fic for clipsie (1/2)

[nino-mod.livejournal.com]

For: clipsie
From: wendyjoly

Title: Zombie Diaries
Genre:Horror, crime, comedy, fantasy
Pairing: Ninomiya Kazunari/ Ikuta Toma
Rating: PG15 for the horror side of the story
Summary: Nino lived a peaceful life as zombie until the day he eats a very special brain.
Note: Dear clipsie you told me you like several genres like horror, fantasy, detective story and comedy, I did my best to grant your wish by compiling all those genres in an OS. I sincerely hope you’ll like the result and that you will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it. As always thanks a lot to my dear beta who found a moment in her crazy schedule to lend me a hand ♥


My grandmother used to say “If you live each day like it’s the last one, someday you’ll be right.”
That’s pretty much what happened to me. Well…only for one day.

My entire life I’ve been an asocial, shy and introverted person, avoiding people as much as I could. High school, house, house, high school that was pretty much my life. When I came back home I played video games, ate instant noodles and spent one hour or two per day with my grandmother who was my guardian since my parents’ death in a car crash when I was a toddler.

I was this guy that no one ever noticed, the one with a white entirely buttoned up shirt properly tucked into his grey pants, wearing big glasses…a freak, you said freak? Needless to say I had no friends, no confidant except my dear grandma.

I’ve been invited to a party only once in my life to celebrate graduation from high school. I can’t say I was personally invited, it was rather a kind of ‘night of the prom’ and if I didn’t even think about going at first, my grandma convinced me to go. She told me we had only one life and this is the kind of stuff parents are ought to be telling their teenager. I agreed because I didn’t want her to be worried more about me than she already was. The compassion I could read in her eyes hurt me more than it should. I was a desperate case, nothing less and she blamed herself because she thought she raised a future old bachelor.

So I went there, I sat on a chair in a corner of the gymnasium and this splendid girl hit on me.
Fishy, right? Let’s say for once I believed in my luck and it was my first and last mistake. I could put the blame on the alcohol I drank that night to give me courage but it would only be part of the truth. After a dance and an awkward kiss, she dragged me into a closet and when things became interesting, when I thought I would finally lose this virginity which never bothered me before, she clawed my back. Not scratched, clawed it, like an animal would do.

When I saw my blood on her hands, I passed out for a while and when I woke up, I took a cab with the money my grandmother slid in the pocket of my suit and I crawled into my bed, falling asleep immediately and still dressed.

Then I woke up.

Pale, with white hair and blue lips. With a particular interest for brains. It sucked to discover I was a zombie at the ripe age of 17 and I freaked out for days and days but as always my grandmother helped me to get over it. She was ill at that time and at the end of her life, somehow knowing there was some kind of life after death reassured her.

Ten years have passed since then and I must confess –should I be ashamed of it?- that being dead isn’t the worst part of my life. I live by myself now, I’m still living in the same house but my dear grandma died eight years ago leaving me all alone.

I’m still some kind of anti-social, I don’t have any friends in flesh and bones and I’m still a game addict. How can I earn my living, one would ask. Very simply, I’d answer. I’m a hacker. Ironic to be a kind of ghost when you’re a zombie for real, isn’t it?

Nothing really changed to be totally honest except my diet. I don’t leave the house for anything other than buying food, I’m still spending my days and nights on my computers, I never talk to anyone in real life. Not the healthy type of life sold by ad companies but I don’t really care. I’m not the model citizen anyway, I’ve never been.

My only link with the outside is a morgue employee, known under the alias of Captain on the internet. Once a week I meet him there in the middle of the night and for a substantial sum he gives me my dose of food. Fresh brains removed directly from his clients. I’m not really picky about the flesh I’m eating but I had some bad experiences –bad trips- in the past.

When I was a young zombie, I had to find a way to feed my hunger for brains and clearly the idea to find brains by myself on living people was an absolute no-go. I tried animal brains from the butcher shop at the corner of the street that my grandma cooked for me but I became ill for days. We concluded it was a food poisoning but my need for brains was still here and the more I was starved, the more I lost my composure and my zombie-sicko-side started showing its nose. So I did some research and I found some guy selling human brains, that’s how I figured out that I wasn’t an exception. We were probably numerous, this girl who bit me was undoubtedly one too, and there was a real black market for this kind of “aliment”. My first tries weren’t that great either because by eating a human brain you absorbs for a while (the time of a zombie digestion I guess) some abilities of this person. Abilities and flaws at the same time unfortunately. Eat the brain of a kleptomaniac and you’re suddenly feeling like stealing each and every little thing under your nose. Eat the brain of a serial killer…well, I’m pretty sure you get the concept.

After several years, thanks to an online video game I finally found this young guy working in a morgue. One thing's leading to another, we talked about brains and since then, he’s my dealer. I go to him, he never came to my home, and I’m a bit too paranoid to let a stranger come to my house.

Generally speaking he sells me brains from healthy people – I’m too afraid to be ill again, those first months were too awful to relived again- and as a matter of fact not from people who were murdered or died in painful accidents. Because if I don’t pay attention and eat someone’s questionable brain, living the traumatic experience again and again, I feel as if I’m on acid. As if somebody gave me a really bad acid. Not that I already experimented with drugs when I was part of the world of the living but it sounds to be the most accurate comparison. Nausea, thrills, flashes of memories and a dizzy head…

If you’re curious enough to ask me how I’m able to eat something basically repulsing the answer is simple. Instant noodles. Once the brain is finely chopped and mixed with noodles, it tastes like some kind of mushroom. Chewy and tasteless. Plus the memories and feelings of the owner of the named mushroom of course.

