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Magic watched the men dressed black carry something wrapped in plastic wrap into and tossed it into shallow pit.
“It’s all done sir,” a huge man wearing sunglasses announced. “She was easy to catch so no there were no witnesses.”
With a stone-cold expression, Magic adjusted his glasses which glistened under the moonlight. “Do the police know about this?”
“No sir.”
“Good,” Magic handed him a wad of money. “This is a bonus.”
The man flashed a toothy smile as he counted the money as his men were shoveling sand into the pit. Magic walked back to the black car parked outside the forest and instructed his driver to take him back to the mansion.
“Would you be taking the helicopter to Barusa Town sir?” his chauffeur asked as his master entered the vehicle.
Magic slammed the door. “No.”
The chauffeur turned on the ignition and drove the car down the beaten road. As they drove, Magic turned on his tablet and tightened his jaw as he scrolled through the pictures of Emma and Jake sharing a boba tea under the oak trees in the park. Underneath it was a message; ‘This was taken only a few days ago. They seem to be close.’
‘This is bad,’ he murmured lifting up the rim of his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose. He closed the app and tapped on a new one which showed Jake’s profile picture and information on him. ‘You look ordinary but you are shrouded in darkness and lust. So it’s no mystery why you would latch on to her but does she know who you really are?’
Then his phone buzzed in his pocket. When he fished it out he saw it was a text from Agatha: I need more money. When am I getting paid?
Magic’s eyes flared with anger and he typed back; Did you get the job done?
‘I am working on it,’ came the reply. ‘But I need the money now. When am I getting it?’
‘This is what I get for using fools to do the job.’ He thought furiously as he sent the picture he was looking at with the text: ‘Then what the hell is this?’
The three green dots appeared on the screen before a message appeared. ‘Don’t worry. She is just stringing him along. I plan to date her in secrete.’
‘You really take me for an idiot don’t you Agatha,’ Magic typed back with another picture taken from Julia’s social media page, ‘You are sleeping with Julia.’
The city lights glowed under the starless sky and one could stand by the balcony at the top of the hotel admiring its glory but those who have money could do more than that and Agatha was one of them. Soaking in a private pool, she read the text and laughed before typing back: ‘What? It’s a lie. Like I will ever sleep with a14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUKFlc6BrQm
slut like her.’
‘This was from her social media page!’ the purple text box appeared on her phone. ‘I told you stay away from that girl! She would destroy everything we planned.’
‘Damn that idiot!’ Agatha clicked her teeth. ‘Relax. So what if I am sleeping with her. The girl is basically my bitch anyway plus Emma is as dumb as a rock. She doesn’t know anything about this so its fine. All I need to do is break things off Julia and silence her before she opens her mouth. Easy.’
The rage inside Magic was enough to make him hurl his phone out the window but he took deep breaths knowing it wasn’t worth the money. Calming down, he gazed out the window for a few minutes before replying to her. ‘You idiot. Emma isn’t the same person she used to be.’
‘Its because of that dumb boyfriend of hers. When are you going to get rid of him? He is the main reason why she won’t come back to me.’
‘So you are telling me you can’t woo Emma back because of a dumb boy?’
‘He’s not making it easy.’
‘Of course she is going to point the finger at the new obstacle to our goals.’ He thought to himself as he stared at the text on his phone. ‘She’s an idiot who knows nothing. If I am not careful, she and that girl would destroy my plans for Emma.’
He glanced at Jake’s profile picture and a plan was formed with a purpose; get rid of all the obstacles surrounding Emma. ‘I need to be careful. One wrong move could expose everything. First, lets add pressure to our pawn.’
‘Emma’s apartment room is next to Julia’s.’ he typed.
On the other side of the digital line, Agatha nearly dropped her phone in horror as she read the text. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?’
‘Good!’ Magic grinned smugly at the frantic text he just received and gave a dramatic sigh. ‘You were sent to lure Emma back to the school under the guise of romance. How did you not know where she lived?’
Agatha could only stare at her phone in shock as she slowly recalled her and Julia’s lovemaking sessions. ‘If this were to be the truth, this means Emma heard everything!’ she gripped her hair in horror. ‘And the bitch was loud!’
