Chapter Text
February 14th. Valentine's Day.
A day that belongs to roses, chocolates, heart-shaped cards; to lovers' whispers by candlelight; to everyone who believes in love.
It also belongs to blood.
She had begun her flight the night before this day. A bespectacled blonde girl, using someone else's name, her backpack containing a past she could never return to.
Now she was driving north, from California to Oregon, leaving an entire city's lights behind. The weather here wasn't good; the wipers swung mechanically across the windshield, clearing one layer only for another to blur it again. On either side of the highway were fir forests, receding darkly into the distance. Occasionally, a truck's high beams would pierce towards her, and she'd squint instinctively, then remember she was wearing glasses—no, someone else's glasses.
In a daze, she recalled her original name... what name? No, she shouldn't think about it. From now on, her name was Ayaka Sajyou.
Before Valentine's Day arrived, Ayaka—oh right, at this point she should be called by her original name—had once thought herself the most unfortunate, yet also the most fortunate person in the world.
Her original surname she no longer wished to mention. Since she could remember, her parents' violence towards her had never ceased. As a young child, she often couldn't lift her arms properly because the area around her shoulder blades was perpetually bruised. She learned to carefully avoid the sore spots while putting on her school uniform, learned to explain to her P.E. teacher why she always avoided the locker room.
Perhaps being born into such a situation was misfortune itself. But ironically, the home she didn't want to mention wasn't actually short of money. On the contrary, it was precisely those interests and an insatiable greed that constituted the entirety of that family. Love? That word had never existed. She only remembered her mother pulling her hair, demanding why she was still causing them trouble; her father choking her, saying it was because of her they couldn't divorce.
But even someone as unfortunate as her had one stroke of luck—she was good at studying. Books were her refuge, medicine her salvation. When she received the acceptance letter from a renowned medical university in England, she smiled for the first time in that house. If she could just fly away from the States, everything would be fine. She believed that.
She was wrong.
That very night, the upscale neighborhood was unnaturally quiet. She remembered her parents arguing, remembered them fighting from the living room into the kitchen, remembered that somehow, the kitchen knife had ended up in her hand. And then?
Then her father and mother started fighting over the knife.
She remembered their hands overlapping hers on the handle, their nails digging into her wrists. She remembered them cursing each other as they fought, cursing her too. She remembered closing her eyes, remembering screams, remembering warm liquid splashing onto her face.
When she opened her eyes, two people lay in a pool of blood.
She looked down at her hands. The knife was still there. But the blade was undeniably red, a viscous red.
She couldn't remember. Who had moved first? Had she ever let go? At some point, had the knife been entirely in her grip?
She couldn't remember. She seemed to have pushed open a door, and then... she walked out.
When she became aware again, it must have been three hours ago. Yes, she was standing on the driveway of that house, watching the rain wash the bloodstains from the cement. The blood, diluted by water into a pale pink, flowed with the runoff into the drainage ditch. She didn't know how long she stood there, only that eventually, a neighbor's dog barking brought her back. She went back inside, changed clothes, stuffed the bloodied T-shirt into a trash bag, and threw it into a large dumpster by the roadside. Then she took the car keys and removed the license plates from the car in the garage.
The car was her father's, a Lexus he had never allowed her to drive. But he didn't need it anymore.
She stopped once at a gas station, using some of the not-inconsiderable cash she had to buy food and water. Afterwards, she pulled off the highway onto a gravel road. Two letters were burnt out on the motel's neon sign. She stared blankly at the remaining ones, trying to piece them together. R_D _ION INN? Red Lion Inn, something like that.
At the reception was a middle-aged man in pajamas, clearly roused from bed by her. He squinted, sizing her up—a young blonde girl, alone, past 2 AM, wearing glasses still speckled with rain—perhaps suspicious by any measure?
She clenched her fists, trying to shake off the anxiety crowding her mind, to steady herself further. But the sleepy, laid-back middle-aged man clearly wasn't bothered by her; he just slid a registration form across the counter towards her.
"How long?" the innkeeper asked.
