First Heartbeat of Solitary Hunger

You’re cursed, the evilness of your actions is tying your soul to this world, even after your death.

The sin committed during your living days and your lack of remorse even in the final minutes of your breathing life are eternally grasping your back, haunting you, dragging you to reality, and forcing you to face the consequences of your actions at the hands of the one who once loved you the most.

You look back and reflect on how things got to that point. You remember your partner, Hitomi, standing by your side at all times with his loving eyes framed by his thick black glasses looking at you, cherishing you, offering all he had just for you.

You took it all for granted, because he was always like that, so giving, so stupidly infatuated with you. You loved it, you felt incredibly proud that you were everything to him, and your ego inflated so much you could fly out of space, touch the moon, and feel like the king of the world.

It’s not easy for you to pinpoint when exactly everything went wrong, it is somewhat blurry now, but you recall your young high school days when you used to tease Hitomi during recess, you liked to see him blush, and you knew very well that he was in love with you, yet you played with his heart throughout that school year, you flirted with him, ruffled his hair from time to time and blurted out dirty jokes just to see his reaction, you had him on the palm of your hands.

One day, right before you graduated from high school, he confessed his feelings and you officially let him be a part of your life.

"Sure, why not," you told yourself when the two of you started dating, you thought you would only be together for a while, a few months maybe. You assumed that eventually, he would fall in love with someone else from his class. Teen relationships are usually like that, aren’t they? Often superficial and banal, because teens do not have a heart big enough to carry the burden of emotions yet, but Hitomi wasn’t like that and you didn’t know it, or rather… you never cared to learn about him beyond his admiration for you.

He didn't have eyes for anyone else, he endured seeing you make new friends and meet potential new partners to replace him with, he witnessed you start a new scary chapter of your life in university, he was there to cheer you on and to help you get through the difficult times, he made you feel so loved that you decided to extend his stay just a little bit longer, you felt comfortable every time he was around you.

A couple of years later Hitomi graduated too and you asked him to move in together, this was convenient for both of you, now university students working part-time jobs to afford to rent a small and humble apartment.

You also liked the idea of having him at your mercy 24/7, oh you liked it so much, how available he always was for you, dropping everything in his hands just to see you happy.

You thought you were lucky that he was good at cooking too, he was also a clean freak so you never worried about cleaning the house yourself, you loved that you slept in the same bed every night, everything was perfect for you.

You started a new job a few hours away from home, they pay well but you have to travel long distances and sometimes stay the night there. You work with a new group of people of all ages and backgrounds and it’s interesting at first, this job is not what you wanted, but you can endure. There’s this one fun guy at this place that you befriend, he’s worked there for some years already so he guides you on this new chapter of your life. Luckily, both of you have the same taste in games, music, and some other things so you connect pretty quickly and hang out after work with the company of a few drinks every once in a while.

One day you talk about your partners, and you mention how devoted Hitomi is with so much pride your grin grows bigger, you even show a picture of both of you together that you have saved on your phone. He looks at the picture and glances back at you with an unusual curiosity, then tells you that his partner is some years younger too, “actually, he’s still in school” he adds with eerie enthusiasm, “ in school?” you repeat to yourself as if trying to confirm you heard that right, you do some rough math in your head knowing damn well that this guy is probably older than you and things start to look different.

Suddenly there’s a dirty puzzle in front of you that you pieced together in a split second, like you knew the answer already, and because deep down you’re also a dirty bastard you didn’t judge him, on the contrary, you felt a sort of comfort knowing that you met someone that feels the same as you about certain things and was able to put pretty words to the strange and horrible thoughts you’ve had throughout your adult life.

You felt less weird, you’re not alone, what a relief.

Both of you confide in each other after finding out about this particular interest you share.

