Making his way to Miku's house, Len could almost feel the light of the full moon upon him, weighing down on his shoulders with a sense of impending finality. He felt even more unlike himself than usual tonight, though full moons always put him in a bad mood. Still, as he moved through the now all too familiar streets of Miku's neighborhood, he felt himself growing increasingly more on edge as each minute passed. The urge to manifest directly into her home was tempting to him. By now it would be no different from taking shape on the edge of her neighborhood-he'd done it countless times-but he resisted the urge as a new pang of nervousness shot through him. He grimaced, a wave of indecision consuming his mind as he continued his steady pace. By now Len knew he should be used to these nights, or at least pretend to be, but even after so long, their disappointing outcomes weighed down on him, as predictable as the phases of the moon, and never ceased to sting.
You have a job, he reminded himself, sternly forcing his brain back to attention.
He paused in the darkness, exhaled slowly, and tried to relax his now aching jaw, which he had been unconsciously clenching. With a sense of resolution, he straightened his posture and advanced, knowing he couldn't allow anyone to distract him from his task. Despite it all, Miku's presence wrapped him in a longing nostalgia he would've been content to never address again. The streets were illuminated identically to the first night when he made his introduction to Miku, thanks to the ever vigilant streetlamps. Though light they provided was hardly necessary tonight with the moon casting its beams in that same familiar glow, covering the world in a haze that never ceased to wear down on his nerves and make him feel even more on edge. The brilliance of these moons, reminding him of what he'd so effortlessly come to be, relentlessly seeking him out, bathed him in their light and exposed his true form in their lustre.
He found himself staring up at the streetlamps as he walked, unsure of when he started but suddenly wishing for nothing more than to see each of those never changing lamps wink out around him, for the natural darkness of the night to embrace him and make him disappear into nothing more than another shadow in a world of monochrome. He knew he could do it with a flick of his wrist. In a moment the unnatural light bearing down on him like another accusation could be gone and he would be hidden in the precious, peaceful stillness of night. But that wouldn't change where he was, or what he was going to do, nor would it dim the light of the glowing full moon above him.
Finally reaching the home, Len saw Miku gazing out her window at the stars, the habit she'd taken up as she would wait for him. Even though he hadn't shown up to visit for a short while, he was sure she'd done it every night, patiently waiting for his return. He cracked a small smile at the thought. Len approached her window and lightly rapped on the glass, watching Miku's face light up at the sound. When their eyes met Len shot her a pleasant smile and Miku hastily reached for the window. Before she could touch the glass Len had appeared before her in the room.
"Good evening, young lady," the baku said as he greeted the girl. Despite his restlessness, he at least attempted to feign his typical ease once he was in her presence.
Miku seemed surprised by the sudden entrance, but recovered quickly. "Good evening, Len!" she started brightly.
He tensed slightly as Miku embraced him. When she pulled away she looked uncertain, giving the baku a quizzical look as she wondered if anything was wrong. Their eyes met and her heart fluttered as Len smiled down at her, watching her absently as his lips upturned in a devilish smirk. She'd seen that look before, as if he had a delicious secret he was waiting to share, and she was the only person he desired to indulge. Miku felt herself burn with the closeness of Len's presence, her smile returning as she watched the boy, wondering if she'd imagined his strange reaction.
"Would you like to watch the sky with me?" she offered brightly, turning to her desk to fetch her chair. "The full moon makes everything so bright. It's so pretty tonight!"
The baku felt an abrupt, almost piteous laugh escape his throat. "Thank you, young lady, but I must decline. Tonight I think our meeting will be much shorter than usual."
He noticed the sudden change in his tone, and evidently she did too. He watched Miku stiffen, her posture suddenly uncomfortably rigid, as if a shiver was crawling up her spine.
"You see," he continued, his voice honeyed as he slipped behind the girl. He dragged his hand over her shoulder, slowly inching his fingers closer to her neck. He watched, almost entranced as goosebumps formed on her skin. "I've simply come to collect my fee."
Miku felt a chill shoot down her spine as the hairs on the back of her neck rose. She turned around slowly, taking a few steps back as she watched the boy, suddenly feeling wary and on edge.