"One night, no... make it three nights for now." In the blank space, she carefully wrote "Ayaka Sajyou" in somewhat clumsy English letters, making the slant of her handwriting more pronounced than usual. She would have to remember this slant, she thought. In the previous column on the form, she saw another name already registered: Richard I. Only that, no surname.
"Like a king's alias..." she muttered involuntarily, then shook her head. She shouldn't focus on that; a king was unlikely to appear in a remote motel like this.
After filling in the information, she handed the form along with the cash. The innkeeper counted it, didn't ask for her ID. In a small place like this, such things weren't necessary.
"The rooms upstairs on the second floor are occupied. Take 107." With that, the man went back to his room to sleep, leaving her envious of his utter indifference and lack of curiosity towards any anomalies around him.
She was, for the time being, handed a key, but it didn't really matter. Walking down the long corridor lined with doors on both sides, she found the door to 107 was broken; it was already ajar when she tried to push it open. She wedged a chair against it. The sheets had cigarette burns. The radiator clanked. The weather outside hadn't improved; rain drummed against the poorly insulated windowpane with a steady patter. She sat on the edge of the bed, noticing her hands were trembling.
She looked down at them. They were slender hands with long fingers, nails cut short, old scars from childhood on the knuckles. These hands had once turned countless pages of medical textbooks, held scalpels in the lab, dreamed of one day using them to save people.
Now she didn't know what she was supposed to do with them.
Accompanied by the sound of rain, she took off the plain glasses, placed them on the nightstand, and lay down, staring at a crack on the ceiling where a faint water stain seemed to spread.
She thought of the real Senpai Ayaka. It was from a high school exchange program. The senior was a year older, had come from Japan, and stayed with a host family. They'd met a few times in the school library. Later, the senior started approaching her to chat, saying it was fate that their names sounded the same. The senior showed her photos of Japan: temples in Kyoto, streets in Osaka, and a small clinic with a "Sajyou" nameplate hanging outside, which the senior said was her family's.
"My parents are both doctors," the senior said. "I'm going to study medicine too."
She remembered laughing and saying, me too.
Two Ayakas, both wanting to study medicine. The senior had found those plain glasses and put them on her nose, joking that she already had an older sister, and now she had a twin.
That was one of the few warm moments she could recall.
Now she used that warmth to bury herself.
She closed her eyes. In the darkness, the two figures in the pool of blood reappeared. She tried to think of something else—the Oregon fir forests, the broken neon sign, the strangely king-like guest's name, the indifferent innkeeper—but the blood always seeped back.
Maybe around 3 or 4 AM, she finally fell asleep, but sleep brought no respite—her dreams were full of blood, her parents lying on the kitchen floor in the exact same positions. She stood between them, holding the knife, the red on the blade dripping down, drop by drop. She tried to drop the knife, but her hand wouldn't obey. She tried to scream, but no sound came from her throat.
She woke with a jolt.
Her heart was pounding so hard it felt like it would burst from her throat. She gasped, staring at the ceiling, trying to distinguish dream from reality.
Then she felt it.
Something was falling on her face.
Warm. Sticky. Drop. Another drop.
She reached up to touch. Her fingertips met a patch of wetness. She brought her fingers close to her eyes—in the dim light, she couldn't make out the color, but she knew what it was.
That sweet, metallic smell, she had inhaled it just hours ago.
Her gaze traveled upwards.
The ceiling. That crack. That water stain.
Now the stain was growing. The color was deepening. At its edge, droplets were forming, and then—another drop fell, landing squarely on her forehead.
Blood.
Blood seeping down from the floor above.
She lay motionless on the bed, staring at the ceiling, watching the dark stain slowly expand. Many voices screamed inside her head, but her body was pinned to the bed as if by nails, completely unresponsive.
There were sounds from upstairs.
Not footsteps. Softer sounds. Like something being dragged across the floor. Like someone talking. She could only discern that the voice was male, but it was too low for her to make out the words.
She should call the police. She should run. She should do anything a normal person would do... right?
But in the end, she just sat up in bed, put on her shoes, opened the door, and stepped into the corridor.
