Chapter Text
No one will tell you how hard it is to pretend you’re not crazy. Smiling at every customer one by one like there isn’t a demon hanging onto their back or a strange shadow dogging their footsteps—it’s hard work. I can’t help but be jealous of their ignorance. I wish I didn’t see the monster that follows me either.
Japan’s not an easy place to live when you’re a twenty-something American girl with no family or friends to help you out. It’s especially hard if you try to scrape a living baking bread by yourself too. Turns out it’s hard enough to make you lose your marbles.
I never had hallucinations before I moved here (besides the time I saw a ghost in my middle school’s bathroom once). Now I see them all over the place. Monsters. They all look different but they all have the same thing in common. I’m the only person who sees them. I used to try and get other people to see them too but I stopped that pretty quick. Even if this was America, people would still look at you like a psycho if you started ranting about a one-eyed fly creature on their shoulder when there isn’t really one there. At least, not one that they could see.
I’ve accepted that I’m insane. There are no monsters. There isn’t a pale, long-armed thing with hollowed out eye sockets that follows me everywhere I go. The dozens and dozens of plants I keep in my rooms don’t keep anything away. There’s no reason to be scared. And the tired young business man that comes into my bakery everyday definitely doesn’t see them too.
“Thank you, please come again!” I say cheerily to the woman with a worm around her wrist. She hardly spares me a nod of her head as she takes her pastry and leaves. I can’t help the way my heart thumps when I see my favorite customer in line behind her. The way his eyes seem to follow the woman as she passes him—like he could see the oversized worm creature twisting around her arm too—it gives me false hope. But he just looks back at me with no change in his flat expression and points to the same sandwich he points at every day.
“Good morning,” I manage to say as I take the sandwich out of the case and set it on the counter, “is there anything else I can help you with today?”
I always ask. He always stays silent.
Nanami Kento almost always pays with cash. I only figured out his name because he paid with a card once in all the time he’s been coming to my bakery. I still haven’t been brave enough to use it to greet him though.
I find myself wanting him to talk to me more and more every day. I thought he was a foreigner like me when I first saw him, but his six-foot build and blonde hair was deceiving. Other foreigners will usually at least acknowledge a fellow outsider—Nanami Kento never so much as opens his mouth in my store. Finding out his name only further confirmed for me he was born and raised Japanese, even if he doesn’t look much like it. He’s cold and distant and perfectly put together every day. He’s incredibly intimidating with his sharp features and cold stare. But he’s by far my favorite regular.
Why? Sometimes his eye wanders. Sometimes it's almost like he sees the things I do. Once in a while, someone comes in with a monster on their back and he’ll stare at them when he doesn’t think anyone can see him. I’ve tricked myself into thinking that, anyway. It’d be nice to have someone else to be crazy with, even if he is a scary business man that never speaks.
Nanami lets out a soft sigh and sets a card on the counter instead of money. I try to hide the way my breath catches when I pick it up. Courage, Naomi, courage. Be friendly, goddammit. Be shamelessly American.
I swipe the card and wait for the receipt to finish printing before I give him both. He’s careful when he takes them so that our fingers do not touch. He probably thinks I’m dirty. Working in a kitchen on four hours of sleep every night takes a toll on a girl’s appearance, but I try not to let it bother me.
I try to make my tongue work when he tucks the card back into his wallet and stows it and the receipt back into the back pocket of his clean-cut suit. My throat stays stubbornly closed until he picks up the sandwich and makes to leave.
“Have a good day. Please come again… Mr. Nanami,” I say rather too loudly as my voice cracks. Nanami pauses for a moment, his dark eyes meeting mine for a brief moment. I’m sweating. There’s no friendliness, no warmth there. He hates my guts, I know it. I shouldn’t have said anything.
The moment ends. He looks away with a short nod and walks out of the bakery like I never said anything at all. I let out the breath I was holding in and slump over my counter with a loud groan. It would have been better if he cussed me out for daring to speak to him. The silence was unbearable.