My life isn’t that bad. I don’t have plans for the future but I’m still young, around 30, tons of people are ignorant of what their life will be, I’m not a rarity.

But this night everything was about to change. In a very bad way.

I had an appointment with my dealer and at 3 am I was facing the door of the morgue, waving at the security camera. I took a glimpse at the glass door and was pretty sure that I’m not wearing the zombie’s tag on me. I improved my style with years, I traded my school outfit for a pair of jeans and a leather jacket and I always wear a cap and a mask like almost everybody. It was late at night, and the streets were very empty. I chose this hour on purpose so as to not meet anyone on my way.

The worst side effect of being a zombie is that a too strong emotion, a sudden rush of adrenaline switches the zombie mode on. Red eyes, drooling mouth and the humanity of a hound dog. Not for me, thanks.

The familiar buzz at the door and I entered. I often wondered why Captain chose to work here, the atmosphere was deadly creepy but after a while when I got to know him better, it didn’t surprise me anymore. Nothing seems to frighten him, nothing ever surprises him. He never openly asked me why I needed brains but he knew and surprisingly he did’nt give a shit. I couldn’t call he’s a friend but I guess that’s the closest thing to it.

“Hi Nino. I’m here.”

I followed the voice until what looked like an examination room. A corpse was on a table and I couldn’t help but grimace. Despite my condition of being a living dead, I’m not particularly fond of everything related to death. Because of the color of my hair and my excessive paleness, the few people I met thought I was a kind of gothic. I must confess I don’t even try to deny it. It’s always better than being a zombie, right?

“Do you have my order?”

He kept on working on the corpse, his gloved hands covered by blood but he smirked at me, pointing at a little icebox on a laboratory bench containing my meal for the week to come. I strode to the box, grabbing it and leaving a wad of cash at the same place.

“Thanks,” I mumbled briefly, already turning my back to exit.

“It’s always a pleasure to chat with you, Nino.”

“Hm…”

I walked quickly, as fast as I could to go back to the house, I didn’t feel like wandering around, if I had to run into cops or on a bunch of brawlers, how could I explain why I’m carrying a brain in an icebox under my arm? Plus, I was hungry.

Once at home, I tossed off my sneakers in a corner and I went to the kitchen, taking out what I’ll need to cook. Instant noodles, ketchup, soy sauce and of course, the brain. I chopped it into small pieces, keeping a little amount for my dinner, putting the rest in a Tupperware for the next days. Seven days, not more because I can’t cope with the same person’s feelings for more than a week, I fear being stuck in the permanent state.

Then I went back to my computer, savoring the delicious meal slowly in front of it. The sensation is pretty unexplainable, it’s like drinking water after walking under the sun for days. That’s the only thing able to quench my thirst, to appease my oversensitive nerves, to ease my mind when the zombie in me begins to wake up.

When I was finally full, I crawled into my bed and quickly slide into a serene sleep. Yet, I woke with a start, someone was breathing so close to me, and I felt an awful desire but it was so vivid like I never felt before. It twisted my stomach and cut my breath painfully.

I turned on the light and sat on the edge of my bed, wiping the cold sweat that was covering my body. Since when did I sweat?! I was suddenly seized by the urge to…gosh, I opened the drawer of my old school desk, and I groaned with frustration when I couldn’t find what I was looking for, and ran to the basement.

My grandmother’s stuff. I moved some furniture, cardboards with her clothes and I groaned happily when I found the one I wanted. I opened it hastily, fetching paint and canvas, brushes and oils, before taking the entire cardboard upstairs. Without losing time, I uncapped the numerous tubes, spreading the paint on the wooden board. I knew exactly what I was doing, my limbs were moving perfunctorily. In the kitchen I grabbed a bottle of water and some small knives, then I sat on a stool, the white canvas before me. I began to work, painting dots upon dots everywhere in a well-established pattern, green and brown, colors I created by mixing sometimes more than three different shades together. The sun was up when I completed my work. I didn’t even know what I’ve done, I had to raise from my stool and took a few steps back.
It’s a forest, a deep and dark, freaking forest. Yet, it’s…splendid, a masterpiece which was worthy to be hanged in a museum.

Wait…I don’t know how to paint, I don’t even know how to draw.

Holy shit. I ate a painter.

Suddenly I fell on the floor, head between my hands trying to contain an awful pain. I’m in the forest with someone walking behind me. I don’t see this person, I don’t hear him but I know I’m not alone. I feel good, in peace with myself a state I had been since ages ago.

“It’s beginning to rain,” I drawl and I’m not that surprised to be in a woman’s head. I laugh and raise the hand. “Should we go back?”

I’m about to turn around to face my companion but something hits my head and I fall on the wet soil. I feel blood under my cheek and the last thing I perceive before a total black out is a pair of rain boots right before my face.

My head was in pain when I managed to open my eyes and I kneeled to breathe deeply. A painter, victim of a murder, great, I’ll have two words to say to my dear brain dealer…

=+=
“She’s a Jane Doe.”

