Best Buddy

In a remote province of Japan, where the world seems untouched by time, mountains rise like silent guardians around endless rice fields. Rivers cut gently through the land, reflecting the pale sky. Insects sing in rhythmic harmony, the wind whispers through tall grass, and birds scatter soft, peaceful melodies across the air. It is a place where tranquility should reign and yet.... At the heart of this serene landscape stands a traditional Japanese house. From afar, it appears beautiful. Timeless. Calm. But the moment you step closer, a suffocating pressure settles in your chest, as if the land itself is holding your breath. Because behind the paper walls and wooden beams of this house... A nightmare was hidden..... “AHHHHH—!” “P-Please… have mercy! I still have children—!” “N-No—don’t! DON’T— AHHH!” Screams tear through the air, ripping apart the peaceful melodies of nature. Blood splashes against tatami mats and shoji doors. Lifeless bodies are strewn across the house—twisted, broken, discarded like a trash. Samurai blades drip a crimson blood, their steel reflecting flickering firelight. The stench of blood, smoke, and burning flesh suffocates the air. Men in black kimonos move with merciless efficiency, dragging corpses across the floor and hurling them into roaring flames outside. Each body burns away in silence, as if erasing its very existence. Yet in the center of this hell.... Two men stand. Surrounded by death... Unmoving.... The screams echo all around them, but neither seems to hear anything except the loud violent pounding of their own hearts. One of them wears a blue suit, now stained and wrinkled. His face is battered—bruises blooming across his temple, lips split and trembling. His eyes are swollen, red, overflowing with tears that wouldn't stop falling. “W-Why…?” his voice breaks. “Why did you do this to us…?” He looks desperately at the man before him, as if answers might still save what remains of his shattered soul. The other man stands in a red kimono, its color blending almost seamlessly with the blood-soaked floor. His posture is calm. Too calm. His eyes are empty.... cold.... lifeless....and reflecting nothing. He simply watches the man in blue cry. “SPEAK!!!” the man in blue screams, his chest heaving. “I trusted you! I thought.... I thought—!” His words collapse into sob and more tears start to fall again from his reddish eyes Finally, the man in the kimono speaks after a long silence. “Everything you thought was wrong.” The words are quiet.... and utterly devastating. They strike deeper than any blade. The man in blue’s breath stutters as if his heart has been stabbed multiple times. His tears fall harder, his chest burning, crushing him from the inside. He clutches his suit, pounding his fist weakly against his own chest, as if trying to rip the pain out. All those times.... every conversation, every shared silence, once gave him nothing but mild annoyance and headache Now, those same lips have totally destroyed him. “S-So all these years…” his voice trembles, anger and grief colliding. “Everything you showed us… was a lie? Nothing but deception?” Silence answers him. Instead, the man in the kimono calmly kneels and picks up a small teapot, along with two cups. His movements are unhurried, as if the world around them isn’t drowning in blood. He pours tea, the soft sound of liquid filling porcelain echoing cruelly in the room. He places one cup in front of the man in blue but it was violently knocked away. The cup shatters against the wall. “You’re being a brat again,” the man in the kimono murmurs, reaching for another cup. Before he can pour another tea, the table is flipped. Porcelain crashes and tea spills everywhere. Scalding liquid splashes onto the man in the kimono’s hand. The man in blue freezes....his breath catches. Why....? Even now... why can’t I stand seeing him hurt? He tried everything to stop himself but his body betrayed him. He grabs the burned hand, lifting it carefully. He blows on it gently, desperately, as if this small act could undo everything. The man in the kimono didn't pull it away. He does not react. He only watches—empty-eyed—as if nothing matters anymore. That silence terrifies the man in blue more than the screams outside. His heart twists.... Was any of it real? Desperate, reckless, he pulls the man in the kimono closer and presses his lips against his—hard, forceful, unrestrained kiss. For a brief second, shock flashes in the man’s eyes. The kiss feels wrong. Cold. Unfamiliar. Still, he does not resist... When the man in blue finally pulls away, his voice is barely a whisper. “Now.... tell me again,” he pleads. “Was none of it real?” They stand inches apart. Minutes pass. Only the crackling of fire and distant screams fill the silence. Please....take it back....lie to me if you have to...I don’t care if everything else was fake… just tell me you loved me....!! His entire world hangs on the next words of the man in kimono. The man in the kimono opens his mouth. “You are just part of my mission,” he says calmly. “I don’t...." He looked at the man in blue suit coldly ".....love you” The words are precise.... Merciless..... He stares directly into the man in blue’s eyes as he delivers the final blow. In that moment..... the man in blue’s world collapses completely. “Loving you....” the man in the kimono continues, voice void of emotion, “was just part of my plan.” And amid the burning house and blood-soaked floor.... Something far more fragile than flesh dies.