Chapter 2
We both suffer from the same obsession, Saya and I.
We’re both fixated on a woman that neither of us can have; at least, not entirely. Both of us are consumed by a woman that we can’t comprehend, that we can never understand, and who will never be completely ours.
-
I don’t miss Japan. How could I, when my father was murdered there?
“Will you ever go back?” Saya asked me, late one evening.
“I dunno,” I said. Saya had finally gotten to the point where she didn’t freeze like an icicle whenever I got close to her, and that night I was lying across the sofa, my head on her lap. “It kind of holds a lot of bad memories.”
She said nothing, and I studied her face for a moment. “You’ll probably want to go back, though,” I said. “It is your country.”
“I don’t have a country. Not anymore.”
“Why not?”
“I spend so long hunting Onigen. I went all over the world, trying to find her. Africa, America, Europe, Russia. All the customs and traditions that I learn in Japan are not important. There is no country in the world that I call home. I’m more American than Japanese. I work with them long enough.”
I pondered this for a moment. Then: “You should try being more Japanese.”
“Why?”
“Do it for me. I mean, there are a lot of things about Japan that I’ll miss. Shinto shrines, and ramen shops, and calligraphy, and all those funny signs. You can remind me about all the good things that I left behind.”
Saya raised a sceptical eyebrow. “You mean I am like a souvenir of Japan?”
“Exactly!” I said, beaming up at her. “You’re a reminder of my big Oriental Adventure! I’m never going back, but I took a little piece of Asia with me. You can be my own personal geisha girl!”
“Fuck you,” she said, and her pronunciation was so terrible that I burst out giggling in her lap.
-
Japan is always there. I know that it always exists, across the oceans, thousands of miles away. A strange land holding memories that I want to forget forever.
And yet, the strange thing is, at the same time I can’t bear to forget them, either.
After I was finished being thoroughly unhelpful in my debriefings, I was sent on a plane back to America. I just wanted to put everything behind me. I just wanted to finally be home. But then I realized that I didn’t have a home anymore. Not really. Home disappeared when my father was killed and I became an orphan. Home was destroyed by a single bullet.
After everything that happened, I was sent to live with relatives in Pennsylvania. Uncle Terrance and his wife Lydia, bleeding heart New Age-types, unlike my militaristic father, but at least they were sympathetic to my needs. They chalked up all my ‘emotional issues’ to posttraumatic stress disorder. My father had bled out into my hands, so it was only to be expected that I’d be angry, or upset, or emotionally unstable.
Terrance and Lydia tried to give me room. They tried to be patient; they tried to create a stable environment for me. They tried to give me a safe place in which I could grieve; they tried to replace the home that I had lost.
What they couldn’t understand is that I can never go back to their world. I’ve learned too much, and I can’t just ignore everything and be a good American citizen and play a part in this society when I know what is going on underneath.
I couldn’t adjust back to normal life. All the rituals that human beings follow, all the customs that they observe in order to sustain the illusion of peace in their little world, all seemed so…absurd, so laughable, so ridiculous. Maybe I had gone a little crazy, but meaningless little details about ordinary American life just caught my attention and made me so angry. Pancakes in the morning; flags hanging outside houses; people on the television chattering about nothing; massive billboards at the sides of roads selling garbage that you don’t need; every moment that I spend in the ordinary world just made me more and more frustrated.
I knew what the ordinary world hid from the eyes of human beings.
One day, I walked home from school and found Saya sitting in the corner of my bedroom.
I remember the expression on Saya’s face when we saw each other. She seemed surprised, for one thing, which puzzled me; why would she be surprised to see me when she was sitting in my room? I guess she sneaked into the house, and then started daydreaming as she waited for me to come home.
“You’re alive,” I breathed.
She stood up, and I barely heard her faint “yes”. She stood there, awkwardly, her eyes darting about the room. She couldn’t look me in the eyes, and it looked like she was at a loss for what to do. Saya had searched for me across the world, traveled tens of thousands of miles to find me, but she was so focused on tracking me down that she hadn’t thought of what she would do when she found me. She had crossed half the world to get to me, and now that I stood before her, she realized that she wasn’t sure what she wanted from me.
The initial shock wore off, and was replaced with warm relief. I let my schoolbag thump to the floor, and I walked over to where Saya was still standing, still unsure of what to do. I threw my arms around her neck, and wasn’t surprised at all when she didn’t return the hug.
