Chapter Text
HUNGRY GHOSTS
⸻ この憎しみが愛に変わる
( 2015 )
Nanami Kento wakes up to the blinding white light of his laptop screen and the drone of the news channel on the television. He blinks blearily as he sits up from the dining table and rubs the bridge of his nose. It's a bad habit that he can't shake off. He glances at the time as he hears the patter of rain against the darkened window. Reaching for the cup of cold, half-drunk coffee, he stands from the dining table and drags his feet to the kitchen. He massages the aching knot in his neck, blond hair falling into his brown eyes as he listens listlessly to the news anchor's voice.
"The popular actress, Minami Karina, who won the Best Actress award at this year's Japan Academy Awards has reportedly gone missing after she ran away from her own wedding to business mogul Takeshi Yasuo—"
The tap water runs cold over his hands as he washes the dishes. Kento looks up to the ceiling with an exasperated sigh. "Again, huh?" he mutters to himself.
He counts the number of years that have passed since that day and wonders if it will ever end. The cycle of hope and loss traps him within its ceaseless grasp. He can't break free of it no matter how hard he tries. Those memories of that day continue to replay in his mind with increasing frequency. Resentment gnaws inside of him and the ghost of her continues to haunt him. Like a bad habit that he can't seem to rid himself of.
Just thinking of it gives him a headache and he walks towards his room with every intention to sleep it off. He's halfway across the living area when the doorbell rings and he swears out loud to himself. It's almost three in the morning and he has a mission scheduled in a few hours. The ringing grows incessant, almost desperate, and he wants to ignore it. He wants to pretend that she doesn't exist to him but he knows that he can't. He knows that he can't blame her for all the suffering that she's made him endure throughout the years.
A fist thuds heavily against the door from the outside and he slowly turns toward it. He should give her a taste of her own medicine for once. The frown between his brows deepens as he walks over and unlocks the door. He swings it open, finding her sitting at the threshold with a hand raised in the air. Aquamarine eyes look up at him beneath dark lashes that are damp from the rain. Her wet hair is plastered against her face and neck, the white wedding dress she still wears is soiled at the hem. She looks at him as if she's begging for forgiveness and it's a familiar sight that he's seen more times than he likes.
The memories replay before his eyes. The tears that clung to her lashes as she wept on the floor of the morgue. He can still smell the blood and embalming fluids that stuck to his skin for days. Her shivering, rain-soaked frame and her pale fingers entangled through her damp hair. The way she screamed in anguish from the bottom of her soul, how it shattered to pieces before him as he crouched helplessly with futile hands reaching out to her.
Karina pushes herself to her feet and stands in front of him with tearless eyes that no longer hold an ounce of remorse. She brushes past as she walks into the apartment and Kento shuts the door after her. He watches as she starts taking the dress off carelessly, fabric ripping at the seams as she sheds it like a second skin. She turns to him wearing only a thin chemise and thigh-high stockings attached to garters and pulls the engagement ring off her finger. It falls heavily to the wooden floor and he pities all the men that she's ever lured into her grasp. He supposes it includes himself too.
He meets her gaze head-on. "How many times do you plan on doing this?" he asks her despite already knowing the answer.
She doesn't laugh as anticipated and her voice is uncharacteristically dull. "I'm going back, Kento," she says and it's the last thing he expects to hear from her.
Lightning flashes outside and the rumble of thunder soon follows after. The patter of rain against the window grows in intensity and it takes a moment for him to process her words. "What?" he utters in confusion.
Karina drops onto the chair and sighs as she leans back while running a hand through her hair. He briefly thinks that she should take a warm shower so she doesn't catch a cold later and hastily pushes the thought away. "I'm going back to Jujutsu High," she clarifies.
He lets out a breath of disbelief and he wants to laugh at the incredulity of it all. It's rich coming from the woman who had vowed that she would rather die than go back to the world of sorcery, who was the first to turn her back on them and the memories that they had held onto so painstakingly.
"Then go back, why did you come here instead?" he questions.
"Why are you getting mad at me?" she snaps with a scowl.
"I'm not mad at you," he retorts with an edge to his voice.
Her silence is perhaps more cutting than her words as she turns to him. Like clockwork, Karina comes and leaves his life with all the bluster of a hurricane, sweeping him into a whirlpool that pulls him farther out to an empty sea. Kento won't be surprised if she suddenly disappears once again after making such a rash proclamation. With such a dramatic personality to begin with, he always thought a career in acting had suited her well. She should just stick to it.
"What made you change your mind?" he asks and he can't help the undercurrent of bitterness in his tone.
She grits her teeth and her eyes waver as she glares back at him. "Don't pretend that you still care about me," she says and his hand balls into a fist at his side. Karina looks away as she mutters, "Stop pretending that you don't hate me..."
It takes all his willpower to bite back the things he wants to say to her. Sometimes he forgets that this is the true Karina that he should be familiar with; the callous, selfish woman who inflicts wounds on all the people she cares about. Not the false memories he has of the girl that he bared his heart to on the shores of Okinawa, the girl whose touch and smile caused him to tremble under the summer stars. That girl is a figment of his imagination, she no longer exists. Not since that day.
