site 18: Aria Kurenaino

Friday, February 19th

My house was a thirty-minute walk from Kichijoji Station. I always closed my black magic agency, the House of Crimson in Harmonica Alley, late at night. Typically, well past midnight.

Since it was within walking distance, I never worried about catching the last train. Actually, I looked forward to walking home through the quiet, chill air. Especially at this time of year, everything was so quiet that it was like the world itself was frozen.

The darkness was a gentle veil that could hide a tiny girl like me from sight. Inside the dark, I felt more peace than fear.

I especially felt this way when I passed by Zenpukuji Park, which was right next to my house. If the darkness were to come all the way up to my feet, I would gladly offer myself up to it.

I made it back to my house just in time to see Mr. Mishima, who lived across the way, come back home. His luxury car quietly parked in its spot. He emerged from the car, a middle-aged gentleman who I’d heard worked at a bank or something similar.

Since our eyes met, I gave him a small greeting, but he regarded me the same way you might a pile of garbage before he headed inside.

I was used to people acting that way. If you asked my neighbors, I and my house were something to be avoided, and something that would hopefully go away altogether someday.

Even in a wealthy area like this, my home was a mansion bigger than the others. But it only looked impressive on the outside. Since I lived alone, I wasn’t able to keep it up, and in places it was starting to show.

Every time there was a big earthquake, I was worried that this time, the whole place would just collapse. That wouldn’t be the worst way to go, of course.

In fall, nuts would fall off of the gingko trees, and generate a horrible smell. I didn’t like the smell, but I accepted it as just part of the way things were.

When I opened the front door, the squeak sounded like an old woman’s scream. Of course, inside, it was dark, and there was no sign of life.

I coughed a little when I entered. It was always dusty, but I had no intention of cleaning it up. If I did, the dark stagnation that swirled around this house would disappear. I would entrust myself to the stagnation, even when it was so thick I wanted to vomit.

That was what a black magic agent like me deserved.

I walked up the stairs to my room without even bothering to turn on the lights. “I’m home,” I spoke into the room.

Until two years ago, I would’ve always heard a voice saying, “Welcome back.”

Instead, I was met with row after row of silent dolls. I probably had over a hundred of them now. Even I, their creator, had forgotten their exact number. I’d just stopped counting.

I took off my coat and threw it aside, and then fell face-first into a rococo-style bed with a magnificent canopy. Lately, whenever I came home, I would fall straight into bed without taking a bath or even eating first.

I never woke up early. I would usually sleep until noon. Since I was lucky to get two customers a day at my black magic agency, I wasn’t exactly busy, either.

I’d liked to think that I was living the life I wanted, but maybe it was wearing me down and I just hadn’t realized it yet.

“Brother...” I whispered, with my eyes closed. It felt like if I did, I would hear my beloved brother answer me.

—You’ll catch cold if you sleep like that, Ria.

I missed him. But the man I loved was gone now.

Until just two years ago, my brother had been the only color in my life. I remembered those days, and how happy I was.

My parents had died when I was only ten years old. Ever since then, I’d lived alone with my brother in this huge mansion.

He was tall, and a good athlete, and he even said someone had scouted him as a model once. He got the best grades in his class, and he’d graduated K University as valedictorian. He was the person I admired more than anyone else in the world.

He was thirteen years older than myself, and I had no way of knowing how much he’d sacrificed to raise me when I was young. I had just been happy to be with my brother, the only family I had in the world.

I was always introverted, and I wasn’t really good at talking to people. Brother told me that I should go to school, so I did, but honestly, I would’ve rather spent every hour of the day at home with him.

Brother had to work. Our parents had left us a lot of money, but Brother didn’t think it was right to just live off of that instead of working. So he wasn’t able to spend all his time with me.

For the first few years, he often left for work early in the morning. He still managed to make it in time for dinner, but I was so lonely in this big mansion while I waited for him to come home.

Everything at school was terrible, too. My classmates were mean to me, and my teacher looked at me with creepy eyes, and sometimes touched me.

I knew my gentle brother was tired from work, but he still listened to all of my problems. I wanted to be alone with him, forever.

“I don’t want to go anywhere else. I don’t want you to go anywhere else. Brother, don’t go to work. If you go, I’ll bite off my own tongue and kill myself...”

“I feel the same way as you, Ria. I want to live with you quietly here, forever. But if we want to survive, I have to work. I’m sorry, Ria.” When I told him my selfish, crazy request, he just smiled like he wasn’t sure what to do.

That all suddenly changed around the time when I turned fourteen. One day, I started to hyperventilate on the way to school, and they took me to the hospital. After that, my brother quit his job and started to spend the whole day with me.

