Chapter Text
Yuta had promised her. When they grew up, they would get married. They would live together, forever and ever.
It was an absolute truth. Their futures were meant to be inextricably linked until the very end. So then, what was this? How were they supposed to be together now?
——HE PROMISED HER.
No. No, no, no——that didn’t make any sense. The logic was utterly flawed. How could he possibly fulfill a promise if he was dead?
“…Yuta?” she muttered, her mind simply rejecting the wreckage laid out before her.
Wrapped around a mangled lamppost on the side of the road was a white car, its front caved in with grotesque intensity. And the blood. There was a sickening, almost comical amount of it. The sheer volume made it look as though someone had dragged a thick, wet brush of dark crimson paint across the asphalt, leading to a singular, agonizing endpoint.
At the end of that horrific trail lay Yuta’s small, fragile body. He was completely motionless, resting exactly where the crimson pool was thickest.
Rika dragged her leaden feet across the pavement, her eyes wide and unblinking.
“Wake up, Yuta. You aren't meant to die like this, so wake up——“
Tears spilled freely, carving tracks down her cheeks as she passed the ruined vehicle.
She was glad the bastard who hit Yuta was dead. In fact, her only regret in that moment was that the driver hadn't survived just long enough for her to tear them apart with her own bare hands.
”Aaah... Yuta... No, no...“
She hated how Yuta looked right now.
The gentle, innocent charm that always warmed her heart had been thoroughly erased from his unfeeling corpse. It was a hollow, lifeless expression——a face she would rather see on literally anyone else in the world but him.
She absolutely loathed it.
Collapsing onto her knees, ignoring the blood soaking into her clothes, she took his cold, ruined face into her hands and leaned in close.
“No. You’re not dead, Yuta, so wake up. Wake up——WAKE UP! Don’t leave me... you can't leave me like this! You’re the only thing in this ugly world that makes living worth it——!”
Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up!!
Yes. Without Yuta by her side, just as he’d promised, drawing breath was a pointless endeavor. What value was there in a reality infested with stupid, noisy adults and all the other wretched people she despised
None. There was nothing at all—
“Riiika-chan——don't cry...”
She slowly lifted her head. A massive, horrifyingly elongated white finger reached out from the shadows, gently wiping the pooling tears from her eye.
The voice that spoke was ghastly, distorted into a monstrous, grating echo——yet, unmistakably, it belonged to Yuta.
He wasn’t dead, after all.
She could feel it pulsing between them, the sickeningly sweet, unbreakable bond tying their souls together.
Completely deaf to the panicked, shouting voices of the damn adults approaching from behind, a bright, genuinely cheerful smile blossomed on Rika's face.
“Yuta… you won’t ever leave me again. I know it.” she whispered, just as a trembling adult hand grasped her shoulder.
Deep within the distorted shadow towering over her, she felt it perfectly. His relief——and his terrifying resolve.
It wasn’t her first time in a hospital room, so she couldn't bring herself to care about whatever the doctor had to say.
She merely watched in silence as the professional-looking man scribbled something onto his clipboard. Finally, he looked up and spoke.
"Can you tell me your name?"
"Rika Orimoto."
"Do you know where you are right now, Rika-san?" the doctor asked, tilting his head slightly.
What a pointless question. Of course she knew where she was. Did he think she was stupid?
"...The hospital."
The doctor nodded slowly. "Do you know what happened?"
Well, she was right there when it happened, wasn't she?
"A car hit him. Hard."
The man paused. For whatever reason, his pen froze over the paper before he quickly jotted another note down.
"Do you feel any sort of sickness or dizziness?"
Rika tilted her head. All of these questions were so utterly meaningless. Yuta was still alive——so naturally, she felt better than ever.
"No. I'm fine."
She didn't know if it was her tone or her answer, but the doctor looked at her with a distinctly strange, almost pitying expression.
"Do you remember what happened just before the incident?"
A small, genuine smile graced her lips as the memory surfaced. Yuta's smile had been as pure as ever, of course. He had been happily blabbering on about something his sister said, laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world.
Right before...
Right before—
Her smile vanished, leaving a cold, flat stare.
"We were walking home from school, just like every other day. And then that man in his car hit him."
"I... see," the doctor responded, his voice laced with heavy hesitation. "Do you have anyone we can call? A guardian, a parent, a relative?"
"You can call my grandmother. She’s called Fumiko."
She despised her grandmother. But even so, she would much rather be at home than trapped in this sterile room being interrogated.
Besides, once she was home, she and Yuta could play and talk whenever they wanted!
...
Time dragged on. It would have undoubtedly been unbearable if not for Yuta's presence.
The heavy, lingering sensation of his hand resting on her shoulder… even if the texture of it was entirely different now——was more than enough to soothe any boredom she felt while waiting.
