A Japanese yokai that looks like a human but has no face.

An unfinished story written in 2008, revised in 2017

While thinking of a plan to go to Hiroshima without my parents freaking out, I find Saki walking with our regular group of friends. Since that incident yesterday, we’ve been keeping strong attention to that forceful guy, making sure he never so much as looks at Saki. She tries to act like nothing happened, but we can tell otherwise. We’re her friends. We’ve seen no trace of him till one day-
    We were all on our way home, laughing and joking as usual. About ten minutes passed, and we ended up in front of Rina’s house. Her mother stands outside the front door, holding a phone. “Rina, you have a phone call!” she gestured, waving at Saki and me as she handed the phone to her daughter. “Nice to see you two again.”
    “Nice to see you too,” I say, Brandon and Joseph putting in their two cents.
    “Hey, Mrs. Matsuki!” Rina’s mother sighs as she greets back. Those two always seem so troublesome to her.
    After chatting with Mrs. Matsuki for a while, we noticed the sun’s final appearance and headed home again. Shortly after, we end up in front of Brandon’s house. “See you tomorrow, Brandon!” I yelled from the distance of his front gate. He stopped me, pressing his lips to mine before letting me go.
    “Bye, honey,” He casually whispers before opening the gate and entering his house. Turning back to the sidewalk, my eyes show signs of sarcasm. I don’t know why he still insists on calling me ‘honey.’ Joseph looks over at me. He can tell I’m annoyed. Saki doesn’t even dare say anything. Looking away for a slight second, he looks back with a smirk on his face.
    “You guys should go out. I swear, you two are the perfect match,” He lets out, not hiding the sarcasm. He folds his arms and continues speaking. Too bad I’m not listening. His words are full of irritation. I can tell he’s bothered, but in a way, I am, too. Joseph and I have been friends for years, though he just moved here. We act like brother and sister- and tell everyone that’s our relationship, keeping everyone from the truth we aren’t even ready to uncover.
    We fought the whole way to his house next to mine. Here and then, Saki would chuckle at the stupid stuff we’d say. “Goodnight, Saki! I’ll see you tomorrow.” I waved, opening the gate to my yard. Turning to Joseph, I shouted,     “Come to my house later! I wanna talk!”
    Joseph chuckled nervously, “Okay, okay,” answering as he opened the door to his house and walked inside.
    Before I could walk in, Saki stopped me, “Sh-Shinori,” I took my hand off the door handle and turned to face her. Her voice was a bit shaky. She even looked a bit pale. “Can you walk to my house with me?” She stuttered again. Something was definitely wrong.
    I immediately opened the door and answered, “Sure, let me just ask my mom.” A minute later, my door opened, a solemn look on my face. “I’m sorry, my mom said I can’t.” Not much of a surprise there. It is getting really dark. Saki’s face sank. “But maybe Joseph can!” I quickly exclaimed. I grabbed a medium-sized rock and threw it at the window on the side of the house. Joseph’s head poked out.
    “What?” He sounded pretty agitated for some reason.
    “Could you walk Saki home?” I asked, ignoring his attitude.
    “No, sorry. I’m helping my dad with something,” he said before shutting the window behind him. Well, there’s that. 
    I turned back to Saki, sighing before speaking, “Sorry, Saki. If you’re scared, you could stay here for tonight,” I paused. “You can call your m-“
    “That’s okay, I can walk home by myself,” She interrupted, “You know how my mom is.”
    I didn’t exactly know what to tell her. I knew she didn’t want to walk alone, but I could do nothing. “Please be safe.” Saki nodded, walking away slowly. I ensured she was out of view before opening the door and entering my house.
    Saki’s house was a bit farther to get to than everyone else’s. She was unsteady and shaky, and someone was watching her. Her gait sped up, getting faster with each passing silence. Sprinting, she didn’t exactly know if she was going towards her house anymore. She was frightened and paranoid until, eventually, she bumped into something. She noticed a shadow of a silhouette as she faced the ground, so she immediately apologized. She never looked up, taking the silence as danger. As she started to run again, the silhouette grabbed her arm to stop her. “Wait! Please,” The low voice sounded familiar. Saki looked up to see the forceful guy from the other day. She felt stiff as if she was frozen where she stood. “I know we got off on the wrong foot, so let’s start over,” the guy bowed. Still holding her arm, the guy bowed. “Takumi.”
    Scared to move, she opened her mouth, the only thing escaping being her name.
    “Let’s talk for a while, shall we?”
    Still holding on to her arm, he asked her all sorts of questions, never getting answered. The only thing circling around in her mind was an escape plan. Some time passed, and they both ended up in front of a house, though it wasn’t hers. She reluctantly entered the house behind him.
    It was quiet and a bit soothing, in a way. You couldn’t even hear bugs or creatures from outside. All of this was too suspicious, but Saki didn’t dare move. Takumi gestured for her to make herself comfortable as he entered the kitchen. He walked back into the living room, holding two cups. He handed her one and sat down beside her. “Is no one home?” she asked.
    Takumi takes a sip from his cup and sets it on the coffee table before them. He starts getting closer. “My mother’s out of town.” Noticing his inability to establish boundaries, she drinks a bit of liquid from the cup, gagging at the flavor.
    “This tastes weird,” She told him disgustingly, setting the cup on the table. He chuckles a little, chugging his drink and slamming the cup down. He quickly pins Saki against the couch before she even realizes what’s going on. Urging to break free, her body starts feeling hazy and numb. “Wh.. is this..?”
    “Now you can’t interfere.” His voice sounds viscous and evil with every passing second. As she struggles to get loose from his grasp, her vision fades. The last thing she can recall is his voice, saying, “You are weak.“

