The young woman was walking down a corridor lit by yellow electric wall lamps, through which the silhouettes of people she didn't know were strolling. But she ignored them as she headed for the side exit of the building.
As she approached the door, it suddenly swung wide, revealing a bush of white roses growing in the garden in the distance, lit by the sun.
'...I have to...'
She moved quickly towards the patio exit, but was unable to reach her destination. The wooden door suddenly closed with a bang, followed by the clink of keys twisting the lock on the door...
'... someone closed the library's door...'
Her feet stood on a mountain made of books in dark, burnt covers, and the shelves from which they had previously been thrown, were on fire... Everything began to be devoured by the flames...
'I'll never get out of here... never... NEVER!'
****
Emiko woke up screaming, trying to sit up on the bed because of her nerves, but at the same moment she felt an incredibly intense pain that forced her to stay where she was. In an instant, she remembered everything. The headache was gone, but this time she felt numbness in her back and in the still tied wrists.
'Since it's still evening, I haven't slept very long...' she thought, looking around the room, where was completely dark, not counting the faint streak of light from under the door. After a while she heard footsteps approaching, and after a few seconds the door was opened. The room in which she was staying was immediately filled with a strong beam of light, which began to hurt her eyes mercilessly.
"Good evening, my dear. Did you sleep well?" The girl narrowed her eyes. Johan looked at her with such a heartfelt smile as if she were in a holiday resort on her summer holidays. The man was dressed in a light, well-fitting gray suit and a white shirt tied with a blue tie that perfectly emphasized the color of his eyes.
"What do you think?" She growled, clearly displeased. The formal outfit and the fact that Johan seemed to be in a good mood, as long as the term "good mood" suited him at all... she began to feel extremely uncomfortable.
'Where had he been for such a short period of time?' She thought, but quickly put away this thought in order to keep the last bit of common sense and inner peace, just for her own good. Johan chuckled.
"I am thinking about many things now, Emiko... and I am absolutely sure that you wouldn't want to know most of them." He was still staring at her with that careless smirk of his, as if he was watching an interesting exhibition at an art museum. The girl was almost grateful to her back pain, which distracted her from other thoughts, for example about how his presence and his present appearance affected her well-being. "I think a warm shower would be good for you. You don't look very good." Emiko looked at him hesitantly. Did he just say "shower"? Confused, she continued to stare at him, slowly becoming aware of something. The fire in the library and the omnipresent smell of a smoke... The young woman realized that her current smell was like a smoked fish's one, taken straight from the barbecue; which by the way, she didn't particularly like. But taking a shower in a flat shared with... a man... No. It was a bad idea. Very bad.
Her thoughts however, took too long, because in that time Johan managed to get closer and slightly bend over her lying figure.
"Emiko..." He began, slowly picking up one of the ends of the rope that her hands were tied to the bed's railing, and playing with it for a moment. "Because I consider you an intelligent person, I believe you understand what kind of behavior I would not like to see after I untie you, or, what consequences this may have on the people you are close to." From his pocket, he pulled a small, retractable knife. "You know where my short speech is suppose to going, right?" The girl watched his hand as it deftly twisted the knife several times. Johan turned his attention back on her, having his gentle, undisturbed smile on his face. "Right?"
She understood all too well.
"In the bathroom you will find fresh towels and clothes. I think they will suit you." The young woman got up from the bed, slightly rubbing her sore wrists with her hands, and went out into the corridor. She didn't have to look long for her way, because the bathroom was in the second door, on the left side. She quickly stepped inside and closed it behind her.
For a moment she stood in the middle of the room and listened to any suspicious sounds, but apart from Johan's footsteps through the corridor in the opposite direction from the room she was in, nothing else happened. She began to look carefully around. The room was rather simple, with no unnecessary decorations, and at the same time remarkably clean. In the corner there was a small cupboard in which Emiko found a clean towel and clothes.