Len watched Miku hungrily, his grin widening, revealing his pointed eyeteeth. In the glint of moonlight they seemed much sharper than the girl remembered. With some hesitation, she spoke. "A fee?" Miku ventured. She felt her throat tighten, unsure if she wanted an explanation for Len's odd behavior. "What do you mean?"
A pang of nervousness shot through her body unbidden as she waited for his answer. She couldn't understand why she felt the way she did, but the ever growing dread Miku felt in her stomach made her feel jumpy and uncertain as she watched the boy. It's just Len, she reminded herself, you don't have to be afraid. Yet no amount of encouraging thoughts was calming her racing heart. She felt her mouth go dry as Len watched her.
In reply to her question, the baku gestured to the glowing yellow moon, it's light pouring into the space.
"You see, when the full moon rises my job is complete. And I'm here to collect my payment," he explained.
Though he still smiled at Miku, for the first time his expression seemed dark and predatory as he gazed down at her. She felt another shiver run up her spine as she looked at Len. She'd never felt unsafe around him before, but tonight something about him was different, almost as if it wasn't him at all.
"Payment? I don't know what you need, but I'll be happy to give it..." Miku assured him insistently.
"Ah, Miku. Ever the naive little damsel, aren't you?" the baku growled, his gaze feral and bright. "You do know what the price is, of course?"
"Excuse me...?" Miku demanded, though her voice faltered and her face couldn't mask the pain and bewilderment she felt. "I don't think I know what you mean."
"No… I don't think you do."
In a moment he had grabbed onto the girl's wrist, yanking her arm towards him until their faces were inches apart. The sudden action made Miku's breath catch in her throat, her head spinning in confusion as she tried to register what Len had done. As Miku gasped she caught the familiar scent of the boy, but what was once so alluring now seemed dangerous, like she was breathing poison. Miku struggled to break free of the baku's grasp, the gentle, sweet boy she'd come to know all but gone now, as if replaced by some sort of terrible monster.
He gripped her wrist tighter as she struggled to escape, dragging a whimper from her throat.
"L-Len! What are you doing? Please stop! You're hurting me!" Miku called as she fought to pull her wrist away.
The baku smirked, his teeth glinting like knives in the light. "Are you afraid of me, my dear? Well, that's quite alright," he purred, gritting his teeth as he dug his gloved hands deeper into the flesh of her arm. "It's only natural for a creature of prey. But I assure you, if you stop struggling and allow me to take what I need, this will all be over shortly."
The throbbing pain in her arm mixed with fear and desperation as Miku began to sob, wincing between the pressure on her wrist and the sudden formation of tears burning her eyes.
"Len, please," the girl begged through hysteric gasps, "tell me what's wrong. What is this about?! I don't understand why you're acting this way, I thought you were supposed to watch over me. Y-you said you'd always protect me! From the nightmares- the demons-"
"You stupid child," the baku purred, hatred dripping off every word like poison. "There were never any monsters giving you your silly little nightmares to begin with."
Miku recoiled away as much as she could with him still latching so tightly to her arm. Feeling as if she'd just been slapped, she managed to regain enough of her composure to speak. "What are you talking about?!" she demanded. "Of course something was giving me my nightmares! They were horrifying! I've never experienced anything like them…!" her words died on her tongue and she felt her skin go cold as she watched Len's expression turn from one of malice to mocking pity.
"I suppose I should rephrase. Yes, there was something giving you nightmares, Miku. But not quite in the way you imagined."
He paused, watching coldly as she looked away from him. Miku stared into Len's face, searching for an explanation as she tried to reason with what he was saying to her. After a second, she spoke, suddenly filled with a new sense of anxiousness and dread.
"What was causing the dreams, then?"
"There are only so many humans who suffer with the affliction of nightmares within my reach," he continued to explain, as if it should have been obvious to her all along. "So in a pinch, I must make the victims myself. Fabricating worlds from a human's worst fears, their deepest dreads. Clever, isn't it?"
"There's no way..." Miku whispered, her voice trembling as her breaths became ragged, her throat tightening, making it hard for her to focus and breathe. "You weren't… lying to me… right…?"
Len seemed to ponder this for a moment. "Not about everything, I suppose. A baku's job truly is to relieve victims of their nightmares, after all. A terribly boring life, releasing you humans from your petty little worries. I think my game is much more interesting." He could see the betrayal in her eyes, the disbelief that he could ever turn on her, but he continued on, unfazed. "So you see, this wasn't some silly little fight against good and evil. The only demon you ever had to worry about was me." He considered his words for an instant. "Though if it gives you any consolement, young lady, I must say… even if I induced them myself, your nightmares still taste heavenly."