If I was still able to get pissed off by something –because this painter girl was surely a master in zen attitude or an idiot- I’d eat him alive, this Ohno-Captain and his little I-don’t-know-why-you’re-so-upset-air.

“And she has been murdered! In a wood I painted last night…,” I add pitifully.

“How would I have known, the biggest parts of her body had been eaten by animals,” he keeps on watching his laptop and in the window behind I can see the screen displaying a flock of zombies eating I don’t know who in a black and white movie.

“So why did you give me her brain?!”

“Because her brain was in perfect condition, why else? You said she has been murdered?”

“Someone hit her violently and she died almost…instantly.” Why nothing seems able to shock him, I wonder. I’m pretty sure that the truth about me won’t even raise his heartbeat.

“You should go to the police station,” Ohno says flatly without a gaze for me.

I sit on a chair and take off my cap. “And what should I tell them? A woman has been murdered in a wood…I’d be the first suspect.”

“True. Don’t think about it anymore. Should I find you a new brain?”

“As if. It’s too late now that I~,” ate her. I can’t complete my sentence but I guess he gets my point. Somehow. I stand up and as I’m about to exit he calls me back.

“Nino. If you change your mind, I have the number of a guy, a cop. He owes me a favor and he’s pretty open-minded. You could perhaps…call him? After all this poor girl has been murdered and her family doesn’t even know she’s dead.”

“Do I look like a frigging Samaritan?!” I groan but nonetheless, take the card he’s handing me.

I walk back home, touching the card well hidden in the pocket of my jacket all along the road, wondering why I didn’t throw it in the first trash bin of the sidewalk. I know Ohno is right, this girl, this painter has been killed and left in a wood, feeding animals. It sucks but I can’t, I witnessed nothing I could tell to a cop and to begin with I don’t even know her name or her face.

I go to bed, avoiding the painting in the living room and the mess all around and on the floor. But I can’t sleep. I toss and turn in my bed, cursing this bad conscience of mine. No way, I won’t call…I grab the card and the world spins around once again.

I’m in an apartment. A big loft with panoramic windows everywhere, luminous and wide. A wealthy place like one can see by turning the pages of a magazine full of those houses of rich people. Against the walls, paintings are hanged strangely identical to the one I painted last night, I walk to the balcony and watch the Tokyo Tower for a while, enjoying the fresh air on my face. My hands are covered with paint and the sudden cold makes me realize that my legs are naked. I go back inside but stop short before a big mirror, admiring myself. I’m pretty. My hair is long, my eyes in almond shape and two dimples on each side of my mouth.

“Aoi?” a man is calling me and my heart misses a beat.

Then I wake up from my trance.

I was happy. I mean she was happy. So why did someone kill her? Why did someone hate her that much, enough to hit her and let her die like an animal? What harm did she do? Did she know something she shouldn’t have? Is this man who called her waiting for her somewhere?

I climb down to the kitchen, I’m hungry like I haven’t been eating for an eternity. I fetch the Tupperware containing her brain and while I’m thinking I shouldn’t, I’m already boiling water for the instant noodles. Three minutes later, I’m sitting on the edge of my couch, devouring my delicious meal. Once again, I stare at the card of the cop I tossed on the low table when I came back from the morgue. Without thinking further, I dial the number.

One. Two. I’m about to hang up when I hear an “Ikuta” on the other side.

“Well…hm…,” fuck, I hang up. Less than a second later, my phone rings and I swallow a curse.

“How did you get my number?” he doesn’t seem angry, rather curious, I blush like a kid. When was the last time I talked to someone? Really talked, I mean. Ohno is probably the only one I’m talking to, if talking is the accurate word. I rather groan and exit the morgue in a rush.

“Ohno gave it to me. The guy at the morgue,” I add sheepishly, sincerely hoping he won’t ask me how I know the employee of the town morgue. “He said you could help me. Or that I could help you.”

“I see,” I don’t but I guess that the name of Ohno is enough to explain that it is something fishy.

“Are you Nino?”

Holy shit! This frigging guy called him and spit my name, I would hate him if I was able to hate someone. Damned Aoi.

“Should we meet?”

“I don’t think I~,” I try to find an escape but he cuts me.

“It wasn’t a question Ninomiya-san, it was purely rhetorical. When and where?” he asks authoritatively and I give up. I suck with authority.

“There’s a Diner 24/7 on the morgue street. In one hour?”

“I’ll be there.”

One hour later, I’m looking inside the diner by the window, trying to figure out my man. Even if there are more than one person there, I’m pretty sure I can recognize him. I can’t forestall anymore and I enter, going right to him, sitting on the big bench facing him.

The man has mocking eyes, a sharp nose, and pulpous but so sexy lips. He’s clever, I can see it in a blink of an eye and…he’s looking at me with a bright smile. He’s charming, very seductive and the Aoi-girl in me likes him, I guess he’s her type. She probably liked twinks…tsk.

“Ninomiya-san, you came?” I like his voice too, is he so friendly with everybody, this cop working at the criminal police department?

“I’ve been summoned by the police itself,” I groan unwillingly, raising a finger to order a coffee a waitress reluctantly brings me. She’s wearing one of those awful American waitress outfits and seems to suffer martyrdom with the roller skates she’s riding. Poor woman…

“I’m not officially here, let’s say I’m here on my free time,” he fills his cup of coffee with pieces of sugar until the liquid reaches the edge. “Ohno told me he had a friend who had some kind of vision and that he could help me with the Jane Doe.”

