Shrine Of The DEAD Part 3

The sympathetic smile on Saeko's face fell away, leaving her looking resigned and miserable, almost as if she were giving up. She could see that Takashi was trying to rationalize what she was telling him, and while she appreciated that, she also felt that he truly didn't understand what she was trying to tell him. Or maybe not that he didn't understand, but that he was trying to make it appear not as bad as it seemed.

But Saeko had had a lot of time to think about this. Ever since she had nearly beaten that man to death, she had been trying to live with this darkness. But how did one live with the knowledge that they enjoyed hurting people, that they relished in holding such power over someone else? What kind of decent person did that? She didn't want to be that way, she didn't want to take enjoyment in such things, but she did all the same.

So she had tried to hide it. She'd put on a smile and acted the way society dictated, trying to continue on like the perfect, disciplined girl she had been before her attack, pushing away that dark side of herself. Yet it always lingered there beneath the surface. And while she managed to fool the people around her into thinking she was just an ordinary girl, she couldn't fool herself.

To be honest, she was terrified of that part of herself. She didn't want to hurt people, she didn't want to take enjoyment in causing other people pain. And while she was able to keep that part of herself in check in a normal society, that was proving to be impossible in this undead infested world. How could she keep her darkness hidden when she had to let it out regularly on a daily basis?

That was why she had confessed her secret to Takashi, because she knew she wouldn't be able to hide it with the way things were. And aside from her father, Takashi was the one she had trusted more than anyone else in this world. And with the way things were now, she'd needed to talk to someone about it. And he had been there. Not just figuratively, but literally too.

He'd realized that something was wrong when she had frozen in front of the fountain when they were surrounded by those zombie kids. She took enjoyment out of cutting down Them with her sword, and she'd also noticed that Takashi had taken a liking to killing, for lack of a better word, Them as well. But undead children. How could she excuse the enjoyment she would have taken in smashing their skulls in? Surely he would recognize it and realize that there was something wrong with her, something that went beyond merely doing what she needed to in order to survive. And that had been why she had frozen, because she hadn't wanted Takashi to see her like that. She hadn't wanted him to know.

But she hadn't been able to keep it to herself any longer. He may not have realized what the problem was, but he had recognized that something was wrong. And she just couldn't keep it to herself anymore. And with the two of them alone together, it had provided her with possibly the best opportunity to get what she had to say off her chest. Better to let him know on her own terms rather than for the revelation to come about later.

But that wasn't the only reason she had confessed. It was also, admittedly, a bit of a self-destruction situation. Someone like her, someone who carried around such a darkness within them, she really didn't think they were worthy of love. What kind of sadistic person who took enjoyment in such things deserved any kind of affection, let alone love? It was something she had been convinced of for a while now.

And therein lied the problem. While she had always been attracted to Takashi and admired him from afar, she had never acted on her crush, not even after his breakup. She hadn't wanted to taint him with her darkness or have him discover it, so she had stayed away. But their situation had forced them to come together in order to survive, and his own darkness had begun to fester and come out.

While in the past she had simply been crushing on him, getting to know him, spending time with him, her feelings had rapidly started growing, and she found herself falling for him hard and fast. And she also couldn't help but notice his own attraction to her, despite the feelings he still had for Rei. She supposed that was natural, he was a healthy teenage boy, and she wasn't ignorant to her own appearance; she was perfectly aware of her status as being one of the school's top beauties. And the blatant chemistry and sexual tension between her and Takashi was so noticeable that a blind person could see it.

But that still didn't change her opinion of herself. She still hated her darkness, and she still thought it made her unworthy of love. Her confession of that darkness wasn't just to lift a burden off her shoulders, it was also an attempt to drive Takashi away. By dashing any hope she may harbor of the possibility of anything developing between them other than mutual attraction, she could crush her feelings now and make things easier for both of them. And while it seemed that that hadn't happened with the way Takashi was responding to her confession, it still didn't change the way she felt about herself.

"Nothing about me has changed," she admitted sadly. "I realized that in front of the fountain. It almost feels… like it's gotten worse."