In high school Nao was a remarkably average student. And after her father's suicide…that small fact did not change, save for a sullen edge added to her otherwise nonexistent presence. After graduation, that averageness in her work did not change. Café barista, housekeeper, cashier, janitor, secretary, hostess—they were all a means to an end, and not one of them were even in the realm of what Nao had envisioned her dream career as.
Hell, she didn't even remember what she wanted to be when she was little.
That's probably a good thing. My younger self would be disappointed in how she turned out, Nao mused as she slid her jacket over her shoulders and wrapped a scarf around her neck.
Two months had gone by since her deal with Yamori—since she had last seen him actually—and Nao had…mixed feelings about his apparent absence. On the one hand, she felt less nervous than she did several months ago. While she'd kept on at her second job, she felt moderately more rested than when she had stayed up half the night following the most recent meetings with Yamori. On the other hand, Nao never let slip the fact that she had no guarantee on her life other than his word—which frankly Nao trusted as much as she trusted Matsuru when he said she'd "see stars". So when Nao stepped out into the alley—as she had been doing every night when she went on break—her body froze when she heard a scuffling sound deep in the dark.
Nao's awareness of the dark had not changed, though she had done well in training herself not to jump at every sudden movement out of the corner of her eye. She steeled herself as she glanced over her shoulder, just in time to watch a mottled grey cat saunter into the circle of light from the bulb perched atop the back-alley exit. Two little glowing disks stared at her as Nao stared back, her nerves calming the slightest bit as the cat skittered past her in pursuit of some vermin. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the door, relaxing as she waited out her break time.
But the itch that had entered her brain with the cat did not leave. That familiar heaviness returned to settle over her like a cloak. Cautiously Nao opened an eye, peeking out the corner to the blackened end of the alley. There was no movement, no sound. She opened both eyes and squinted, trying to see further as she stepped away from the door. Goosebumps rose on her arms the longer she glared down the alley, a lump forming in her throat. Nao choked it down as she steeled herself for what was about to happen. Despite the mid-December air, she knew the chills wracking her body was because of him. Was because he was up to his tricks again, trying to call her out on her bluff. Nao whirled around on her heel, slipping a bit on a thin patch of ice as she turned to face—
No one. Just the lighted part of the alley leading to the street, and hundreds of people walking past—none-the-wiser to Nao as she got herself worked up over nothing. Nao's breath came out in harsh puffs of white as her chest pounded with useless adrenaline. The heavy sensation had come and gone, leaving Nao lightheaded and feeling very foolish. She clicked her tongue in self-admonishment, bringing her hand up to pinch the bridge of her nose. Her paranoia aside, Nao knew what she felt. Whether now or later, he would be back.
But for now he was gone, and she was wasting her break on nothing. Or so she thought when a hand clamped down on her shoulder. Nao twisted away, sliding a heavy glare on her face that quickly melted into stunned discomfiture.
"Jumpy much?" Misa laughed, a small unsure laugh flowing from her lips as she let her hand drop to her side.
Nao tamped down her nerves, asking, "What are you doing out here?" She took a deep breath and let it out slow in a steady stream while Misa reached into the pocket of her coat.
"Taking my break early," she replied, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a bright pink lighter. "And I saw you come out here. Thought you might like the company," she mumbled around the slim stick as she flicked the lighter open and held the little flame to the end until it glowed red. "Want one?" Misa asked, holding out the pack with a raised eyebrow.
Nao wrinkled her nose in distaste and politely passed on the offer. "I thought you quit?" she said instead, wrapping her jacket tighter around herself and tucking her hands beneath her armpits as a strong wind blew down the alley. Misa's hair whipped around her face, but she took no notice as she sucked in one long breath of ash and tilted her head back. Her eyes heavy lidded as she let a thick, smoky cloud leave her lungs.
"The holidays are my cheat days; don't tell my old lady," Misa curtly said, staring at Nao over the end of her cigarette. It was barely a week into December and not nearly close enough to Christmas or New Years, and while Nao wouldn't rat Misa out to her mother, neither did she like the habit. But rather than get caught in a lengthy argument neither would win, Nao let it slide, and settled back against the wall opposite the door Misa was leaning against.
