raining again

I stared numbly at the television screen in my hotel room, now nothing but a spiderweb of cracks over a black abyss with a smartphone sticking out of part of it. The audio was still going – it was a scene from Return of Killerman, the original cut from 1982, I think. Hadn’t heard it in Japanese before, but I recognized the sound effects, and the lines were roughly the same.

This was the part where the restless spirits kidnapped Ken, and they shoved him…fuck. I couldn’t even keep it straight. I think that was Killerman’s Revenge? I’d only seen these movies eighteen million times, but my mind was a blank. Even went on the theme park ride over and over again. My dad would take me like, once a month. Lied about my age to get me in, because it was one of the only things he could get me out of my room for back then. He was happy to see me happy.

So was she. Man, she emptied out the theater that one time because-Fuck. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about her.

You broke the TV, dumbass, what else are you going to think about?

Her mocking laughter filled the room, and I hissed aloud.

“Fuck off. I’m not in the mood.”

Ooh, but she was gonna do it right this time. Kissed you and everything. Gonna make up for the birthday you missed being dead. Hers, I mean. Not like she even knew yours, right?

Her voice came in clearer now. She was Here, sitting behind me. I could smell her. Just like the real thing – sweat and blood, with a hint of beam katana ozone.

“I told you I’m not in the FUCKING mood.” My head snapped toward her. The room around us was different already, bathed in a soft, girly pink. The bed under her looked a hell of a lot softer than the shitty hotel bed I’d been sleeping on.

Christ, you’re easy today. She cackled with a disgusting, oily voice. A mockery of Nico’s. Her face was twisted into a permanent grin, gouged with pools of black that barely resembled human features, and sunny-blonde hair was glued to her face and shoulders with something I couldn’t quite recognize.

Come on, you didn’t visit her for half a year. What does she care? Why should she? She forgot you, and she deserved to. Probably for the best; you remember what happened the LAST time you had a-

My knife found its way into her face on its own, and I leapt on her, pulling it out and shoving it back into her, over and over again. Screams and laughter rocked the hotel room, but I was sure nobody else could hear them. She tried to talk, so I stabbed her in the fucking mouth. Tried to grab me, so I stabbed her in the fucking hand. There was no blood, no ichor even, just nothing, as the room blossomed pink around me and the puke-green carpet turned to checkerboard tile.

Fuck. FUCK.

I slammed my hand down on the bed and poised my knife over it. Needed to focus. Needed to get a grip. Fear is the mind-killer. Pain is the antidote. …No. No no no. No.

I released my grip on it slowly and sat back. Don’t do that to yourself, Wendy. You know better than that, now. Just take deep breaths, pinch your cheek, and hold it. Hold it until you wake up. …Wasn’t sure if I was talking to myself, or if it was one of them again.

…Who the fuck was she? Some fat bitch with green hair. No problem. I could manage that. I could definitely manage that, it wasn’t that different from my Kikiyama Aoi disguise. Just tweak a few things, let my hair down…looked a little like a chubby Miss Marigold, right? I stood up to turn the TV off and yank my phone out of it, get another look at her.

At the girl that stole my Kong.

Wendy. You’re in a tight spot, remember? Tighter than tight. Tighter than the tightest t-shirt at the tight t-shirt-

“Shit,” I grumbled aloud. It was someone else from the legions of people I didn’t want to deal with. A short girl with messy pink hair and ghost-white eyes, with a voice that was like nails on glass filtered through an old radio. She pretended to be someone I didn’t like in the first place, but I was pretty sure she wasn’t real. Maybe. I mean, she was sometimes.

They all were.

…Now’s not the time to be screwing around, is what I’m getting at, here. I know all you like to do when you’re upset is stab people until it works, but-

She was absolutely right, as my knife flew into her head, too.  Rather than screaming, though, she just sighed and went limp, until I’d stabbed her enough to convince myself she wasn’t real.

…

FUCK FUCK FUCK WHO THE FUCK EVEN IS SHE. She’s just screwing everyone in her fucking high-rise office now, I bet. Didn’t remember me, just made up some stupid promise to get in my pants later, and I fell for it, because I’m hopeless and I’m retarded and I broke the stupid fucking TV and I can’t even finish watching the Killerman marathon and what do I even have left?

FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. My who face burned. I felt sick, I felt weak, like everything was made of lead.

This was bullshit. It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t wanna die. I didn’t want to be gone. I came back for her, goddammit. I tried. Everything got weird, and we had to hide from the First, and…

…And it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter anymore. I jammed my knife into my pillow, then buried my face in next to it. Nothing mattered. This was all a huge waste of time. I should have stayed dead. Malal was right.