‘It looks like you prefer to mess around rather than doing the job and you have the guts to ask me for more money.’ Another text followed. ‘Let’s end our contract. Its clear you are incapable of giving me the results I need.’
The pupils in her eyes shrank further as she read that and bit her bottom lips in rage: YOU SON OF A BITCH! GIVE ME MY MONEY! I NEED IT!’
Magic could sense the fury in her text and his smile grew. ‘Why? You are just going to make things worse.’
‘MAGIC!’
He chuckled. ‘I know you are still in debt to that ‘person’. I wonder if that’s why you want the money so suddenly.’
‘Crap! How does he know that?’ sweat trickled down her temple and typed back. ‘I need to smooth things over with him quick!’
‘Look! Give me another chance! I swear I’ll do the job!’
‘The usual automatic response. Lets increase the pressure.’ Magic huffed. ‘I want results at the end of the week.’
‘What the… I can’t do it within a week! It’s going to take time!’
‘Then let’s end the contract.’ He replied. ‘And make sure you return the14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQIHlR75wTE
down payment I gave you.’
‘What the hell! That’s one million yen! I don’t have that kind of money!’
Magic wasn’t surprised. ‘That money was supposed to be for you to woo Emma not to spend on yourself.’
‘I have been trying my best!’ Came the response and Magic knew how to reply to that. Soon pictures of her in clubs, motorcycle and car dealerships and luxurious hotel room flooded his screen.
‘Its looks like you have been working hard.’
Agatha could sense the sarcasm in the text and growled when another text from him appeared.
‘You are so stupid that you didn’t notice Emma has changed since the last stunt you pulled a year ago. That school, her friends and her boyfriend has changed her and there is no telling what might happen later on. I am not one of your play things Agatha. Two weeks is my final offer. Do the job or I’ll make you suffer paying back that money I gave you.’
Then with a few taps on his phone, he blocked her number and dialed another one.
“Who is this?” a gruff voice answered with loud music blaring in the background.
“Good evening. Are you one of Agatha’s creditors?” he asked.
“Yeah. What’s it to you?”
Magic smiled. “I am just calling to tell you that Agatha has the money ready for you. All you need to do is to meet her in Barusa Town.”
“Barusa Town huh? Thanks.”
By the time they made it to the Jones’ Family mansion, Magic had called all of Agatha’s creditors and told them of her location.
‘This should motivate her.’ He thought climbing out of the vehicle still tapping on his phone. ‘All we need to do is wait for the results.’
Meanwhile, Agatha had tried calling him but realized that she had been blocked after what seemed to be the fifteenth attempt. Gripping her phone tightly in rage, she growled, “You son of a bitch! I don’t have any money! How am I going to pay them now?”
She quickly stepped out of the water and hissed when the cold came in contact with her nude body. As she quickly donned her bathrobe and franticly ran to her room while dialing a number.
“Why didn’t that horny bitch tell me Emma was living next door? Gosh! I am in so much trouble!” she muttered angrily while putting the phone in her ear and listening it to ring. “How am I going to pay back that money?”
Three rings later and someone answered. “Hello? Who is this?”
“Cut the pleasantries. It’s me.” She snapped.
“Agatha?” the person groaned while club music played in the background. “I told you not to call…”
“Neco, you owe me!” she screamed.
“Oi! I repaid my debt to you years ago!” the person yelled back making her angrier.
“And I went through all that trouble to steal the money you wanted and to get rid of the gang that was after you. So you owe me!”
“You mean you used Emma to get rid of the gang.” He snapped back.
“Shut it!”
The voice groaned. “What do you want?”
“I told you to intimidate her boyfriend! What happened?”
There was a pause as Neco quickly stepped onto the balcony where the volume of the music and noise was less.
“Where are you?” Agatha snapped into the phone.
“I am at home,”
“Don’t lie to me you dumb son of a b!tch! You are at a strip club aren’t you?”
Neco clicked his tongue in annoyance and looked back at the blue, red and green lights showing the silhouette of women dancing in cages, people dancing and the DJ mixing the tapes.
“What do you want?” he hissed.
