Ask/Dare Naegiri

I'm Sorry...

Their honeymoon was one long shudder. A brunette, small and a shy, young thing, his childhood fantasies of being a groom had been chilled by his wife's stern nature. She loved him very much even so, though sometimes with a slight twinge when, as they returned home through the streets at night together, she would glance up furtively at the impressive stature of her Kyoko who had been silent for the past hour. She likewise was in love with him, but never made it known, behind her iron mask

Married in January, they've been married for four months, they lived in a singular kind of bliss. Doubtless he would have wished less severity in those strict heavens of love, a more expansive and spontaneous tenderness; but his wife's immovable manner would always hold him back.

The apartment in which they lived affected her twinges and shuddering in no small fashion. The silent balcony's whiteness and colorful plants gave the autumnal impression of an enchanted palace, their palace. Inside, the glacial brilliance of stucco and the totally bare walls reinforced the feeling of an unpleasant cold environment.

Maokto spent his entire autumn in this strange love, but in a good way. But he had determined to cast a veil over his dreams of old and nightmare, and still lived in the small apartment, trying not to think of anything until his wife came home.

It was no surprise that he grew thin. He had a slight bout of the flu which dragged on insidiously for days on end. Makoto would never be healthy again. Eventually he was able to go out one late afternoon onto the balcony, resting on her arm. Listlessly, he looked around from side to side. Suddenly Kyoko ran her gloved hand slowly, with deep tenderness, over her head, and Makoto promptly burst into tears, throwing his arms round her neck. For a long while he cried all stifled fears out in pain and suffering, wailing louder at Kyoko's slightest caress. Then his sobs began to subside, and he stood a long while with his face hidden, Kyoko was wordless, motionless, and emotionless.

That was Maokto's final day out of bed. The next morning he was in pain and felt faint as soon as she awoke. Their doctor examined him with the utmost thoroughness, prescribing complete bed-rest and calm.

"I don't know..." the doctor said to Kyoko in a lowered voice on his way out, "...he has this great weakness that I can't explain. And there's no vomiting or anything... if she wakes up tomorrow and nothing's changed, call me right away."

The next day Maokto woke up feeling worse. Again the doctors were called. They diagnosed it as acute idiopathic anaemia, completely inexplicable. Makoto had no more fainting spells, but was visibly moving toward death. All day long in complete silence the bedroom lights stayed on. Hours went by without the slightest noise. Kyoko dozed worrried about her husband, but still hid her emotions behind her iron mask. Kyoko all but lived in the living room for the time being, its lamps also on. She paced ceaselessly, with tireless persistence, from one end of the room to the other. The carpet swallowed the sound of her steps. At times she would enter the bedroom and continue her wordless paces up and down alongside the bed, pausing for an instant to look at her husband at each end.
Soon Maokto began to hallucinate: vague, indistinct visions, at first floating in the air and then descending to the floor; he also began to vomit...blood. His eyes stretched wide open, the boy stared constantly at the wall on either side of the head of her bed. One night he was suddenly transfixed, staring at one spot. After a while he opened his mouth to scream...

"Kyoko! Kyoko!" He shrieked, rigid with fear, his eyes still fixed on the walls.

Kyoko ran into the bedroom. When he saw her appear, Makoto screamed in horror

"It's me, Kyoko! It's me! Makoto what's wrong?!" Kyoko worriedly screamed

Makoto stared blankly at her, at the wall, and back at her; and after a long pause of stupefied confrontation, he came back to his senses. He smiled, taking his wife's hand in his own, caressing it, trembling, for half an hour. He ignored the question...

The doctors returned to no avail. They had before them a waning life, bleeding away day by day, hour by hour, and they knew not why. During the last consultation, Makoto lay in a stupor while they took her pulse, passing her inert wrist from one to the other. For a long while they observed her in silence, and then went on to the dining room.

"Oh no..." the chief physician shrugged in discouragement "This case is serious...but there's not much to be done...I'm sorry..."

"That's all?! " snapped Kyoko, staggering suddenly. Her iron mask was breaking...

Makoto was ebbing away in an anaemic subfever which grew worse in the afternoon but always let up somewhat after dawn. During the day, his illness did not progress, but every morning she awoke pallid, barely conscious. It seemed only at night that his life drained out of her in ever-new billows of blood. Always when he woke up he had the sensation of lying collapsed in bed with a million-kilo weight on her body. Following the third day of this episode, he never left her bed again. he could hardly move his head; he didn't want his bed to be touched, not even to have the pillow plumped. His crepuscular terrors made their advance in the form of monsters that dragged themselves to the bed and scrambled up onto the bedspread.

Then he started to lose consciousness constantly. The last two days he raved ceaselessly in a feeble voice, always crying to Kyoko. The lights stayed on, their vigil illuminating the bedroom and drawing room. In the deathly silence of the house, the only sound was the monotonous delirium from the bedroom and the stifled thud of Kyoko's eternal pacing.

Finally, after a few more days, Makoto gave in...and passed away...

Kyoko was broken...she cried for days...she couldn't move on...for once she didn't work for weeks...she never solved the mystery of why her husband died...

"I'm sorry..." Kyoko cried