colours of the rainbow, and got another bag of cocoa powder. At least, she could disguise the taste of salty tears with some chocolate icing, but even that ended up tasting like salt when renewed tears spilled from her eyes and into the bowl as she whipped the cream and chocolate together.
"I can't seem to do anything right," she told Mimi, who sat on the dining table, watching her make one dessert after the other.
The doorbell rang while she waited for the answer that Mimi would never be able to give.
"Coming," she called as she tried to make herself look like she hadn't been crying for the past two hours. She opened the door slightly and immediately wanted to close it again, but she couldn't. "Hiyama-sensei..." she choked out, not being able to think of anything else to say.
Hiyama-sensei looked at her with concern in his eyes. "Can I talk with your parents, Mayu-kun?" he asked.
"They're on vacation," she answered, bowing her head so he couldn't see the tearstains on her cheeks; she shouldn't make him worry about her.
"I see," he said understandingly. "Can I talk to you, then? I wanted to make sure you were okay."
Mayu's heart almost stopped beating. He cared enough to check on her.
"Ah...yes," she squeaked in reply, opening the door wider so he could come in. "Please come in."
"It wouldn't be right to invite me into your home when your parents aren't here," Hiyama-sensei stated.
He was right. It would be scandalous, but she couldn't tell him out here where all the neighbours would be able to hear; she would die of embarrassment.
"No, please come in," she insisted. "I don't think I could talk about it out here."
"I see," he said as he stepped inside, forever considerate of her feelings although she felt that she didn't deserve his kindness.
"Please make yourself comfortable," said Mayu, gesturing towards the living room. "I will be right back with a snack."
Before he could protest that she didn't need to do that for him, she had disappeared into the kitchen.
The salty brownies she had made sat cooling on the counter and the salty chocolate icing still remained half-beaten in its bowl. She took a little, brown glass bottle from the cabinet and poured all its contents into the bowl of icing. Surely, it would be enough to cover the taste of tears.
She returned to the living room with a tray of brownies, artfully iced, and offered one to Hiyama-sensei before she set the whole batch down on the coffee table.
He took a bite and winced, probably at the taste, but he swallowed anyway. "It's... good," he said, probably to be polite; he was always so polite. Quickly, he ate the rest of the brownie and, as if to prove that he really did think it tasted as good as he said, he took another one from the tray. "What was it that you wanted to talk about, Mayu-kun?" he asked, the half-eaten brownie forgotten in his hand.
"Ah, about that..." Mayu mentally berated herself for trying to stall for time. "There's something I've been meaning to tell you for a long time."
"You know you can tell me anything," he said.
If only that was true, then this wouldn't be so hard to say.
"I... I love you."
Hiyama-sensei looked at her blankly. "You don't really mean that," he said.
"But I do!" Mayu could feel her heart racing, but the words just slipped past her lips. "I do love you! I've loved you since... since..." She couldn't really remember how long it had been; it felt like she had loved him forever. "...Ever since you became my teacher."
"Mayu-kun..." Hiyama-sensei said, for once, his voice exasperated and tired. "You're fourteen-years-old. I'm fourteen years older than you are. Trust me when I say that it's not love that you feel for me. It's just a crush."
"But it's not a crush!" Mayu insisted. It really wasn't. "I know it's not! I do love you!"
Hiyama-sensei had backed away, ever so slightly. He was disgusted with her. She couldn't live knowing that.
"Please understand, Mayu-kun," he said, calm and reasonable despite it all. "I'm too old for you. You only think that you love me, but you don't."
Mayu needed to prove to him that she did love him, with all her heart; he had to understand. He couldn't leave her. In desperation, she crawled over the sofa and onto him, planting her hands firmly on either side of his head on the backrest. She would entrap him, keep him with her forever if that was what it took to make him understand just how much she loved him.
"But I do love you!" she repeated. "I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you..."
By this point, Hiyama-sensei's face had gone very red as he tried to lean away from her as much as he can. "M-Mayu-kun..." he said, his voice shaky and weak. "This... isn't right. I'm your teacher."
"It doesn't matter," Mayu said. "I don't care. I love you."
Hiyama-sensei grabbed her upper arms, pushed her off gently and stood up quickly. "This isn't right, whether you care or not," he said. "I think you need to think about this more. Please excuse me. I'm leaving."
Mayu felt a surge of desperation in her chest. She couldn't let him leave her. She had to keep him with her, so she grabbed the first thing she could, the cake server that rested against the tray of brownies, and dug the tip into his cheek. She withdrew the cake server and smiled as blood trickled down from the cut.
Hiyama-sensei touched his cheek and winced. "Are... are you okay?" he asked, maintaining his composure despite just having been attacked by his student. "Do you want me to call your parents?"