One day, your friend invites you to a private chat room, “it’s exclusive ” he adds and explains how it works:

It’s an invite-only group with an entry fee to get in, this entry fee is simple: you need to send food made by yourself so they can add it to the menu , they ask this to guarantee you won’t leave the group and snitch of them, “if we fall, we fall all together” they repeat several times in the description of their rules and now it’s stuck in your brain, it seems to be part of their motto or something. The content you send must be something related to the theme of the group, “You could send something with your partner” your friend suggests “Hitomi doesn’t meet the main requirement , but he looks young enough to do the trick, I don’t think they ask for their IDs anymore”.

You consider the idea for a few days, Hitomi is more of a timid person and you believe he won’t agree to being photographed or recorded in such a situation, but you still go ahead and ask him on a whim, what is there to lose anyway?

You skipped the fact that this is a requirement to join this secret chat room, he would never agree if he knew, so you concealed it with an “ I’d like to watch it while I’m away from home for work, sometimes I miss you so much and wish you were next to me to keep me company ” you know Hitomi loves to hear that, he’s weak for you being a bit needy.

If he says no then you’ll forget about joining, and you won’t even bother going an extra step just for that, if it doesn’t work then it doesn't work.

But Hitomi agrees.

You can’t believe it! His reply took you by surprise and you can tell by his blushed face that he was also stunned by his answer, looking down while fidgeting with his slim fingers.

This was easier than expected, why did he agree so quickly? That was out of character, but you won’t question it, you don’t want to risk him changing his mind and breaking the spell of this rare occasion.

And so, one lustful night you pulled up your phone and pointed at him, you recorded his face while he had you in his mouth, putting his tiny lips around you and licking every inch of you, sucking you dry.

You made sure to record his slim hands holding you in place, his soft kitten-like hair sticking to his sweaty forehead, his glasses repeatedly bumping with your belly every time you went deep into his throat, you made sure the camera picked up his heavy breathing and his soft moans.

Despite Hitomi being camera-shy you could tell that he was trying to show off and give his best in front of the lens, it drove you crazy.

You couldn’t record his eyes properly, even though you pointed directly at them several times, his hair on his eyes and the glare of the light on Hitomi’s glasses got in the way every time, it frustrated you because that’s what you like about him the most, the way he looks at you, the way you can see his desiring eyes sparkling with so much love for you.

Did you ever look at him the same way?

The video was a success, they let you in with open arms:

|| You’re so lucky! He sucked you off so good! Thank you for the food! || His moles are so erotic, I can see the one on his neck. || I wish you showed more of his delicious body, maybe next time!! || I liked the part where you come all over his face and glasses, his smile at the end was so cute lol. || Who is this? I’d love to meet up before it’s too late. || I wouldn't be able to last 5 minutes with those cute lips around my cock, incredible || I’d do anything for just one night with that angel. || Fuck that was hot please share more ||

And so on, and so on.

That day your phone didn’t stop vibrating with private messages from strangers and future friends offering to pay you good money to get the contact information of the kid in the video, you ignored them because you didn’t want them to know that he’s not an actual kid.

But deep down you know the real reason is that you don’t want to share Hitomi with others, that is what you say to convince yourself you’re not in the wrong. But you’re so proud, you feel dignified after reading so many compliments about your partner, and you realize what a lucky guy you were. You had a young-looking boyfriend that others would pay for right next to you, in your bed, at your mercy.

And for a while you boasted more pictures and videos of him with the others, some of these Hitomi never knew you recorded, some of these he sent you himself while you were away, they were meant for your eyes only but you didn’t care, as long as he didn’t know about it there was nothing wrong with it, right?

Unfortunately, sometimes a cute, loving partner isn’t enough. You grew picky after seeing more videos and pictures of what others constantly shared in the chat room, stuff with real, young kids, some of them barely teenagers. Hitomi is very attractive and everything, but he just looked young, he was only three years younger than you. Suddenly there was a shift in your brain and he wasn't satisfying that craving any longer, or at least not the same way as he used to, you looked at him and something was missing.

So you decide to look for this thing on your own, somewhere else.