“What’s the update on Emma? You haven’t told anything!”
“Yeah and I have my reasons.”
“What?”
“How did her boyfriend know about my assault charges?”
Upon hearing this, Agatha’s eyes widened in shock. “I…I…h…how should I know?”
Neco leaned on the railing on the passed a hand over his face in frustration and groaned. “Agatha, only four people know that story; you, me and that old hag who is in a nursing home! So how did her boyfriend know about it?”
“Maybe the old b!tch told him!” she replied.
“That’s impossible! The last time I checked, the hag has dementia! There is no way she would remember what I did!” he snapped.
Agatha face palmed. “So what did you do after that?”
“What do you think I did?”
It only took a few minutes before she realized what happened. “You…you ran away?!”
“What do you want me to do?” Neco yelled back.
“YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO INTIMIDATE HIM YOU IDIOT!” she screamed into the phone. “YOU REALLY ARE AN IDIOT!”
“You told me he was a plain idiot but that boy was taller and bigger than me!” he shivered recalling the scary look Jake gave him. “And his face! He was terrifying! You didn’t tell me she was dating someone like that!”
“Oh my gosh!” Agatha breathing heavily while pacing around the room. “Oh my gosh! You idiot!”
Neco twisted his face in confusion. “Huh?”
“WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?” she screamed. “I TOLD YOU TO INTIMIDATE HIM INTO LEAVING HER BUT YOU RAN AWAY FROM HIM? I AM HERE DEALING WITH THE PROBLEM YOU CREATED AND YOU ARE OUT PARTYING?! ARE YOU INSANE?”
“Hey! Don’t get cute with me you b!tch!” he yelled. “You created this problem! You were the one who dumped her then decided to go back to her after a year and you thought she would take you back?”
“NECO!” Agatha yelled but quickly took a deep breath. “Look, Emma is dumb! Its that boy who is manipulating her into being with him. All we need to do is get rid of him.”
Neco groaned loudly at that and bowed his head in silent frustration. “How about I get rid of him instead? That can be easier than getting intimidating him.”
Hearing this made Agatha think for a moment and she had an idea. “No, don’t kidnap him. Lets kidnap her instead.”
Her words shocked him. “Are you crazy! There is no way I am kidnapping your crazy ex!”
“Don’t tell me you are afraid of kidnapping a girl!” Agatha sneered.
“Yes I am.”
Agatha was shock. “What?”
“Don’t forget the time she got rid of a gang you stole money from.” He replied. “She didn’t just get rid on one lieutenant, she got rid of all the lieutenants including the man on top! What happened after that was a blood bath! Every gang tore themselves apart to get the top spot and it was so bad that no could live in the ‘Underground City’ without getting killed! If she could get rid of those guys for you I don’t want to think of what she might do to me!”
“Then get rid of him!” Agatha snapped shaking away the memory.
“Are you nuts?!”
“THREATEN HER! KILL HIM! KIDNAP HIM! BLOW HIM UP!” her scream was loud enough for the other hotel residents to hear. “DO ANYTHING TO GET RID OF HIM!”
“Okay, okay! Just give me a week!”
“THREE DAYS!” she ended the call before he could protest and slumped on the sofa in frustration but she slowly recalled what happened.
Despite Peterson High being a prestigious school, it had a hierarchy involving delinquent ranks; the lower ranks were treated like scum to the those of the higher ranks and the only ways to climb up the hierarchy was through money, intimidation and popularity. Students who didn’t join a gang were bullied intensively and Emma was one of them. Agatha only saved her from being Julia’s target out of her dwindling moral compass and quickly found her annoying when she started hanging out with her. However, she quickly realized that her admirer was as ‘dumb as a rock but useful when chiseled into a blade’ and she slowly ‘chiseled’ her into her personal blade until she got what she wanted.
She chuckled ruefully at the memories. “I lost my gang, my popularity, my dignity…I lost everything because of her. It all came crumbling down when she left me.” Then looked at her phone lying next to her on the couch and she grinned slyly to herself. ‘Her ignoring me is getting annoying but I know how to get her attention.’
