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Darkness. Soft, dull and uninterested Japanese. < "I am hurting... but the hurt is good, right? It means that I am alive. It means that I am healing. More important, it means that I will hurt less tomorrow and by February 12th, I won't hurt at all. Jamie Haytoru, Juria Harto, Noa Hikari, Sasha Banksu... I repeat your names before every sleep until our match in the hope that I will find you in my dreams. That has not happened yet. Where are you? Are you scared? It doesn't matter. A dream could never satisfy me. Only the reality of your defeat can fill the emptiness inside me." > Light. The
world slows to a crawl. Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!
The chubby bully in the white and blue sailor fuku slams her open palm into the locked stall door again. Her friend, a leaner menace, dressed the same with a pink roller front and center in her hair, leans against the stall, pressing her cheek to it. Her voice is low and threatening.
Momo sits on the toilet, hugging her knees to her chest in the vain hope that the bullies will leave when they can't see her feet beneath the stall door. However, the gesture is a futile one--
The bell rings overhead, signaling the beginning of class. The bullies look at one another and huff, disappointed that their fun has been interrupted. The lean one turns her back to the stall and kicks backward into the door as hard as she can. There's an audible crack. The chubby one smiles. The leaner one looks over her shoulder at the door and speaks with a dull, passive tone.
The door to the restroom opens and heels click across the floor, the surefire sign that a grown-up is present. The two bullies run past the teacher, brushing shoulders with her on their way out the door. The woman sounds annoyed.
The teacher turns to follow them but stops when she hears an audible sob from the nearby stall. Her heels click with every cautious step as she approaches. Looking down from her perch, Momo can see the woman's tan shoes beneath the door.
The voice from behind the door is weak, broken.
The teacher raises an eyebrow, recognizing the voice.
Gently, Momo allows her feet to touch the floor and stands. The lock clicks and the door swings open seconds later. The teacher looks down at the small girl, standing in her sailor fuku, cheeks stained where tears have fallen. The teacher looks past Momo at the walls of the stall, ruined by graffiti. She takes note of one particular item written above the toilet and the seemingly failed effort of someone to scratch it off the wall. 醜い敗者、桃 The woman shakes her head, disappointed, and gestures for Momo to come out of the stall.
She does and the woman places her hand on Momo's back, guiding her out of the restroom. The door swings shut, clicking into place behind them.
The tip of Momo's paintbrush glides effortlessly along the canvas. She stares straight ahead, focused on her art. Her father, dressed in a worn out gray suit, sweats profusely and dabs at his forehead with a handkerchief. He looks at the painting which remains just out of shot. He swallows hard.
He catches himself and clears his throat.
He averts his eyes, ashamed.
He nods and places a small stack of flyers on a table next to her easel. She pays no mind to the gesture. He offers her a slight bow.
He turns and walks out of the room. Momo looks down at the flyers and touches them gently with her finger tips, moving them around enough to see what they're advertising. She huffs as her eyes scan each uninteresting one: Golf. Softball. Professional wrestling? She picks it up and looks it over, confused, thinking that her father must have included it by accident. There's no way her mother would approve. That, combined with the idea of learning how to hurt people, how to defend herself from her tormentors, was all the convincing that she needed. She would sit on her decision for a few more days, but she knew deep down-- --her mind was already made up. Darkness again. < "I don't recognize the girl in the mirror anymore. All I see is an ugly monster. What do you see when you look in the mirror? Do you see a pretty face, or are you frightened? It is said that monsters are not born, they are made. I believe this to be true... are there monsters that you are responsible for? Do not feel sympathy for me. I was hardened before Jamie Haytoru... I was broken before Juria Harto pushed me... there is nothing Noa Hikari or Sasha Banksu can do to hurt me now. The damage is already done. It is permanent. Please understand." > Mewling, crying. The buzz of fluorescent lights. Water flows out onto the tile floor from an unknown source. The smaller bully with the pink roller in her hair crawls on her belly across the wet floor. Tears rolls down her face. Her nose is bloody and her teeth are stained pink. Her bottom lip is noticeably split. She cries out as footsteps draw closer. White sneakers with white socks step into the shot. Every step is heavy and wet. The girl kneels and grabs the pink roller on the bully's head, holding her head up.
