What remains after the silence
It had started as a recurring thought.
A shadow among shadows.
Feitan didn't believe in memories.
He believed in removal.
In cutting.
In burying.
And yet, she remained.
Ayumi.
Not her name.
Not her face.
That moment.
In the dark. On the floor. Trembling.
Hands clasped. Eyes swollen.
Breath broken.
"Please. I don't want to die."
She had begged him.
Him.
A man who didn't believe in bonds.
Who had never received anything but fear or hatred.
She had spoken to him.
Not just to survive.
She had tried to reach him.
She had believed in him — even if just for a second.
Feitan hated to admit it, but…
that voice came back to him.
In the silence.
In the moments between sleep.
When he cleaned his weapons.
It wasn't attraction.
It wasn't compassion.
It was obsession.
He had started following her.
At first, for control.
For safety.
To see if she spoke, if she told, if she said his name.
Then no.
Then it was for something else.
He watched from afar.
Always from afar.
From the tree behind the school. From the black car without plates. From the alley across from the gym.
He knew everything.
When she left home.
With whom.
Where she went.
How long she stayed.
What she wore.
Never alone.
Never.
Always with someone.
A friend. Sometimes her mother.
"She's scared," he thought.
But not with satisfaction.
With irritation.
Like a child who breaks a toy and can't put it back together.
He wanted...
He didn't know what he wanted.
To possess her, maybe.
Not in a carnal way.
To possess her fragility.
Her kindness.
Her weakness.
To make her his.
To pin her into silence.
Like a butterfly beneath glass.
The cookies were still on the table.
The box — the one with the white ribbon.
He had left it there.
Untouched.
Now it was full of mold.
Green and white layers, like diseased skin.
The smell was sweet and rotten at once.
He looked at it sometimes.
Never threw it away.
It was the only thing anyone had ever left him.
The only gesture not paid for in blood.
And he…
didn't know what to do with it.
He wanted to see her cry again.
But he also wanted to see her look at him like she did that night,
before she realized who he really was.
With those eyes.
The ones that didn't fully fear him — yet.
Because in her...
there had been a moment of faith.
And Feitan couldn't stand it.
But he could no longer extinguish it.
Feitan had never written a letter.
Not in that sense.
He had left instructions. Codes. Threats.
But words — direct, real, personal — never.
The idea irritated him.
The need to make himself understood by someone infuriated him even more.
And the fact that someone was Ayumi… was unbearable.
Yet, every time he watched her — from a distance, through the leaves or behind the car window — the obsession grew.
He didn't want to touch her.
He didn't want to take her away.
He wanted to be remembered.
He wanted her to know he was still there.
Still present.
Still capable.
He didn't sleep for days.
The imbalance wasn't weakness —
it was focus.
A tightrope between two extremes:
the need to stay in the shadows
and the brutal desire to be seen.
In the end, he found a gesture.
No blood.
No threat.
Just one thing. One.
One night, when the house was dark and no one was watching, he crossed the yard.
Silent.
Like time passing.
He left a thin little box on the doorstep.
Inside, a single item:
One of the photographs he had found in Ayumi's backpack when they had kidnapped her.
Her and her mother, embracing.
Clean. Serene. From another time.
But Feitan didn't return it intact.
The photo had been cut in half.
Only her.
Cropped. Separated.
Her mother — erased.
And on the back, written in tiny, neat, glacial handwriting:
"Now you're mine. But not how you imagine.– F."
No full name.
Just a letter.
Like a fingerprint.
Like a bite left on skin that never heals.
Feitan walked away with a calm pace.
He knew she would find the box.
He knew she would open it.
He knew she would understand.
And he…
he didn't want an answer.
He wanted a reaction.
Fear.
Confusion.
Memory.
Power.
That was what he truly sought:
Not love.
Not revenge.
But warped belonging.
She was the only one who had ever offered him kindness.
And now, that kindness would become a debt.
A noose.
A signature.