“Are you working on that case?”

It explains why Ohno gave me his number but will he believe me without serious arguments? And what can I say without being discovered, after all I never talked to anyone about my condition.

“Indeed and the least I can say is that the animals didn’t leave me anything to investigate on. My boss asked me to close the file but, perhaps it is because I’m not a cop for a long time, I want to know who she was, if someone is waiting for her,” he sounds sincere. I know it’s very early, or very late but the black circles around his eyes are not the result of my late call. His clothes are wrinkled and he does not smell good. He was surely working when I called.

“She…She had someone. A man.”

He leans forward resting his elbows on the table, intertwining his fingers, not far from me.

“Are you some kind of psychic, Ninomiya-san?”

“Kind of, yeah,” better stuck to the truth, or what is close to the truth. “I had visions about her.”

“Do tell me, please,” he fetches a notebook in a pocket of his jacket and takes off the pen hanging from the top.

“She was called Aoi, but I don’t know her last name. She was a painter and she was walking in a forest when someone hit her from behind. I guess that’s when she died.”

“When you said she was a painter was it her profession or rather her hobby?”

“She was good according to my opinion…for what it’s worth,” I add quickly, startled to be so talkative. “I saw several pieces hanging on the wall of her apartment, or her lover’s apartment.”
“But you didn’t visit her apartment, right?”

“No…it was in my vision.” I feel pathetic to force this psychic thing so much.

“Could you recognize her work if you’d see a piece of it?”

“I think I have a painting at home. One I painted myself.”

He pouts and nods slowly and I bite my lips. He’s gonna send me to hell and call an ambulance for driving me to a shrink. That’s what I’d do if I have to meet someone like me.

“You don’t believe me, right?” I whisper sheepishly, ready to raise to leave the place. At least I tried, rest in peace, little painter. But when I move he grabs my wrist to keep me here.

“I can’t tell you I don’t find this strange, Ninomiya-san, but without you, I have nothing. Nothing at all. I want to try my luck even if the chance to find the perpetrator is so small, at least she could become more than a mere Jane Doe resting in an anonymous grave. Don’t you think it is worth it? For her?”

He looks at me directly and suddenly I feel the burn of his hand on my skin that no one but me ever touched since I’m dead. I withdraw my arm slowly and he mutters a “sorry” in an undertone. I don’t answer and I feel uneasy.

“Will you show me this painting?” he’s the stubborn type apparently but somehow, it touches me.

“Will I have to meet other people?” I’m perfectly aware of the image I’m giving to him but I have to be sure before going further.

“Only me. We’ll keep a low profile for the time being, and if we find something interesting, we’ll see then. It’s okay for you?”

“Now? The painting I mean, do you want to see it now?”

“If you don’t mind,” he’s smiling and for a second I have the feeling to be one of those savage animals a man is trying to domesticate.

“Okay,”

I raise up from the bench and exit after leaving some coins on the table. I walk fast, idiotically hoping that Ikuta will give up and leave me alone eventually. But he’s right behind me when I unlock the door of my house and as I’m entering I see my home differently, with the eyes of a stranger. It’s a very old house and since my grandmother’s death everything remained in the same place. I’m not a perfect homemaker and I can’t decently hire someone who can find a piece of brain in my fridge, right?

I toss my shoes in a corner and give him a pair of slippers full of dust with a “Sorry, I didn’t have a lot of guests lately.”

“It’s a very pretty house,” Ikuta says with his ten millions dollar smile. Putting my hands on my hips, I look around. The rooms are dark, the curtains are closed and a thick layer of dust covers the floor and the furniture that I never touch. In the living room one of my laptops is opened and I stride to turn off suspicious programs and close it quickly. My activities are not that legal after all.

“This is the painting,” I point at the reason of his presence and he joins me, stopping short before the canvas.

“You did this?!”

“Yeah.”

Ikuta stares at me and tilts the head appreciatively.

“This is the forest where she died,” I add, uncapping a bottle of water.

“I know but…,” he’s out of word and I must confess I’d be too if I had to face the proof of something so supernatural. At least he doesn’t seem to be afraid. “You said she wasn’t alone, did you hear the voice of the other person or saw something?”

“Only a pair of rain boots, nothing more.”

He sits down and doesn’t take his eyes off the painting, taking out his phone to take a picture.

“This is the work of someone very talented, she must be well-known. Do you think we could use your PC to find similarities with existing paintings?”

“I guess.”

I sit and open a laptop, entering the picture of the painting, adding the name Aoi and details about the way I painted. Not many painters are using knives to work as far as I know.

Less than two minutes later, her picture is facing me. Miyazaki Aoi. Above my shoulder, Ikuta is watching the screen attentively, his eyes narrowed. “Who’s this?” he points to a man in his thirties appearing on several pictures, more than often his arm sneaked around Aoi’s waist.

“Yoshihiko Inohara. He was Aoi’s artistic agent.”

A new page pops on the screen displaying everything the internet has to reveal about the man. 31 years old, Aoi’s agent, bachelor, a pretty discreet man.

“Her lover?”

“I don’t know. She had one but I didn’t see him.”