The door to the kitchen opens a little and Yuki, my only employee, peeks her head out.
“Everything okay, Miss Naomi?” she asked in her tinny voice. I lift my head up off the counter and give her a guarded smile.
“Yeah, all good. Just tired,” I lie, covering for my own embarrassing attempts to socialize. I can tell she doesn’t believe me, but I appreciate the way she nods and goes back to her own work.
I close my shop at five every night, then work to prepare as much as I can for the next day until seven. That makes for fifteen-hour days, six days a week. Call me lazy—but I take Sundays off like God intended. I’d go nuts if I worked a moment longer.
Yuki doesn’t work those kinds of hours. I’m not a slaver, after all. She comes in at four in the morning to help me prepare the shop and leaves at two. She only works four days a week too and leaves with as good a paycheck as I can afford to give her.
Even though having help in the evenings would be nice, I want to be alone by then. Mostly because around the time evening comes, Pale Guy likes to creep up on me again. At first, I tried to ignore it like I ignore the other monsters. Now, I talk to it when no one can see me. He terrifies me, but if I talk to him like a dog, he seems less scary.
He’s here in the kitchen with me while I knead out a fresh batch of bread dough for the sandwich I know Nanami Kento will come and buy tomorrow morning—if I haven’t offended him too much with my niceties, that is.
“Why am I socially inept, Guy?” I say to him, trying to still the frantic beat of my heart when he appears in the corner of my vision. Like Nanami, he doesn’t say anything either, but he feels wrong. I know he wants to hurt me. But being scared of him makes it worse. He gets braver when I get more nervous, so I have to pretend I’m used to him.
“Did you see it, Guy? Did you see the way he looked at me? God, I wanted to crawl in a hole and die. This is what you get, trying to be nice to men. You’re lucky you don’t talk, honestly. You don’t make a fool out of yourself like I do,” I say, brushing a few stray hairs away from my face with the inside of my elbow. Pale Guy’s arms twitch but he stays where he is by the oven. Thank god. He hasn’t tried to touch me in a minute, but I’m always worried he will. I thought I was going to die last time. I didn’t come out of my room for a couple days after that one.
I get brave enough to look at him. His eyeless face stares back at me.
“You ought to start helping me with rent, you know. Freeloader,” I say, waving a knife at him before going back to separating out the dough into individual balls. He still doesn’t move. The knife isn’t a threat to him. Believe me, I’ve tried. Turns out you can’t fight hallucinations. Another tick in the “I’m probably crazy” box and not the “monsters are real” one.
“What’s wrong with me, anyway, huh? Can’t a girl be nice?” I stop what I’m doing and look at Pale Guy in my periphery. “Do you think he can tell I’m nuts? I thought I was pretty good at hiding it.” Worry gnaws at my insides now. Maybe he can tell. Maybe he only looks at the monsters because he’s trying to figure out what I’m looking at.
Pale Guy takes a step closer to me and I jump back, clutching my knife.
“Don’t test me! I swear to god, Guy. I need to get my work done tonight, you better not!” Pale Guy’s mouth stretches into a smile as I shake. I try to calm myself down and to keep my fear down. He’s just like a weird dog. He’s not real, he can’t really hurt me. I have to stay calm. The more I panic, the worse it’ll be. I can’t even channel the fear into anger—he likes that even more. Calm is the only thing that keeps him at arm’s length.
I should be used to him by now. He’s been with me for over a year. I know I shouldn’t even acknowledge him, but it’s hard not to. As much as he terrifies me, he’s the only conversation I’ve got most days of my life.
“Can I rant without you trying something? I’ll burn sage in here again, I mean it. Leave me alone,” I snap. That seems to do the trick and he steps back again. I don’t really believe in witchcraft, but I’ll do whatever if it means my hallucinations will keep away from me.
“Thanks,” I say sarcastically, wrapping up my dough and walking them over to the fridge. Pale Guy maintains the same distance from me, but I keep him in my line of sight.