'Is it really safe to take a shower here? Why would this demon suddenly be so generous?' She thought, still hesitating, but the truth was, she needed it badly. Eventually she sighed, deciding that she didn't care anymore.
When she felt the pleasantly warm water on her skin, she began to feel a slowly returning calm within her. She rested her hands on the cold tiles on the wall, pressed her face against it, and began to think about everything that had happened since the fire in the library. It was certain that Johan could use against her everything, what he learned to this point. She decided to remain calm, a rational thinking and find a solution to the current situation. She intentionally (and quite painfully) banged her head against the wall, making her feel sane again.
'This isn't the right time to torment myself. Think, think... think!' The girl grabbed a bottle of shampoo in her hands and rubbed it into her hair, trying by this simple everyday activity to drive the madness away from her, as far as possible. A madness that waited to eat her soul like a hungry hyena - the one with blue eyes and blonde hair. 'Does he live here or is it a place specially arranged for me?' She looked suspiciously at the shampoo bottle that looked quite expensive. She didn't like much the mere thought of sharing cosmetics with Johan at this point, but it was true that she had more serious problems to solve right now. 'Certainly this hotel belongs to one of his pawns, so there's no point in shouting for help. I'm curious, at what address it is located. The fire happened around 7 p.m. and I woke up here in the evening... so it can't be far away from Munich. It means that... there is a chance that Dr. Reichwein, Dieter or the others could look for me and put themselves in additional danger... As long as they weren't caught...' At the very thought, she shuddered, but thought for a moment and threw it away, shaking her head. 'No... He's definitely watching them. If he caught him or them, he could get in trouble. From what I've noticed, he likes to do things in an elegant way.' Emiko swallowed loudly. 'But with Onii-chan and Nina-chan...' She admitted to herself that she wasn't entirely sure what Johan's plans were for the two. She was sure however, he wouldn't kill any of them, because of what he expected from her brother... or maybe even from his sister? So she decided to put that worry aside. 'Maybe I could defeat him somehow... But even if... There is a good chance that his peopl-... his pawns already know everything and they will take action anyway... He is too cunning... I can't risk that much.' Kenzo's face appeared before her eyes, making Emiko turn on a stream of icy water, which automatically sobered her up. She turned off the tap.
She realized that the scope of her action was reduced to two options: Either she had to somehow find a way to escape when Johan will go out somewhere again, or she would negotiate with him. But in order to negotiate with someone like him, first of all they both had to deal with the most obvious question she hadn't asked yet. A question that was terrifying her to the bones.
"What do you want from me? Why am I here?" She quietly whispered to the inside of the towel, slowly drying her face. She felt she needed an answer to it as soon as possible. In the meantime, there was nothing else to do but try to turn off all emotions and completely ignore the humiliation inflicted on her by the monster, which was undeniably about to come. Johan undoubtedly knew a lot about her, really a lot, and he was willing to use it against her at the nearest opportunity.
****
After leaving the bathroom, she found herself in a small corridor, then turned her steps in the direction from which there was a slight noise. She stopped near the only entrance in the apartment that didn't have a door, which was leading to a small kitchen. Johan was standing in front of the stove, closing the oven door and slightly wiggling its knob.
Is he... COOKING something?
At that moment her jaw dropped. The mere thought of it seemed too bizarre to her in the present situation, especially after the recent events and her current situation, but judging by what her eyes were just seeing, there was no doubt about it.
"Do you feel better now?" He asked in a low voice, still busy with the oven knobs.
'This demon can even cook in a white shirt and tie, while not getting his hands dirty...'
"Er..." It was all she could say at that moment. Johan turned to face her; there was a small, slightly noticeable smile on his lips.
"You didn't expect that I can cook?"
"...No." Emiko simply admitted he was right, too surprised by the strangeness of the whole situation to look for a better answer.
"You must not have eaten much since you spent all night and most of the day at the top of the bookshelf?"
"No." It was definitely not going into the right direction. 'Eh... it's just... Give me a break.' She thought resigned.