"What's up with you? Why are you so on edge lately?" Misa asked as she ground out her cigarette on the pavement and took out another, lighting up while Nao simply shrugged her shoulders. "Is the office slut not putting out?"
Several weeks back Nao had let slip to Misa that she and Matsuru had not slept together since…well, since the night Yamori had chocked her into unconsciousness—not that she had phrased it that way. She did not tell her, however, that she was the one who had rebuffed his pseudo-affections. Nao felt sure the last time he'd talked to her, it'd been a cool, off-the-shoulder remark about the weather before he'd swiftly left the break room three weeks ago. The last time she'd seen him had been several days ago. Nao could still hear the breathy, stifled moans from inside the supply closet. And no matter what, she could not get the image of a hand slipped down the front of the lobby receptionist's skirt out of her mind.
Had it been any other time, Nao would have felt furiously jealous. At the very least she would have felt slighted that Matsuru was having sex with her in such a public place, when Nao had been hidden away in a broom closet in the most ill-used part of the building. Now…now she felt embarrassed to have caught such a scene, and wondered why anyone would screw where someone could catch them, and possibly get them fired.
"He can fuck whoever he wants. Let someone else deal with his "star" bullshit," Nao grumbled, grimacing at the memories of herself falling for such a stupid line, only to be left alone in the company breakroom. Stuck wondering if she should wait until later that night—or the night after if she was unlucky—or if she should take care of it herself in the restroom.
More often than she was proud to admit, she chose the latter option.
"Y'know, some of the customers are pretty nice guys, I'm sure one of them would be happy to help you take the edge off."
"Aren't some of them married?" Nao asked, raising a brow at Misa's suggestion.
Misa shrugged a shoulder and slid a sly smile on her face. "What's a little fun after business hours?" she said as she exhaled a last drag and stomped the cigarette out.
"I think I'll pass."
Conversation devolved into idle wonder if there'd be snow this year, if Misa was going home to visit her parents, and if Nao was doing the same. Pretty soon their break ended and Misa—leaving a third smoldering cigarette on the pavement—pulled open the door. Nao pushed off the opposite wall and went to catch it as her friend started to mention a change to the usual wardrobe. Nao just barely caught the words "antlers" and "bells" when she suddenly felt that same premonition from earlier overwhelm her. Misa did not notice Nao pause in the doorway as she continued to talk, disappearing further inside while Nao stayed behind. When she thought Misa was far enough out of range, Nao said over her shoulder to the hidden man, "I'll give you your pound of flesh when my shift's over." With that Nao walked inside the bar, letting the door slam shut behind her.
On the edge of the roof, far above where she'd been standing, the ghoul let a smile spread over his features, his mouth salivating at the thought of his teeth sinking into her soft flesh. Of taking what he was due for all the time and patience he was putting into her. He could hardly wait to taste her. And so he jumped down from the rooftop, one last cursory glance thrown over the hostess bar before he left to slake his bloodlust elsewhere for the time being.
|13|
Nao had naturally assumed Yamori would accost her either the moment she left the hostess bar, or along her way home from it. She was disdained to discover, however, that he had chosen instead to wait by her front door. Nao was unsure whether to feel relieved that he wasn't already inside, or continue to be irked that he knew where she lived. In the end neither mattered as a hot wave of embarrassment flooded through her when he smirked at a spot above her head and said,
"And here I thought mice didn't grow antlers."
Blushing, Nao yanked the horned headband from her hair, casting the short locks askew as she dug through her purse for her keys. "How do you know about that?" she asked him, unable to look at him as she fumbled with the lock. Yamori turned to lean his shoulder against the wall, watching with amusement as Nao tried and failed to unlock the door with shaking hands.
"Saw your nickname on your picture outside the shop. I've thought about going in, but that would cause you "emotional distress." Right?" Nao glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, unsure it if he was mocking her or not, while her hands fell still enough for the key's teeth to catch the latch.
