Bullied Feast

Yusuke Salvador was a forgotten face.
In his youth, he was the half-Japanese, half-Filipino golden boy of vareity shows in the Philippines―singing toothpaste jingles, dancing in sparkling costumes, delivering punchlines he barely understood.

#YusukuEatsTonight ― 8:11 PM

His laptop glowed. His ring light hummed. His mukhang table gleamed with sauces and foil trays. His time to clean his own apartment has also been neglected. He decided to re-exposed himself not on live studios but a vlogger.

Tonight's centerpiece: a towering tiramisu cake, tall as his torso.
"What's up, gut warriors! It's a treat yourself kind of night! Gotta eat the stress away!"

The Flashback Between Bites

With each bite, the past returned—uninvited.

Gulp.

A flash—
His mother in the studio audience, clapping too hard, her voice shrill with pride:
"I’m so proud of you, my little Yusuke!"
He smiled for the cameras. Inside, he withered.

Another bite.

A memory—
A producer’s voice, flat and cold:
"You're only popular because you're cute."
He remembered the laughter behind the cameras, the quiet snickers when he missed a step, the whispered critiques of his dull acting and stiff dancing.

Swallow.

Then silence—
The day the calls stopped.
When the scripts dried up.
When no one messaged.
When the mirror showed someone heavier—and no one looked back.

He once stood on the edge, kabekira bottle in hand—
planning his exit with mold remover.
Instead, he chose a cold ginger ale.

The pain didn’t end.
He just learned to eat through it.

His fridge became a shrine of comfort: sodas stacked like soldiers, purins wobbling in the backlight, cakes whispering sweet nothings.

He shoved more sugar down.

Then—
A laugh escaped.

Half sweetness.
Half sorrow.

Unseen Connection

Hours before the stream, Yusuke Salvador dozed off at a dimly lit bus stop in Kumagaya. Head tilted back, soft snores escaping—he looked at peace, like a child tucked into a dream.

And he dreamed.
Of her.

A girl—faceless, silent.
She emerged from shadow and placed her hand on his neck.
Her fingers were cold.
But familiar... like something long forgotten.

Yusuke didn’t see her face. But remembered her crimson kimono brushing in the wet pavement.
When he woke, his tongue was coated in the taste of ink.

His 5:35 PM bus had long gone.
He didn’t hear it—didn’t hear anything at all.
Still shaken, he bought a Pocari Sweat from the nearest Family Mart to rinse away the metallic bitterness.
Called a taxi.

Inside the cab, while cruising through backstreets under flickering lights, he saw it—
A headless samurai atop a black horse, motionless at the street corner.

He blinked hard.
"Did you see that?" he asked the driver.

The old Japanese driver chuckled, pointing toward a blonde foreign girl who had just crossed.
“Very sexy, ne?”
Yusuke gave a nervous smile.
But he wasn’t looking at her.

The Mark Appears

Back on stream. Yusuke’s energy waned. He stepped away to chug a 473 ml Red Bull, then returned—smiling weakly, a final slice of cake in hand.

He raised it to the camera.
His hands trembled.

Comments poured in:

“You good, bro?”
“Why do you look gray?”
“Yo, someone’s behind you???”

A headless shadow flickered behind him.

Yusuke blinked.
Then gagged.

The tiramisu caught in his throat.
He clawed at his collar. Wheezed.
Eyes wide.

And across his neck, like the shimmer of a blade unseen—
a thin, red line appeared.

He reached for air.
Then stopped moving.

10 Minutes Later – Stream Still Live

Yusuke sat frozen.
Mouth slightly ajar.
A smear of frosting clung to his chin like a final joke.
Knife and fork poised mid-air—
a grotesque dinner guest waiting for a meal that would never come.

Then—
a flicker in the stream.
A single frame—gone in a blink.

An ancient samurai, faceless and armored in shadow, stood behind him. Both gauntleted hands rested on Yusuke’s shoulders… as if claiming him.

The viewers didn’t see it.
The recording didn’t catch it.
But something changed.

Silence swallowed the room—until the unmistakable echo of a horse’s hooves began to thud, slow and heavy, bleeding through the speakers like funeral drums. And still, Yusuke didn’t move.

Then—
Snap.

His head slid off his shoulders, landing on the plate with a dull, sugary thud.

No scream.
No chaos.
Just silence.

Until the wall behind him whispered:

"Gluttony has been silenced. Who shall I mark next?"

Aftermath

At 2:43 AM, local police arrived at the scene—tipped off by dozens of horrified viewers.

No signs of forced entry.
No blood.
No struggle.

Just a suffocating stench, heavy and cloying.
An apartment drowning in filth: Empty bento trays stacked like tombstones, towers of junk food wrappers, and half-crushed PET bottles leaking syrupy residue onto the floor.

Yusuke’s body sat upright at his desk. Limbs relaxed. Expression vacant. No bruises. No wounds.

Except—

His severed head. Mouth slightly open. Tongue unnaturally dark. A coroner found what looked like a spreading ink blot on it—unidentifiable, as if it had bloomed from within.

Then an officer noticed something scrawled on the back wall, written carefully in smeared tiramisu icing:

"Forgiven."

And beneath it—drawn with inhuman precision—a black lotus. Its petals curled like dried paper. An inkblot that refused to fade.

Elsewhere — The Next Mark

Ueno, Tokyo. A narrow, moonlit apartment. The girl from Yusuke’s dream sat by the window, eyes glinting beneath loose strands of hair.

She wiped away a single tear.

A soft piano melody drifted through the walls—achingly familiar. The notes stirred something deep inside her… a memory not fully hers. A sound that survived death.

Outside, the wind shifted.

Her ink-stained fingers turned a page in her sketchbook, slow and deliberate. She smiled—almost sweetly—as she began to draw again.

A new face.
A new name.

The next mark.

[Next: Golden Strings]