They told you about this website that it’s generally used by young high school students who usually look for a way to make quick and easy money, it’s meant to be used for talking with people from abroad and practicing speaking other languages, but young kids are smart and found a way to make it profitable for them and use it to talk with lonely people, they are not stupid and they are very strategic when speaking with you, but if you are persuasive enough sometimes they agree to meet and that’s when you convince them to stay the night, “that’s how we often do it over here” your friend explained, “just make sure you don’t meet up at your home or somewhere you could be recognized in, you don’t want to get in trouble” he warned you.

And that’s exactly what you did, you connected with a young boy and talked for a few weeks, you didn’t mind paying the hourly fee to chat with him, he mentioned he only wanted to help with home expenses and you felt captivated by that, you shared your own experience helping your mom at home when you were younger, that's how you got him to trust you more, you didn’t mention that you don’t talk to her anymore.

The day you offered to send him a generous tip directly to his account he seemed super excited, he asked repeatedly if you were sure about it or if it was a prank, and you smiled at the screen for how silly he was and how kind you were to him.

In return for your gratitude, you asked for a picture, at first he hesitated, but you insisted with a pleading emoji and sent a couple more generous tips, then suddenly you find yourself with a whole folder in your phone with selfies from this kid in his school uniform that you collected over the weeks, at first they weren’t suggestive at all, just selfies and pictures taken by other friends, but as you grew closer you started to ask for more: underwear pictures, ones with weird angles taken in front of a mirror, others with his face edited out because of how shameful they were, but you didn’t care, they were good enough to wank at them.

“ I’m going to hell for this ”, you told yourself as you giggled, scrolling through this secret treasure chest stored in the depths of your laptop.

One day both of you agreed to meet up. You invited him for some good food at a family restaurant, keeping it casual. “ Nothing fancy” you said “I just want to see you in person and maybe chat for a bit ”. You acted indifferent, not wanting to come across as too eager or creepy.

Of course, Hitomi didn’t know any of this, you lied and explained you were meeting with some work friends. He was always so laid-back and easygoing, never questioning your words. How naive of him.

The memory of this kid fully naked on a cheap hotel bed with his legs wide open is burnt in your retinas. You repeat the feeling of your hands around his thighs and the smell of his sweat stuck in your nose as you slammed into him, you close your eyes and hear the little gasps resonating in your ears. The euphoria still lingers as you recall the rush of that day, you can’t believe how things escalated that evening, and you can’t wait for the next time.

Next time, you won’t forget to record it and share it with your friends.

Over time you make this a habit, you perfected the trick to make them fall for you. It was so easy, all this time you’ve been wasting your time with that one boy at home, and you feel silly you didn’t try this sooner.

Hitomi is oblivious to everything, and you’re so greedy you won’t let him free either, because you want him only for you too, he seems completely satisfied with you not knowing any of this, so why ruin it when everyone is happy, right?

He won’t see any of this and you’ll make sure to always delete your browsing history, encrypt every single one of your conversations with these kids, and hide yourself under a private network so they won’t track you back because you think you’re not stupid.

But you are, you are not only the worst scum living on earth, you are an idiot too.

You never considered that Hitomi is a quiet person, someone who doesn't let his thoughts out if not asked first and you’re painfully unaware of the fact that he’s been suspecting silently for a few days already.

You left all the hints for him to follow, there was a slight change in the pitch of your voice, completely unintentional and probably unperceivable by anyone who doesn’t spend most of their day thinking about you. There was a smell in the air that you brought home one day that lingered weirdly in Hitomi’s nose, like a pebble in his shoe. There was a kiss you left in his mouth that echoed weirdly in his heart, it felt like a wake-up slap on his face that haunted him for days.

It was as if your subconscious wanted Hitomi to find out about this, and it found it’s own way of telling him.

Hitomi always had incredibly sharp senses and you absolutely hated it. Especially when he’d complain about food tasting off when you were eating out, he would ruin your mood and spoil the meal with those remarks, the food tasted completely fine.