    As I waited for Joseph at my house, I worried about Saki. I couldn’t stop pacing. I just wanted Joseph to get here so I could talk to him. It wasn’t until I started making rice that he showed up. 
    I heard the doorbell ring from the kitchen. About time! I put down the bowl I grabbed from the cupboard and rushed to answer the door. As it opened, I shyly pushed some hair behind my ear. In front of me was a good-looking guy wearing stylish American attire. Though, to my dismay, another fellow sporting an American style stood beside him.
    “Hey, Shinori,” Joseph nervously waved, trying to smile.
    “Hello, honey,” Brandon leaned in, whispering in my ear, moving some hair behind it.
    “You brought Brandon,” I shakily say, trying to fake a smile. Joseph’s half-grin looks a lot better than mine, though.
    Joseph moved his right hand behind his head, his other in his jean pocket. “Yeah, sorry. He just came to my house,” His voice didn’t sound that happy that he was there. But who would blame him?
    Brandon decided to break the awkward banter. “He told me he was coming over here, so I decided to come too since we saw your mom leave a minute ago. I didn’t want you to be alone with him.” Though he was smiling, I don’t think he meant that cheerfully. He leaned forward to hold me, whispering, “It’ll be better this way.”
    Joseph looked away, turning red in the process. Brandon retracted his embrace and faced Joseph, still trying to keep his innocent and “happy” facade. “Yeah, but you are pretty much brother and sister, right? Maybe that’ll be the day you confess your love to her,” Brandon clasps his fist with grief and envy. He didn’t listen to Joseph’s signals to quit. A bit scared and a little curious, I remained quiet.
    Joseph finally had enough after a while of back-and-forth condescending arguing: “If I wanted to kiss her, I would’ve done it already!” A few seconds pass, and then Brandon scoffs.
    “So you never wanted to kiss her?”
    “N-No,” Joseph hesitated, trying to hide his blushing. Brandon examined his expression.
    “Never?” He studied once more. “Then kiss her now. Act like it doesn’t mean a thing.”
    Joseph and I jolt with surprise, “Huh?”
    “Go on and kiss,” It sounded like he forced that sentence out. Looking at Joseph, we thought the same thing: this won’t get resolved until we do this. Our faces looked like ripe tomatoes. We didn’t want to do this here and now. Plus, we’ll never get a chance to talk at this rate. We plucked up our courage and went for it. He gently placed his hand on my face, leaning me in, and passionately touched my lips to his. It was wet and… hot. My face was burning. It felt like the kiss had lasted a lifetime. It was nice. I couldn’t see, but I’m sure it took Brandon a lot of self-control in order not to kill Joseph. 
    As we detached from each other, his face was a deeper red than I’d ever seen. When Joseph finally gathered his composure, he looked at Brandon and said, ” There’s your kiss.” He was about to leave the house when Brandon interrupted, leaning his back against the front door.
    “Now, was that so hard?” Brandon sounded smug yet furious. You could tell Joseph wanted to kill him. I’m sure if he said anything, he would’ve.
    “Move,” Brandon dropped his nice facade and stared Joseph blankly in the face, not moving a muscle. It looked like Joseph would burst, but he was doing well at staying somewhat calm. After what seemed like a long time, Brandon stepped out of the way of the door.
    As Joseph opened the door to leave, Brandon whispered, “I’ll call you later.” Without another word, it was just Brandon and me and nothing but silence. 
    “Brandon,” I spoke up, not daring to look up for fear of punching him.
    I felt arms around me and a relieved sigh, “Yes, Shinori?”
    “Get out,” He immediately released his embrace.
    “What?”
    “Leave,” I looked up. “NOW!” I pushed him out, slammed the door behind me, and cried.

To be continued… (maybe)