“…Hey.” A gentle voice came from behind me, and a small hand squeezed my shoulder. “…Hey, Wendy…”

“…Leave me alone.”

“…Cheer up, buttercup.”

“She promised.”

“I know.” She sat down on the edge of the bed and ran her fingers through my hair, and undid my braids and everything. Brushed it out, just like Miss Tomoe would, as I tried to hate everything away into my pillow.

“It’s Hanegawa Midori. Her family used to run that ramen place by Deli Heal, with the banana ramen. Do you want me to kill her?” …It was a question that would have been horrifying for any other person in any other context, I guess. I didn’t say anything for a long time.

Yes I wanted her dead. Fuck her. Fuck her for taking away the last thing I fucking had.

…But I shook my head. Wouldn’t solve anything. It’d just crush her, too. She was a stupid asshole, she’d always been a stupid asshole. But she didn’t deserve that.

I’m a god damn professional. I don’t kill out of spite. It’d be high-profile now, anyway. No way to get out of it without some serious shit.

“…Okay. Do you wanna get some WcDonald’s?”

---

I probably looked like shit – no, I knew I looked like shit. I hadn’t bothered changing…anything. Left my hair down. Tossed my disguise – wasn’t a good idea to use magic right now, if those things were just crawling out, but mostly I couldn’t even pretend to give a damn. Nakajima barely managed to force me into civilian clothes before she dragged me out, and there we were, trying to act like nothing was fucking wrong.

“Sayaka-chan and I get lunch here sometimes. It’s way different than the American ones, right?”

…Tasted like shit. I wanted something from Burger Suplex, but-

“Dooon’t. Don’t sit and think about home right now, okay? When you’re done with whatever crazy cult bullpoop you have to do here-“

We, I reminded her.

“-we have to do here, we can get a teleport there and get something to go.” She popped a fry into her mouth, sliding it between pale pink lips with one smooth movement. …Ugh. I really needed to get laid or something, if I was starting to notice that stuff on Nakajima.

“…Heeeee. I know that look. You’ll have to fight Sayaka-chan for me, though.” Gross.

…Wait, didn’t Mickey have a girlfriend? When I asked, she choked on her burger and started to giggle, holding her hand in front of her mouth to make sure nothing flew out.

“Mmmm.” And once she managed to calm down, she took a long slurp from her shake. “That’s the difference between you and me, Wendy. You let little details stop you. Defeatist, is what it is. That’s why you just sat and cried when you-“

I wasn’t crying.

“That’s why it STARTED RAINING like the second you got some bad news. If you didn’t let it get to you so much, you’d be like, HELL YEAH I’M GONNA CHOKE THAT BITCH AND STEAL MY WOMAN BACK, or something. I’m really surprised you’re not.”

I stared down at my half-eaten burger and took a sip of my soda. They didn’t even have Hassy here. Everything sucked. I felt my knife squeezing into the palm of my hand, like stabbing the soda until it wasn’t shit was an option.

“So like, is that the plan, or…” she prompted me again after a second.

...Didn’t really know. I wanted her to be happy.

“Well…you could go back to Miss Tomoe, too. Didn’t you spend like a week at her fuck cabin last month, or something?” My soda launched down into my lungs, sending me into a coughing fit. I could feel my cheeks burning red as I tried to stutter out a response.

“I knew it, it IS a fuck cabin! Just do that, you’re into her, right? Haven’t you been magical girls together like forever? She gives you those googly eyes when she visits.” …Little fucker was practically vibrating with excitement

Miss Tomoe looked at everyone like that. That was what her eyes looked like. That was what she did, she made a bunch of soulless assholes feel like they could be people again. I shifted and leaned back in my seat – this whole topic was a lot more personal than I liked to get into.

“Don’t be such a pussy, Wendy. Seriously.” …It was something I’d only seen a handful of times. Nakajima’s smile dropped, and she gave me a stone serious look, one that seemed completely out-of-place on her face.

“Crackers, are you really going to fold just because your girlfriend dumped you? You DIED and you didn’t take it this bad. Nut up or witch out already.”

As soon as it had appeared, Nakajima’s serious face vanished, and she stuffed another mouthful of fries in her gaping maw. She said something or other, but I sure as hell couldn’t understand it.

…Try and win her back? Or just go after Miss Mami instead? …Seemed like going either way would suck, but Nakajima had a point. It was better than sitting around talking to myself and waiting to die. Again.

…Well, it was enough. Enough to go on, for now. But I wasn’t looking forward to seeing Murde…seeing Miss Matsuda again. We needed to have a Fucking Talk, and neither of us was going to like it.