Feitan didn't seek forgiveness.
He didn't seek redemption.
He only wanted to exist in her eyes.
Forever.
---Ayumi---
She found it at the door at seven in the morning.
A small, thin, black box — like the kind used for jewelry, but colder.
Placed there with unsettling care.
Too much precision.
Too much calm.
Ayumi paused for a moment, her bare feet on the tatami floor behind the entrance.
She stared at it for a long time.
No one around.
Just wind. Silence.
The house across the street — that house.
She stepped back inside and quietly closed the door.
Her mother was still asleep.
She opened the box on the kitchen table.
The photo.
Her heart jumped to her throat.
It was her.
Her and her mother.
Taken long ago, on a peaceful day — one of the few. She used to keep it in her wallet.
They had taken it…
during the kidnapping.
Now it was cut.
Only her.
Her mother had been removed.
Erased with surgical precision.
And on the back, the message.
Small. Precise. Chilling.
"Now you're mine. But not how you imagine. -F."
A cold shiver ran from the base of her neck to her ankles.
Feitan.
He had been there.
He knew where she lived.
He was watching her.
Always.
She sat down. The table shook under her elbows.
She clutched the photo. Cold hands. Short breath.
Panic.
It wasn't over.
It had never been over.
For a moment, she considered calling the police.
But stopped.
What if he saw her? What if he found out? What if he did something to her mother?
She had already seen what he was capable of.
She had felt the knife at her throat.
His hands on her face.
The scent of metal.
It was real.
A little later, her mother got up.
She found Ayumi's gaze blank, lost.
"What's wrong?"
Ayumi showed her the photo.
Her mother turned pale.
"We have to leave…" Ayumi whispered.
"I can't stay here. He'll hurt you. I feel it. I know it."
But the reply struck like a cold blade to the chest:
"Ayumi, we can't. Not now. Not with what I make. I… I can't do this alone."
The words hit like stones.
Ayumi nodded.
She didn't argue.
She couldn't let her mother feel guilty.
But she had to do something.
Something.
That night, she didn't sleep.
She stared at the ceiling. Her hands clenched under the pillow.
Tomorrow?
Would he come to the door?
Would she ask: why?
Who are you, really?
Why are you haunting me?
Just the thought made her sick.
And yet… it was the only thing she had left.
To confront him.
To look him in the face.
To show him she was no longer the girl tied to a chair.
At dawn, when the sky was still a dirty blue and the birds had yet to start singing, she got up.
She opened the drawer.
Took out the pistol.
The metal was heavy in her hand.
But she didn't tremble.
Not this time.
She got dressed.
Closed the door quietly.
Crossed the yard with her heart pounding like war drums.
The house was there.
Silent.
As if nothing had ever happened.
She walked up to the front door.
And knocked.
Three knocks.
Sharp.
Precise.
Ayumi knocked on the door like she could break it with her knuckles.
Her heart pounded in her chest, the gun heavy in her hand like a boulder.
Her face was tense, her throat dry.
But she didn't turn back.
Not this time.
Then… the door opened.
Slowly.
And behind it — him.
Feitan.
As always: straight, small, motionless.
Silent.
Black eyes. Empty.
No flinch. No movement.
Ayumi raised the gun.
Pointed it straight at his face.
The metal nearly touched his skin.
But he...
didn't move.
Didn't blink.
Didn't step back a single inch.
As if he was used to it.
As if he had lived this scene a thousand times.
As if he didn't care.
Ayumi screamed.
"Why?!
Why are you still tormenting me?!
What do you want from me?!
You destroyed me…
You ruined everything — my life, my peace, my mind!
Why won't you disappear?!
Leave this place!
GO AWAY!
GO AWAY!"
Her voice exploded in her throat like an inverted blade.
Tears streamed down her face.
Her breath broke in her chest.
And he…
nothing.
Just those eyes.
Dark. Still. Unmoving.
He stared at her like one stares at a wall.
Or like looking into a mirror — with no emotion.