He would wait patiently for me to come home from school. He listened with deep interest, and not the slightest sign of revulsion, to me telling him about the things that I’d just learned about black magic. Morning and night, he’d smile and tell me the food I made was delicious.

When I went to bed, he would snuggle up next to me. He would gently rub my head as I lay on my pillow, and say, “Goodnight, Ria. Sweet dreams. I hope you have a wonderful tomorrow.”

My favorite thing in the morning was to get up earlier than he did, and then wake him up.

That year was the happiest in my life. My wish ever since I was a child— to be with my brother forever— had come true. No matter what awful things happened outside, when I got home, my brother would be waiting for me in my room. No matter how much my classmates, the male teachers, or the strange men on the streets looked at me with dirty eyes, I was able to endure it.

“You’re a very charming girl, Ria, so perhaps those men can’t help but fall prey to your charms. I wish I could protect you, but I can’t really go with you to school.”

“It’s all right, Brother. As long as you’re here to hold me in your arms, I can endure anything.”

“You’re such a good girl, Ria. But if you really can’t handle something, tell me, okay? I’ll do whatever it takes to get revenge for you. And I’ll never let them get near you again.”

“Thank you, Brother. I love you.”

Only when Brother held me in his arms could I forget about the outside world.

But that happiness didn’t last long. It happened on a cold day, like this one. I had only a week or so to go before I graduated elementary school.

When I came back from school that day, my quiet house was filled with noise. There were lots of cars parked in front of the yard. Some of them were patrol cars and ambulances.

It was winter, but the house was filled with a terrible stench, probably from the gingko nuts in the yard. Confused, I went inside just in time to see my brother being carried out on a stretcher.

“Who are you people? What are you doing to my brother?! Don’t touch my brother!”

He was asleep, as if he’d been injected with some kind of drug, and he didn’t answer to my voice. The stretcher was surrounded by police officers and EMTs, and other people I didn’t know. They wouldn’t let me get close.

“You can’t just take my brother from me! This is kidnapping! I’ll call the police right now!”

“Ria! Calm down!”

“How can I calm down? You’re taking away the only family I’ve got left! Brother! Wake up! Brother! Brother!”

I grabbed onto the stretcher, knocking it over. My brother’s body fell to the floor. He didn’t move, but the other adults around me began to panic.

“Someone! Grab Ria!”

“Don’t take my brother away! Don’t steal him from me!” I leapt on top of my brother’s body as if to protect him.

But they grabbed me from behind and pulled me away. A fifteen-year-old girl wasn’t strong enough to resist multiple grown-ups.

“No! Let me go! Brother! Help me! Brother!”

“Stop fighting! How long do you plan to keep acting like this! It’s... It’s not normal!”

“Not normal?” When I heard those words, for the first time I took a good look at the adults around me. “What do you mean?”

They were looking at me with revulsion and fear. That wasn’t how you were supposed to look at a fifteen-year-old girl. It wasn’t how you were supposed to look at a human being.

I’d felt this way before. My classmates, the male teachers, the men I passed on the street... They’d all looked at me, at my body, with filthy eyes.

I felt the same shiver down my spine as they looked at me now. The tears wouldn’t stop coming. I couldn’t let them do this. I couldn’t let them say that my relationship with my brother wasn’t normal.

No matter how hard I tried to grit my teeth, the tears wouldn’t stop, and I felt a rage about to explode in the depths of my heart.

“You all think that I’ve seduced my brother into committing incest, don’t you? You adults, with your disgusting prejudices against black magic, are far worse than I am! It’s true that I love my brother. But we’ve never had the sort of tainted relationship you’re thinking about. Is it wrong for a pair of siblings to simply love one another?”

“That’s not even close to being the problem here, Ria!” I recognized the pale, middle-aged woman who was grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking me. She was my mother’s younger sister. My aunt.

“But then what...”

“Can’t you see what’s really happening?”

“Really... happening?”

“The neighbors called the cops because of the smell!”

“The smell?” The house was still full of a smell like rotten eggs. I’d thought it was strange that we had gingko nuts in winter, but I’d gotten so used to the smell that I didn’t really think about it anymore.

“What are you talking about? What...”

“Listen carefully, Ria.” My aunt’s voice was shaking. “Your brother died a year ago!”

“What?” I didn’t understand what she was saying. “He died? But that’s impossible. I mean, he’s right...”

I looked down at my brother, lying on the floor. But in an instant, my brother— the tall boy, the athletic boy, the boy who’d once been scouted as a model— had transformed into a dried-up mummy.