With a smile, Mayu drew the cake server back and thrust it forward with as much force as she could manage, aiming for Hiyama-sensei's throat this time. Hiyama-sensei stepped back and she missed. Undeterred, she tried again and again, but Hiyama-sensei kept stepping away and she kept on missing. Eventually, she cornered him against the wall and tried once more with all her strength. She drove the tip into the wall beside his head.
"I could have killed you, you know," she said, caressing his bloodied cheek. "But I didn't, because I love you. Isn't that proof enough?"
"Please..." Before he could say anything more, Hiyama-sensei slid down the wall, his legs having given away under him. "What...?"
"Paralysant," Mayu answered simply. She went down on her knees beside him and showed him the little, brown glass bottle from her pocket. "I don't want you to ever leave me."
"Why...?" Hiyama-sensei asked weakly as if her answer had not been enough.
"Couldn't you understand?" she asked him, tears welling up into her eyes. "I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you..."
In her entire life, she had never seen a colour quite like it. Mayu swirled the red liquid around in the wine glass, marvelling at just how thick it was. She held it up to the light, admiring how the light did not shine through it. It was the most beautiful colour she had ever seen.
Experimentally, she took a sip from the glass and choked on the taste of salt and iron. It was like drinking liquid rust. She couldn't imagine how something so beautiful could taste so vile. She wanted to spit it out, but she told herself that she had to drink it all; no trace should remain.
Surely, a little sweetness would do it much good, so she liberally poured some chocolate syrup into the glass, turning bright crimson into dark red brown.
She took another sip, finding it much more bearable this time around. It was simultaneously sweet and salty and all too much like iron, but it was better.
She stumbled into the living room where Hiyama-sensei was still slumped against the wall, all pale and cold and unmoving. He appeared to be only soundly asleep, still and peaceful.
No longer having the strength to stand, Mayu collapsed next to him, some of the liquid from her glass splashing onto the carpet.
"I'm sorry..." she whispered, her fingers trailing along the side of his face. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do it."
She picked up the little, brown glass bottle where it lay forgotten on the floor. There was nothing left inside. She would have drank the rest of it had there even been a single drop left. She deserved to die for what she had done.
Throwing aside the useless bottle so it shattered against the far wall, she turned back to Hiyama-sensei and brushed his brown hair away from his face. He looked so peaceful, but she knew better than to think that he was happy.
"I'm sorry," she repeated. "I didn't know. I was stupid. This is all my fault. I don't deserve to live."
Her hands wandered to the fresh, red wound, a large gash, on his neck, its jagged nature indicating that it was caused by something sharp, but not sharp enough. Delicately, she ran her index finger along the edge of the wound.
"I'm sorry," she said once more, absent, fixated on the blood that stained her finger. "I didn't mean to poison you. I only wanted to keep you with me forever."
She brought her index finger to her lips and licked off the blood, savouring the salt and iron that she was growing more and more accustomed to.
"I'm sorry for what I'm about to do," she said as she took a knife out of her pocket. "But no trace must be left behind. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry..."
There was so much that could be done, with the right ingredients. Mayu could attest to that. With sugar as her base, she could create almost anything, from simple candies to elaborate cakes.
She enjoyed the challenge that using unusual ingredients brought. She had used ingredients ranging from fruits to vegetables to mushrooms to seafood. The possibilities were simply endless. She could turn anything into a dessert, if they just let her.
Although, she had to admit that she had never worked with brains before and thinking of what to do with the greyish mass that sat on a plate before her was proving to be more challenging than the usual. There was so much she could do, but nothing seemed to be quite right. She could almost taste the sweet, wonderful ideas that it promised, but it remained safely out of her reach.
With a sigh, she picked up the plate and put his brain in the freezer, hoping to preserve the dreams that slept within his mind, just a little longer so she may taste them. She could think of what to do with it later, but, for now, she already had much to amuse herself with.
She sat down at the table and took in all that she had created.
"Which to try first?" she asked Mimi, cocking her head in question.
The doll looked back at her blankly.
"You're right! I should probably try the cupcakes first!" Mayu said cheerfully as if Mimi had actually answered.
She turned her attention to the platter of red velvet cupcakes, all carefully iced with swirls of cream cheese. She took one and tried it, tasting the sugar and salt and iron of the cupcakes complementing the light flavour of the cream cheese. It was perfect. In all her years of baking, there had never been a taste quite like it. If she had known how blood made all the difference, she would have started using it long ago.
Hiyama-sensei would have loved to taste these red velvet cupcakes, even if it had been his blood that she had used.