Or when he’d point out repeating noises you’d never noticed but once he mentioned them you couldn’t stop hearing them. It drove you crazy! What do you mean you can hear the upstairs neighbor’s fridge vibrating?

it annoyed you how he always knew when you’d used his products. Who the hell remembers the smell of someone else’s shampoo?!

“You are so weird sometimes” you would say impulsively every time he did one of those things, you would make these remarks as jokes, laughing half-heartedly, but deep down, you wanted to offend him, hoping he’d get upset and leave you alone for a minute.

Instead, he would smile in silence while looking down with flushed cheeks, because it brought him back to when you were younger and you teased him behind the school gymnasium.

You sometimes miss how you felt about him back then, when you thought it was just a brief fling, happy times.

Those days, when you’d go on dates after classes, and he would be in his uniform… you wonder if it still fits him, “that would be an interesting thing to try” you tell yourself.

While he looks the same as before, some things just don’t hit the same. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but you miss those things.

That one dreadful night a sudden wave of sentimentality and longing for your youth washed over you. You found yourself reminiscing about those sweet moments Hitomi had given you over the years and you felt you hadn't loved him enough, that you had kept him captive in your heart for too long.

You knew he deserved someone better, someone who truly adored him the same way he did to you. And yet, you couldn’t bring yourself to let him go, you were greedy, telling yourself “ Just one more day ” every night. But that night you thought that it was enough, that Hitomi deserved to be free, he needed to be loved by someone better, not you.

You contemplated the idea of breaking up with him, for his own good, and for your own freedom.

Lost in your emotions, you failed to notice the signs, each one of them pointing to the fact that your end was near.

Hitomi headed to bed before you, quietly, without his usual goodnight kiss. You found it odd, but didn’t bother to ask if something was wrong, it’s not like you really cared. If there was something wrong you’d talk about it tomorrow, like you always did. You always waited until the last minute to address his feelings in case the problem solved itself, this wasn’t anything different.

You still had some work to finish, emails to reply to and files to sign off on so you stayed up a little later than usual working on your laptop at the dining table. It was a cold winter night, and as soon as you were done you quickly jumped into bed, wrapping yourself around Hitomi’s back, hoping to steal some warmth from him. You weren’t sure if he was asleep yet, but you continued to gently run your palms across his body, waiting for some response.

Eventually he shifted, still not facing you. You slid your hand under his shirt and caressed his chest, pinching his nipples and feeling his body shivering while grabbing your manhood with the other hand, poking him in the back trying to get his attention, you silently whispered in his ear that you wanted to have sex and waited for his response, “okay” he said very faintly after a slow sigh, or that’s what you think you heard.

You grasped his shoulder and turned him to face you, the soft moonlight slipped through the curtains, barely illuminating the room and his expression was hard to decipher under the dim light, so you moved closer, pressing your lips to his in a kiss that felt rather demanding, pushing your tongue wildly inside his mouth until you heard his breathing growing heavy at the same time your hand slithered between his legs.

You were hungry to be inside him soon, you felt an odd desperation to use your body to fix whatever was broken in him, you just didn’t know what it was yet.

Hitomi, still moaning softly, held your arm tightly as you pushed yourself inside him, soon after you were thrusting up wildly in and out of him, holding his legs up in your shoulders, as if your life depended on it, as if you noticed Hitomi found out about your secret and you wanted to make up for it, as if you already knew it was your last day on earth.

You finish not long after, grunting, sweating, and feeling relieved, you’re very aware that he doesn’t like it when you finish inside, but you can’t help it and it just happens. “Oops, sorry” is all you say, even though you know that never helped him clean himself better.

You kiss him goodnight on the cheek and go back to sleep while Hitomi leaves the bed, you can hear his footsteps going to the washroom, he takes a while cleaning himself and you don’t remember exactly when you fell asleep, or if Hitomi ever returned to bed that night, it’s all blurry and remembering those details won’t change anything at this point.

