I’m Not That Villain

85 – Nightmare

Waving a hand. Over one’s head.

Taken simply, in terms of pure meaning, it’s a sentence without any particular danger. But a grown adult would understand what it signifies.

My companion stiffened, as if she understood it.

Teresa yawned languidly at the expected reaction.

This isn’t a story I particularly want to tell. But it’s not a story I can’t tell, either.

Unearthing it won’t change the ‘me’ that I am now, not really.

Still, having started, best to finish it, no?

Leaving it half-said only fuels curiosity, gives it a life of its own.

Besides…

I was curious about his reaction, after hearing it all.

“They called me ‘the girl who ate her father alive,’ from the beginning. It was odd, you see. The moment I was born, my father died. A traffic accident, rushing to the maternity ward. Probably a *ppang*of a horn right before the end, right? I used to imagine it, sometimes. Did my father resent me, as he died? If he hadn’t heard the news of my impending arrival, he wouldn’t have rushed out in the dark, behind the wheel. If I hadn’t come early, but on time… he’d still be alive, healthy—that’s what I thought.”

Teresa hugged the pillow tighter.

“Of course, this is all from a time I don’t even remember. I have no cherished memories of my father, so the echoes in that name, *Father,* don’t stir much longing in me. Something lost is bitter, but not something never had, isn’t it? I was alright. But my mother was not.”

“…….”

“My mother was… let’s say, a lonely woman. You wouldn’t be wrong to call her man-crazy, maybe? Yes. That’s the feel of it. That’s how I felt, anyway. She didn’t really care for me. Not that she abused me. She wanted to hate me, but somehow couldn’t bring herself to fully embrace that hatred… complicated, perhaps? I, myself, have complicated feelings towards her now.”

“…Are you telling me this because you *want* to?”

He asks. The man whose name I don’t know.

Teresa smiles.

“Yes.”

She continues the story.

“My mother, from when I was a child, would go out and meet men. Sometimes she’d come back drunk and sleep with just about anyone. There was even that time she was caught with a friend’s father, chased out stark naked. She became known as the town whore. A woman possessed by lust. A devil in skirts. Every night, my mother would put on heavy makeup. We lived in a small house, but she always slept alone. It’s a little lacking to call it *loneliness*… emptiness? Yes. My childhood was always hollow. Like something important was missing.”

“…….”

“Then, one day, my mother remarried. To a clergyman, famous even in our town. My mother, in her own way, was very beautiful. We even moved house. From our cramped little place to a big, impressive mansion. I got my own room, too. But, you know… I actually liked the old room better. Because, in that small house, at least I could be with Mom during the day… moving to that big room made that impossible, you see? So, I was left to spend all my time alone. In that room. Being with anyone other than Mom felt wrong. Maybe it was my introverted nature from when I was very young… or because all the other kids kept calling me the whore’s daughter… anyway, that’s how it was.”

Teresa closed her eyes. Behind her eyelids, she could see that room.

A bed and a desk. Between them, a blanket was draped. It made a space, like a secret hideout.

That space. I liked it so much.

Even if the door was open, even if someone peeked…

They couldn’t see all the way under the blanket at once.

“But when I was alone, the priest, who had now become my stepfather, would slip in, often. Even when I asked him to knock, he wouldn’t listen. Whether I was reading, or doing something else, he’d come in so quietly and just look at me. If I asked if he wanted to say something, he’d just shake his head. He’d be smiling, but it wasn’t a smile I welcomed much. More like…like bugs were crawling all over me.”

“…….”

“Then…what was it? Ah. Yes. That’s right. Mother started getting hit. By my stepfather. I thought, because he was a priest, he was a good person, but he wasn’t all that good. The kind of person who was rough with his family, you could say. But Mother…she didn’t say anything even when she was hit. Just clamped her mouth shuttight. The only sounds were like…*ughugh* that was it. Really, that was all. It wasn’t even something you could call a scream…more like a strange noise, you know?”

“…….”

“That’s when it started. The nightmares. You see, in my dreams, I was always lying in bed. Underneath the bed, I could hear that *ugh-ugh* sound, and someone was watching me from the half-open door. I’d try to move my hands, but they wouldn’t move. I’d open my mouth, but no sound would come out, so I’d just tremble…and then *thunk,* I’d wake up. Then I’d get out of bed and just spin around and around the room, blankly. Like I’d die if I stayed still. Just around and around.”

Ann raised two fingers on the pillow.

She moved the two fingers back and forth, as if a person was walking.

“I got scared of sleeping. Because I wasn’t sleeping, I’d doze off at school. Because I was dozing off at school, they contacted my home. Mother gave me sleeping pills. But they made my head hurt, so I pretended to take them and didn’t. I threw them up into the toilet and flushed them all away. The nightmares got worse and worse, and eventually, I looked like I was going to die, with dark circles under my eyes. Even *I* thought there was a corpse standing on the other side of the mirror.”