Ikuta falls on the chair by my side and observes me. “How does it work? Your visions, I mean.”

“I have some…flashes. I see and feel things she felt, things she lived.”

“How does it happen?” he’s serious, interested.

By eating brains doesn’t seem to be the most respectable answer so I go for “I don’t know, when I see something linked to her. Like this painting for example.”

He grabs the both sides of my chair and makes it turn, forcing me to face him; too closely in my opinion.

“Will you accept to come with me to meet this Inohara? Perhaps will it trigger another vision?”

“You promised me I won’t have to meet anyone but you,” I try to object but I already know it’s in vain. I can leave him working with what I already gave him but the Aoi in me is pleading her cause to make me accept.

=+=

By the end of the afternoon, I’m standing on a sidewalk in front of an art gallery I never heard of (I never ever set a foot in an art gallery before) in a district I never visited, I am so far from my comfort zone. Thank God, the street is pretty empty. Yet I can’t help but feel anxious. The painter in me should be helpful but I didn’t eat since the previous day and she’s fading away.

“Let’s go,” Ikuta surprises me as I’m lost in my thoughts and I can’t do anything else but follow him inside.

It’s a pleasant place, almost…artless. White and grey are the walls, leaving the main role to the paintings hanged on them. And my dead heart constricts when I fall in love with a masterpiece for the very first time. Aoi’s work is everywhere and I can feel her again. Not the way I feel her when I eat her, but I’m in her head once again, in the heart that she put in each and every little move of her brush.

“Ninomiya-san?”

“I…,” I suddenly figure out I’m crying and I’m unable to decipher the reason why. Seems, she didn’t totally abandon me yet. “Sorry.”

“Gentlemen?” a nasal but so charming voice interrupts us and I whirl around, faking a grin the best I can. I don’t look at Ikuta but I feel his idiotic happy-go-lucky smile from the distance. “Are you admiring the work of Miyazaki-sensei?”

“Indeed. I recently saw one of her painting and I fell in love with her work, then I learned your gallery displayed her work. So I came.” What a spectacular liar, I’ll try to remember this for later, just in case.

“I’m Miyazaki-sensei’s agent, Inohara, and you’re right, she exhibits her art pieces in my gallery exclusively. Which painting did you see?” the man speaks gently, a commercial smile adorning his handsome face and I try to remember if it’s his voice I heard when Aoi was with her lover. He could be, really, he’s beautiful, refined, and was the man who knew her art the best, it would make sense.

“A forest. A deep forest,” Ikuta says joyfully.

“I’m afraid, someone fooled you. She never painted any forest and I don’t think she would paint something without telling me, we’re pretty close.”

“Where is she?” Ikuta steps forward and I swallow the knot in my throat, I feel so uneasy suddenly, far more than before.

“Who are you?” Inohara is deadly serious.

Ikuta smirks as apologizing and fetches a card from his jacket.
“I’m an inspector from the police department. My name is Ikuta and this is my assistant, Ninomiya-san. I’d wish to meet Miyazaki-sensei, I have some questions to ask.”

Inohara chuckles and steps back, contemplating the painting behind us and we’re imitating him without even noticing. “If you hear about her, tell her to call me. She disappeared a few days ago, like she used to. To find inspiration, she says, and one day she reappears and paints again. Just wait, Inspector, she will come back to town.”

As if. I really wonder if he’s hiding something to us or if he really believes she will come back. If it’s the case, the fall will be harsh.

“And you see this?” Inohara points a small spot on the painting almost invisible for an unpracticed eye. Ikuta and I are moving forward in unison, frowning to see what could be a dot in heart shape. “This is Miyazaki-sensei’s fingerprint, she puts it on every painting, to authenticate it. I suggest you to check it on the painting you talked to me about if you have the chance to admire it once again.”

“Thanks for the advice Inohara-san. Do you know someone Miyazaki-sensei could have contact to, someone close to her?”

“Let me think about it…Okada-san perhaps?”

“Okada-san?” Ikuta takes off his notebook and scribbles the name, sending me an interrogative look but I can only shrug.

“He’s a patron of Art, one of the captains of industry totally fond of painting and such,” the sympathetic tone doesn’t fool us a second, he hates our new guy and I can get why. This Okada is probably rich enough to buy his gallery and everything in it. “He became a great friend of Miyazaki-sensei a few months ago.”

“Are they lovers?” Right in the mark, Mister Inspector, way to go.

“You’ll ask to his wife, Inspector. If you don’t mind now, I have an interview to give. If you need something, just call me,” he hands me his card and bows at us elegantly, then takes his leave after a last look at me.

“He dislikes me,” Ikuta says as soon as we exit the gallery. “He gave you his card. To you, not me.”

“Brilliant deduction, Inspector Ikuta,” I groan as my cheeks are flushing, giving him the card hastily. “I’m going back home. Good night.”

“Wait, wait!” he grabs my sleeve and his smile disappears. “We have to meet Okada.”

“And why should I come with you?” I look at my sneakers but I already know what he’s about to say, this tricky cheater.

“Because you have to hear his voice to tell me if he’s the man you heard. And perhaps you will have another flash, another hunch and to be honest, we need one. Badly.”

Okay, I didn’t think he would speak those words I rather bet on a for her…for honor her memories…crap. But can I really tell him the only way for me to have a new flash of memory is to cook myself a brain seasoned instant noodle meal?