She didn't like the way the doctor kept glancing at her after he made the call, though. He looked at her like she was broken. Like she was crazy. It seriously got on her nerves.
Finally, the heavy doors swung open.
It was the familiar, unwelcome face of her grandmother. Her gray hair was pulled back into its typical, severe bun, and her sharp eyes immediately narrowed into disgusted slits the moment they landed on Rika.
Without so much as a greeting, Fumiko turned to the doctor.
"What did she say?"
Rika had to suppress the urge to click her tongue. Her grandmother was always so deeply annoying when it came to things like this.
The doctor blinked, momentarily taken aback by the old woman's bluntness, before motioning for Fumiko to step out into the hallway, safely out of earshot.
"She appears to be in severe shock, Fumiko-san. Furthermore, she may be experiencing——"
That was all Rika caught before the heavy door muffled their voices.
Rika hummed a light tune, slipping off the edge of her chair as Yuta's familiar, distorted voice echoed right beside her ear.
"Whaaat are you doing, Rika-chan?"
She smiled warmly, turning around to face the mass of shifting shadows. From the dark void that constantly floated behind her, a pair of horrifyingly long, pale white arms reached out, hanging in the air with grotesque affection.
"Well, I want to hear what they're saying about me, of course~. Can I trust you to keep a secret, Yuta-kun?"
The response was immediate and filled with unquestioning devotion.
"Of course!"
Giggling softly, Rika crept toward the door. Pressing her weight against the frame, she gently, silently, pushed it open just a crack.
The air in the hallway was thin, heavy with the lingering aura of death that hospitals never truly managed to scrub away.
Fumiko stood with her back to the door, her hands clutched so tightly around her handbag that her knuckles were completely white.
“She isn't crying,” Fumiko’s voice hissed, sharp and brittle. “Do you understand? That boy was her only friend, his blood is practically still on her shoes, and she is in there smiling.”
The doctor adjusted his glasses, a weary gesture intended to buy him a few seconds of composure.
“Fumiko-san, shock manifests in many ways. What you’re describing—the smiling, the talking to herself—is a defensive mechanism. Her mind has shattered. To Rika-san, the reality where Yuta-kun is dead is simply too heavy to carry, so she has created a world where he hasn't left.”
“You don't know her…!” Fumiko interrupted, her voice trembling with a cocktail of fear and loathing. “You didn't see her when she came back from that mountain. You didn't see her after her mother died. That girl… she’s a vacuum. She consumes everything around her. First her parents, and now that poor Okkotsu boy.”
The doctor sighed, the sound echoing hollowly in the corridor. He was a man of science and logic. He didn't have room for the superstitions of an old woman who looked at her own granddaughter as if she were a demon.
“We call it 'tactile hallucinations,'” the doctor explained, “She likely feels a phantom pressure——a hand on her shoulder, a voice in her ear. It's a textbook case of post-traumatic dissociation. She’s 'playing' because her brain has retreated to a time before the impact.”
“It's not a game…!” Fumiko whispered, her eyes darting toward the door crack where Rika was hiding. “She was always a greedy child. She stole my daughter's ring, she stole that boy’s future, and now she’s stealing his rest. She won’t let him go. She’ll never let anything go.”
“… I am recommending a psychiatric transfer,” the doctor said, his patience finally fraying. “She needs professional stabilization. If she truly believes the boy is still present, she could become a danger to herself—or to you—when the reality finally breaks through the delusion.”
Fumiko let out a short, jagged laugh.
“The reality won't break through,” she muttered, turning to look at the door with a scowl, “Rika won't allow it. She’s already decided how the world is going to be. And God help anyone who tries to tell her she's wrong.”
On the other side of the door, Rika’s smile widened.
A danger? How silly. She wasn't a danger at all. As long as she had Yuta, she was the happiest girl in the world.
Beside her, the air rippled. A monstrous, distorted shadow hummed in agreement, the sound vibrating through her very bones.
“Rika-chan… stay… with me?”
“Always, Yuta-kun… forever and ever.”
The threshold of the Orimoto household felt less like a front door and more like the entrance to a tomb. The air inside was preserved in a state of suffocating tradition that Rika had always loathed.
Fumiko didn't yell or weep as she unlocked the door and entered.
She simply stood in the entryway, her shadow long and jagged under the dim hallway light, watching Rika with eyes that were cold, sharp, and deeply accusatory.
“Clean yourself up… you look indecent.”
Rika shrugged, she didn’t really see the point, the blood that covered her hands was gone, and the blood on her clothes was already dry.
I want to go back.