Ayumi trembled.
Her hands were failing her.
Then Feitan stepped forward.
Slowly.
Without threat.
Without anger.
Just… with that sick calm that always clung to him.
He moved closer to the gun.
Until his forehead pressed against the barrel.
A whisper.
Dry.
Pure.
"Pull the trigger."
Ayumi's eyes widened.
"Wha…?"
The words died on her lips.
He repeated:
"Do it.
If you're afraid of me.
Do it.
Then it ends.
Right now."
It wasn't provocation.
It wasn't a game.
It was the truth.
Feitan wasn't afraid.
He didn't want to live.
He wasn't seeking justice.
Just… an end.
Ayumi looked at him.
And only then — in that one moment —
she saw everything.
Not the killer.
Not the executioner.
But a hollow boy.
Fragile.
Rotting inside from the hunger for nothing.
A body standing with a soul in a coma.
And something broke in her.
Not pity.
But clarity.
That boy would never ask for forgiveness.
Would never be redeemed.
Would never love anything.
Not even himself.
And so...
She lowered the gun.
Looked at him.
Shook her head.
"You're not alive,"
she whispered.
"You're just… still here. But you're already dead."
Then she turned around.
Walked away.
She didn't run.
She didn't tremble anymore.
She didn't cry.
She had stared into the void.
And walked out of it.
Not healed.
But stronger.
And as she walked away...
Feitan stayed there.
On the threshold.
His forehead still warm from the metal that hadn't killed him.
And for the first time,
in that absence of meaning,
he felt something.
Not pain.
Not relief.
But a deeper emptiness.
The emptiness left by someone who walks away...
and leaves you alive.
He closed the door.
No noise.
No rush.
The house returned to silence, as always.
Bare walls, cold, almost blind.
Lights off. Empty rooms.
Only the soft click of the bolt sliding into place.
Feitan stood still for a few seconds, his back against the wood.
Eyes open.
Mouth shut.
Chest motionless.
Her scent was still in the air.
Sweat. Metal. Cheap soap.
Fear.
Fear had a scent. And he knew it well.
Yet, that wasn't what had left something on him.
It was the choice.
The refusal.
The look.
Ayumi had aimed a gun at his head…
and then let him live.
Not out of pity.
Not out of weakness.
Because she had seen.
She had understood.
And she hadn't given him what he was looking for.
Feitan stepped away from the door.
Took a few steps.
The house was bare.
It always had been.
A bed. A table. A chair.
Grey walls, like the inside of a coffin.
The cookies were still there.
Moldy. Stale.
They looked like a wound that hadn't healed right.
Feitan stared at them.
Then picked them up.
One by one.
Dropped them into the sink.
Watched them fall, slow, soggy, like soft carcasses.
Turned the water on.
Let them rot away.
Not out of anger.
But because they were no longer needed.
He sat down on the chair, in silence.
There were no clear thoughts.
But under his skin, he felt a noise.
A rustle.
Like something moving.
An insect crawling along the bone.
An image:
Her eyes.
Not when she was begging him not to kill her.
No.
When she looked at him and lowered the gun.
Feitan had seen that scene a hundred times, from other people.
Begging, screaming, faking pity, dropping to their knees.
But no one had ever looked at him like that.
Like a broken human being.
Not as an enemy.
Not as a monster.
Not as a victim.
Just… as someone who had nothing left.
And Ayumi… hadn't needed words.
She had understood.
And walked away.
Feitan clenched his fists.
He didn't feel pain.
He didn't feel shame.
He didn't feel gratitude.
But something — something under the skin — cracked.
Like old wood, finally buckling under the pressure of a fault line.
He was no longer afraid of death.
But he was beginning — slowly — to feel the weight
of being left alive.
Once again.
He stayed there.
In the dark.
Eyes open.
Staring at the empty wall.
And in his mind, like a dirty echo,
Ayumi's words:
"You're not alive.You're just… still here. But you're already dead."