The corridor was empty. She looked up at the stairwell—the light was as dim as when she'd entered, just that yellowish hue that made the whole world seem draped in a layer of dust.
One step. Two steps. Three. She began to ascend, her steps light. The second-floor corridor was identical to the first, a long hallway with doors on both sides, numbers on them. 201. 203. 205. 209 was on the other side. She stopped when she reached 207.
The door to 207 was also ajar, but clearly not like the broken lock on 107; it seemed more like someone had deliberately left it cracked open, to observe the corridor. Through that gap, a warm yellow light seeped out, different from the dim stairwell light—this was from the room's lamp.
She stood at the door for a moment, wanting to turn back, to go downstairs. If she just returned to 107 now, wedged the chair against the door again, pretended nothing had happened, then driven away at dawn to find another place, maybe... maybe she could escape...?
But her hand was already raised, and the door swung open silently before her.
The scene inside the room unfolded before her eyes like a painting—a painting she, with her medical knowledge, having seen countless anatomical diagrams, had never truly witnessed.
A man was tied to the chair directly opposite the door.
Middle-aged. Bare-chested. Covered in wounds—not the fatal kind, but the kind meant to make someone bleed slowly, feel pain slowly. His head hung on his chest; she couldn't tell if he was unconscious or dead. Beneath him was a pool of blood, already spread wide, soaking the carpet until it could absorb no more, slowly seeping towards the door.
And standing opposite that man was another young man—
Slightly older than her, but definitely not over twenty-five. Blonde hair braided, with a few streaks of dark red woven in. He wore a deep red long-sleeved jacket, sleeves rolled to his elbows, revealing forearms spattered with a few dark marks. He held a knife, its tip dripping something. He was half-turned towards her, looking down at the figure in the chair, as if admiring his handiwork, or waiting for something.
Then he turned his head. Those crimson eyes met hers.
She saw his pupils contract like a predator's finally spotting its prey. She wanted to scream, but something seemed lodged in her throat. She didn't realize she should run until the man started walking towards her.
Of course, the thought eventually occurred to her. But just as she began to turn, his fingers had already closed around her wrist.
His hand was cold, his grip far too strong for her to break free. He pulled her from the doorway into the room, and the door closed softly behind her with a gentle click.
Then she was sinking into something soft.
A bed.
Her back hit the mattress; the springs groaned dully beneath her. The man's body followed, pressing her down, one hand holding her wrist, pinning her arm above her head. His face was very close—close enough for her to smell him. Not the smell of blood. It was a faint, sweet scent of laundry detergent. Like flowers dried in the sun. Clean. Soft. Completely at odds with this room, this night, and what this man had just done.
Too absurd, too absurd. He was killing someone. The man on the chair was still bleeding, maybe not even dead yet. But he smelled like a rich kid just back from Sunday service.
Her heart was pounding fit to burst, but she couldn't move. The man's face drew closer to hers, but those eyes glowed red in the warm lamplight. He looked so considerate, so gentle, watching her so calmly. She tried to turn her head away, feeling his breath ghosting across her face, one breath after another. She instinctively wanted to avoid this man's gaze, not because of fear, at least not solely, but because there was something in those eyes, something she couldn't name, something that reminded her of the night before, of that kitchen, of the two people on the floor.
After what felt like an eternity of this silent staring, he spoke, his voice soft, as if making conversation.
"You saw."
It wasn't a question.
She didn't answer.
He tilted his head slightly, the blonde braid slipping forward, dangling before her eyes.
"What's your name?"
She felt her legs repositioned, her body shifted under his, forcing her to look directly into his pupils. She should have lied, made up a name. She shouldn't have spoken. But the words left her lips involuntarily:
"Aya... ka..."
The same name as Sajyou-senpai. Her real name.
Realizing she had spoken as if bewitched, she snapped back: "Let go of me... My name is Ayaka. Surname Sajyou. Ayaka Sajyou. Knowing that should be enough, right?"
"Ayaka?" The man seemed utterly unconcerned with the surname; he just rolled the syllables around in his mouth, then nodded. "Okay, Ayaka. I'm Richard."