We stood there, in the corner of the room, Saya as straight as a lamppost, her arms hanging at her sides, me hanging on to her and laughing softly. Every moment of every day since I’d returned to America, it was like I’d been trapped in some bizarre, materialistic, commercialistic hallucination, and it was driving me crazy. But at that moment, I held a token of the other world in my arms. I had evidence, affirmation, proof that I wasn’t crazy; proof that my traumas were real. Proof that all the awful memories that I had been left with were not fantasies.
I clung to Saya in that instant. She didn’t return the gesture, but she made no effort to shake me off, or to push me away. We just stood there. Maybe I could have held on to her forever. Maybe she would have let me.
Eventually, I let her go. “Saya, what happened? I…I don’t remember what happened to us. I remember your mother got a hold of me, and then…it was all black for a while…and then they found me and you were gone.”
Suddenly, she was staring straight into me. Maybe I imagined it, but her eyes seemed to glisten, as if she was just on the edge of crying. Her lips moved, but nothing came out. At first.
“I killed her,” she said. “I killed my mother.”
-
I ran away that night. I left a note on my bedroom dresser telling my uncle that I’d be okay, but that I needed to be alone for awhile.
I lied about the ‘alone’ part.
When I disappeared, I had a dream about traveling the world with Saya. We’d go to all these exotic countries, and see the most amazing sights earth had to offer. No one would recognize our faces, and I’d have my friend all to myself.
I hadn’t realized that I was in love with Saya. Not at that point. Which I guess tells you how utterly clueless I am, considering that I thought about her all the time.
Unfortunately, Saya quickly put an end to my dream. She took me up to Ontario, and showed me the small apartment that she was renting.
“This is my house, for the moment. I hope you like it.”
“Why do we have to live in one place? We can do whatever we want! We can go anywhere in the world, Saya!”
“You have to go to school.”
I wheeled on her, and gaped like a fish. “School? School?”
She looked at me quizzically. “Yes,” she said, as if me going to school was the most logical, obvious thing in the world. Well, it was, but…
“What do you mean go to school?”
Saya looked confused. “You are sixteen years old. You have to go to school. It is the law.”
“I’ve run away! I’m outside the law.”
“It’s okay. I prepare a false identity for you. When you register at your new school, no one will know who you are.”
I sighed. Dozens of fantasies were slipping through my fingers, fading away in my mind. Saya and I trekking through jungles. Saya and I guiding a canoe down a fast-flowing river. Saya and I looking at the world’s greatest works of art in galleries all over Europe. Saya and I watching the sun set over countless different cityscapes.
Forget about it, girl. Another two years of boring old study for you.
“I don’t wanna go to school anymore,” I pouted, miserably.
“Then you become stupid.”
I gasped. “Excuse me! I’m a gifted girl. I have an above-average IQ!”
“Then you go to school.”
Damn her and her airtight logic.
I was only joking about not going to school, anyway. Saya deserves an intelligent girlfriend.
-
The first time I kissed Saya, she recoiled away and glared at me. For a moment, I thought I had made a mistake that I could never take back. For a moment, I thought another home had been broken, a friendship ruined by my own stupidity. For a moment, I thought that I’d never be able to forget the fury in her face.
She caught me as I reached the door, and pulled me into her arms. I stood there as she held me, trying to get my breathing and my heartbeat back under control, trying to hold back the sobs. She stroked my shoulders and the back of my head, all the time whispering into my ear: “It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m sorry, Alice. I’m sorry. I’m going to take care of you. I’m sorry.”
One week after I first kissed Saya, she still flinched whenever I got close to her.
Two weeks after I first kissed her, I was still the only one who initiated contact.
Three weeks, and she would take my hand in hers when we were walking together in the dark.
Four weeks, and she would idly put a hand out and stroke my cheek when I was in her reach.
Five weeks, and when I woke up whimpering and crying, the snarls of demons ringing in my ears, she was hovering over me, stroking my cheeks, whispering “It’s okay, it’s okay.”
Six weeks, and at night she held me in the dark like a protective lioness.
Seven weeks, and she held my gaze for minutes at a time. We stared into each other, not needing to say anything, never looking away, just drinking in the sight of each other.
Eight weeks, and she still couldn’t tell me that she loved me, even though I told her everyday.