“…….”

“Around the time my health was getting worse, that man, my stepfather, started coming into my bedroom in the early hours. Thinking I was asleep, he’d stare at me, then…he’d start waving his hand like this, like this. Bringing it close to my face, like something was about to touch it.”

The bed creaked.

Teresa gave a short, dry laugh.

“Because he’d given me sleeping pills, because he’d made me sleep…maybe he thought I *was* sleeping? While he was waving his hand like that, my stepfather…sometimes he’d open his mouth and say things. Possessed by a demon, this girl. I will purify you…something with that kind of feel. Thinking about it now, they were just silly things to say. But back then, it was really scary. Scary enough to think that I myself was trapped inside a nightmare.”

“…….”

“His gaze. It kept sticking to me, day and night. I wanted to run away somewhere, but there was nowhere to run. I didn’t want to go home, but there wasn’t much I could do without going home. I didn’t have any friends. No acquaintances, either. On top of my body blackening and dying, and the nickname of ‘whore’s daughter,’ there wasn’t a single place my heart could hold on to. I ran away from home for a few days once, but all the adults who said they’d protect me just groped me, so I ended up going back home. My only ally was my mother. She didn’t exactly give me love, but she didn’t hate me either. So, finally, when I couldn’t take it anymore, I told my mother.”

Teresa lowered her gaze.

The more I spoke, the stranger I felt. I was confessing, curious for his reaction, but…

perhaps it would have been better left unsaidthat thought plagued me.

But it couldn’t be helped. I simply didn’t know.

Which path was right, which was wrong.

I was ignorant of how to interact normally with others.

“Mother. Please help me. Mother. Mother. Father keeps doing strange things. He comes into my bedroom every night. Please help me.”

“……..”

“My mother, you see, didn’t say a thing. Perhaps, by then, she was so used to being struck, she’d forgotten how to rebel. Even though I told her, she took no action. And so, the same days repeated themselves. I was breathing, but in truth, I was as good as dead. So, I prayed diligently. Sat in the church, all alone in that place, clasping my hands together, begging until late at night… pleading with anyone to save me. On and on. On and on. On and on.”

“……..”

“Then one day, you see. Just like any other, I was pretending to sleep… when I heard my stepfather, panting at the head of my bed, suddenly let out a scream. That was the first time I opened my eyes properly in the dead of night. Blood was dripping from my stepfather’s head, and above him was my mother, lunging at him. I don’t know why she did it, but my mother, you see… she was thrashing about as if she truly wanted to kill him. Where such strength came from in that sickly body that had been beaten every day, I couldn’t say… but she screamed, desperate. What are you doing to my daughter? But then my stepfather grabbed a bottle…”

*Clang.*

I still remember that sound.

The sound of the bottle shattering, and the first time I heard my mother scream.

She took a moment to catch her breath. Her throat was dry and she swallowed.

“…Mother writhed for a moment and then stopped moving altogether. My stepfather, clutching the broken shard of glass, bleeding, turned to look at me. He said he didn’t mean for it to happen, and he started coming towards me, but then there was a roar. From outside the house. I thought I saw a flash of light, and then a storm came crashing down with it, you see?”

“……..”

“When I opened my eyes, the house was all collapsed. The children who tormented me, the adults who cursed behind my back, the people who offered to help but then tried to touch me. My stepfather and my mother… they were all dead. But me. I was alive. All the people I wished would disappear had disappeared, but I alone had survived!”

Ah.

I still remember that moment of elation.

Thanks to that person, amidst the overturned village, she alone had survived.

“After that miracle, many things followed…but the important thing is, I still wake up often at four in the morning. Unwantedly.”

Teresa rolled her eyes only after she finished telling the entire story.

She stared intently at him, to check his reaction.

Would he pity her? Or curse her?

Or would he simply stare back, as if he hadn’t heard a thing?

Whenever she uttered this story, others approached her with a faux pity. And at the end of it all, they’d subtly try to touch her.

She knew he didn’t have much interest in women’s bodies.

But still, she wondered. What his reaction would be.

And so she stares, at him sitting quietly, maintaining the silence.

“……..”

He, who hadn’t uttered a single word throughout the telling of the story, was looking this way.

Within his gaze, there was no comfort, no pity, nothing at all. Only a quiet, still stare.

“…Then.”

He said.

The face usually mirrors the heart. But his face was close to expressionless, making it difficult to discern his true feelings.

It was impossible to know what he was thinking.

“Will you stay awake now?”

“Well… I suppose so?”

“What will you be doing?”

“Thinking about this and that? I’ll just be tumbling around in bed. Not much of a one for the phone. I’ll be still as the dead, so you can sleep soundly.”