"What were you thinking about when you were in the shower?" Emiko started gawk at him. He certainly wasn't wasting the time trying to push her as far away from her comfort zone as possible.
"Johan wha..." She began, swallowing loudly. She saw his expression as innocent as he could muster. "...What do you want from me?" This so innocent face, at that moment, looked almost delighted.
"That's what I thought, you'd finally find the courage to ask me about it. However, I am afraid that you will not be satisfied with my answer. But first... come and sit here." The man waved his hand at the chair at the table and the girl slowly walked over to sit down... or at least that was what she was going to do, until she saw that this monster was taking the handcuffs out of the pocket of the jacket that hung on the other chair.
"Wa... Wait! We agreed that I wouldn't do anything... wrong. You don't have to tie me by anything!" In Emiko's mind, thoughts started to run like crazy. 'If he ties me here, I may never get a chance to... Maybe I should just... But the knife...'
"It is true." He agreed with a completely calm voice. "Despite this, I want to. So sit still and put your hands behind your back." His face was calm... too calm. However, for a split second the young woman noticed that his eyes narrowed slightly... Or was she just imagining things? The truth was however, that she had no choice. Frustrated, she fell onto a chair.
"Does that give you a little more control over the situation?" She muttered under her breath, simultaneously placing her hands behind her back, as she was told; however, she immediately regretted her comment as soon as she heard a burst of laughter behind her.
"My dear, dear Emiko..." Johan purred sweetly, leaning in just enough that his breath rubbed gently against her neck; the girl's hair almost stood on it's end. "The way you react to me shows that it is enough for me to be around you if I want to be in control of the situation. Isn't it?" He spoke it softly, but she heard all-too-well everything he said. "Although, to be honest, this is not my main goal." At that moment she flinched helplessly, her voice stuck in her throat. "Isn't it, Emiko?" His words were uttered in a whisper, and the girl realized with a horror that his lips were even closer to her neck than before. In an instant, she felt as if her entire body was completely numb, and a moment later, a lot of ants began to moving on it.
'What he...'
"I don't know... what... are you... talking about." She stammered out through the clenched teeth.
"You do not know?" Johan spoke it straight into her ear, making her bite her lips with all her might to muffle a scream full of horror.
'What is he DOING?!'
"Oh." He immediately stepped back and began handcuffing her, adjusting the length of the chain accordingly. "Your palms are all sweaty." He muttered casually, then turned back to her side. The young woman stared straight at the floor, well aware that her face must have looked like a ripe tomato, and that her breathing was clearly irregular. She swallowed hard.
'That's what trying to play a mind game with him leads to. There is no point in saying anything... Or paying attention to anything but what is absolutely necessary. Everything else is just... self-destructive. I have to ignore this nonsense...' Emiko tried at all costs to remove all those strange Johan's words from her mind, as far as possible, when he pulled up a second chair for himself and sat down in front of her. However, nothing indicated that her situation would improve in the near future. Looking at the floor like that, she decided she was quitting playing at any games here and now. Whatever his true intention was, he undeniably wanted to have some entertainment out of it.
'And I won't give you that for sure.' She thought, determined.
"Tell me what you really expect." She took up the subject again, trying to fit in with Johan's incredibly calm voice. "If you want to kill me, just do it already."
"I'm not going to kill you, Emiko. You and Dr. Tenma are supposed to erase my existence, don't you remember?" His voice seemed to be too close to her; his tone was like an adult, patiently explaining an obvious fact to a confused child. "We'd better look at your face now." The young woman, through all the commotion, had completely forgotten that first something... or someone knocked her out in the library, and then she must have fallen onto the floor, which, by the way, was definitely not a comfortable place; especially since in the enormous chaos that prevailed there, something angular or sharp could lie on it...
His fingers felt warm and soft to the touch as they came into contact on either side of her face, but she felt as if sharp icicles touched her. Icicles so icy that... burned her skin.
"Don't even try..." She hissed, trying to shake off his hands, but his touch was light, yet persistent.
