Dark, Yandere, and Bad Endings Compilation - ?a½Wishing for a Happy Ending
Translator: MadHatter Editor: MadHatter
A spring storm. Mountain cherry blossoms were in full bloom. All around the area was enveloped in petals.
Flowers scattered across the path of two young people as they strolled through the morning haze. Hand in hand, he and she tickled each other and shared a giggle. Like lovers, their eyes fixed solely on one another, excited.
Continuing along the cherry blossom path, at the end of the road, they ran into a shabby hut almost simultaneously, intertwined with each other. Narrow and old, the shabby place belonged to him. He and she were all alone. Nobody to disturb them.
On the solid, cold wooden floor, he softly pushed her down. Her black hair was spread. Eyes moist with expectancy, she wrapped her hands around his neck and entwined her legs, enticing him.
“Hurry, come.”
His mouth descended on her neck as if invited. His tongue slithered across it, then brushed his teeth against it. Lowering her eyelids, she sobbed with ecstasy. Awaiting that moment, longing for it.
Yet, there he halted and raised himself up. At her reproachful glance, he broke into an awkward, self-deprecating smile.
“I can’t go beyond this.”
Placing a finger to her soft lips, and whispering to her, he fixed the collar of her kimono and swiftly turned away.
Even though she stared at him with dark eyes, he never turned around. He endured it with all the force of his rational mind. He suppressed a cry by biting the back of his hand.
She gently closed the distance between them and leaned against his broad back. At the instant of contact, his body quivered heavily.
“Why don’t you go all the way?”
Her voice sounded indulgent and sultry as she pleaded with him. He always drew a hot breath before answering.
“I don’t know. Even I have no clue.”
For a moment, she pressed her ear against his. If she didn’t move, neither would he. Apart from the sound of the wind and the birds, all that can be heard were the quiet rhythms of their breathing and their heartbeats. Evidence that they were alive.
Eventually, when the warmth of their bodies began to shift from the parts that were in contact with each other, their bodies were finally separated.
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A summer night. Fireflies were fluttering in a mountain stream. Their light flashed from time to time through the darkness.
They were watching those creatures side by side, with only their ankles immersed in the water, in close proximity. He and she linked their hands, sharing the same sight and hearing the same sound. Like lovers, they leaned against each other.
A single light came toward them. It stopped at her head, eliciting an unintentional chuckle from both of them. The air shifted as they exchanged a look. His lips met her temple as if he were being charmed by the light. Fireflies flew away when they flinched. Alone together amidst the fluttering lights.
The heat pressed closer. However, not in the way she expected. Lips were pressed against her forehead. Yet, nothing beyond that was forthcoming. Impatiently, she clutches his face and pushed it against her neck. All at once, his breathing grew labored.
“Come.”
At her whisper, he shuddered and jerked?then shoved her off with all his force.
Accompanied by a huge splash, she sank into the water. The bubbles she had spewed out were swimming upward through the water. While watching the scene in a daze, two arms soon reached out and pulled her up out of the water.
“…Sorry.”
For what exactly, did he apologize to her as she coughed? They were both soaking wet… If she undid her sash and stripped naked here and now, would he accept her invitation? A momentary flicker of folly prompted her to pout, her eyes twitching and her mouth lifting.
“It’s fine. Do as you please.”
She fashioned a smile and chose words that evoked a look of relief from him. She didn’t want to be hated by him. She had no family. Nowhere else to go. Only he would seek her out and be tender to her.
He laughed as he brushed the dirt off the hem of her soaked kimono.
“Thank goodness it’s summer. Tomorrow will be sunny again, so it will be dry in no time.”
She laughed in return, squeezing the sleeves together.
“Indeed. Had it been winter, I would have been frozen before I could change my clothes.”
While they were fussing, the fireflies had completely dispersed. Walking home, hand in hand, she thought that as long as he was with her, even in the dark, there was nothing to be anxious about.
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An autumn rain. Having waited for quite a long time in the leaking house, the sunny day has finally arrived. The moist mountains have turned perfectly red. While admiring the autumn leaves, they were also diligently gathering dead leaves and fallen fruits. They had to start gathering firewood and make preparations for the winter. Her body was far more fragile than his. Should she be frozen, she would die.
Along with her, he was making his way along the mountain path, picking up things in a basket on his back, when he suddenly looked back at her as she stood there. Turning toward him, she put a finger to her lips and then pointed to the far side of the mountain. There came the cries of the beasts. In search of a mate this time of year, their voices reverberated throughout the mountains.
“This is the season for love.”
She murmured and began walking again.
“When the fruit is ripe, it will sprout in the spring.”
The chestnuts lay in the basket as she sang to herself, and he gingerly turned away from her. There was nothing he could give her. Between them, flowers blossomed yet never bore fruit. No, blooming was a mistake in itself.
“Tomorrow, I’m going hunting. Everybody is fattening up. There will be tasty meat.”
After a moment’s thought, she stopped gathering and turned around. The leaves rustled as they fell.
“For my sake?”
He gave a gentle smile. This time, it was she who averted her gaze first.