She realized then—that was the name of the guest who seemed like a king.
His hand still held her wrist. His body still pinned her. The knife was in his other hand, point down, less than a foot from her face. But suddenly she felt he wouldn't kill her. Not now, at least.
There was no sound from outside. The room was quiet too. Only the occasional faint noise from the man tied to the chair—he was still alive. And with her medical knowledge, a full-grown adult male, say 180 pounds, with blood loss reaching a certain percentage, would die. Looking at that pool of blood now—she glanced at its size—soon, he wouldn't last much longer.
Noticing her glance towards where she shouldn't, Richard, after binding her hands with cord, used his free hand to turn her face back towards him.
"Ayaka, your room is downstairs."
Another statement.
She nodded. The motion was harder than expected; her neck felt rusted.
"Oh, so it was a ceiling problem. Sorry about that, Ayaka. Having to deal with a leak when you're trying to sleep in a place like this at night must be really troublesome, right?"
There was even a hint of—apology?—in his tone as he said it. And why, exactly, was he already calling her by her name so casually, as if it were nothing?
She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Given that she was tied up, an apology didn't mean he'd let her go. But regardless, this man called Richard finally got off the bed, and she could only slowly adjust her position and sit up.
"That person..."
She spoke, her voice already hollow, looking at the middle-aged man, the third person in the room besides them.
Richard glanced back at the figure in the chair. The man's head was still hanging, his chest no longer visibly rising or falling.
"His name's Derrick." Richard's tone was as flat as if introducing a neighbor. "He comes here every month to see a girl. That girl is fifteen. She was sold into this life on this road when she was thirteen. Derrick was the fourth, maybe fifth, man to take over her."
He turned back to look at her.
"He said he loved her."
The three words left his mouth with an indescribable irony. Or maybe not irony—something colder than irony.
"What do you think, Ayaka? Do you think that's love?" he asked.
She tried to speak. She didn't know what she wanted to say. That the man deserved to die? That he shouldn't have killed him? That Richard should have left scum like this to the law? To say none of it mattered, because that man was already dead, or nearly dead, and she was sitting here on this murderer's bed, hair still sticky with blood from his knife.
They were going to die anyway, just like her father and mother.
"Ayaka Sajyou" lowered her head despondently, saying nothing.
She heard a faint sigh, like air being squeezed from lungs, passing through a throat—the death rattle of the man.
Richard glanced over his shoulder, then turned back.
"Ah, it's over," he said, then added, almost reassuringly, "Don't worry, the innkeeper here only checks the rooms every few days. I'll take care of this place and your room. Oh, and Ayaka, even though the bed downstairs is dirty from the leak, this bed is clean—want to come sleep here?"
She looked down at her bound hands. The rope bit into her wrists, stinging slightly.
"With me tied up like this," her voice sounded hoarse, not her own, "I can't exactly go downstairs, can I?"
"Right." Richard nodded, as if just realizing the problem. He walked over to the bed and, very naturally, bent down to start binding her ankles, his movements gentle, almost tender. "You did see, after all. If I let you go free, the only option would be to silence you."
He didn't even look up as he said it.
She watched his blonde braid sway slightly in the light, the dark red strands mingling like blood seeping into a wheat field. This man's method of killing was appallingly crude—especially to her, someone who had studied medicine, who knew where the carotid artery was, how to make someone lose consciousness in thirty seconds, how to make blood flow quickly and quietly. But this man called Richard, he seemed to have deliberately chosen the most painful, slowest, most... utterly bungling method.
Like a child picking up a knife for the first time, frightened by the blood, yet mesmerized by it. Just playing.
She suddenly felt exhausted by this thought. But those memories she didn't want to recall flickered before her again. She saw the kitchen, the viscous blood, her parents on the floor.
She knew the fastest way to kill someone. And back then... if she had actually killed someone, too?
What if her hands—these bound hands—had truly done that too?
She thought of the police. The harsh white light of the interrogation room. The questions: Did you hate them? When did you start hating them? Do you remember the feeling of the knife going in? Do you regret it?