Momo presses her thumb into the bully's eye socket and applies pressure. Momo's eyes are dark, there's nothing behind them. The front of her sailor fuku is splattered with blood from the encounter, and from her kneeling position, we can see the heavier bully is lost to the neck in a broken toilet bowl, the source of the flowing water. Momo tilts her head slightly... more pressure on the eye. The bully cries out in pain.
She sounds bored, despite her heinous act.
While she had only been training as a professional wrestler for a few months, she was a natural. Her trainer, Fuka Kakimoto, was most impressed by her killer instinct.
The door to the restroom swings open and a student screams when she sees inside. Within seconds, Momo is pulled away by faculty and the girl on the floor cups her eye and curls into a fetal position, hitching and heaving with violent sobs. A much larger male teacher holds Momo against the wall, looking over his shoulder at the girl still eating the broken toilet bowl to his left. Momo doesn't struggle against him or say a word. She simply remains still, staring straight ahead. The lights are on-- --but only the monster is home.
Sitting across the desk from her, Momo has been given an oversized sweatshirt to cover her bloody fuku. She sits silently and picks at the oversized white letters across the front of the shirt spelling "NEVADA." The male teacher from the restroom, an older gentleman in slacks and sweater vest, stands idly by and peers out the window of the classroom. He's soaked from the hips down because of the flooding.
Momo doesn't look up. She simply shrugs.
Without raising her head, Momo cuts her eyes in the teacher's direction but she doesn't say a word.
Momo mumbles something under her breath, barely audible.
Momo's gaze threatens to burn her to ash.
The teacher's eyes narrow. She purses her lips angrily. Momo stares through her. < "None of you deserve to call yourself Queen. Do you know what an insult that is to someone like me? You have no idea what an insult it is. I have walked the queen's road. I have earned the right to call myself that word, even if I choose to reject it. You disrespect me when that word falls from your pitiful mouths. I will show you the price for your disrespect, and you will pay it... every time I kick you in the face." > Night. New York. Sonny Onoo chuckles.
He takes a drag from his cigarette and exhales smoke into the open air. Standing on a balcony overlooking the city, he smiles and looks at Momo Watanabe standing next to him, purple hood pulled over her head. She stares out into what she can see of the skyline. Sonny's bright yellow suit stands out against the night sky. The wind whips and whistles, nearly cutting them both in two.
Her eyes are dark and lifeless. Cold, like a shark's eyes.
He nods and takes another drag from his cigarette. She pulls her hood down and slowly turns her head to look at him. Meeting her gaze, he quietly hopes that she can't see his eyes through his sunglasses. He doesn't want her to know how much she unnerves him.
She returns her gaze to the city.
She looks at him like the question caught her off guard. For a split second, her face is awash with confusion and Onoo can see the innocent girl that used to exist behind those dead eyes. And then she's gone.
She tilts her head slightly.
He snickers, hoping the gesture will draw her out of her shell. Instead, he's met with nothing more than her stare. She sighs and turns back to the city. He can see the city lights glimmer in her eye.
She turns to go back inside.
She stops at the door and puts her hood back up.
She disappears inside. Sonny leans back against the rail and looks down at his cigarette, burned down to the filter. He flicks it off into the distance. The corner of his mouth twitches, fighting a smile. He chuckles and shakes his head.
He laughs. The city below honks back. < "You have all done well to survive this long. Though I do not respect you, I admire the bruises and scars you have collected along the way. It is meaningful that you would crawl through glass and fire for the championship-- --but remember-- --I did it, too-- --with a smile." > It's days after the fight. There's tension in the apartment.
Sitting in front of her painting, Momo applies additional touches and places her brush in the tray at the bottom of the easel. The door to her bedroom opens and her father stumbles in, visibly out of sorts.
She doesn't answer him. He comes further into the room and stands behind her. He looks over her shoulder at the painting and his bottom lip quivers.
No answer.
Her voice is dull and passive.
A tear rolls down his cheek.
She doesn't say anything. She just stares at her painting.
She snaps her gaze in his direction, genuine fear in her eyes. It's the first time in a long time that he remembers seeing true emotion from his daughter.
He sighs, defeated.
She looks down at the floor between them.
He places his finger under her chin and makes her meet his gaze. She's still shaken by the idea of having her dream ripped away from her. His eyes plead with her as he speaks.
He falls to his knees next to her, with the painting just above. He looks up at the girl in the center, surrounded by heavenly light... the sole survivor among her massacred peers.
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