"…thanks for respecting that," she muttered out of suspicion for his apparent acceptance of the terms of their arrangement. Nao pushed open the door and walked inside. Behind her she heard Yamori's heavy footsteps on her floorboards, and a soft click as the door closed behind him. "Can I get you anything?" she asked, awkwardly balancing on one foot as she took off her heels one at a time, tossing them aside as she unwound her scarf from around her neck, and threw it—along with her purse and the fake antlers—onto the table. "Water? Coffee?" Over her shoulder Nao gave him a dry look as she unbuttoned her jacket. "A heart on a plate?"
He cracked a smile as he looked around her small apartment with feigned interest. "Water. For now," he added as an afterthought. A shiver went down her spine as she shrugged off her jacket and laid it on a chair.
"Feel free to have a seat," she said softly, moving past him to her small kitchen. She heard more footsteps and the squeak of a door as she got a glass down from the cupboard and started filling it with tap water. Nao kept Yamori at the periphery of her vision until he disappeared into her bedroom, fighting the urge to keep herself from stopping him when she knew full well that he'd been in there at least once before. She turned the faucet off when the water filled near the top and followed where he'd gone. Nao wasn't sure what she expected to find him doing, but even so she was slightly surprised to find him looking at her small wall of pictures.
He had a contemplative look on his face as his eyes slowly dragged over the faces of her friends and family; over Misa and Sacha and her older cousin Jirou, her mom. He stopped on the sole picture of her father: a picture her mom had taken of them on his las…his forty-first birthday. Wordlessly Nao came to stand next to him, staring at any picture but that one as she handed him the water. If he wanted to ask about the picture—about why she had multiple pictures of her friends and family (even a cousin she hadn't talked to in five years) and only one of her father—he didn't. He just brought the glass up to his lips and drank it down.
When he handed the empty glass back and still said nothing, Nao took the opportunity to ask something that had weighed on her mind a lot the last few years; something she could never quite understand. "I want…I want to ask you something," she started, chickening out before she even got the words out, "Do you still think about it? That room?"
"Always," he finally said after a long beat.
Nao tried to ask again. "Why didn't…I want to know…why you didn't kill him." Nao heard him scoff at the question, but rather than let it drop, she continued on. "After everything he did to you, why did you let him live?"
"After what I did to you, you ask about that interrogator?" he asked derisively, turning to face her as he nodded towards her mauled arm. "Why do you care?"
She didn't. "I saw fifteen ghouls who would have given anything to end that…that…monster's life," Nao tried to explain, "You had the opportunity…and you didn't take it." Yamori had neither the slightest smirk on his face, or any hint of the amusement he normally possessed as he looked down at her.
"…You saw what I did after half an hour," he spoke slowly, "Can you imagine what I did after you passed out?" Nao swallowed the lump in her throat, vivid memories passing through her mind as she remembered the shapeless lump that had been lying in the corner. At that point he had been covered in so much blood and open wounds that she had nearly mistaken him for Yamori. She could only imagine what more the ghoul could have done to the man. "I wanted him to suffer. For it to last longer than our one session together." His lips twitched into a smirk; that mirth coming back into his eyes. "And I bet it still does whenever he looks in a mirror."
Nao could only stare at him as he spoke, her hands unconsciously tightening around the glass as a dark sort of familiarity flowed through her. "You're not asking why I didn't kill him. You're asking why I didn't put him out of his misery." A slow smile spread over his lips as he took in Nao's paling face, and the increasing beat of her heart. In her peripheral vision Nao noticed his hand twitch as he brought his thumb over his forefinger, stifling a shudder as he cracked the digit. "But why do you want to know? Because you were hoping I still had some compassion in that broken body you saw?" Before Nao knew what had happened she had backed into a wall. Had unconsciously put distance between himself and her even as he stayed where he stood, watching her with a creeping smile. Because for a moment, just a moment, he had seemed like the Interrogator.