“Ninomiya-san, please.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking me to do. Those flashes are painful and the more I have of one person the more painful they are. It’s…hard to explain and I can’t, I don’t want to. Just believe me,” I can explain that’s the very reason why I don’t eat the same brain for more than one week, not to repeat the mistakes I did when I was newly born as a zombie.

“Don’t you think there’s a reason why she’s talking to you?”

“Actually, there is one. And I know it, I just want to keep it for myself if you allow me to.”

“But you are right about her, about her painting, you’re the only witness of her death! And earlier you cried when you saw her work, doesn’t it mean anything for you?!” he asks angrily and I bite my lips nervously. I shouldn’t have accepted the very first time, now I can’t go back to my peaceful no-life. There is no need to eat Ikuta’s brain to know that he will harass me until the end of the time if I refuse.

“Okay but just this time,” I sigh and push his hand which is still squeezing my arm.

“Thanks.” He comes back to his real self, putting his arm negligently around my shoulder as if we were good friends. “I’ll treat you to thank you.”

I shrug to push his arm without a gaze. “No thanks, I’ll eat at home,” I groan as I’m walking away already cursing my weakness toward this too persuasive man.

=+=

I know what will happen once the last piece of my dinner get eaten. Basically, more flashes, more pain and a giant headache for days. But I have to see the half-full glass rather than the half-empty one. For one, the more quickly I solve this case, the more quickly I’ll be free to go back to my peaceful life.
Surprisingly I sleep like a log and for my entire day there’s nothing new under the sun. I begin to wonder why Aoi is so quiet suddenly, has she nothing else to show me?

By the end of the day I receive a message from Ikuta telling me he obtained an appointment with the guy named Okada for the next day. No way to escape, he will ‘gently’ drive me there.

Around six pm, he’s at my door, a cigarette hanging at the corner of his lips, the same blue suit a bit wrinkled, the same odor, mix of cheap perfume, fried food and something I can’t decipher.

“May I come in?” he asks after a small wave to greet me.

“If you let your cigarette outside. This stuff makes me sick,” I go back to the living room and he follows me. I didn’t mention the fact that I’m a damned smoker too usually but it’s true, I feel like puking when I smell a cigarette since I ate Aoi’s brain. I fetch the leather jacket I tossed in the kitchen the previous day and when I come back in the living room, Ikuta is admiring the painting. Again.

“I’ll give it to you if you like it that much,” I moan gloomily.

“True?!”

“I’m kidding. I did it by myself, why would I give it to a cop who knows nothing about art?!” I stand at the entrance waiting for his green light to exit the house.

“Actually…,” he begins and I frown in response. “I told Okada that I owned a painting of Miyazaki-sensei, that’s how I had an appointment.”

“Gosh…why not tell the truth? She disappeared, we’re investigating.”

“Because officially she’s still alive, my boss doesn’t allow me to investigate as long as I have no real proof.”

Suddenly a brilliant idea pops in my mind. “And her DNA?! I mean why don’t we take her DNA and analyze it?”

“Because I already did it but there is no match with anyone. She had no parents alive, no criminal records, thus no one to compare with. Frustrating, isn’t it?”

Okay he’s right and I look at the last hope I had to avoid this new meeting vanish. I gesture him to take the painting and fifty minutes later we’re entering a huge propriety in Tokyo’s outskirt. We’re on the rich side of the capital, one of the area reserved for billionaires with security cameras and police cubicles everywhere. People here are proud to display their luxury cars and their humongous mansions and I won’t be surprised if some famous baseball player is living here. We’re leaving the car at the driveway to walk through a wonderful and perfectly organized traditional garden. I smile in spite of myself. Those flowers, those bright colors are familiar to me, Aoi probably painted them before. At least I’m convinced she came here, she knew the place very well. Instinctively, I knock at the panoramic window, not at the door. A man slides it in the minute and I can read confusion on his face. He’s not that tall but he’s manly, robust, I bet he’s used to practice martial arts.

I look at him directly and an unbearable pain twists my brain, making me kneel on the floor.

“Come here, honey.”

I’m in the big apartment again, resuming the scene where I left it. Aoi turns around and Okada is climbing down the spiral staircase, wearing nothing but a white trunk. He takes her in his embrace and she smells his perfume, the same one that is lingering on the shirt she’s wearing. His shirt.

“I woke up and you were gone. Did you feel like painting? Come back to bed, we have a conversation to resume,” he nuzzled the soft skin of her neck and I feel the void in her belly.

She desires him, she loves him.

“Ninomiya-san? Ninomiya-san?!” I gaze up and meet Ikuta’s eyes. “Gosh you’re back! You frightened me.”

“How do you feel?” Okada is kneeling by my side, gently concern by my spectacular entrance. “Come inside, you need to sit down.”

He grabs my elbow and I follow him, apologizing for the insane scene. We’ll be lucky if he doesn’t kick us out calling us crazy. I sit on the edge of the couch and he sits by my side, pouring me a glass of water. Strange, I would have thought I’d find a bottle of whisky on his low table rather than mere water.

“Drink.”

I can’t refuse and I send a desperate gaze to Ikuta who is still standing close to the window. He steps further, smiling reassuringly.