"Karina," he calls her name as if it's a curse that he's nurtured on his tongue since the day he was born. "Tell me why you're going back."
She stands abruptly from the chair and swiftly walks away. "I'm going to use your shower then leave." The bedroom door slams and locks behind her.
Kento stands there feeling like a guest in his home. He sighs in irritation and goes back to the dining table to pour himself a glass of scotch to numb the wretchedness he feels in his chest. He closes his tired eyes and suppresses a groan. Karina always brings out the worst in him. She is his own personal demon who enjoys tormenting him with every breath she takes, even when she is not there beside him. The ever-present reminder of her haunts his days, from the mementoes of their youth, the billboards of her face that he passes by on the train, even his reflection in the mirror, all serve to reawaken the memories that are scarred into his brain.
Kento takes a large gulp from the glass and feels the alcohol burn down his throat. And it reminds him again of that night with her tear-stricken face, that image of her that he can't forget for the rest of his life. The moment he had lost everything that could bring him a semblance of happiness. They had both died that night too and now they haunt one another as only hungry ghosts do.
He hears her emerge from the bedroom twenty minutes later but he doesn't bother to look. Her feet move around the kitchen behind him and he hears the clink of ice cubes. He smells the scent of his soap on her skin, bergamot and oud, as she sits next to him with a glass of whiskey nursed between her hands. She wears his shirt that is too large on her slim frame and her wet hair soaks through the cotton fabric over her shoulders. In another time, he remembers the tender warmth of her body between his arms and the taste of sunlight in her laughs. The days she would take him by the hand and lead him down the street to the convenience store, the brightness of her smiles and the loving-kindness in her voice. When her eyes were still soft and gentle and shone with carefree joy. Kento polishes the scotch from his glass and wishes for oblivion to take him.
The whisper of her voice fills the space between them and she is a husk of the girl in his hazy memories. "Do you think we could ever..." she starts before sighing in resignation. "Forget it."
"You're a cruel woman, Karina," he says quietly. "The cruellest I've ever known."
She gulps her whiskey down. "I know," she responds.
Her hand reaches for his and he can't bring himself to look at her, knowing what he'll find in those translucent eyes of hers. They no longer shine, not for many long years now. She leans toward him and he feels her lips trail along his neck. It's the same old story. He closes his eyes so he doesn't have to see the desperation on her face, the anguish in her gaze as she punishes him as much as she punishes herself. His hand closes around hers as he swallows the lump in his throat. Their love turns to hate turns to love, over and over, trapped in an eternal purgatory of selfish fulfilment. He grasps her hair between his fingers, his mouth capturing hers with capricious viciousness and undeniable vengeance.
They rip open the wounds that have never truly healed, they bleed into one another as accomplices to each own's destruction. As if their bodies are canvases for all the guilt and pain that they painted upon the other. There is a private gallery of portraits between them depicting the heartache that they share, abstract and meaningless pieces of art that they immortalise on a wall of shame. Her misery becomes his own and eats him from the inside out. The recklessness of his violent desires makes him sick to the stomach and he doesn't recognise the man he becomes in front of her.
And god, he hates her so much but he loves her all the same. He doesn't know when resentment becomes synonymous with adoration, nor how he could feel both simultaneously in equal measure. But when he looks at her, he knows that it's possible. Karina makes him want to live and die out of spite. She is the very reason he still draws breath while contemplating self-slaughter. He welcomes her depraved touch against his skin, the way she bites his lips to draw blood. He takes pleasure in pinning her against the table and listening to her moan his name as if she's begging god for mercy.
I love you, I hate you, everything blurs before his eyes, the girl who tenderly held his heart under the summer sun, the woman who devours his heart as he drowns beneath the cold ocean waves. Her hands suffocate him and he takes it gladly, he wants her to extinguish every breath in his lungs. He hates and loves her, and it drives him insane.
Kento stares at the ceiling as the sun starts to rise outside the window. He hasn't slept a wink and his skin is now decorated in bruises. Karina turns to him with her phone in hand and he turns his gaze to the screen. A frown adorns his brows as he searches her face for an answer. "It's about Ai," she says and he braces himself for what she says next, "I'm going to enrol her to Jujutsu High."
He runs a hand over his tired eyes and sighs again. Of course, he understands. He understands yet he thinks back to those days of their youth and he wants to protest but he can't. Ai has been a handful between the both of them and he's been thinking of the same thing. "Is that why you're going back?" he asks softly.
She's quiet for a moment and he swears he can feel her heart tremble too, as if it's connected to his own and they both yearn for the longing that still lives inside of them. "Yeah," she whispers and turns away. "I'm seeing Satoru later."
He stares at the back of her head, how her tangled dark hair cascades over her shoulders and the exposed nape of her neck. She always manages to find herself back in his bed and he never turns her away. The sight of her bare body beneath his sheets no longer fazes him and his hand reaches for her but stops. Kento wonders if there will ever be a time that she stays.