He broke his stillness then, pressing her back further into the wall as he walked to where she stood. Leaning down so close to her ear that the press of his cheek against hers was almost intimate. "Or were you hoping that I'd kill him for you?" Nao took in a shuddering breath made of nervousness and surprise. She couldn't say a word as he continued to murmur in her ear, a rumbling purr too soft for his cruel words. "I might've been halfway out of my mind that day, but I still remember that knife at your throat. That blood on your face. Pathetic little Nao-chan trying to fight off the interrogator when he had you pinned to the ground and ready to carve open your insides—if he didn't fuck you first." Nao's breaths were harsh even in her ears; flinching when his fingertips touched her face, and trailed her jawline down.
"The lust coming off him was disgusting," Yamori said, forcing her chin up to make her look him in the eye. Nao didn't know what he saw there; she suspected a sort of sickened realization of what might've happened had the ghoul before her not unwittingly diverted his attention back to his original punishment. "But your fear…" He trailed off, his chest brushing against her as he inhaled her scent. In the moonlight from the window all Nao saw clearly was the glint of his teeth and his red, red eyes as they flooded black and glowed with bliss. "I would've come if I wasn't so damn out of it."
"Stop it…" Nao whispered. But he ignored her; continuing on with an accusation.
"How badly did you hope that when you woke up in that hospital bed that he was dead, huh?" he asked her, "That I did what you could never hope to do with that weak body of yours."
Back when she had woken up in that bed—her hair still tangled with blood, and her arm wrapped in thick layers of gauze—her first thought had been wonderment that she was still alive. The second was what exactly had happened to her arm. It wasn't until the Investigators came to talk to her a few hours later that she even knew the Interrogator had lived through the ordeal. The only thing Nao could say about the information they told her was that she was surprised. The thing she wasn't proud to feel was a bitter pang of disappointment—because the Interrogator would have gotten exactly what he deserved.
Nao neither confirmed nor denied what Yamori said. She only clenched her teeth, and looked at him. "You can say what you want about me," she told him, her body jittering despite the steel of her words, "but I've seen you at your absolute worst." His smile melted away then; his eyes keeping their blackened quality as they narrowed down at her. His thinly-veiled malice worsening as she said, "How weak you must have been…to get caught and sent into the hands of that disgusting psychopath."
Nao winced, gritting her teeth as he grabbed her left wrist and tightened his grip on her jaw. "The last time I brought you back here, you were covered in someone else's blood," Yamori warned her, slipping his hand down her throat until it pressed tauntingly against the base. "Don't think that just because you're still alive I won't kill you."
"And is this how you imagined it?" she asked him. Nao had no idea where this bravado had come from—whether because he had insinuated her wanting someone dead, or because she was tired and just wanted to sleep. For all she knew at this moment he would suffocate her or—quite literally—rip her throat out, and her taunting him was just going to make that fear a reality.
When his scowl turned into a mocking smirk, a lump formed in Nao's throat. She bit the inside of her cheek as he dropped his hand from her neck to grasp her other arm's wrist, forcing her to drop the glass she'd been holding onto like a lifeline as he brought both hands up to either side of her head and pinned them there. "No," he said, "Do you want to know how it will be?"
Nao tasted metal in her mouth as she cut the inside of her cheek. Not trusting herself to speak, she shook her head. Undeterred by her answer he leaned in once more. "I'm going to eat the rest of your arm," he began, "and burn the wound so you'll live just long enough to watch me take everything from you. Do you know why?"
"No," Nao whispered, her heart beating faster in her chest as mental imaginings ran rampant through her mind. Down her chin she felt a thin bit of blood drip out of her mouth. Yamori's eyes clocked the slight movement, his tongue wetting his lower lip before he answered his question.
"Because the weak are trampled. They are overrun. They are violated, and they are afflicted." He dipped down in one quick move, licking away the blood staining her chin. "You can pretend to be brave, but let me remind you of something." His lips brushed against hers as he talked, a shiver running down her spine as her face flushed at the intimate contact. "You have ten months left to live; don't waste them by pissing off ghouls."