'DON'T TOUCH me. Insult me as you like, but DON'T... TOUCH...'
"Stop fidgeting. I need to see if you have any wounds that need to be dealt with." Gently but firmly, he raised her face up, and Emiko tried to calm down at all costs. At this moment, resisting was undoubtedly a way to persuade him to continue - it was like playing a role throughout this absurd game. So she kept staring at the floor while Johan examined her face, carefully twisting it from side to side.
'At last, could you stop LOOKING at me? Jesus...' She felt as if his gaze was penetrating her, making the blood in her veins inexplicably alternately boil and freeze.
As if hearing her inner pleas, the man suddenly let go of her face and turned slightly to get something from the cupboard above the sink.
"Your face doesn't look that bad after all." His hands were holding a small bottle of disinfectant and a piece of gauze.
'Oh really? And what about it?' She thought, still not uttering a single word.
"You decided never to talk to me again?" The young woman silently watched as Johan applied successive drops of antibacterial substance to the gauze.
"You still haven't answered my question." She cleverly turned his question aside, holding her breath slightly as the young man touched the soaked cotton ball to the cut at her eyebrow.
"Shh..." He said, and although his voice turned out to be very soothing, it had a completely different effect on Emiko.
"Could you finally STOP treating me like a child?!" She bursted out unexpectedly, looking straight at him. "I'm an adult, exactly the same age as you, and I don't think any of this is needed! I can dress my wounds myself!" Johan leaned back a little for a moment, apparently amused by her outburst, then covered the wound by her eyebrow with a band-aid.
"You know..." He began, still smoothing it with one finger; while looking into her eyes, which made her think she was lost in a wide sea, far from any human civilization. "...I've always wanted to do this."
"What, playing a doctor?" Young Tenma tried to put her feet on a firm ground, with the last of her inner strength.
"No. To touch your face."
All the stable ground collapsed in an instant and Emiko fell into that abyss, and her heart literally stopped. She stared at his calm face, and he held that gaze unfazed.
"I like your long hair when it is loose like this."
By now she was staring at him with her mouth open, and the question marks were pounding in her mind. Not that his words and actions made sense to her, but THIS made even less of it. She felt as if her stomach clenched, which... was even more devoid of it.
"Coming back to the question of why I brought you here..." The sentence itself sounded promising, but Emiko couldn't fully focus on its content, as she tried to suppress the shivering caused by his hand touching her cheek. But that wasn't the worst of it.
It was much worse that her brain was still unable to cope with processing all of this information into any sensation or thoughts - as if it was an old computer processor that, out of the blue, decided to crash.
In her life, she had people she liked and with whom she was very close, but at the same time she wasn't a person who felt comfortable being touched by a stranger. Especially if this stranger was a man. Especially if that man was Johan, the Monster. She treasured her personal space a lot, and Johan brutally and deliberately attacked her with his hands and his face (which, by the way, was close - too close because it was watching what his hands were doing). Though his touch was clearly gentle, which seemed strange to her after all the crimes they had committed. She was unable to focus on anything other than the feel of his fingertips against her skin, which made her feel confusion, humiliation, and madness at the same time.
So she frantically tried to focus her thoughts on something else, literally on anything: how her brother might be feeling now, what her friends in Japan might be doing, the pleasant smell coming from the stove... But it was to no avail, because Johan's presence was just like some sort of a straitjacket that restricted her far more than the handcuffs on her wrists.
"...I didn't plan it, so there is no deeper meaning behind it." She realized with horror that continuing this conversation had become an unspeakable effort for her.
"Oh... I thought you always had a plan." Emiko managed to choke out when the man started staring at the window behind her back.
"Well, it is true, and you didn't play the part sorted for you, as you should. I mentioned before that I am very disappointed."
'Like I care.'
"If your plan is to kill yourself, why don't you do it yourself?" She cautiously suggested, turning her head and this time looking in his direction. She was actually ready to die, but playing with the monster that was so close didn't seem like a very good idea. The young man sighed and shook his head, causing a few strands of blonde hair to fall over his forehead.