Meanwhile in the apartment, the couple was soaking in a steaming hot bath filled with white and red rose petals in a candle lit bathroom. The candle flames slowly flickered as the room and filled with calming scent of Hikari wood and linden flower. Sitting behind her Jake tightened his grip around Emma and placed a small kiss on her head while she silently adjusted her position and slowly closed her eyes. When she opened them, she was lying in her futon fully dressed in her nightgown wrapped in his strong arms. She silently tried to pry herself away from his grip but he tightened his grip and pulled her closer to him.
“Beloved,” he purred into her neck.
“Jake please,” she whispered moving away from him. “I need to use to the bathroom.”
“Stay in my arms a little while longer,” murmured into her ear.
“Please,”
“Mmm,” he moaned nuzzling his face into her neck and planted some kisses on neck. “Let’s stay here a little longer.”
Emma scrunched her face in discomfort as her body instinctively tightened the bladder muscles to prevent the inevitable from happening but her mind told her otherwise; she needed to quickly use the bathroom or else. He slowly released her and sat up as she crawled out of the futon towards the bathroom.
‘I am so tired,’ she sighed in relief after plopping herself on the toilet seat. She took a peek into the bathtub and noticed it was clean but the smell of Hikari wood still linger in the air. She combed her fingers through her hair and realized that all the knots and tangles she felt when her hair was wet were gone.
‘Maybe I was half asleep when he combed it,’ she murmured standing up. She flushed the toilet, washed her hands with soap, patted it with a towel and was startled when she opened the bathroom door to him standing there.
“Y…you were waiting for me?” she muttered after a few minutes of silence.
He nodded and without saying another word, he picked her up and carried her back to the futon. He immediately wrapped his arms around her waist and nuzzled her neck until her breathing slowed down to a regular pace. Then his eyes golden eyes flew open and he sat up to look at her with a mix of admiration and hidden madness.
“You are so beautiful when you sleep,” he combed his fingers through her hair and brought strands of it to her nose inhaling the scent of her shampoo. “My precious butterfly!”
Emma stirred forcing him to stop and he silently left the room heading to the kitchen. In one of the kitchen cabinets, he took out a tool box and walked over to the front door where he unscrewed the bolts around the door knobs proceeded to remove the old lock. He removed the latch plate and replaced it with a new one, installed the new lockset and had the lock tested until he was satisfied.
“That should do it.” He whispered while screwing the doorknob in place. Then he took a step back to admire his handiwork. “Sleep well my little butterfly. Sleep well.”
The streets in Barusa Town were silent with the moon shining over the starless sky as Jake walked through street that lead to the suburbs. Every single house and architecture reminded him of his childhood and it irked him so he thought of what happened a few days ago in Emma’s apartment and sighed.
‘Those men weren’t ordinary men but they were so easy to kill.’ He thought to himself. ‘The lockset wasn’t damaged but I didn’t find a lock pick on them so this means someone stole and gave them the keys to the apartment but who?’
Then he sighed and came to a stop in front of a house. ‘Looks like I would have to keep changing the locks every two weeks until I convince my Butterfly to leave this barren weed field garden.’
The house from the outside looked like any typical suburban house and behind it was a small garden with cherry blossom trees creating a serene atmosphere. The front entrance was adorned with a small porch where one could take off their shoes before entering the house. Flexing his palm, he created a small floating orbs of dark energy and placed it on the wall before going around the backyard and climbed over the fence to into the garden.
‘This place is so cliché,’ he scrunched up his face as he created another small orb in the air and looked at the only withering cherry blossom tree in the place with something dangling on the branches. ‘You are still here? Amazing.’
The headless ghost dropped to the ground with a thud, stood up and started stumbling around the yard. Jake ignored it and climbed up to the second-floor windows, which led to the hall in the house. The house was quiet but he made sure he didn’t make a sound until he climbed up the stairs that squeaked under his weight; a standard ancient trap to signal the homeowners someone was in the house, but no one came. The living room was empty, and he noticed there were no shoes at the front porch near the entrance.
‘Good. She isn’t here,’ he placed another orb on the wall and looked back up. ‘Let’s see what you have for me, Ryoba Aishi.’
