The Butcher across the Street

She was pretty, she knew she didn't have to do all of this. She knew she didn't have to listen to the naggings of her mother anymore. Her name was Mimiko. She could persuade anyone (any male, at least.)  to do her bidding with her beautiful looks. She had long brown hair with bangs infront. She was naturally fair and had really long eyelashes. Her lips were red and small, she looked like a bisque doll you'd like to just take off the shelf.

Mimiko was a single child, with a single parent. Her mother always nagged her about her studies and usually spend rest of the day going out with her guy friends (which she said were just her "colleagues" and nothing more,) to drink. Mimiko had a lot of time at home to think and do stuff she couldn't when there were people around. Sometimes she'd think about her father, Tadashi, who commited suicide just when she turned 16. She still remembers it clearly. She loved him dearly, he was the one who comforted her every time her mother would hit her or yell at her.

It was summer, the light through the glass window danced through the whole house and gave Mimiko's father's body a clear and grotesque look. She did not weep. She did not shed a tear, for she had already seen this coming. She knew one day she'd come home to see her father's body hanging from the ceiling. Her mother didn't. Her mother wanted to keep his body there so she could act as if he never died, he never took his life. Mimiko didn't mind either, not until the smell started getting overpowered, at least. Neighbours started complaining, dogs and cats went missing all around the neighbourhood. And each time Mimiko looked at her father's corpse, the more detiorated it became.

First it was his nose. It dropped on to the carpet, which Mimiko had to clean up. Then it was his eyes, they started swelling and the skin around the eyes started turning red, and one day, they popped. Which Mimiko also had to clean up. His body was later taken by the police, due to "Foul stench disturbing neighbourhood."

Today again, Mimiko's mother went out to drink with her friends. She grabbed this oppurtunity to call one of her friends to go out for a karaoke session or two. Maybe even invite some guys with her. She picked up her cellphone with tiny stuffed toy keychains hung on it. "Hello, Kitako-chan? Yeah, my mom went out drinking again.. So you want to go for a karaoke session?" She spoke softly, but instantly got a reply, "Oh, Mimiko! Yes, I'd love to! Don't move a muscle, I'm already on my way to your house!" She was content with the reply and got changed in to her normal outfit: Punk.

She kind of started dressing this way when her father died, it was probably better than being in the clothes you wore when you were at a sort-of-funeral.

That night she couldn't even sleep, the face of her dead father had mangled a piece of her. This mentally scarred her. It made her scared, scared to love again. Scared to trust anyone who would kill themselves and leave her behind. She wanted to hang herself too. But incidentally, that was around the time where she met her new ray of light, Kitako. She had comforted her and told her to let it all out, to not keep her feelings stored inside of her, and so, she did cry. But she swore to herself and everyone, she'd never cry for whatever the reason. Or else. Or else she'd bite her own tongue off to choke in her own blood.

Then there was the bell, her friend was already waiting for her at her doorstep. She looked through her bedroom window and waved at her, and Kitako waved back. There was, however three figures behind her whom facial expressions she couldn't make out of. She shivered. Ugh.

She unlocked her front door and saw Kitako waiting for her, with three guys behind her. "Hi Mimiko! I know you're really lonely, so I thought I'd make the karaoke session in to a sort-of mixer party!" Mimiko smiled, "Thanks, Kitako." But it didn't really matter to her, she was aromantic, so much as asexual. She didn't fancy anyone at all, it didn't have a point to her. What was love anyway? Just a meaningless emotion for people to have an excuse to reproduce with? Disgusting.

Following Kitako and the other three guys through the market, (a shortcut to the karaoke station) Mimiko noticed the butcher her mother flirted with staring at her. The butcher had an ugly scar on his face, which made Mimiko twist her face in to one that look disgusted. She hurried along, as the butcher's gaze followed her. He loved her. But he could tell that she however, didn't return his feelings. He wanted to take her, he wanted to make her his. He sighed as he took the rotten meat hanging on display and threw it in to the drain behind him, then covered it back with a wooden board.

