Best Buddy

In a province in Japan where nothing can be seen but mountains, rivers, and rice fields. The chirping of insects and animals blends like music with the whisper of the wind, while birds add peaceful melodies to the surroundings.

There stands a traditional Japanese house. Yet instead of feeling light and calm, you would shudder at the heavy presence surrounding it. For behind the beauty and serenity of this place…

“AHHH!”

“P-Please, have mercy… I still have children—”

“N-No, don’t, don’t AHHH!”

A horrifying truth is hidden here. Blood is scattered everywhere. Lifeless bodies lie in every corner of the house. Samurai blades are soaked in blood. The air is filled with the stench of gore and burning flesh, as people in black kimonos carry the corpses of those they slaughtered and throw them into the blazing fire.

Every scream of the victims echoes throughout the house where two people stand. Yet the two seem to hear nothing but the pounding and screaming of their own hearts.

One man has swollen eyes, tears streaming endlessly. He is wearing a blue suit, but bruises mark his temple and his lips are split.

“W-Why…? Why did you do this to us?” the man in blue desperately searches for answers. But the man standing before him, dressed in a red kimono, only stares back with lifeless eyes.

He merely watches the man in blue cry.

“Speak! I trusted you! I thought...I thought....”

The man in blue is cut off when the man in the kimono finally speaks for the first time.

“Everything you thought was wrong.”

Short, crushing words that shatter the man in blue’s heart. His tears fall harder, the pain in his chest growing unbearable.

Before, whenever the man in the kimono spoke, it only gave him headaches. Now he never imagined that the words from those lips would be the ones to destroy him. He clutches his chest, gripping the front of his blue suit, weakly pounding it again and again, unable to endure the pain.

“S-So all these years… everything you showed us was a lie? Nothing but deception?” Anger trembles in his voice, but the pain in his heart is stronger.

The man in the kimono does not answer. He slowly picks up a small teapot and two cups, pouring tea into each. But when he sets one cup in front of the man in blue, it is violently knocked away, crashing against the wall and shattering.

“You’re being a brat again,” the man in the kimono murmurs as he reaches for another cup. But before he can pour the tea, the man in blue flips the table, sending the cups and teapot crashing to the floor. Hot tea splashes onto the man in the kimono’s hand, making the man in blue freeze.

'Why, even after hearing the truth directly from him, I can’t bear to see him hurt?' The man in blue struggles to stop himself but his own hands betray him. He grabs the man in the kimono’s burned hand and gently blows on it.

The man in the kimono only stares, emotionless, allowing him to do whatever he wants. The man in blue notices this and decides to test whether everything had truly been a lie. Whether none of what the man in the kimono had done or said was real.

Without hesitation, he pulls the man in the kimono closer and kisses him forcefully. Shock flashes in the man’s eyes. The kiss is different from before, strange and unfamiliar.

Still, he does not resist, until the man in blue finally pulls away.

“Now… tell me again. Was none of it real?”

He studies the lifeless eyes of the man in the kimono. Minutes pass in silence. They are only inches apart.

*Please take back everything you said. I don’t care if everything else was a lie… Just say to my face that you love me. Please. I’ll do anything for you…*

But all of his prayers are shattered by the words that leave the man in the kimono’s lips.

“You are just part of my mission. I don’t… love you.”

He says it directly, staring into the man in blue’s eyes, and in that moment the man in blue’s world collapses.

“Loving you was just part of my plan…”