-
I feel like Saya has two destinies, and I’m fighting against one of them.
It’s not weird anymore when Saya drinks blood. It’s always the same: she suddenly stops whatever she’s doing, and begins to shake. If she’s polishing her swords, there’s a clatter of metal as she drops them on the floor and rushes towards the kitchen. If she’s paying me ‘special attention’, she suddenly pushes me aside and lurches towards the fridge.
It doesn’t creep me out that my girlfriend needs blood to survive. I fed her my own blood, once, and I’d do it again. You could say it appeals to the pompous, melodramatic, badly-written-romantic-novel-reading part of me. I just love the thought of bleeding to death for the woman I love. It makes me feel all warm.
But do you know what does creep me out? Sometimes, when she’s done feeding, Saya turns to me, and I see her face.
It’s not the face of a human. It’s not the face that I’ve spent hours studying, memorizing every little feature.
It’s the face of a beast that cares nothing for feeling, or companionship, or loyalty, or love. It’s the face of a demon that cares only for hunger. It’s the face of a fiend that will devour anything to fill the emptiness inside it.
It’s a damn bizarre expression that she wears when she finishes drinking. It’s a strange kind of satisfaction, like a monster that has just devoured countless men, women and children and is sated – for now.
It’s as if she doesn’t recognize me. It’s like she doesn’t see the girl that has fallen in love with her, that would follow her anywhere, that would do anything she asked. When she looks at me that way, all the memories that we’ve collected together seem so meaningless. All the struggle that we’ve been through, all the suffering that she endured to protect me, all comes to nothing. All the wonderful, happy times that we’ve had, mean nothing at all.
When she looks at me that way, I can’t help but feel that if those instincts took control of her, I’d be nothing but a piece of flesh to her. If the demon part of her won out, if her mother’s part won out, she’s destroy me in an instant, and drain every drop of blood from me. I could scream and beg and squirm in her grasp, but it wouldn’t make any difference. My own pitiful cries would mean nothing to her, and my voice couldn’t reawaken the humanity inside of her. I’d be just another victim, fuel for her savagery.
-
There’ll always be a gulf between us that I can never cross. There’ll always be a hunger inside of her that I will never share. Always, those inhuman instincts and desires will be there beneath the surface of her skin, and I’ll never understand them.
But, really, Saya has been in this same situation for four hundred years.
Not-quite human, not-quite demon, for four centuries Saya hunted her mother across the world. Onigen was the queen of demons, the matriarch of every monster that exists on the planet. There wasn’t a hint of humanity in her; she knew nothing of warmth or compassion or fear. There was nothing to her but strength, and power, and force, and sadism, and cruelty, and a dark, savage hunger that would never go away.
Saya pursued Onigen across the earth because she murdered her family and brought suffering to everyone that met her. She traveled to every region of the world. She slew countless hordes of her half-kind to get an opportunity to kill her mother. To Saya, putting an end to Onigen was about revenge and loyalty, and also about justifying her own existence.
But wouldn’t Onigen herself have seen the chase differently? I can imagine what she would have said to her daughter.
Demons only respect power and strength. In a way, was Saya in fact seeking her mother’s approval? Was she not trying to gain her mother’s respect by showing her that she was powerful enough and fearless enough and ruthless enough to kill a queen? By following her through hell, killing all her servants and finally killing her, was Saya trying to demonstrate to Onigen that she was worthy of being her daughter?
-
A gigantic steaming mug lands beside my geography book. The smell of chocolate wafts into my nose, and I see a marshmallow floating at the top. Saya’s made my favourite.
She leans down to me, and I meet her kiss. There’s no taste of blood.
“Hmmm” I say, breaking away. “You taste so minty!”
“I’m sorry I scared you,” she says.
“You didn’t scare me.” Changing the subject, I say: “Wanna go to the fairgrounds with me tonight?”
“You should finish your homework.”
“God! You’re not my mom, Saya.” A pause, and then: “You’re my sugar mommy.”
“What?” she says, not understanding.
“Nothing,” I answer. Probably just as well English is not her first language.
Saya wanders over to the window, and stares out over the city. I turn back to my homework, and try to concentrate, but it’s no use. Visions of an implausibly beautiful woman keep floating into my head and distracting me from verb tables and vocabulary charts.
Saya hears footsteps across the floor, and turns to see me approaching with a hungry smile on my face.
Homework be damned.