-

Arriving at the karaoke station, she took a seat next to Kitako and away from all the guys. She tried to be as happy as possible and sing a few songs. One of the guys tried flirting with her, but to no avail. She had just brush them off coldly, like she always did, really. She drank a beer or two, which was really just enough to send her off. Kitako on the other hand was a tough drinker. "Sorry guys, Mimiko has to go home now." The guys groaned in dissapointment as Kitako lifted Mimiko up and dragged her from the karaoke station until she got a call. "Hello? Oh, mom! Sorry, I'll be right there!" She turned to look at the dazed Mimiko who wobbled as she took more steps. "Mimiko, sorry. Just.. make it, okay? It's a really, really short distance! See ya'!"

She left. Mimiko burnt those words in her mind. Her own best friend ditched her for god knows what her mother wanted. She stepped forward, trying to maintain her balance. She coughed continuously and stopped in the middle of the market when she felt someone grab her hand. She was pulled back by a necrophilia, the butcher. She yelled for help, but the alcohol and gone to her, and she couldn't think straight. She was going to get raped, or worse, killed. Why the hell did Kitako leave her alone in this empty street? Most caring friend ever, Mimiko thought.

The butcher pushed her down and yelled into her face, "I'm gonna bury yer body in that drain behind me shop! We'll be together forever, ain't we gon'? Mimi?" Mimiko struggled to get her way out, she turned to the butcher's hand and sank her teeth deep into it as hard as she could. The butcher pushed her away harshly and screamed in pain, "I'm gon' take yer eye for that!" He held his hand while lunging himself at her. But then, there was a howl.

Without any warning, the street started to get misty, and the butcher looked around, he now looked frightened. But Mimiko wasn't, the only thing she was frightened about was this butcher who wanted to slaughter her.

A silhoutte appeared, it held a butcher's knife, somewhere in the distance. When the figure walked closer, a tear slipped down Mimiko's face. It was her father, his body was still in an OK condition, his eyes were back in place and so was his nose. The butcher screamed and tried to get up to run but Mimiko's father grabbed his foot before he could. "T-tadashi! No wait.. We were friends. weren't we now?" The butcher tried to come up with an excuse to save himself, but he just scoffed him off. "I'm no friends with anyone who tries to harm my daughter." He coldly said, he raised his arm and cut the butcher's neck to leave him and left him for dead.

Mimiko looked at her father in disbelieve, "Dad.." She whimpered. Her father, clothes now stained in blood, dropped the knife and walked towards her. "Mimiko.. I've been looking for you.." She looks back at him in confusion, "You have? Then why didn't you leave a note when you comitted suicide?!" She cried. "I didn't.. That man.. That butcher.. He killed me.. He only made it look like suicide." Her father said to her gently, "I wasn't enough for your mother as well, apparently. She was having an affair with him. Once when she was drunk she told him that she wished I never came home, so he made her wish come true. He hung me and when my mom got to know, she took a knife and slashed his face, that's where he got the scar from. But your mother still goes near him.. She continues to talk to him, not knowing what danger she's putting you in to."

Mimiko nodded, she had nothing else to do but to trust her father now. "Wh-what about his body?" She asked. Tadashi then stood up and dragged the corpse of the butcher and dumped it in to the drain behind his stall. "It's a market, it's alright. No one would notice the smell." He said then pat her on her head. Then without warning, he stood up and the mist started clearing. "Mimiko.. Whatever you do, if a butcher works across the street, don't ever talk to him or look at him, it'll bring you bad.." Mimiko nodded. "What about you then?" She asked, sounding calmer now. "I've been sent here by them, I can only be here for 5 minutes at the most. To complete my mission." His legs that started to fade away. "Dad?" Mimiko gasped. "Mimiko, whatever you do, I will support you all the way." He closed his eyes, and disappeared into the dark sky.

-

It's been long since Mimiko's dad visited her. She still misses him everyday. Mimiko refuses to tell anyone about what happened that night. She only told Kitako that she woke up in bed, someway or another.

The stench of the butcher's corpse started to stink more than the odor from all the stalls in the market, people checked where it came from and made an outbreak. The police leave the murderer to be unidentified, the murder weapon was a butcher knife, but no fingerprints were to be found. Police say that the murderer must've been wearing gloves.

Mimiko's mother had died three weeks after the disappearance of the butcher. Her mother had also been killed, but no fingerprints found. Mimiko knew what happened. And only she would know, she never told anyone about this story she had been keeping.

One day she stared at the pill in her hand and looked in to the night sky, "See you soon, dad." And swallowed the pill whole.