The bedsheets being pulled out of the bed and the sudden cold freezing your skin startled you, you were barely awake struggling to open your eyes when you outlined Hitomi’s silhouette towering over you, there wasn’t enough time for you to speak to him, you would’ve asked why the fuck he was waking you up like that, but it was already too late.

Hitomi held a knife up in the air and stabbed you, once, twice, you couldn't react on time to stop him, the pain and fear petrified you and you quickly started to feel dizzy and confused.

He stabbed you again, and again, and again, you looked at his face and didn’t recognize him, his eyes didn’t have the loving spark engraved on them anymore, and he looked rather sad and enraged, you saw a collection of dark emotions that you’ve never seen on his face before, he was out of his senses.

He kept stabbing you repeatedly while you struggled to fight back, you mumbled some begging words to make him stop, but he wouldn’t listen.

He then wrapped his hands around your neck and squeezed with a strength that you never knew he had, his small, gentle hands that once held you so tenderly and with immeasurable love were now stripping the life out of you, “gross, gross” he repeated to himself in a whisper and you wondered why , why would he said that.

“W-why?” you asked idiotically with the remaining strength and air in your lungs, your chest made a croaking noise that scared you, it hurt to speak.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” he said between painful sobs.

In between groans you noticed his crying face was unnervingly beautiful and realized how pretty he looked from this angle while holding this expression on his face, and, for a brief second, you regretted not seeing more of it before.

“ I’m sorry… why did yo- gross” he burst out crying while holding your neck and plummeting his entire body weight onto you.

And then it hit you: he found out, he discovered your secret because he’s smart and you’re a dumb and disgusting piece of shit.

You felt a strange sense of comfort. You’re dying, yes, but you understand you deserve this and take it as it is. You stopped resisting and let Hitomi finish his job, there was no way back anymore, fighting back was useless.

You don’t remember anything else, you died at Hitomi’s hands.

Once you stopped breathing and your body went numb Hitomi came back to his senses and saw your dead body lying on the bed, he looked scared, confused, and desperate. He didn’t know what to do, he held your chest with shaking hands and pressed it to stop the blood, but it was already too late.

He cried, he bawled so badly you worried for his breathing, he dropped to his knees and hid his face on your chest while sobbing and asking for forgiveness, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” he repeated against your body with blood smeared on his face.

He cried himself to sleep on top of you while holding your hand close to his lips as you stood in a corner outside of this world, observing in silence.

You saw how his body shivered while he whimpered in his sleep, you’d never seen him this agitated before and you wished you could wake him up out of this nightmare, but a dead man is useless and can only look, the same way he saw you being a criminal on the screen, it’s your turn to be the helpless witness now.

He only slept for around an hour before waking up again, the adrenaline rushing through his blood kept him up that night, this time he had a calmer heartbeat, he looked at your body with terrified eyes, surprised to see you still lying there

He pulled out the knife stuck in your chest and looked at your naked skin covered in blood, decorated with several almond shaped stab wounds, some of them bigger than others. Hitomi covered his mouth in surprise, “there’s no way” he whispered.

You saw the curiosity reflected on his face, contemplating the holes in your skin. You felt a painful pinch grabbing a part of your soul as he inserted a finger in the cut closer to your heart, it looked like you were still warm inside, it was a cold night and you could see the frosty mist escaping his mouth with every breath he took, Hitomi’s pupils dilated and shivers went down his spine the deeper his fingers dug in, he grabbed his knife again and opened the wound a bit more, now he could fit his whole hand inside you. You felt vulnerable, ravished, pissed, you hated to see yourself like that, you could feel Hitomi’s hands abusing you in a way that you never thought possible, he pulled your guts out as if he was looking for something inside of you: a reason, an apology, the real you that wasn’t a bad guy, the loving boyfriend he thought you were.