On the following day, a splendid deer was taken by him. Carrying the large doe lightly, he called her outside the house. For a moment she was astonished at the unexpectedly large catch, but then her face was awash with joy and she leaped at him.
I am happy, he thought, with the warmth and joy he felt. If only this bliss could have been eternal.
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A winter snowfall. The outside was already totally blanketed in white powder. During this season, they seldom venture out of the house. Firewood was lit on the small sunken hearth of the hut, and the pair covered themselves with a cloth sheet and snuggled into each other to ward off the cold.
His body temperature was high. Now and then a wandering mouth would drift up to her skin. Rarely did she remove herself from him as he licked up and lightly bit her.
“What’s wrong?”
Even when he asked her soothingly, she looked down with a contemplative expression on her face.
“Is it going to be like this forever?”
Waiting and waiting, she blurted out. Her face was not displaying her usual joy.
“The next one will be the seventh spring. How long are you going to keep doing this?”
A hint of trouble flashed across his serene smile before he answered in a muffled voice.
“…Forever.”
“Liar.”
Her hand rested on his large one, hers chilly and cold.
The dark eyes peered into the red ones.
“We can’t be together forever. Only one way is possible.”
“That’s a lie.”
“…You heard a noise yesterday, right? That was probably a hunter. They’re here to hunt.”
“That kind of thing, I will drive them away again.”
“They’ll be coming in such numbers that you won’t be able to overtake them.”
“Then let’s move on to another place. The two of us.”
A small explosion of firewood was heard. Her breath was white.
“Let’s stay together forever.”
Their gazes locked. Repositioning his hands, he gripped her small ones tightly. She looked at him silently.
“I’ll get old. Eventually, I will wane.”
Quietly, silently. She reminded him.
“So, before that happens.”
“No.”
He interrupted her and held her close when she attempted to withdraw from him. Their bodies were so close together that they could hear each other’s heartbeats. The urge assailed him for the umpteenth time, yet he withstood it with a snarl, keeping his hands wrapped tightly around hers.
“Because once you do that, we can’t be together anymore.”
Resisting the heat, turning his ears away from his instincts, he strained to hold her in his arms. She extended her hand and ran her fingers over there, a place she normally wouldn’t touch.
On his forehead was something she didn’t have.
It was a single horn.
“Why won’t you eat?”
For the first time since they met, the question was posed to him. Looking into those deep-colored eyes, he answered.
“I don’t know. But I do know that if I eat, it will be the end of everything.”
The coldness of her palm was soon replaced by the heat of his touch. Her coldness, though, surely did not affect him.
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The end? That was known from the moment it started.
Everyone was dead. Alone, she had fled to this mountain. She thought it would be fine to be devoured by the rumored man-eating demon, and that she would like to end up being eaten, and so she stepped into his domain.
Yet the demon did not eat her. On many occasions he has impulsively made an attempt to bite her, but never advanced from that point. He said he did not know why. He has never mentioned that he liked her. Nor has she told him that she liked him. They were a demon and a human being. The heart yearned to cling to common sense even though something bizarre had already unfolded, that such feelings could not possibly develop.
The demon that did not eat her fetched fruits and animals for her to eat, and took her by the hand to walk in the mountain with her, because she was reluctant. The demon taught her about the mountain. Flowers in spring, trees in summer, fruits in autumn, snow in winter… The demon showed her all sorts of things. For her. Only for her. In time, her frozen expression began to thaw, and before long she remembered how to laugh.
Everything was so forgettable in that moment of happiness.
Even so, time will fly when alive.
Since the moment they met, the demon has not aged. Once small, she somehow became as tall as he, who was petite.
The mountain, which was truly tranquil in the beginning with just the two of them, has recently experienced an increase in the number of people coming into the mountain, little by little, but steadily. Armed with weapons, roaming the mountains as if searching for something.
Even the mountain they inhabited was not all that friendly to them. Winter brought severe hardship every time, and at times, they would starve without successfully finding food.
More than anything else, the relationship has been established entirely on the whims of the demon. All he had to do was put a little pressure on her chin. Just like that, and everything would be back to normal.
She knew it, and so did he. No destination awaited them both. The end will arrive, late or early, that was all.
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Even if they remained together, she would fade away. Regardless of how many miracles may overlap, it was bound to happen that she would leave him alone at the end of the day.
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Before that can happen.
Before someone intrusive would end it, or die in a dull accident, or both of them would change because of the changes.
Will this beautiful time please stop as it was?
Will that mouth devour it all and unite as one? Only that way can there be a blissful end.
Oh, but once it was over, they would never see each other again.
Foolishly afraid, she was the same as the demon.
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Bathed in a body temperature higher than that of a human, she dreamily and peacefully closed her eyes. In a trance, she dreamed of two happy people.
Even though she was aware that there was no such thing anywhere.
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The sun has set, the night has fallen, and the morning will rise again.
Winter has passed and spring has begun.
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Today, she still played with him like a lover, casually showing him her skin, pressing her body against his and seducing him.
Again, he behaved like a timid lover and did not eat her yet.
He still won’t eat her.