“There’s a happy ending to this, right?”

“Not likely, no.”

The first time he heard those words, he thought his parents were warning him against the occult. It wasn’t until much later that he realized the truth, and by then, it was too late; he had become the very thing he’d sworn not to become.

Funny how life works. He doesn’t know why the memory popped now, of all times, when he’s knee-deep in dirt, digging up the grave of a barely-deceased person. Maybe it was the association to his formative years.

“You done yet, Ryo? We can’t stay here any longer.”

Ryosuke hisses back a reply, throwing back a shovelful of dirt. “Shut the up if you’re not going to help.”

Outside the grave, his partner, Daiki, lets out an impatient sigh. “Why are you trying so hard? All we need is the hair, leave the body broken or whatever.”

“I’m not going to do that.” His shovel hits something solid, and a hollow thunk rings out across the cemetery. Daiki winces and jumps down into the hole, helping Ryosuke lift the lid of the coffin.

The deceased is a young man, tall, with dark hair and a clear complexion. Even in death, he looks beautiful, and Ryosuke suddenly understands why the client wants his hair.

“What do you think they want the hair for?” he asks Daiki, flipping out a switchblade. “Satanic ritual?”

Daiki scoffs, but Ryosuke notices that his eyes dart around. “Just hurry up already.”

Ten minutes later, the coffin lid has been replaced, the dirt shoveled back and packed down, and Ryosuke and Daiki are speeding away down the road.

“Client, Nakajima Yuto.” Ryosuke pulls out a notebook from the glove compartment and reads over the information they were given. “Objective, retrieve a lock of hair from the grave of one Yabu Kota. Check, done, awesome.”

“You don’t sound excited.” Daiki takes a sharp turn, throwing Ryosuke against the car door. “They’re paying us a lot of money for a single tuft of hair.”

Ryosuke shakes his hair out of his eyes, pausing before responding. “Something doesn’t seem quite right,” he admits, running his finger over the words on the paper. “Like… it just feels off.”

“You’re thinking too much.” Ryosuke opens his mouth to protest, but Daiki stops suddenly. “Well, we’re here.”

Aside from the small wooden cabin, all Ryosuke can see is a large expanse of forest. Trees all around, looming threateningly above them. He turns back to Daiki, who’s already stepped out of the car with a satisfied sigh.

“Get back in!” Ryosuke hisses, but Daiki ignores him, marching up to the door and knocking. The door opens, revealing a sliver of yellow light. Ryosuke sighs and opens the car door. Suddenly, before Ryosuke’s foot has even touched the ground, Daiki shouts, stumbling backwards, but a pair of hands grabs him and pulls him inside with inhuman speed. The door slams shut, and, still half-inside the car, Ryosuke freezes, not sure what’s just happened.

He hears a quiet crunch behind him and panicks, pulling his leg back into the car. But it’s too late, and before he can even yell, a hand clamps over his mouth, and he succumbs to the darkness.

***

The first thing he notices upon waking up is that his head hurts. A lot. He must have been drugged; the throbbing seems similar to a severe hangover. The second thing he notices is that his hands and legs have been bound to what feels like a wooden rack.

The third thing he notices is Daiki’s mutilated body in front of him. Unwittingly, he screams, unable to look away from the corpse that used to be his partner. Hands grab at his shoulders, untying the ropes binding him, and Ryosuke finds that he can’t move his limbs.

“What are you doing?” he shrieks, trying futilely to move his head. “What have you done? Who are you?”

No one answers. Instead, they carry Ryosuke to a large circle drawn on the ground, placing him in the center. Then, before he can process what’s happening, flames burst out of his chest, and Ryosuke can only watch in horror as his body burns, his flesh shrivelling like bacon in a hot pan.

Surprisingly, he feels no pain at all, and remains paralyzed as a hooded figure steps up and deposits a tuft of hair into the flames on his chest. Almost immediately, a bright green light springs up from the fire, which extinguishes, leaving Ryosuke alive and unharmed.

Beside him, however, lies a man. A boy, really, with dark hair and a clear complexion. A boy whose grave he had disturbed and reburied not half an hour ago.

Yabu Kota, he remembers from the information the client had given. The boy who, evidently, had been revived by some form of dark magic, of which Ryosuke was supposed to be a sacrifice.

Or maybe Daiki had been the sacrifice, and Ryosuke was simply the last piece needed to complete the puzzle.

The boy’s eyes snap open, and he sits up with a gasp. Immediately, the hooded figures in the room kneel, bowing their heads. “Lord,” one of them says in a low, rushed voice. “Please, your orders?”

Yabu Kota looks around for a moment, eyes landing on Ryosuke. “Free him,” he demands, voice rusty with disuse. “Let this person go.”