You didn’t have a body to cry with or a voice to scream at him and make him stop, you could only watch him open your body up while he enjoyed the remaining warmth left inside you with tears streaming slowly down his face.

You hated him, if only you knew things would end like this you wouldn’t have ever given him a chance in your life, you regret teasing him and giving him attention at school and making him fall for you, maybe if he hadn’t been a good boyfriend to you it would have been easier for you to break up with him early on, but it was hard for you to leave him, it’s his fault he guaranteed you the unconditional love that dragged you to him.

If only Hitomi never accepted to be recorded, maybe you would still be alive, you wouldn’t have submitted the video you made of him and they wouldn’t have accepted you in the group, they wouldn’t have praised you for scoring such a great boy, you wouldn't have lied to him or committed such crimes with those kids, this is all his fault.

You are not even sure if you ever loved him, you liked how he made you feel like the greatest man on earth, but now… now you’re convinced that you hate him.

Your rage grew stronger when Hitomi lapped on the blood dripping on his arms and tingling his elbows, when he licked his fingers clean from you and you could see how much he enjoyed your taste in the expression on his face, reflected in the black of his eyes and on his jumping chest.

Your soul screeched in an empty echo when he used his knife to cut a small part of your flesh, small enough to put it in his mouth, and he chewed on it, he savored every piece he got of you and swallowed with the same enthusiasm he loved you in the past.

The stream of tears running down his face mixed with the blood smeared on his cheeks painted a bittersweet scene in your bedroom, you’re speechless.

Hitomi ate from you.

He ate enough to form a new link between both of you, his body nourishing from your flesh transformed you into a part of his DNA, your actions managed to destroy and rewire his heart in a way that now you’re caged inside of it, he won’t let you go so easily without punishment.

You provoked a sorrow big enough for him to mourn your death, to mourn your actions and his own, to grieve the lie that you were all this time and the foolishness of his heart from the past seven years you spent together.

You observe Hitomi over the following days, cutting your body into small pieces and storing you away in the freezer, feeding off your dead body, cleaning the crime scene and scrubbing away all the memories you built in that apartment, getting rid of any proof of your existence under that roof.

You realize that no one is missing you. He turned off your phone, and when your manager calls Hitomi to ask why you’re absent, Hitomi responds coldly, explaining that you’re no longer friends and that he hasn’t heard from you in a while. They apologize for bothering him, then shrug it off.

Days pass, and they replace you with someone else. They don’t speak of you anymore.

You regret never mending things with your family back home. They’ll never know you’re gone, and your mom will never forgive you for the pain you caused her when you told her all those awful things in your teenage years. She’s better off without you, a son who won’t say sorry.

Your friends in the chat room wonder why you’ve suddenly gone silent. “He chickened out,” they joke about it, but deep down, they know it’s strange that you’re not responding, but they’re not willing to risk their safety to check on yours. You’re not that important to them after all.

How ironic, isn’t it? Hitomi was the one person who would have moved mountains for you, yet not only did he take your life, but he also erased every trace of your existence.

He’s smart, there’s no doubt about it, and he knows exactly how to keep things under control so no one suspects a thing. All your bank accounts and personal information were wiped clean from every database he could hack into. It’s as if you were never here. You’re nothing more than a fragment of his memory, a ghost of the guilt he now carries around.

Yes, he feels guilty. He knows he shouldn’t have done it. It would have been easier for him to just break up with you and report everything to the police. It would have been easier to pretend he never saw a thing and carry on as the happy boyfriend he always was.

You don’t understand why he reacted the way he did, but you’re certain that the guilt eats him every night when he lies in bed next to the exact place you died in, reliving that cold, fateful night.

You almost feel sorry for him, but you hate him.

You’re not sure if Hitomi understands he put a curse on you, but you’re certain he’s caught glimpses of you in the reflection of the mirror a few times.