“My assistant has violent migraine from time to time, I’m sorry, he felt good until now.”

“Don’t be sorry, do you feel better?” I like his voice and the sweet tone he uses to ask me if I’m fine, no wonder Aoi fell for him.

“Yes, thanks. You’re very considerate.”

Okada chuckles and moves forward, sitting on the edge of the couch, staring at me before inviting Ikuta to sit in an armchair. “I guess you’re Ikuta-san and you are?”

“Ninomiya Kazunari, nice to meet you and sorry once again for this…scene.”

“More water?” Okada asks his hand already on the carafe.

“No thanks.”

An awkward silence follows and I feel Okada’s gaze on me, I blush idiotically, surreptitiously pinching the lobe of my ear to repress the too revealing red on my cheeks. I have hard time forgeting what I just lived through Aoi’s eyes, the way he used to gaze at her, to touch her as if she was a piece of art.

“So, Ikuta-san, you told me you owned a painting…”

Ikuta raises and grabs the package he almost forgotten from a corner of the room. Almost. I’m pretty sure he’s playing this fake innocence.

“I had the chance to find this and Inohara-san –the owner of the gallery Inohara- told me you are a great expert concerning Miyazaki-sensei, that you could be interested.”

Okada opens a drawer and takes a pair of white gloves, then goes to the painting. Forgetting the gentle gaze, he’s totally focused on my dark forest. I don’t know if he’s the criminal. After all, there’s only a thin line between love and hate, he could have killed her in a moment of passion. Ikuta was right, it seems so clear now. If this man has a link with the murder, making him face a painting he never saw before could push him to show something, to corner him. As deceiving as it seems.

“It’s splendid,” Okada says after a while “And so strange. Miyazaki-sensei’s paintings were full of colors and joy, this one is so…dark but in the same time it’s so similar to her work. It could be her work for sure. But she used to authenticate her work with a fingerprint and alas I don’t see any. Sorry, gentlemen.”

He feels bad, even I –who’s so bad at judging other people’s feelings- can see it as plain as day.

“Perhaps we should call her, Miyazaki-sensei I mean, to warn her that someone is copying her work, don’t you think?” Ikuta drawls, sitting again on the couch. “Did you hear about her recently?”

“Not for a while. To be totally honest I thought about calling the police. Her agent keeps telling me she uses to disappear but she calls at least, from time to time…” He takes off the gloves and his glasses without taking his eyes off the painting.

“When did you see her for the last time?”

“Two weeks ago, it seems to me, right Darling?”

We whirling around in unison to face the woman who just talked.

“Gentlemen, this is my wife, Yuriko,” Okada stands up and joins the one he called his wife, putting his arm around her slim waist. But if my heart was still beating I could swear it would have stopped for good.

“Okada Yuriko, nice to meet you,” she’s reaching out, smirking maliciously at me and I can only shake the hand of the woman who created me ten years ago.



=+=


“Okay what just happened there? You know his wife? You knew he had a wife?!” Ikuta explodes as soon as we’re in the car, staring at me as if I had the beginning of an answer. “You had a vision?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t. And yes I had a vision. Something else?” I start the engine for him and I program the GPS for going back home.

“Do tell me.”

“They were lovers, Aoi and Okada. They seemed to be happy. It was him, the man of my vision. And about his wife, no I do not know he had one.”

“You don’t like her. I saw it,” he lights a cigarette and I open the window, taking a deep breath and closing my eyes.

She could be the murderer for so many reasons. Aoi was her husband’s mistress and being what she is, human life is nothing more than a concept in her twisted mind. She killed me after all and we knew since, what, two hours? God, I hate her. Aoi probably hated her too. I hate her twice this Yuriko zombie Okada. And since when are zombies married?! Does he know? Is he a zombie too? No, no, I can’t believe it. My world is crumbling and Ikuta keeps on elaborating all kind of idiotic theories about hypothetical killers. If he knew…

I remain silent all along the road and once in my street I ask him to leave me here. Too many things happened today, I saw too many people, I need to go back to my shelter immediately or the beast in me will show its teeth.

“Ninomiya-kun, you can talk to me, you know. I’m not only a cop using your skills, we could have dinner and talk about something else than the case. You can trust me. We could be friends, you don’t seem to have many friends after all.”

“But you shouldn’t trust me,” I’m a bit too melodramatic but I didn’t think twice. Shit. I exit the car and stride to my house, rushing to the fridge to appease my hunger.

I’m working on my laptop when I receive a message from Ikuta. He’ll be out of town for one day or two but we will talk later. Great, at least he got my point. I need time and I don’t know if his story about work is true but it will give me time to think on my own.

It’s late at night when I feel a presence by my side. I jolt on the couch where I fell asleep a few hours ago. Someone turns on the light, brightening the room.

“What are you doing here?” I groan, brushing my sleepy eyes, not so surprise to face Yuriko. I don’t even take the pain to ask her how she broke into my house and why in the middle of the night or how does she even know where I live. I have so many contradictory feelings about her.

“I came to say hello,” she still has this strange languid voice I remembered so well, she didn’t change…of course. Same long and black hair, pretty freckles, same luminous and strange gaze, same way of moving languidly, sensually. “It’s been a long time, Ninomiya-kun.”

“Hello. Now why are you here. Really,” I sit up, readjusting my clothes, pouring myself a mug from the coffee pot I always have with me.