"…You've made you're point," Nao said, turning her face away from his, "Please just take what you want and let me sleep." She felt his laugh rumble through her bones as he released her left arm to force her to face him. For a brief moment Nao locked eyes with Yamori's, and wondered why she'd never noticed the thin red veins forking out from the black pooling around the iris'. The thought disappeared as quickly as it came when Yamori turned her face towards the wall beside them. The hair on the back of her neck rising and a shudder wracking through her body as his tongue traced a slow line from her earlobe to her collarbone, and further on to her shoulder. Letting go of her face he hooked his thumb around the straps of her dress and bra and slid it off her shoulder. Nao reached out her maimed hand and grabbed the starched lapels of his suit jacket as he scrapped his teeth against her skin. Nao could barely stifle the yelp of pain as the ghoul sank his teeth into the meat of her shoulder, and left another circlet engraved on her skin.
|13|
One of the jobs Nao had among the many she did as a secretary involved gathering scores of material from the archives room two floors below the basement for the managers and executives near the top of the twenty-sum story tower. Throughout the two weeks since Yamori's visit, she had gotten out of it by claiming her arm was acting up. It wasn't entirely a lie; it'd happened before (though not for nearly as long), and the shoulder he had bitten was part of that arm. Still, when one of her coworkers walked by carrying a box stuffed with files, she couldn't help but feel a bit guilty.
Though when the slightest movement of her shoulder sent an ache through her collarbone, those feelings disappeared.
Nao tugged away the tape holding the square piece of gauze in place, grimacing at the purple tinge surrounding the indentation of Yamori's teeth. There were two things Nao considered lucky about this latest addition to her list of scars. The first was that—despite how painful it had been—it didn't look deep enough to warrant stitches. The second was that, given the amount of force he had put into his bite, he hadn't broken any bones. In spite of those things however, Nao had been diligent in soaking her shoulder in saltwater, and cleaning out the area with antiseptic and "antibacterial"-everything.
She'd done it so often the stinging pain eventually became a dull ache, and despite the fading bruising it appeared to be healing up quite nicely. Lightly Nao ran a finger along the raised edges where his teeth had dug in, over the scabs covering each individual scrape of his tooth. In the moment she had been solely focused on the searing pain ripping through her body, and trying every viable way to distract herself from it. Nao had taken great heaving breaths, keeping her eyes squeezed tight as her flesh was torn. Her hand had eventually loosened its tight grip on Yamori's jacket, to grab at the back of his thick neck, her short nails scrapping the skin there.
Nao stared at the mirror before her blankly, recalling the memory as if she were looking through a screen. Feeling almost dispassionate as she watched her fingers trail up to grasp the short blond hair covering the back of his head. The texture hadn't felt altogether unpleasant. Unlike Matsuru's hair, it did not feel smoothed by gel, or soft. It had felt…somewhat coarse, and sleek. If that at all made sense.
Nao shook the memory away, glancing at his bite mark in the mirror before taking a bandage out of the box, and gently sticking it on. She didn't really need to keep it covered anymore now that it had scabbed over, but with the discoloration as it was, Nao didn't want a coworker to accidently see the bruising and assume it was a bite made under very different circumstances. She especially didn't want her customers to see it and think they could do something similar—as it was their hands already had habits of drifting.
She moved the strap of her dress to cover the bandage before affixing barrettes adorned with bells to her hair and yanking striped stockings up higher on her thighs. Nao took one last look in the mirror, and grimaced at her appearance. Rather than a hostess going out to entertain businessmen and men too awkward to talk, Nao looked like an elf—a rather slutty one if the short red dress riding up her legs and the four-inch coal-black heels was anything to go by. Her only source of comfort was that every other woman on the floor looked much the same save for species portrayal.
I wonder if Misa will want these heels back if they're stained with my blood, Nao thought, her back ramrod straight as she left the restroom, trying not to fall, trip, or twist an ankle on her way to the bar area. Five feet and Nao could already feel a blister on the balls of her feet. Masking a grimace, Nao reached behind the bar and took out a silver tray, loading it with a bottle of brandy, whiskey, and a couple highball glasses. Before she could make the rounds around the room, the barista—a somewhat paranoid woman Nao only knew as Minatsuki-san—grabbed her arm.