Maybe you’re that one dark cloud lingering in his vision, the one he tries to wipe away when he cleans his glasses. Perhaps you’re the musky, metallic scent of blood that catches him off guard every now and then. Or maybe you’re the faint, almost imperceptible hum of a song playing somewhere deep in the apartment, a song he can’t recognize but makes him feel like he’s in a familiar, comfortable place. He does a double take, shaking his head as he checks the room where the sound is coming from, where the smell was stronger, where the vision of your shadow peeked from, but he finds nothing.

He thinks he’s exhausted, or that the memories of that night are playing tricks on him, but you can see it in his eyes: he suspects you’re still there, haunting him.

After a while, Hitomi quit his job. It became harder for him to wake up in the mornings, every day he carried a weight in his chest that he pretended wasn’t there, it was suffocating to smile and act like everything was alright when he was in the office.

It was emotionally draining for him to think about your dead body waiting to be cooked and eaten back at home. His performance deteriorated quickly over time, he lost all motivation to be the always helpful and bright Hitomi everyone believed him to be. He’d stare at the blank screen and hear whispers of your voice from that night until a coworker interrupted his thoughts and he’s brought back to his desk, to reality.

He couldn't keep this anymore, he was scared.

Hitomi lost weight while only eating from you, it’s as if you didn’t have any nutritional value, just like your feelings towards him.

He would stand in front of the mirror and his collarbones and ribs stared back at him, reminding him of what he had become. He didn’t have space in his fridge for normal food anymore, it was only you in there, separated into different compartments of food, he wanted it to be over already and go back to eating normal food, even the fast food he never liked sounded good now.

But something changed in his appetite over time, now he felt a different type of hunger, a sort of void that he couldn’t fill with food.

It’s been months and Hitomi hasn't left the apartment, he’s living off the savings he transferred from your accounts before erasing all traces of you, spending his days in solitude, eating cheap konbini food, scrolling on the internet to distract himself from the excruciating emptiness.

At night, he cries himself to sleep, he’s trapped in an infinite loop of sorrow, thinking about you.

You begin to realize how little he had beyond you, he never had actual friends. It was always you -and only you- at the center of his life, no one calls him, no one checks on him.

Now that you’re gone he’s out of orbit, he’s a stray, alone, watching time pass by, slipping away from his hands. He spends his days regretting his devotion, yet missing you, he still loves you and he wishes he could bring you back. All he wants, all he craves, is one last moment together and pretend everything’s okay.

After weeks of starving for affection, longing for a simple hug, a kiss, and desperately needing to hear how worthy he was of being loved, Hitomi finally decided to look through your laptop. It had been left gathering dust ever since you used it that day.

What he finds there makes his stomach turn. The browsing history from that night is agonizing to look through, with each page he clicks, he traces your every thought, every step of your final hours.

He recoils in disgust when he sees that you were looking at your collection right before bed. He can’t help but imagine you had those kids in your mind while having sex with him that night. The realization makes him dizzy with revulsion, it was too much for him to handle. It twists something inside him, something he thought was long buried. He hates you again, in a way he hadn’t in months.

Hitomi manages to gain access to the secret chat room, despite the heavy encryption and the clever decoy hiding it within your laptop’s system. He’s one of the few people on earth who can’t be fooled by these types of protections, it’s his area of expertise after all. As he looks through the chat logs, his eyes fall on conversations where you boast about how cute Hitomi is and how lucky you are to have him. He can’t help but smile ironically at the screen, but that smile quickly fades when he discovers what you’ve shared about him with these strangers.

He saw them, all the videos, the pictures you bragged about, with his face in plain sight for all of them to see. He saw everything, his stomach twisted with each image and video you posted. It felt like a dagger in his chest, a wave of pain hit him so intense that it was almost physical, and before he could stop it, thick, angry teardrops began to streak down his face.

