Obsession (Ayano x Budo)

Chapter 45

The basement was dark.

Ayano stretched her hand out in front of her as she walked slowly around the basement floor, holding it against the rough texture of the concrete wall, searching for the-

A metallic surface slid over her fingertips, and Ayano halted. The lightswitch.

Click. A second after she'd snapped it on, the lamps above her burst into life, throwing white light across the entire room. She squinted her eyes against it - they were still a bit too sensitive - but even so, she was already scanning the expanse of the room...

It was gone.

She couldn't help but notice it; everything in her memory contrasted so starkly against what she saw now. Her eyes widened in surprise, her feet charging to the centre of the room where the body, the  blood, the... scramble of a corpse had remained.

Not a speck of it remained.

Even with this stark white light showing every possible fleck of dust, the blood had been thoroughly cleaned from the concrete, and even the smell of blood was gone. Instead, the room was filled with the smell of chlorine, bleach, and other chemicals. It was so intense that it almost made her feel dizzy.

Ayano wished there was a window somewhere that she could open to let in some fresh air, but she grimly persisted through the smell, continuing to scan the open floor. Where was the body now? They still had to dispose of it. Her brain had to wonder sleepily for a moment before it could come up with something reasonable.

He'd probably hidden it, perhaps in case the police had come in the middle of the night. Budo was more intelligent than she'd thought.

Put this case of the body aside for now.

This wasn't why she was here. There was something else she wanted to check.

Ayano's eyes travelled from the floor, slowly, finally, to the back of the room, where neatly packed boxes were sorted against the wall. To most people, they would look like junk: Tool Boxes, cardboard boxes, storage containers. And yet, Ayano had felt almost certain that, at some point last night, while she'd been having fun with Info-chan...

...she'd heard something from within those boxes. A voice.

And that sound had been accompanied with a deep, guttural feeling of familiarity within her.

Ayano walked forward, step-by-step, eyes set on a particular container. It was just a hunch, some baseless speculation born out of curiosity, but this one before her felt different. It was bigger. It looked new. 

She put her hands on the lid of the container. The steel was cold, as if it were trying to deter her from her curiosity. With sudden resolve, she decided then and there. Ayano squared her shoulders, tensed her shoulders and core, then heaved it up without hesitation. It popped open easily, surprisingly, and as the lid sprang up, her eyes dropped down and stared inside. The sight before her confirmed her suspicions. Somehow, she'd known:

He was inside.

Taro was curled up in a ball. Ayano took it in, one piece of information at a time. He was wrapped with what looked like a rough blanket, but was otherwise naked. His exposed skin was sheet-white. An unhealthy blue pallor was frosted along his gaunt cheeks, and over his thin lips. From her experience, it looked like, rather than freezing, he was starving into his deathbed. A cruel combination, made crueller by the fact that his prison wasn't even locked - he was just unable to escape.

Ayano waited. As her eyes took in his body, she waited for herself to feel the shock. She knew her legs would buckle, she would shriek with rage, and storm into Budo's room-

And yet it didn't happen.

Slowly, she blowed out air from her lungs with a soft whistle, feeling her chest relax. The longer she stared, the less she cared. A minute passed. Still she felt nothing. And then, shaking her head, she closed the lid again, pressing it shut.

She couldn't help but feel amused. Right now, she could do anything she wanted to him, safe from listening ears, or watching eyes. She could touch him. She could kiss him. She could make love to him, for what that would be worth. She could even hurt him, more than he'd hurt her.

She thought about it for a while. Her hand played along the lid of the container. For every second that the idea waded in and about her mind, the temptation of such recklessness became greater. Even so, the sense of apathy towards him was even bigger. Simply, he was uninteresting to her. She removed her hand from the cool touch of the container.

Somehow, over the past few days... she'd gotten over Taro. She'd finally proven it, and it filled her with a sense of accomplishment. Even better, she could still feel, even though it wasn't because of him. She could finally live a full life.

Even so, why was Taro here? So easily locatable? The only thing that she could think of was that maybe Budo had wanted her to find Taro. Was that really correct?

I can just ask him.

Ayano turned to head back upstairs, but it turned out she didn't need to. Budo was sitting by the bottom of the stairs, waiting for her.