Later, sitting in the warm interior of Daiki’s car, Ryosuke asks, “Why did you save me?”

Kota spares him a glance. The little wood cabin burns as they drive away, and Ryosuke can’t stop shivering. “You were not the sacrifice. You were an unfortunate soul who did not deserve this treatment.”

The rest of the car ride is silent. Ryosuke doesn’t know what to make of it, the revived boy and his connection to Ryosuke’s own parents. He’d seen the tattoo, a small red lotus on the inside of his wrist. Only those who worked for the Yamadas had such a tattoo.

Finally, as Kota slows down in front of Ryosuke’s apartment, he clears his throat and asks. Kota starts, looking down at his bare wrist, and purses his lips. After a long while, he says, “This isn’t the first time I died.”

***

The first time Yabu Kota died, he was only a child. It was an accident; he had fallen backwards off a cliff and split his skull open. It was painless, and death was immediate, but his parents, devastated, had called upon the Yamadas to revive him.

The Yamadas, infamous for their interest in the occult, for their skill in dark magic. Rarely did they use their powers, but when they did, the sky burned with sin.

And so, filled with sin, Yabu Kota returned to life. He grew up normally, carefully, knowing that he was given an impossible second chance. In the meantime, the Yamadas retreated into hiding and produced a son, a baby too pure for the world and all its darkness.

The second time Yabu Kota died, Ryosuke was ten years old. He remembers the crying woman and the raging man, remembers his parents comforting the grieving couple, remembers the dark hair and clear complexion of the dead boy on the kitchen table.

He didn’t know his name, didn’t know what happened, only that the next day, the boy was alive and well, carefully eating a slice of toast, sitting at the kitchen table. Upon seeing Ryosuke, he’d given a small smile and wave, but the look in his eyes was hollow.

“There’s a happy ending to this, right?” he asked his parents after seeing off the boy and his ecstatic family. His father closed the door with a huff, shaking his head in disgust. Similarly, ruffling his hair, his mother had replied, “No, not likely.”

He’d thought they were warning him against their line of work, yet it took ten more years and the third revival of Yabu Kota for him to realize the true meaning behind those words.

“Reviving the dead requires a living soul,” Kota explains, seated at Ryosuke’s kitchen table with a slice of warm toast. “There was a reason your parents rarely took on work.”

So that explains their agonizing deaths. Ryosuke’s parents had died screaming, writhing on the floor as if they were being burnt alive. Now, he realizes that it was from the last parts of their souls dying.

“Does that mean your soul…” He trails off, but Kota huffs in amusement. “Well? You know what I was going to say.”

“Yes.” The answer comes, short and simple. “Your friend’s soul can’t sustain me for long. That’s why I died the second time, because the fragments of your parents’ souls weren’t enough to sustain me for long.”

The question burns in Ryosuke’s throat. “So why did they do it?” he whispers. “Why did they do it if they knew they were going to die? Why did they leave me behind?”

There’s no answer to his question. The only two people who could have answered it died years ago. Silently, Kota reaches out and touches his arm. His fingers are warm, Ryosuke notices, and pretends the tears dripping onto the table aren’t his.

Having nowhere else to go, Kota moves in with Ryosuke, and for a while, it seems that everything is normal again. But something doesn’t seem right, and it’s only months later that it hits him.

“They called you Lord.” Kota is curled up on the sofa, reading a tabloid magazine. He starts, looking up at Ryosuke. “The people who revived you. They called you Lord.”

Kota shrugs, not meeting his gaze. “They wanted to summon a monster, I guess.” But Ryosuke notices the way his eyes dart around nervously. “I’m not sure why they used my hair, though.”

“You’re a monster.” Ryosuke’s voice is calm, which comes as a surprise to him. “You used my parents to feed your desires. You were never alive. The first time they revived you, you were a monster. No one can revive the dead. They used their souls to bind you, and then you killed them.”

A long silence follows, and then, Kota laughs, sharply, coldly. “Yes, and so what?” His voice has changed, become deeper, and Ryosuke instinctively backs away. “I was never meant to be alive, yet here I am. Call me a monster, but maybe I just want to live the life I never had.”

Shadows spring up from the corners, snaking around Ryosuke’s arms and legs, pinning him to the ground. He can only laugh, a short, bitter bark, as Kota looms above him, eyes glinting in the dim light.

“You’re going to get rid of me, huh?” Ryosuke lets his head fall back against the ground. “Ah, well. I suppose I had it coming.” He pauses, a wry smile making its way to his face. “There’s a happy ending to this, right?”

Kota raises an eyebrow and grins.

“Not likely, no.”