For a moment Miku stared dumbly at the boy, her mind racing, her body going numb. She didn't believe he'd lied to her, didn't want to even consider it, but her reasoning crumbled as she looked at the boy she thought she once knew and trusted. He was gone now, and, she realized bitterly, he never existed at all. He was just as real as a dream, a figment of something that was never real to begin with.
Miku didn't realize she was crying until she felt the warmth of the tears streaming down her face. "You lied to me," she stated bleakly, her voice cracking, as if it were physically painful to vocalize the truth.
"I'm afraid so. But don't look so hurt, Miku. I assure you, all that color in your eyes is being given up for a more than worthy cause." He traced his lips with his tongue. "Now then, young lady… Shall we?"
Pain and anger twisted inside of Miku, but fear overrode any need to figure out what Len had up his sleeve. She twisted her arm out of his grasp and bolted for the bedroom door. Just as she reached for the knob, Len was before her, slamming his hand against the door as she struggled to open it against his weight.
"You're not getting out of this, Miku," Len warned, mild annoyance darkening into something much more sinister as the girl continued to pull at the door. "We made a deal."
Knowing it was futile to struggle against Len, as a last resort Miku began to scream for her parents.
The baku rolled his eyes, staring down at Miku with thinly masked disdain.
"Save your breath, young lady. Surely you didn't think that after all these nights I'd come in here without any precautionary measures? After all the noise we've made? Surely you've realized... I've cast a sleeping spell over your home, so your family doesn't make any unwanted entrances. It's not like anyone would believe you either way. A strange creature in your room promising to take away your nightmares? Everyone would think you'd gone mad from sleepless nights." He watched the girl crumble to her knees in resignation, half expecting her to have put up more of a fight.
Clutching her face in her hands, Miku wept bitterly, her body heaving with every sob as she registered the shock of Len's betrayal. She pulled her hands from her face as she felt her tears pooling through her fingers like blood from a fresh wound. A shriek sliced through the air as Miku gazed down at her hands in horrified disbelief. Pale white flesh was covered in tears dyed with vivid color. She stared dazedly as the colorful drops still dripped onto her hands like a grotesque, pigmented rain. Her hands began to tremble, the color still falling from her eyes as she spoke.
"Len, what is this?!" she all but screamed, her voice sounding hollow and distant to her own ears.
She hardly registered that Len had passed by until he had crouched down beside her. She flinched away from him, but the flow of color ebbing even quicker from her eyes took over any thoughts of escape. The girl looked up to see that in Len's hand was the rose he had given to her as a present only a few nights before. The flower was still in full bloom, and through her panic Miku distantly recalled wondering how it hadn't started to wilt over the past few days.
"The colors of your aspirations, your hopes, your loves... Everything that weaves a human's sweetest dreams together," Len responded, nodding his head in the direction of Miku's stained hands. Len admired the flawless bloom in the moonlight with a look of deep reverence before turning his gaze back to Miku, once more regarding the sobbing girl.
"And just look at yours! Such a deliciously vivid shade of... teal, is it? What a beautiful color your dreams are, Miku..."
He extended the rose towards the girl's face, as if offering it to her. She could feel the softness of the petals as Len caressed her cheek with the flower. Miku stayed utterly still as Len dragged the bloom below her eye, all energy and desire to lash out at him moments before entirely drained. As her tears dripped onto the petals, she watched helplessly as the once white flower began to alter, her tears dying the rose first teal before changing into a vibrant shade of crimson.
Pulling the rose away, Len stood, staring down at the girl. "Everything in those pretty eyes… All that color will be mine eternally. Young lady, I give you my sincerest gratitude. I can only hope you enjoy this monochrome paradise."
Despite her protests and desperate pleas, Len turned his back to the girl. He approached the rays of moonlight that still flooded the dark room, disappearing into the faint beams of light like an apparition. In a moment it was as if the baku had never existed, all traces of his presence seemingly snuffed out in an instant, like a weak flame. Feeling impossibly fatigued and hollow, Miku crumpled to the floor and succumbed to a stifling, abyssal slumber.
~xxx~
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