Her eyes flicked to a pair of chocolate brown eyes perched on a mountain of whipped cream atop a slice of mille-feuille, their warm, earthy colour making them stand out from the rainbow-coloured eyes around them. She could almost feel them accusing her as they stared at her.
"Please don't look at me like that," she pleaded softly.
"You have no right to enjoy his blood," came the eerie response that seemed to come from within her mind and sounded much like a mixing of her own voice with Hiyama-sensei's. "You should just die."
"I'm sorry!" She couldn't tell if she actually screamed or if it was also all in her head. "I didn't mean to kill him! I just don't want him to leave me! I didn't mean to kill him!"
"You really are pathetic," the voice continued as if it had not heard her at all. "You wouldn't be eating him if you didn't mean to kill him."
"I... I didn't mean to, but this has to be done." She was sure that the words were coming out of her lips now, but they sounded strange and foreign on her ears. "No trace must remain. No trace must remain. No trace must remain. No trace must remain..."
"Pathetic." The voice said the word with so much conviction and truth that she stopped. "Just die already. Just die. Just die, die, die, die, die..."
In madness born of desperation, she picked up a fork and raised it high above the cake over the eyes, gripping it like a dagger, and stabbed through one of the chocolate brown eyes as hard as she can.
"Shut up..."
She smiled as fluid leaked from the eye and slid it into her mouth. It didn't taste at all like the chocolate that it colour suggested. It was sweet and salty at the same time and she liked it.
"Just shut up!"
Stricken with a sudden frenzy, she grabbed the first thing that she could, a goblet of whip cream, blueberries and fingers, pale, slender and lady-like, and bolted them down without really tasting, bones cracking between her teeth. She could feel tears rolling down her cheeks as she choked and gagged when she tried to swallow everything all at once. Nothing must remain.
She turned her attention back to the red velvet cupcakes and scarfed them up, still crying all the while. They taste of blood had become nearly unbearable, when she had delighted in it just a while ago. It tasted as if her throat was rusting and the cupcakes stuck and clung to their walls. She was choking, but she could not stop. She turned back to what remained of the mille-feuille and finished it off, beginning with the chocolate brown eye that still stared at her. She would get rid of all of it. She will consume everything. No trace must remain.
Finally, the table was left bare except for a bowl of brown hair, covered in sugar, looking very much like a cloud of cotton candy. That was all that remained to eat and she could stop for today. The hair itself was silky and didn't taste like anything at all, but it was so cleverly frosted that it tasted sweet and subtly like bubblegum. It was good, but hair had never been intended for human consumption and she could feel herself choking once more. She was literally crying, half because she was choking and half because she could hardly believe what she had done, as she swallowed the last mouthful.
She stood up, but fell to her knees beside the table. "Shut up..." she whispered as she sobbed. "I'm sorry... No trace must remain."
It was Saturday afternoon and she had used most of the morning cleaning the mess in the living room. The blood had dried and become stains on the carpet and that took the longest to clean. There was nothing that could be done about the damage that had been caused when she had stabbed the cake slicer into the wall. She would have to find a way to explain it to her parents when they came home and she knew it wasn't going to be easy.
She headed into the kitchen and sat at the table cluttered, staring blankly at the blue rose patterns that adorned the dishes in front of her. She had made up her mind for today.
Dully, she stood up again and walked towards the refrigerator and opened the freezer to take out his brain. She knew what had to be done. It was so simple and obvious that she did not know why she had not thought of it the day before. Very carefully, she smoothed out its edges so it looked more like a short cylinder. When it had been shaped to her liking, she iced it in pastel shades, decorating it with frosting flowers and swirls so skilfully that, from afar, nobody could have distinguished it from any other cake made from flour, milk and eggs.
"Perfect!" she said in an oddly distant voice, a smile that did not match the blank expression of her face stretched across her lips. "Don't you think, Mimi?"
There was nothing but silence to answer her question.
"Well, I should probably eat it now," she continued. "Before it starts to defrost."
The icing was light and ethereally sweet and his brain beneath was cold with ice crystals scattered throughout the interior. She imagined that she could taste his dreams, sweet and strange all at once. She had often wondered what he dreamed about and she had hoped that, one day, she would hear him say that he dreamed of her like she dreamed of him, although she now knew how pretentious it was for her to think that. Still, she could pretend and she could imagine and, just maybe, it could have been real, even though the roles she played in his dreams were probably not the same as the roles he played in hers.
"Did you ever dream of me, Hiyama-sensei?" she asked before she put another spoonful in her mouth. "Because I dream of you all the time."
In her dreams, she didn't have to tell him that she loved him; he just knew and he loved her back just as much. It was an impossible dream, bordering on wilful delusion, and she had known that for as long as she had loved him, but she could not care now. She had him all the same.