Once the dough is safely tucked away, I wipe my hands on my apron and hang it up on the wall before heading towards the stairs at the back of the kitchen that lead up to the little apartment above the bakery that I stay in. Pale Guy follows me to the bottom of the stairs but doesn’t come up. I make sure to flip him off as I take off my shoes and leave them outside the door. He twitches and that’s enough to send me skittering behind my door, locking it up tight behind me.
Pale Guy doesn’t come into my rooms anymore. I’ve convinced myself somehow that collecting plants keeps monsters out, so my apartment is littered with every plant I can get my hands on. Everything from cooking herbs in little pots on my window sills to big peace lilies in every corner. Most of my water bill goes to my plants. I buy a new one to make up for bad days I’ve had. If Pale Guy wasn’t downstairs, I probably would’ve gone out and gotten myself a big azalea or something.
I need a shower.
I try not to be relieved when Nanami Kento shows up at his usual time Friday morning. Being friendly wasn’t enough to scare him off apparently. Although he does look even more exhausted today than usual, which is saying something. The dark circles under his eyes are particularly pronounced, but his pinstripe suit is perfectly crisp and his blonde hair is neat as always.
He looks me in the eye for a brief moment again. Nerves crawl across my skin as his cold gaze lands on me. He looks away again and points to the usual.
“Good morning, Mr. Nanami,” I say as I grab the sandwich. I’m really pushing it. I see something in his face twitch but his expression remains flat otherwise. But I’m not taking a step back now. He knows I know his name—might as well use it until he gets fed up or gets used to it.
“Is there anything else I can help you with today?” I add as per usual. Nanami actually seems to hesitate this time before he shakes his head while staring at the counter. I nod and wait for him to pull out his wallet. When he doesn’t, I clear my throat a little and his eyes snap back up to mine.
In the same moment, I can feel Pale Guy again. He always gets bolder on days Yuki doesn’t work. He’s sticking to the kitchen but I can feel his eyeless stare like ice water on my skin. I try to keep the same pleasant expression on my face, but I know I look stiff as a board. Nanami’s eyes narrow just a little as he reaches into his suit and pulls out his wallet.
Then, to my utter amazement, he speaks.
“I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage,” he says, pulling a few bills out of the wallet. The stiffness in my body practically melts. I don’t know what I expected his voice to sound like, but it wasn’t this. It’s low, husky almost, and quiet. I stare at him open-mouthed for a long moment before I realize his money’s been sitting on the counter for a solid five seconds.
“Oh! Sorry,” I exclaim, taking the bills and trying not to blush like a school girl as I open the register. Nanami’s face doesn’t change from its usual flat expression, but he continues to look at me with an intensity that makes me feel like a bug under a microscope.
“Your name, Miss…?” he asks, a neatly groomed eyebrow raising just slightly as I set out his receipt. I blink a few times as he carefully takes the receipt without looking away from me. His face tells me nothing about what he’s thinking, but I probably couldn’t decipher it anyway over the buzzing in my head.
“M-my name? Archer,” I answer, cursing myself silently for stuttering. Nanami tucks his wallet and the receipt into his suit pocket with a short nod. I see his eyes slide away to look at something over my shoulder before he picks up his sandwich and turns away.
“Excuse me for not asking sooner, Miss Archer .” He sounds almost bored when he says it, but when he articulates my name so carefully my knees feel like Jell-O. There’s no sarcasm or annoyance but his voice is still somehow cold. I swallow hard as I watch him make for the door.
“Please come again,” I say weakly as he walks away. He doesn’t so much as nod as he walks out the door again. I watch through the bakery windows as he disappears down the street before I let the reality of what just happened sink in.
“Guy!” I shriek, turning to look through the kitchen window. Pale Guy stands silently there, watching me. “You asshole! You made me choke!”
Pale Guy keeps four paces behind me as I walk to the plant nursery on my lunch break. It’s getting cold in Tokyo now, so I keep my coat wrapped tightly around my body as a stinging wind whips my already frazzled hair around. I gave up on trying to keep a hat on the moment I stepped out my door. He seems utterly unbothered by the weather. What a prick.
