L O V I N G - G H O S T

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 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 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 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, and you loved that. One day, right before you graduated from high school, he confessed his feelings and you officially let him into 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 with you, this was convenient for the 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 disposal 24/7, oh you liked it so much, how available he always was for you, dropping everything 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.

You started a new job a few hours away from home and met a new group of people of all ages and backgrounds. You befriended one fun guy at this place, he’s worked there for some years already so he guides you on this new job. Luckily, both of you have the same taste in games, music, and some other things so you connect pretty quickly and hang out frequently after work with the company of a few drinks. 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 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, and because deep down you’re also a dirty bastard you didn’t judge, 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 thoughts you’ve had throughout your 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 use 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, 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 you and 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”.