He started his search in the master bedroom. It was a typical room with a bed, a walk-in closet, windows, and a door leading to the bathroom, but there was something new; a small shrine dedicated to the master of the house.
‘This wasn’t here the last time I came.’ he walked to inspect it then his eyes rested on a photo of Jokichi Aishi during his high school days. ‘You only have one photo? Pathetic!’
He took a picture of it with his phone and carefully searched the drawers and cupboards until he looked under the bed. A large folded piece of paper was tucked underneath it and when he took it out, he was greeted with a demented but haunting face of a pale faced girl with wide eyes and wet hair but he ignored it. Sitting on the floor, he spread the paper and was surprised to see a map of Barusa Town marked with specific places with red marker.
“It looks like you are looking for someone.” He took another picture and was about to fold it but when he noticed another folded blue piece of paper. “What is this?”
He unfolded it and discovered to see it was the house’s blueprints. Jake them slowly came to the realization there was a hidden basement inside the house.
“Interesting,” he murmured folding the blueprints into his pockets then folded the other paper and proceeded to place is back under the bed. The face was still staring back at him with lifeless eyes, purple mucus and saliva oozing down its head before smiling and vanishing into the darkness.
“Typical,” he shoved the folded paper under bed and stood up aware that another ghostly apparition was behind him. “Is this what my Beloved goes through? My precious butterfly.”
With nothing left to find in the room, he walked into the next bedroom but found it filled with scattered furniture and a quick search revealed nothing so he went back to the living room.
“According to the blueprints, the basement is hidden in the living room,” he took out the blueprints and studied them again. “But where is it?”
He searched the living room until he came upon shelf stashed in the walkway of the entrance. Suspicious, he looked at the blueprints and slowly pushed the shelf to the side revealing a hidden door. Luckly for him, the door was unlocked so he opened it to a dark room and walked inside
“It smells like death in here,” he whispered to himself before turning the lights on. The illuminated room was filled with cardboard boxes, a bed, a wooden beam and a single wooden chair. Upon closer inspection, he noticed metal straps on the chair’s hands and feet and wires connecting to a switch.
“A makeshift electric chair. How cute,” he put a hand on his chin in thought. “Cute but diabolical. One could torture someone with this, leaving a few scars on his body, but a lot of mental damage.”
Unfortunately, the basement was filled with cardboard boxes, preventing him from exploring the room, so he summoned ‘Obsession’s Bind’; shadowy tendrils and used them to slip under the closed doo,r put the shelf back in its place. Then he got to work looking through the boxes, which were filled with family pictures. In one of the boxes, he found a shattered framed picture of Ayano and her father Jokichi Aishi standing in the middle of a flower field, and the expressions on their faces; Jokichi’s smile was strained while Ayano’s expression was cold and distant despite being a five-year-old.
‘You are not good at hiding your pain, are you Jokichi?’ he muttered, putting the picture back in the box. ‘No wonder you were trying to get closer to my butterfly. Idiot.’
The other box was filled with medical documents from Sakura Medical Mental Hospital; the same hospital he was dumped in after he was ‘rescued’ from the ‘Military Boys Camp’.
‘That was the place the government sent us,’ he chuckled ruefully at the terrible memory of the mass suicide that took place in that place and picked up a piece of paper. ‘The government paid a lot of money to hide our names from the public, but this was dated June 16th 2006. Why is she hiding this?’
Then he quickly jerked his head up, and his eyes glowed purple, giving him a vision of someone walking into the house. He tsked in annoyance. She was back.
The ghost in the garden stopped pacing and watched his granddaughter walk into the house, wondering if the intruder had heard her slam the door. Ryoba slumped on the couch in frustration and stared at Jokichi’s phone she found while tracing his steps. Despite the broken screen, she was able to turn it and read the last text messages they exchanged before he disappeared: ‘Darling, please come home.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyIhBmml18F
We can talk about it. Darling? Are you there? Where are you?’
“Why did he leave like this? He might be in danger or worse, be under someone’s influence!” She clutched the phone tightly to her chest with tears in her eyes. ‘Where are you, Darling?’