“Hearing you say that, I don’t think I’ll be sleeping so soundly.”

He scratched the back of his head. He sighed, as if in thought, then…

Immediately, he rose.

He gave the blanket a sharp snap. He climbed atop me.

A firm tug.

The blanket covered me, almost enveloping, up to my shoulders.

“……?”

He didn’t come inside.

Instead, he sat down at the foot of the bed.

“What are you doing?”

“Just going to muck about a bit before sleep.”

“…….?”

“Pillow straight under your head? I’ll turn up the room temperature a touch. Ah. And just a moment…stay here.”

In a daze, Teresa watched the scenes flitting past.

He seemed to leave through the door, then quickly returned. A few drinks and snacks, likely procured from the convenience store, he placed down beside me.

Turning on the television was a bonus. After turning the volume down, he…

Settled in, leaning against the bed.

The drama series flowed quietly across the screen, its sound and brightness dimmed. That soft murmur, like white noise from a café, prompted Teresa to roll slightly onto her side.

“…So you’re going to stay up all night?”

“Yes.”

“Just lie down and get some sleep.”

“I’m wide awake. Not like I can do anything right now anyway… Just going to laze away the time, half-heartedly. It’s comfortable this way.”

Didn’t look comfortable at all.

More like terribly uneasy.

Teresa stole a glance at the screen flickering from the television.

A drama she didn’t recognize. Not that she knew any dramas, to begin with.

“You have something important to do tomorrow, don’t you?”

“I’ll do it as planned. I never needed much sleep anyway.”

“Liar.”

“Really, I’m not.”

Teresa giggled.

Another utterly incongruous reaction. She’d spilled this story a few times before.

Why?

It wasn’t a story she needed to keep hidden, after all.

What should have been a trauma had long since been replaced by the tale of being saved by Bad Sector. If she were ashamed to recount being captivated by someone, wouldn’t *that* be stranger?

The adult who promised to protect her.

The colleague who vowed to defend even her.

The superior who boasted, telling her not to worry and to trust him.

Teresa answered their questions just the same as she did now. There wasn’t anything, particularly, she *couldn’t* say.

But each and every one, while claiming to understand her feelings, only whispered sweetly of offering help, somehow.

Not a single soul had ever offered to keep vigil with her through the night.

Teresa turned her head. Her mouth fell open in a soundless *a*.

He glanced down at her reclining form, at her open mouth, and placed a morsel directly between her lips.

“Sleep if you get sleepy.”

“I told you, I won’t.”

“Well then, nothing to be done about it, I suppose.”

“…Excuse me?”

“Yes?”

“Listening to my story… what did you think?”

“……..”

He shrugged, faced with her direct question.

“Just… well…”

“Just what?”

“I didn’t know. What I should even say.”

“……”

“This didn’t seem right, that didn’t seem right… it’s as if you weren’t even looking for a solution to begin with…”

He stole a glance in her direction.

“Out of all of it, it seemed like the one thing that *was* clear was that I should buy you snacks, so I did.”

“Clear?”

“The blanket feels stifling, doesn’t it? A bit cramped, perhaps?”

“……..”

Teresa nodded.

He propped himself up on an arm in the bed. A small smirk played on his lips as his eyes met hers.

“Adding my pillow on top, and then me pressed right next to the bed like this… makes it even tighter, no?”

“…Yes.”

“You said you liked small spaces. Back then, that old house.”

“……..”

Teresa stared fixedly at him.

He tapped her nose with a finger.

“I tried to recreate it, in some small way. Do you like it?”

“…Not similar at all.”

“Such a shame.”

Teresa abruptly sat up. Still swathed in the blanket, she slid down to the floor.

The gap between the bed and the wall was impossibly narrow. She squeezed herself into it, nestling against his stomach.

“…Excuse me? This is truly cramped.”

“This is how close it had to be, to be similar.”

Leaving a perfectly good bed behind.

Deliberately, painstakingly, coming down to the floor, wrapped in the blanket in this absurd tableau.

Teresa chuckled. She giggled for a moment, then gently peeled back the blanket, drawing him in with her.

A rustling sound came from behind. The sound of a snack being unwrapped, and Teresa tapped her finger against her own lips.

“Ah.”

“Making me work hard, aren’t you.”

Though grumbling, she still popped the treat into her mouth. Munching thoughtfully, Teresa gazed at the television screen.

“What drama is this?”

“I don’t know either. Just put on whatever was showing.”

“Hmm…”

Sitting next to a man whose name she didn’t even know.

Crawling into the narrow space between the bed and the wall with a blanket.

Spending the night watching a drama she’d never seen before.

Teresa closed her eyes slightly. Leaning at an angle, she rested her cheek against his chest.

A good scent drifted up.

So very.