He dreamed of her every night for the first two years. Every night, without fail, he would go to sleep and be in a cold dark forest that he did not recognize, and see in the distance a tree with lavender leaves, more like petals really. He would come to it and sit beside it, feeling a peace unlike any other. Then, the peace would diminish, leaving him with a frantic nervousness, and he would stand up, and she would be there. Just as he remembered her, reaching a hand out.

But every time, when he reached for it, the hand would suddenly be engulfed in flame, and he would look up, seeing her, expressionless, burning in front of him, the fire darkening her the way it would a doll, a china doll. She would smile, wave a hand goodbye, and disappear. He sobbed over her, her beauty, her sadness, her pain, her story left untold, as she was scorched from the earth.

And every time, he would wake up screaming, " Ai-TAN!" gasping for breath. He gave up on women not too long after It happened. He would wake up screaming that and leave the women he bedded angry, jealous, and confused. Besides, none of them matched the beauty of Ai or his wife. None of them satisfied. He found with an awful guilt that he longed for Ai, rather than his wife, at night, to come to him. But nobody did.

He couldn't seem to get her out of his head, Enma Ai, Jigoku Shoujo, so he decided to draw her. At first, it was nothing much, just a sketch, but then he began to really think of her face, and immediately saw many flaws in his picture - her eyes were too small, her nose was shaped wrong, etc, and began going about fixing it. Finally, in frustration, he threw the paper away, and started on an actual canvas, drawing out the facial structure, then lining it in black, then filling it in and fading the black so that it looked natural. Then, he realized there was no point in making it black and white, and began adding color. Before he realized it, three hours had passed and Ai was coming to life. He couldn't take his eyes off her. The doorbell rang. And rang. And rang. He stared into her big scarlet eyes, and found that his own eyes were wet. A droplet of his manifested pain fell on her cheek, and she stared at him solemnly as it began to dry. He never answered the door.

Fukumoto-san then began to feel like she was haunting him, a burning memory in his head that he could never get out. In a fit of terror, he burned the canvas, along with his drawings of her, and spent the next few years trying to forget her. When he succeeded, what clouded his thoughts was the dark mark on his chest, marking his fate, leaving no room in his head for freedom, a bitter manifestation of guilt, pain, hatred, revenge, and horror. Every time he saw it, he resented and hated it. He had tried everything to get rid of it, even though he knew it was all in vain, from tattoo removal, to spiritual cleansing, and finally, in a fit of desperation, he had clawed at it with his own fingers. When it healed, what he had was a large scar, and on the scar was a black, if distorted, unmistakable mark.

He screamed in rage. He boiled the skin, burned it, even tried, once, to get another tatto over if, so that it blended, but in a few days, that faded away, leaving him with an awful feeling of despair and helplessness, and of course, the black as night scar. He had, many times, considered suicide, but every time, strangely, he would, at the crucial moment, have the sudden feeling that there was something left for him to do. After he would resolve himself to living, he would realize he had no idea what it was he needed to do. And when he tried to search his thoughts and mind for the answer, they would always lead him back to her. Enma Ai. He would, at these times, be overtaken by an urge to paint. He would resist, simply because the thought terrified at the same time it enticed him.

But one night in particular, he had come home sober for the first time in a week or two, he wasn't entirely sure anymore, and found himself, again, staring at the pile of unused canvases he had kicked into a pile in the corner of the room, and imagining her face on it. Slowly, he walked over to one that faced toward himself, reaching toward it, his hand stopping short of the corner, hesitating, ever uncertain. He started to pull his hand back, but suddenly, in a burst of courage, he grabbed it and brought it hurredly over to his easel, as if it were something too hot for him to hold, or perhaps something unclean.

Then, it sat on the easel in front of him, and he simply stared at it, sitting tiredly on the chair in front of it. He was now 34, and he had been twenty six when it happened. He stared at it, and stared and stared, feeling an aching exhaustion creep into him, but he couldn't take his eyes away from the empty canvas where he imagined her face to put himself to bed. Finally, without taking his eyes from where he saw hers, he reached for his brushes and paints, and started bringing her face to life, like a captured butterfly.

Her eyes were solemn as they ever were, dully shining rubies. Her skin was pale, to be sure, nearly white, and he painted it as such. At first, her hair gave him a bit of trouble, that long, straight black length. The layering was what was difficult for him, her bangs, the two locks beside her face, and the long strands over her shoulders.

He had finally given in to what he now realized was his real purpose in life - painting her. He had no other desires. When he wasn't painting, he was eating or sleeping. When he ate, he was impatient to get back to painting, and when he slept, he dreamt about her face.

Many times, seeing and remembering the carefully tucked away, folded up and put away pain in Ai-tan's eyes, he had broken into tears. He sobbed over the pain that was known to nobody but her - after all, who did the Jigoku Shoujo have to herself? She was always alone, except for her few aqcuaintances, Wanyuudo and the others, but he could tell she wasn't close to them. She was close to nobody, and Fukumoto sobbed over that, too.

Now, he is 76 years old, and when this young man comes to him, he can tell that it is his last day on the wretched planet. He shows the man his shrine of Ai, and goes to finish a few details, when Ai's eyes suddenly become wet, and tears of red escape her eyes, her expression never changing, and he knew for sure, this was the end of his line. Emotion wells in his chest like the most bittersweet, painful union of love and hate.

He had cried over her so many times,

so many times,

but he never imagined,

she might shed a tear

over him.