The bell above the door jingles reassuringly as I step through the doors of the nursery. Pale Guy stands outside the window. He won’t come in here either, but he’s sure to keep his gaze on me. I breathe in the bright, fresh smells of the shop and feel the tension ease in my whole body.
“Oh! Naomi!”
I smile as the little shopkeeper waves to me from behind the counter.
“Keiko. How have you been?” I ask, returning her friendly greeting. She scurries around and takes my hands, patting them.
“It’s too cold out there to be without mittens! You need to take care of those magic hands,” she says. I shake my head at her, letting out an amused exhale. I reach into my coat and produce a little box filled with cookies.
“Here, these are for your grandkids,” I say, holding the little box out. Keiko’s eyes light up as she takes the box.
“Spoiled kids! These are for me!” she giggles, “Come in, come in! I have a new plant in today I think you will love, darling.”
The promise of something new puts a new energy in my step as I follow Keiko into the greenhouse. What I didn’t expect was a whole tree. A young one, but a tree nevertheless.
Keiko gestures happily to a young lemon tree, her eyes sparkling as she looks for my reaction. I stare at it. It’s beautiful, of course. The main body is thin but holds straight and strong, with little branches covered in handsome dark green leaves. It’s not too tall yet, but I can tell it’s a robust little thing. I want it immediately.
“Keiko… it’s gorgeous,” I admit, studying the little tree carefully. Keiko smiles brightly.
“Isn’t he? I did a lot of research into the positive energy of lemons. He’ll clean your home of any bad energy and bring happiness to you,” she says. I can’t argue with that. I need this lemon tree now.
Keiko is the only person I’ve confided my insanity to. Well, parts of it anyway. She believed me when I said I was being haunted by an evil spirit. She’s practically a dealer for me—except instead of drugs it's just plants that are supposed to ward off bad spirits. I love superstitious old ladies. I’m always sure to let Keiko know she has no monsters plaguing her or her beautiful shop.
“How much?” I ask, digging around in my purse for my wallet.
“For you, dear Naomi, no charge!”
My head snaps up and I look at Keiko with wide eyes while she just smiles at me. My heart squeezes with guilt. Keiko’s shop has been around a long time, but I know she’s not financially stable enough to be giving expensive plants away.
“I can’t accept that, Keiko, I’m sorry,” I say, swallowing before continuing to look for my wallet. Keiko shushes me and pats the box of cookies.
“No, no, no! You bring me enough free things from the bakery to pay for it. Consider it payment for all the treats if you must! Please take him home, Naomi,” she insists. My lip trembles a little as I let my purse fall back down to my side. I know it’ll make her uncomfortable, but I can’t help it. I throw my arms around her and squeeze her into a tight hug. Keiko yelps and pats my back a few times.
“I’ll take good care of him, I promise,” I say with a sniffle. Keiko gives me a few more pats and I let go of her. She smiles at me and nods her head.
“I know you will, Naomi. Here; I have some things to help you care for him.”
Ten minutes later I’m walking back to the bakery with a potted lemon tree hugged tight to my chest and a bag full of plant food and a care guide for my little friend. Pale Guy already hates him. He’s hanging pretty far back from me, so I know my new little friend is going to be a great addition to my collection. Just to spite Pale Guy, I think I’ll keep my handsome new friend out in the shop with me for today.
It’s a bit of a juggling act to get out my keys and open the door to my bakery again, but I manage it after dropping my keys twice and cursing up a storm. Once inside, I set my new friend down out of sight behind my counter and tuck my things back onto their shelf before flipping my sign back to open and straightening things up.
Pale Guy stays outside the shop. His face is expressionless like always, but I can tell he’s frustrated. I stick my tongue out at him in triumph, but quickly wipe the look off my face and pretend I don’t see him when a couple of young women come in.
Business as usual. No monsters or crazy women here.