She thought of how those questions would dig up her past, piece by piece. They'd find the faded bruises on her arms, ask what happened. She'd have to speak those names—the names of people she desperately wanted to forget, people who had never protected her.
And then?
Then maybe they'd call it self-defense. Maybe they'd call it justifiable homicide. Maybe she'd go to prison, maybe not. But either way, those questions would follow her forever, burrowing into her mind like maggots, turning up everything she had tried so hard to bury.
How her parents beat her, called her a burden. How they fought over that knife in that bright kitchen, fought over her hand holding it—compared to that, compared to being found and judged by those adults, maybe...
She spoke suddenly.
"Mr. Richard."
"Oh, Ayaka! You're calling my name!"
Richard looked up, those crimson eyes startlingly bright in the lamplight, like the pupils of some nocturnal creature. Honestly, aside from the real Sajyou-senpai, the current Ayaka had never seen anyone look at her so intently, yet act like a patient person genuinely listening to a friend.
She probably took a deep breath for this, then opened her mouth. "Can you kill me now?"
He blinked.
"Because I don't want to stay here," she said. Her voice was surprisingly calm, as if talking about someone else. "Oh, and if you want to dispose of the body, remember to cut me into at least six pieces. Also, your knife wounds are too messy. You obviously thought of exsanguination, but you still used the crudest technique. That's going to leave a lot of evidence, right?"
Richard froze for a moment.
Then he laughed. It wasn't the sinister laugh of a murderer, but rather... yes, the kind of laugh someone gives when receiving an unexpected gift.
"Ah, Ayaka's very knowledgeable!" His response was full of undisguised, childlike delight. "But I've done this several times before. The police haven't found me yet—even when I leave clues like ciphers directly telling them my name is Richard, they've never solved them."
She stared at him.
Ciphers.
Clues.
She suddenly realized what she was dealing with.
Not a dark avenger from a comic book story, killing a human trafficker in a motel. Not simply a weirdo who bound her to a bed then started chatting, whose name sounded like a king's alias. But a genuine criminal, a serial killer who left clues at his crime scenes, taunted the police, and enjoyed the game.
And he was still smiling—right in front of her, cleanly, brightly, far too brightly, showing a smile that reminded her of the scent of sun-drenched flowers. Too bright, it shouldn't be shining on her, didn't belong in this room.
"Also," he said, the smile fading as he looked at her, those red eyes suddenly turning very serious. "I never thought about killing you."
Her mouth opened, but no words came out.
"Why would a chivalrous knight do that to a beautiful and wise lady?"
Knight.
He said knight.
Ayaka felt choked.
She stared at him. That face was handsome, features distinct, with a high-bridged nose and those eyes red as embers. She rarely read historical stories, but she had to admit the young man before her did look like a knight—the kind from ancient legends, who fought for a belief. But he had just killed someone, and clearly this wasn't his first. And now he was binding her ankles. His fingers still rested on her ankle, his fingertips slightly cool.
Her head suddenly ached. Yes. She couldn't say anything more. She simply couldn't communicate with someone so utterly self-absorbed.
Ayaka lowered her head.
"I don't have any right to live," her voice was soft, almost a whisper. "So, Mr. Richard, this life of mine... do whatever you want with it."
Silence answered her.
The rain continued. Occasionally a car passed outside, its headlights flickering through the gap in the curtains. The room was thick with the rusty, sweet smell of blood, rising from that pool, seeping into her nostrils.
Then she felt his hand lift. Not towards her throat. His fingers landed on her glasses. Very gently, he removed the plain glasses from her nose.
She looked up instinctively.
At some point, the man had moved from her feet to kneel before her. He was on one knee, one hand holding her glasses, the other empty at his side. Those red eyes looked up at her, from below, an angle that made his gaze seem almost... devout.
If he called himself a knight, perhaps it was the devoutness a knight shows before his faith.
"No."
He said.
"I want to take care of you."
Richard's voice was soft, but every word fell clearly into her ears.
"If you want to give me your life—" The blonde serial killer paused, the corners of his mouth curling up again, like sunlight breaking through clouds. "How could I be negligent?"