"You know, Hiyama-sensei," she said, addressing the chalk-white bones, neatly and carefully stripped of all their flesh, that were laid out on the opposite side of the table like the bones in a museum. "I have always wondered what you thought of me." Her voice sounded too sweet, too calm. "Do you think I am only a childish little girl who is nothing more than a nuisance to you?" No, he was too kind to ever think that of anybody, not even her. "Or do you see me for who I am?" She stopped to scrape the last of his brain from the plate. "But who am I? I was hoping you knew. All I am truly sure of is that I love you."
There was no reply.
"I should stop thinking too much about it," she said as she got up from the table. "There are still more sweets for me to eat."
She brought out a strange dish she made from the refrigerator. It was a long, multi-coloured coil frosted with sugar that she had made from his intestines and a lot of food colouring. She wasn't really quite sure what it was as it could have been a candy snake or a candy necklace.
"What do you think?" she asked his bones as she cocked her head to the side. "Does it look more like a snake or a necklace?"
Again, there was no answer.
"Yeah, I guess it doesn't really matter," she said with a small giggle at her silliness for thinking that that would change the flavour. "I should worry more about what it would taste like."
Well, it was rubbery and the inside of the intestinal walls were covered with a strange milky substance that oozed out when she bit into it and the sugar complemented it unexpectedly well. It was strange, but it was good. In no time at all, she had finished all of it without even realizing.
"I would ask you what that thing on the inside of intestines is, but, you haven't been answering me since yesterday. I know you have your reasons," she said. Then, she brightened suddenly. "Do you want to see what I did with your heart?"
She had candied his heart, marinating it in syrup all night. Skewering it on a stick, she covered it in toffee and nuts, like the candy apples she liked to buy from street vendors during festivals. It looked more like a mango and she found that quite funny.
It was hard, as she found out when she bit into it. The toffee was not terribly difficult to bite through, but his heart was much too tough for her teeth.
"It's pretty but why does it have to be so hard?" she asked him as she succeeded in tearing off a piece.
Nobody answered her.
"But I guess it should be expected," she continued, biting off another piece. "Hearts would have to be very tough, right, Hiyama-sensei?" she said sweetly. "Otherwise, how would we survive all the heartbreak?"
By Sunday, all that was left were his bones. She almost couldn't bear to see them gone. If Hiyama-sensei completely disappeared, then it would have been as if he had never been at all and she had never loved him, but no trace must be left behind. She had to believe that her love was true enough to survive his complete loss.
Hiyama-sensei had been tall and his bones were long. There was only one thing that she could think of to do with his bones: She ground them up in the hand-turned millstone that her grandmother used to own, mixed them with flour and baked them into a cake.
She decided to make a large black forest cake. She made it with a chocolate base and decorated it with whipped cream, cherries and bits of dark chocolate, just like her cookbook instructed, but to a grander scale. It was the last thing that she wanted to make for him. It was the last thing that she made from him.
"I love you, Hiyama-sensei," Mayu said in a contented voice, the words sounding natural on her lips. She had already lost count of how many times she had said it, but she estimated that it had been the thousandth time.
It was Monday. She had already eaten the last of the black forest cake that morning. Hiyama-sensei was nothing more than a sweet memory and a full feeling in her stomach.
With a fulfilled smile, she lay on the sofa with his black coat thrown over her like a blanket, enjoying his scent that still lingered on his clothes. It was just her and Hiyama-sensei. If only she could have stayed like that forever, but the rest of the world would always find some way to intrude.
"Mayu, where have you been?" Galaco said in her usual flat tone as she entered the living room, doubtlessly having picked the lock to get inside. "You weren't at school today. Neither was Hiyama-sensei."
Mayu looked up at her with a smile.
"I was worried that something might have happened," Galaco said as she looked down on her and, red eyes narrowing, seemed to notice that it was Hiyama-sensei's jacket that she had over her. Her eyes flicked towards Hiyama-sensei's eyeglasses on the side table. "Honestly, do I want to know?" she said, picking up his glasses and peering through the lenses.
Mayu's smile widened. "I ate all of it. No trace was left behind."
More Author's Notes: After Mayu said that, Galaco was probably very puzzled and confused. Of course, they never found Kiyoteru. No trace was left behind.
The Songs Referenced:
"The Full Course for Candy Addicts" (Hatsune Miku) - the basic plot and cannibalistic theme
"Just Be Friends" (Megurine Luka) - the relationship between Kiyoteru and Luka; there are duet versions of the song featuring them
"Last Night, Good Night" (Hatsune Miku) - not really very easy to spot, but this was the first song that Moke was playing; that was the intention, at least