“I guessed you had questions for me. After all this time separated.”

I chuckled irrepressibly. This woman is a total lunatic! How can she even~

“Separated?! Separated?! You killed me, sicko!”

She pouts ruefully but it’s only a facade. “Technically, yes. But…here you are, right? Tell me Nino, did your life change that much since you died?” she asks as if we are having a pleasant conversation between old friends.

“What do you know about my life?” I light a cigarette, repressing the nausea, I badly need a smoke right now, disgust or not.

“You were a no-life, you had no friends, no activities, only a benevolent grandmother who was glad to know you’ll manage to lead a fulfilled life by your own.”

A cold sweat drips along my spine, what kind of stalker is she? How does this woman know so many things about me?

“…A fulfilled life?” I mutter in an undertone.

“You’re only ten years old, you have so many things to discover,” she says enthusiastically as she raises and sits by my side.

I move aside and fold my legs before me. She’s right and she’s making me face the fact that I’ll have to live forever, here, in the body of a 17 years old virgin boy.

“I offered you immortality, Nino, we could be so great together…,” she approaches me, putting her chin on my knees, her two arms on each side of my hips, staring me shamelessly.

“How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“You don’t look like a zombie.”

“Ah…that,” she moves back and enters the kitchen. She comes back with a mug and pours herself a coffee, sitting back on the couch, sipping quietly the too hot liquid. She seems so young suddenly, so beautiful. She didn’t change at all since that night at the prom when she seduced me. “I dye my hair and I use self-tanning spray for my skin, don’t you mind being seen as one of the scary gothic boys?”
I laugh out loud and she smiles, pushing my knees amicably, like what a friend will do.

“I don’t meet anyone. Only the guy who sells me brains. Where do you find yours, you don’t~,” I mimic the zombie crisis, starving for human brain and she frowns, sincerely outraged.

“Of course not! I have a friend circle, we’re not the only ones of our kind you know, I’ll introduce you to some of them if you want.”

“Why not.”

“I’d be glad to go out with you,” she’s so skilled in charming me, if I didn’t know how dangerous she is I can easily fall for her.

“How many other people did you, you know?” I figure I’m curious to know if I’m one among others or if she changed me on a whim.

“Changed? No one but you,” she drawls, resting her temple against the palm of her small hand, staring at me as if she meant it, as if I am indeed different enough to attract this pretty girl. “I chose you.”

“Why?”

“We’re alike, Nino…So alike…,” she bends toward me, coming far too close for my sanity, and I can feel her hot breath brushing my chin as her hand slides along the nape of my neck. “We can be together, eat together, and maybe fuck together.”

Her other hand caresses my crotch, without any ambiguity, making me gasp inelegantly. She brushes her nose against mine in an animal caress, tenderly and I half-close my eyelids to welcome the unavoidable kiss. Her lips are soft and moist just like I remembered and soon I unfold my legs, opening them to make room for her. She leans fully against me, her hands are under my shirt, stroking my skin, her mouth at the crook of my neck, brilliantly enhancing my lack of human contacts. “Touch me,” she encourages me, grabbing my hands to put them on the buttons at the back of her dress and I freeze. I can’t do this. Not now, not so easily, I can’t trust her.

“And your husband?” I whisper, swallowing the knot in my throat, hoping this bitter reminder of her position will help my hard-on to wilt. She tsks, visibly annoyed and moves back, rearranging her dress without buttoning it. She fetches my package of cigarette and lights one, taking a big puff.

“He has nothing to do with us.”

“Do you love him?”

“Sure. Why would I have married him otherwise?”

“For his money…”

“Money isn’t a problem for people like us.”

“And his mistress?”

She arches an eyebrow and smirks maliciously, “Fucking God, Nino, did you eat her brain?”

“How do you know she’s dead?”

Yuriko narrows her eyes and crashes her cigarette, seems we’re not playing anymore. “Because I don’t smell her nauseous odor on my husband and he checks his phone thousand times a day. She disappeared, it’s pretty clear. From here it is a short step to believe she’s gone for good. Life is a fragile thing, you won’t deny it.” Not the slightest emotion, not a beating of heart, will I be like her in the future? I hope not.

“Did you kill her?”

“Of course not. Why should I? As soon as this one disappears he’ll find another one. Those girls are interchangeable, you know.”

“You’d tell me?”

“Naturally, Nino!” she sounds almost offended, what a good liar, she could compete with Ikuta. Innocents & Co. “I’m not that jealous. I know Junichi, he’s a lady killer, he had always been but I can’t blame him, after all I’m not a model of honesty either. I can be honest with you only.”

“I…I think you should go.”

I stand up to show her the way out and she follows me reluctantly, sliding her bare feet into her red high heels shoes. I open the door, hanging the head in order not to cross her too bewitching eyes but she puts her arms around my neck and pecks my lips like what a lover will do.

“We’re linked whatever you can say or think and one day when you can’t stand being alone any more, you will call me. And I’ll be there. Thanks for this lovely night.”

She ties the belt of her trench coat and exits my house, getting into a cab waiting for her along my sidewalk. I watch her leaving, wondering if I was right to refuse the only person able to understand who I am and the way I live. Gosh, I’ll think about it later, I’ve got more time than I need to think about it.


Part 2