Thanks to the ‘All-Seeing Affection’orbs he placed in the living room, Jake bore witness to everything and rolled her eyes. ‘How dramatic! No wonder he ran away.’
Ryoba dialed a number on her phone and paced up and down the living room until the person picked up the call. “Hello? I need your services. My husband has gone missing, and I need you to find him!”
Her voice grew distant as she walked up the stairs. Once he was sure that she was safely in her bedroom, he used ‘Phantom Embrace’ to telekinetically move the shelf off the door. He silently opened the door and snuck back to the second floor. Halfway up, a female ghost hanging from a noose appeared at the top of the staircase; its long black hair covering her eyes complementing its pale skin and white torn uniform. Jake immediately realized it wasn’t the same ghost found under the bed, but he walked past it to get to the window from the end of the hall. The ghost dropped to the floor with a loud thud and crawled towards him. As its bony hand stretched towards him, but recoiled when he shot it a glare before climbing out of the window.
A loud thump interrupted Ryoba’s phone conversation, and shewent down the stairs to the living room but stopped short; the shelf was out of place.
‘Someone was in here,’ she muttered, rushing to open the front door to catch a glimpse of the person, but she saw nothing but the empty street. Realizing the sound came from the backyard, she rushed to the back door and opened it in hope, but found an empty garden instead. The culprit was gone.
“How? How did the person find the hidden room?” she whispered to herself. Then she remembered the house’s blueprints hidden in her bedroom and rushed upstairs to search for them. The blueprints were gone.
“It couldn’t have been my Darling. The intruder used the blueprints to find the basement,” she muttered in rage as the empty room. “What was the person looking for?”
Back at the apartment, Jake sat on the couch snapped his fingers making the floating orbs he left in the Aishi residence disappear.
“It's best I don’t leave ‘dark tracks’ all over the place,” he muttered, feeling the power return to him. Then he picked up the medical letters and started reading through them.
‘Dang it! This is about her daughter,’ he tsked in annoyance and tightened his grip on the paper. ‘This is such a pain!’
Frustrated, he speed read through the contents, taking note of the words, sociopathic tendencies, empathy, and medications which sounded useless to him until he noticed a phrase, ‘without reasonable doubt,’ and the name underneath the signature at the bottom of the letter.
“Doctor Tachibana. I am not surprised you would be caught up in this mystery.” He put the letter back in the envelope and opened the brown envelope, which was addressed to the Aishi family’s residence with the date August 31st, 2012 but the sender’s address was from Kento’s Criminal Institution.
‘Who would send a letter to you from prison?’ he thought, opening the folded note.
Ryoba Aishi,
Strange, isn’t it? Of all the people who could have exposed me, it was your daughter. The same girl I quietly watched over, protected from afar, and ensured had every opportunity—despite her bloodstained hands. I imagine she thought herself righteous as she handed over the evidence, never once wondering why her life had been so…convenient.
You seemed to have forgotten that husband’s undeserved position, his steady income, the roof over your head, and the tuition your daughter never paid — all of it came from me. You forced me to play a crucial role in your lives, but your daughter destroyed that because of a boy who barely knows her name and yet here I am, stripped of everything. Awaiting the needle, or the noose, or whatever poetic end the justice system deems fitting for men like me and all because your daughter, who has much to answer for herself.
I don’t write this to beg or to curse. I’ve accepted what’s to come but as the world slowly forgets the name Saikou, and the comforts around you begin to vanish one by one I hope you are prepared for the hardship that is to come because of your child. After all, every truth has a cost. Some just take longer to collect.
Sincerely,14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3e5ZaqNOIH
Satoshi Saikou
“The note was dated August 31st 2012,” Jake noted. “Wasn’t it the day he was incarcerated for his crimes?”
Taking out his laptop, he opened it and typed, ‘Saikou Embezzlement Scheme Trial’. An article appeared describing how he went to trial without a lawyer and how everyone was shocked when he pleaded guilty to his crimes.
“He had the opportunity to defend himself to get a lesser charge but he pleaded guilty with no remorse,” he muttered, zooming in to get a closer look at the picture of the silver-haired man. “I wonder what relationship he had with you and your daughter Mrs. Aishi.”
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