The intimacy he believed was only for you, the moments he thought were shared in privacy between you two was reduced to nothing more than content for these pedophiles on the internet. His face burnt with a mix of rage and humiliation as he read the comments from these men, how they made remarks about his body, how they fantasized about what they would do to him. His very own image was displayed like a trophy, a prize to feed their desires. The brutal realization hit him like a truck, you exposed him to these gross men, just to feel better about yourself, because you never had anything better in your pathetic life.

Hitomi felt sick to his core, he wanted to kill every single one of these men, not because of their disgusting words about him, but because they were most likely the ones behind the rest of the videos, the ones with actual kids on them.

He became hungry for justice, hungry for avenging all those children, he would not be at peace knowing that he was able to get rid of one of those men and not doing anything about all the others he saw online talking about him and the kids of those videos.

He decided he would use his own image and looks as a weapon to draw men in, turning their tactics back on them. He would get their attention and manipulate them with the same strategy they used with those kids.

Hitomi took photos of himself in his school uniform, the one you once believed he got rid of long ago. He was nearly naked in some of these pictures, he recreated the ones you had saved on your laptop, he knew they would certainly like them. A handful of them were so humiliating that he blurred his face to hide his shame. The school uniform still fits him just the same as before, and you, dead and unable to see it with your own living eyes, felt a strange pity… a twisted thrill, you could’ve enjoyed this while alive.

You’re messed up for feeling this way, you deserve this curse.

You couldn’t stop Hitomi from going through with any of this. You watched as he seduced these men, pretending to be a naive high schooler. You saw how he built trust with one of them, getting closer to him over the weeks, until one day, the strange man agreed to meet him in a cheap hotel room.

For a brief moment, you saw doubt in Hitomi’s eyes as the man shut the door behind him. At that point, Hitomi didn’t have a clear plan, he just waited, going with the flow of the moment waiting for the man to let his guard down. You hated how he put his dirty hands around his body, how he slid his hand around the curve of his back, you saw on Hitomi’s face how uncomfortable he was when the man kissed and licked his neck.

But it wasn’t until the man was fully naked, pinning Hitomi under him, that he finally managed to make his move, in one swift motion, he grabbed the man’s head and twisted it violently, the snap of his neck filled the silence of the room before his body went limp and lifeless, dropping over him.

This was the second time Hitomi had killed someone, but unlike the first time, he didn’t experience the same rush of emotions, instead, he felt a cold indifference, as if this was just another errand in his mundane life. After killing the man, Hitomi knew he had to act quickly, so he pulled out his knife and cut through the body with studied precision. He had some experience doing this already, but remembering the first time sent a shiver down his spine, he pressed his eyes and exhaled while shaking his head, now it wasn’t the time for that.

After dismembering the body, he placed it into the suitcase he had hidden beneath the bed hours earlier, he did so carefully in a way that would leave no trace behind. He knew that the hotel, which operated illegally, was a place where many crimes could be carried out without much concern for getting caught. Still, Hitomi decided not to be careless, he moved cautiously and arranged the room in a way no one would suspect a crime like his was committed, this was just another room used by a man… and a kid.

And so, Hitomi found himself again with a dead body in his apartment, staring down at the new set of flesh and meat for him to feast on for a while, not because he was hungry for them, but because it was the only method Hitomi knew worked for getting rid of a body, he got away from it once, he can probably do it again.

Hitomi would repeat his strategy several times over the next few months, you watched in disgust, unable to stop him or prevent the next handful of pedophiles from falling into his hands, regardless of how many times it happened, each time it made you feel a deeper sense of revulsion. The helplessness was suffocating, you could feel your soul twist knowing there was nothing you could do, you couldn't pull him away from this fate.

And now, just like Hitomi, you can only feel guilt and regret for what you’ve done.

Trapped in an unending cycle, you're forced to look at the monster you helped create. A quiet hope lingers in your pathetic ghost soul, perhaps, one day, this cycle will end. But for now, all you can do is watch, helpless, bearing witness to the cruelty you've provoked. It's the consequence of your own choices, the aftermath of having hurt someone who loved you unconditionally.

One day this hunger might end.