※Originally published on note, June 22, 2022.
Art by: Tsukamoto Anabone
“Aha. We really did kill him.”
The blood on her white lolita dress caught the moonlight and glinted faintly.
It was inappropriate to think so, but the contrast between pure white and violent red looked almost beautiful.
Across the shovel burying her own father, she smiled at me.
In all the years we’d spent together, I had never seen her look so eerie or so beautiful.
I was trembling with excitement.
My heart hammered, my head rang like it had been hit with a metal ball, and my vision refused to settle.
I could tell from her outfit that it was winter, yet I had no idea whether I was cold or hot.
Only the sweat running down my face and the sticky feeling of blood on my arms kept me conscious.
Her father had been… a terrible man.
Violence, sexual things—nothing was off-limits.
He had driven her into corners both physically and mentally.
Maybe it was only natural that his daughter wished death upon him.
Still, I never believed she would actually do it.
And I, too, had helped. I was now a proper accomplice.
It seemed I had carried his body into these mountains myself.
I hadn’t even realized it; I must have done it in a daze.
There was still a faint warmth on my back.
The remnants of a life.
“You don’t have to worry. A man like him deserved to die.”
She said it with the same casual tone she used when we happened to meet on the way to school.
Maybe the shock of this “unreal” situation had made her strangely calm.
“I still didn’t think you’d actually do it,” I said.
“Why not? The moment you get to use justified violence, the brain gives you the biggest rush. You should do it while you’re still young enough that the punishment is light.”
Her expression never changed.
“Adults do the same thing. They point to ‘justified violence’ in the news or online so they can feel good about themselves. Even my dad used to hit me with some excuse that it was somehow my fault. That’s how he got his dopamine.”
A cold night wind, tinged with the smell of blood, brushed past her skirt.
Beneath the shovel sticking out of the ground lay her father’s body.
“We’re bound together now. Forever. We’re accomplices.”
My head throbbed even harder.
Every time I recognized the scene in front of me, my chest tightened.
She stayed perfectly relaxed, almost cheerful.
“It’s the strongest kind of bond,” she said. “No pretty words can compare. Nothing in our lives will ever be this intense again. It’s a memory that’ll last forever.”
We would probably end up on the news.
We would be sent to some facility. We would get out a few years later.
And because society would never accept us, we might run away together and hide somewhere.
It wasn’t impossible.
She had the drive to make it happen.
“If we hadn’t killed him, we’d just live boring little lives. Going to some mediocre school in some rural nothing-town. Even if we studied hard and moved to the city, we’d end up with a mid-lower-tier life at best. You can tell already, right? We weren’t born with the fate to become anything special.”
Mixed into her logic was the sweet word “fate,” which suited her somehow.
“And without something like this, we’d break up in a few years. That’s what normal couples do. No matter how in love they think they are, it’s just teenage confusion. Once reality comes knocking, they split.
But now we’ve shared something unforgettable. Something overwhelming.
We’ll remember each other for the rest of our lives.
Isn’t that wonderful?”
My head spun.
Her soft, sweet voice echoed in ways completely out of place with the situation.
“So,” she asked, “which one sounds happier to you?”
I understood what she meant, but not enough to judge it.
Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t have been able to answer either.
My head hurt too much.
“It hurts… I’m sorry. I’m listening, but my head just hurts.”
I crouched down, unable to stand the throbbing any longer.
Facing the ground made the buried body suddenly feel too real, and the pain sharpened.
It hurt. It hurt.
I wondered what she would think of her pathetic boyfriend like this.
But what came out of her mouth was something I didn’t expect at all.
──“It’s okay. This is all just a dream.”
“…What?”
I looked up.
Her eyes met mine under the moonlight—large, dark, and soft, reflecting a faint red from all the blood around us.
“Something like this could never happen in real life, right?”
“This feels way too real to be a dream…”
I couldn’t tell whether she was joking, or if the situation had finally snapped something inside her.
But I knew one thing for certain: her round eyes were beautiful.
“Then maybe it’s real,” she said.
“Are you making fun of me?”
“I’m serious. Whatever you want it to be—that’s the truth.”
That’s right. She never lied to me.
She hated adults who hid behind polite masks and pretty excuses.
She hated her father so much she wanted him dead.
“Carving an unforgettable memory with me and becoming eternal together… or living out the ordinary life of a rural teenage couple. Which future do you want?”
My thoughts couldn’t keep up.
My consciousness blurred under the flood of information.
The darkness warped around us, and soon I could only see her clearly.
I knew I was about to pass out.
And wherever I woke up…
“Good night,” she said.
“When you wake up, maybe we’ll be in some unfamiliar facility surrounded by adults… or maybe you’ll just be in your own bed, waking up with your family like always.”
My vision snapped into darkness.
“Which future do you want to wake up in?”
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