Nao raised a questioning eyebrow at her, Minatsuki in turn narrowed her eyes at her before dropping down behind the counter and popping back up with a dark red bottle in her hands. "This goes to the man in the booth—only the man in the booth. Make that very clear to Tsuki-chan," she said, carefully setting the wine bottle on top of Nao's tray and placing a single wine glass beside it. Nao's brows knitted together at the perplexity that was Minatsuki before turning her back on her. She'd known the woman on-and-off the last two years and the only thing Nao could say about her was that she was a diligent worrywart.
Even as she set the bottle on the tabletop, she could feel the heat of Minatsuki's eyes on her back. She'd seen the dark-red bottles a few times before. Label-less, locked in a container behind the bar counter; half the women there wondered what it tasted like—a few had even asked their customer's for a small sip, but been denied with a shake of their head and a secretive smile. When the bottle was polished off, Minatsuki took care of the cleanup, not even the cork or the smallest spill remaining behind.
Nao wasn't much of a red wine drinker, but even she had grown curious about how it tasted, and why it was reserved for so few patrons. Her curiosity piqued once more, she kept an eye on the couple in the booth as she made her way around the room. It didn't pour smoothly, that much was obvious as it splashed against the sides of the glass, and dripped down the outside in slow, thick droplets. As the man drank it down it left behind a red film.
She propped a hip against an empty two-seater a little over an hour later, watching as Minatsuki wiped down the table and corked the half-empty bottle. If Misa were here they'd talk a bit about the bottles before devolving into Misa listing off Minatsuki's quirks and how big a stick she must have up her ass. Instead she had gone back to their hometown for a few days, leaving Nao to wonder about the bottle by herself and why Minatsuki was so strict about them.
If it were expensive the clients would be more impressive-looking. They just look like regular salarymen, she mused, an unsettling feeling swirling in her gut. There's something off about those bottles. Nao was so deep in her thoughts that she didn't notice the sound of her nickname until the manager clasped her left shoulder and gave her a jog. Her teeth clenched around a yelp of pain and surprise, Nao whisked around to face him, grateful the tray was empty as it nearly tumbled to the ground. His brows knitted together at her surprised reaction, hesitating for a brief moment before he said, "Nishikawa-san is your next customer. He's over there in the booth." He looked over her once more with a concerned look on his face before he left, leaving her to smooth her expression into one of grateful surprise as she carefully made her way over to the nervous young man.
"Nizaki-san!" she exclaimed as she sat down beside him. His bright face fell as he corrected her.
"M-my name is N-Nishikawa."
Biting her tongue Nao smiled through her mistake. "Right! Of course, I'm sorry," she apologized, "I haven't seen you in so long I sort of forgotten."
He didn't mirror her smile, his frown one of disillusionment as he faced away from her and said lowly, monotonously, "You must see a lot of men. I must be just another face in the crowd to you."
Nao let her smile fade, sympathy filling her as she scooted closer to him. "I'm always happy to see you Nishikawa-san," she told him, laying her hand on his leg as she tried to get his attention back, "I've just been a little distracted lately." When he peeked at her out of the corner of his eye, Nao offered him a smaller, reassuring smile. "Please let me make it up to you—is there anything you'd like to drink?" A slight grin lit his face as he turned back to her, laying his hand over hers on his knee as he shook his head and started to talk in his usual joyful way.
If she were to be honest, Nao would say that he was the sole person—aside from Misa and Sacha—she looked forward to seeing, even if their conversations were one-sided in nature. She enjoyed the bit of rest and reprieve Nishikawa gave her from her dour reality, the distraction he provided as he sought her attention. And maybe that was why throughout their session together there were two things Nao had not taken notice of. The first was the near absence of his constant stutter. The second was the subtle shift in his demeanor from his usual openness to something resembling reserved caution.