The Okkotsu house was always bright. She wondered, briefly, how they were doing. Were they crying? Was Yuta’s sister screaming? A tiny, flickering part of her felt a pang of something like pity for them——they didn't know. They didn't have what she had. They were mourning his death, while Yuta was right here with her.
She didn't need their house, though Because Yuta was here.
As long as he was with her, everything was okay.
…
…
The dinner table was as silent as ever, after having changed out of her blood slicked outfit.
In the center of the table sat a bowl of stewed eggplant, glistening with a dark soy glaze. The smell made Rika’s stomach turn. It was the dish she hated most in the world, prepared by the woman she hated most in the world.
“Eat.” Fumiko commanded. She hadn't touched her own chopsticks.
“I’m not hungry.” Rika replied.
She wasn't lying. The hunger for rice or vegetables had been replaced by a dense, throbbing fullness in her chest. She didn't need normal things anymore. Not when her soul was being fed by the beautiful devotion of Yuta standing behind her chair.
”Be grateful, girl! After everything you’ve done… everything I know you’ve done…! You should be grateful that I’m even bothering with you!”
Rika didn’t really understand, but that lack of understanding most likely came from the fact she didn’t really care.
“You will eat. You will sit there and behave like a living girl——” Fumiko hissed, her self restraint fracturing
“I don’t want to. Also, Yuta doesn't like this stuff… he never did.” Rika said simply.
The sound of the name caused Fumiko to recoil as if she’d been slapped. Her face contorted, shifting from a look of calculation to a mask of pure, unadulterated bitterness.
“Rika… stop this,” Fumiko whispered, leaning forward. “That boy… Okkotsu-kun… he was always too good for you. He was a kind, gentle soul who had the misfortune of being ensnared by a girl like you. But he is dead.”
The word hung in the air.
“He is a corpse in a morgue. He is gone. You have to accept that and move on, or you will rot right along with him.”
Rika didn't blink. She slowly looked up, her gaze locking onto her grandmother’s own.
Behind her… the massive, pale hand crept against Rika’s shoulder. She reached up, clutching Yuta’s hand into her own.
“——No.”
The word came out quietly, and that seemed to only annoy Fumiko even further.
“Yuta is right here. He’s never going to be dead. And he’s never, ever going to leave me.”
Rika picked up her bowl and slowly, deliberately, overturned it. The eggplant slid out, landing on the tatami mat with a wet, sickening thud.
“Because I love him…” Rika smiled, “And Yuta loves me back too~ it’s something an old witch like you could never understand.”
Rika’s gaze drifted toward the corner of the room, settling on an assortment of withering flowers that had long since surrendered to the stagnant air. She expected nothing from the old woman. And, true to form, Fumiko offered nothing but an enraged scowl——a twisted, ugly expression that spoke of a hatred too deep for words.
Okkotsu. The name had a far better ring to it. Rika had already decided that. To be Rika Okkotsu was to be loved… to be Rika Orimoto was simply to be a vessel for this woman’s bitterness.
Her grandmother looked at her as if she were a blight, a walking curse born from nothing but poor luck. But how pathetic did Fumiko look now? In the face of this absolute reality, she looked incredibly, hilariously stupid.
The dim lights overhead began to flicker in a frantic, uneven rhythm. From Rika’s small, unassuming frame, a wave of something foul began to spill——a thick, suffocating malevolence that turned the very oxygen in the room into lead.
It was a surge of pure, unadulterated malice.
The pressure hit Fumiko head-on like a physical tidal wave. The floorboards beneath the old woman suddenly shattered. The sickening melody of fragile, elderly bones giving way under a weight they were never meant to bear. Pinned to the floor, Fumiko could do nothing but scratch at the wood, her world reduced to the agonizing gravity of Rika’s whim.
Fumiko’s eyes met those of her granddaughter… no, this monster——and she felt it… a cold, paralyzing chill. An overwhelming sense of despair that flooded her psyche, drowning out even the pain of her splintering ribs.
“Did you do that, Yuta-kun?” Rika asked, tilting her head with the innocent curiosity of a child. She looked toward the aged bookshelf, as if waiting for it to resond.
A soft giggle bubbled up from her throat.
”Ahh... well, hehe~”
She hated this place. She had always hated it. This house was a cage built of silence and resentment, so why should she bother staying a second longer? There was no reason to linger with a woman who looked at her with such loathing. Not anymore.
With Yuta by her side, the concept of struggling will become a distant, faded memory.
“Yuta-kun… could you do the honors, please?”
The crushing pressure subsided just enough for Fumiko to draw a single, rattling breath. She raised a broken, trembling hand, her voice a pathetic wheeze.
“H-hkk… d-devil… child——“
Rika didn't blink. She didn't even look back.
The lights overhead gave one final, desperate pulse of life before the bulbs shattered completely, plunging the room into a total, screaming darkness.