"You still do not understand." Johan was still watching the unfamiliar sight through the window, his eyes turning inexplicably for a second, then back to normal. "I do not want to die like this. I want my existence to be erased when I stay as a last. The library was a good alternative to thousands of years of human wisdom burning to dust." His face was a little dreamy, and at the same time, there was something of a little sadness. One corner of his mouth curled as if at the shadow of a smile. The girl didn't expect that he would turn out to be so honest in the conversation with her and she wasn't sure if she would be able to endure it.
"You played with the lives of all these people just to create yourself the perfect scenario for your own death?"
"Mhm."
"But... why?"
"You can't understand it because you have a name." He replied, and their eyes met again and Emiko felt once again immersed in this immeasurable and at the same time so calm ocean, in which there was no hope for any rescue. "I want others to be able to see the scenery for a doomsday as well, even if only for a short while." At that moment, in this immeasurable ocean, mysterious monsters from the depths appeared, lurking beneath its calm surface and waiting to consume her at any moment.
'Why have you become like this? How could an ordinary man... become like this?' She felt deeply disturbed and at the same time strangely touched by his voice, which spoke the most unimaginable things in such an inhumanly calm manner. She was almost relieved as Johan slowly rose from his chair and their eye contact ended.
"But back to the main topic. I figured it would be interesting to spend some time together. That's all."
'Er... HUH?!'
"In fact..." He looked directly at her. "...We play important roles in one another's life, and we know so little of each other." Johan smiled. "Although I know quite a lot about you, Emiko..." He leaned over, then gently put his thumb on her cheek and stroked her with it.
"...!!!"
"You don't have to be so nervous."
"YOU BASTARD!"
"Such a vocabulary from a such well-bred woman like you?" The man smiled coldly, leaning back. Apparently, he was pleased that Emiko, being beyond the barrier of peace, was seething with anger.
'You're a lot more screwed up than I thought. MUCH MUCH MORE.'
Johan began to laying out the plates without a hurry, and the girl clenched her fists tightly behind her back, not quite sure if she was more mad at him or at herself. And whether what she was feeling right now was the real fury or... the pure panic.
'Will it NEVER end?!'
"Ah, much better now." Said the young man standing on the other side of the table, then slowly approached her again. "Your face must still hurt a little..." He announced, then with a gentle movement of his hand he stroked the plaster on her eyebrow again.
"Stop it already!" The young woman felt uneasily concerned that her voice sounded almost as if she was out of breath. Johan's hand stopped and he began to stare at her silently, then his gaze lingered on her... lips? Her heart stopped for a long moment in her chest, only to be turned into a throbbing chaos immediately afterwards.
"Yes... MUCH better..."
'No... You're not going to... You can't... It can't...!" She didn't finish her thought, because the silence was suddenly broken by a sharp beeps. The girl jumped up where she was sitting in a sudden panic rush.
"Dinner's ready." The young man got up from his chair and went to the stove, and Emiko rested her head on the backrest and closed her eyes as she tried to regain control over everything, especially her breathing. She had never felt such fear in her life, even when an unknown man had her brother at the gunpoint of a rifle in the library. That what happened just seconds ago... It couldn't be what it appeared to be. It was just impossible. It was...
There was an unexpected little noise behind her, after which she noticed that her handcuffs had been removed. So she began to fight with all her willpower remaining to resist the overwhelming urge to jump straight out of her chair and run towards the apartment's front door; or - where she expected it might be.
"So? Let's eat." The girl forced herself to open her eyes and grab the fork.
The adrenaline in her blood was so high that just trying to swallow something made her sick. Nevertheless, it was true that she was hungry, quite a lot, and the food was definitely better than anything else that might have happened right now.
Things she never dreamed of even in her worst nightmares.
_______________________________________________________________
(...) his touch was light, but persistent. (...)
I had an association with so annoying mosquito that attacks just before the rain xD At that moments these beasts bite like hell.