Antique Shop?BEAR? - Chapter 20
Chapter 20 – Starving Plate
The two looked at Aya and the room in turn and gave her a blatantly disgusted stare, but she didn’t pay it any mind.
“Come in, please.”
The woman he was having an affair with was pressing her nose with her hand. What an ill-mannered woman. Aya furrowed her brows.
“Can we have the conversation at a coffee shop or somewhere else?” Her husband put on an ingratiating smile desperately.
“If you want to go outside, please leave.”
Aya glared at them and the pair reluctantly went into the house. When she brought them to the living room, they sat down on the flattened cushions.
“So… now that the loan is settled… I know I shouldn’t be the one to tell you this, but now that Rei is an adult, I want a divorce.”
“What about my living expenses after the divorce?”
“A-About that… well…”
“Right now, aren’t we still living separately and you are free to do as you please, aren’t you? Why must we file for a divorce?”
“I want to marry her.”
“Oh my. Such a shame you don’t have that chance.”
“Would you divorce me if I continue to pay for your living expenses as before?”
“Let me think.”
They both exchanged dubious looks. Aya grew more and more agitated, her face turning deep red.
“Well, I have the divorce papers you filled out upstairs, so why don’t you bring them to me? It’s on your desk in the study.”
“What… Are you giving me a divorce then?”
“Yeah. As long as you keep paying me.”
“Tae, excuse me for a moment, will you?”
“Okay.”
When her husband headed upstairs, Aya glared at the cheating partner. Unlike Aya, she was slim, beautiful, and classy.
“I apologize for barging in on you so suddenly.”
Aya did not reply back.
“Oh… this… I forgot to give you this… as a souvenir.”
The cheating partner stood up and went to get a paper bag next to her husband’s bag. Aya stood up and abruptly burst into yelling.
“I don’t need your souvenir!”
The cheating partner turned around in shock.
Shulushulu
Shulushulu
Shulushulu
Shulushulu
Aya pulled out a nearby plastic cord and lunged at the affair partner, strangling her. It was so sudden that the other party didn’t even have a chance to utter a word. When Aya pounced on her, the back of her head crashed down and the sound of a direct blow to her skull reverberated. The other party couldn’t comprehend the situation and looked around with scurrying black eyes. Aya climbed onto her and tightened the plastic cord around her neck. Even though the cheating partner was rampaging, Aya continued to apply pressure on the plastic cord, and the cord kept digging into her neck. She didn’t care if her skin was ripped open or blood was splattered on her face. Aya felt as if she was on a hunt, and she smiled with the corners of her mouth turned up in a feral grin.
“What the hell are you doing!”
Her husband’s voice snapped her out of her trance.
“Ta… Taeko!”
Aya withdrew her hand from the cheating partner that had ceased to budge.
“W-What… have you done… Taeko… Taeko…”
When her husband pulled out his phone with trembling hands, Aya brushed it aside.
“She’s already dead!”
Her husband shuddered and collapsed to the floor on his knees.
“Everything is your fault. You’re the one who made me this way…”
Aya lashed out at her husband. He stumbled backward and fell down the hallway.
“Because of you, this woman is dead. If you hadn’t dragged her into this, she would still be alive!”
Her husband was emaciated in the hallway. Aya was so appalled by the decomposition of the body during summer that she had her lie naked in the bathroom with the air conditioner on and prepared to dismantle it, but it was not an easy task to sever the remains. A special knife would be needed to slit the bones, and the odor would cause a foul-smelling commotion if she were to discard the body in the garbage. Aya was so famished that she sliced open the abdomen and brought the meat to her mouth.
“… Delicious…!”
The taste was unlike any other raw meat she had ever experienced. There was no elasticity or flavor to the meat. This was the luscious taste of vengeance. Aya found herself savoring the raw meat as she frantically scraped it off the corpse and put each part in a ziplock. She grabbed a beer from the kitchen and downed it in one gulp.
“Ha. Delicious.”
It wasn’t until hours later that her husband became aware of Aya’s state. He vomited on the spot, screaming and wailing.
“Shut up! I am going shopping, so keep it down!”
Aya took a shower to remove the blood, changed her clothes, and went to a nearby electronics store to acquire a freezer and a couple of surveillance cameras, which she loaded onto the back of the truck and headed home. Her husband was weeping in the hallway, which infuriated Aya even more. She placed the freezer in the underfloor storage in the bathroom and filled it with bones and the woman’s head. After that, she set up a simple surveillance camera in the bathroom and the front door, and served the earrings attached to the woman’s ears on the shell plate for her husband’s dinner.
“The taste of vengeance, bon appétit.”
????
Kuma had visited the scene of kodokushi that day. Although he was relatively young, he had noticed something was wrong when the owner of the house was in arrears with the rent, and the death was fairly overdue. The area around the bed was leaking a considerable amount of bodily fluids and it took a significant portion of time to clear it. The cause of death was myocardial infarction, and the body shape was such that it seemed to have been suffering from lifestyle-related illnesses.
“I assume the victim is jobless?” Kuma asked Aiba, a fellow colleague. “See, if she doesn’t come to the office, people will get suspicious.”
“Apparently, this person was a food fighter who made a living by entering competitions and posting videos on the Internet.”
“Oh, I get it.” Kuma was convinced by this answer. “The kitchen, let’s do it together.”
The kitchen was full of alcohol and littered with cans and bottles. Bags of food and plastic containers were overflowing from the garbage cans.
As he was taking pictures with his camera, something caught Kuma’s eye.
“That’s an authentic seashell plate.”
“Oh, I thought it is a natural shell plate. I believe it’s called a shell plate, something used for purification.”
“It’s stored in a box?”
Kuma pressed the shutter on the shell plate.
“This is a food fighter’s plate, yet you won’t let me put food on it?”
Kuma smirked as he remarked sarcastically and carefully picked up the box of the shell plate.