A Digital Kuchisake-onna

In the bright light of their large estate, Asumi adjusted her reflection in the mirror. She traced her finger along the faint lines beneath her eyes, dabbing them with a powder to conceal the years. Picking up a glass spray bottle, she spritzed her hair and fluffed it with a wide-tooth comb, admiring its shine. To conclude, she patted rouge onto her cheeks and slid some gloss over her lips.

She heard her husband, Hiro, walk through the door downstairs.

Satisfied with her appearance, she breezed down the stairs and plastered on a smile. “Hello darling, how was work?”

“Hmph, fine.” He grumbled in response, barely making eye contact as he brushed past her into the living room, where he sank onto the couch.

"I made dinner for you,” she said, forcing warmth into her voice as she massaged his shoulders.

“Don’t bother next time,” he growled, shoving her hands away. “I already ate at the pub with the guys.” He flicked on the TV without so much as a glance.

“Well, how lovely.” She said, walking briskly out of the room and pointedly slamming the door. She sat back down at her vanity and continued fussing with her hair while playing a podcast episode about holistic anti-aging beauty tips. As she sat and listened, she could only stew on her husband’s growing ignorance despite her hours of effort. She simply must try harder.

When she heard him turn off the TV and head for the stairs, she jumped up and shed her robe to reveal the scant and lacey one-piece she had slipped into earlier. She crawled onto the bed and waited with a seductive and enticing expression.

Hiro did a double-take as he took in the view. With a smile that never reached his eyes, he approached the bed and brought his lips to her neck. She tried to meet his gaze and engage him with slow movements, but he looked directly at the headboard and went quick and rough through the motions.

Several minutes later, he rolled over with a sigh, fixing the blankets as he drifted to sleep. Asumi glared into his back as she lay wide awake, body tense. Unable to sleep, she returned to her vanity and worked out the knots in her hair before applying a serum and wrapping it in a silk scarf for the night. She finally retired to the guest room when she felt her eyes droop.

Asumi woke to the familiar silence of an empty house, knowing her husband had already left for work. She found a note taped to the fridge: “Repairman coming for leaky faucet 10 am. Let him in."

“Good,” she said, crumpling the note and tossing it in the bin. “At least he’s good for something.” After making coffee, she began her lengthy morning routine: wash hair, style hair, apply makeup, line eyes, plump lips, and smile.

The doorbell rang at 10:00 sharp, and she opened the door to reveal a tall young man with perhaps the best bone structure she’d ever seen. The man looked Asumi up and down, momentarily taken with her appearance.

Remembering he had a job to do, he introduced himself, “Hello, ma’am, I’m Kenji. I believe you called about a broken pipe?”

“My husband called about it, yes,” Asumi replied, her voice lilting with feigned uncertainty. “I’m afraid I’m no good with house stuff, though... perhaps you could show me?” She let the words linger, eyes locking with his in silent challenge.

She followed the man as he went back and forth between the bathroom and his truck, inquiring about his tools and letting him talk about himself. She left him briefly to change her undergarments and spritz some perfume before returning to his side as he finished up.

“Well, there ya go, ma’am, all set. Should we send your husband the bill?”

She smiled, tipping her head down to peer from beneath her eyelashes. She swayed her hips as she stepped forward to press herself into his chest. “I wish I could afford your expertise... but perhaps there’s another way I can thank you.”

Kenji raised his eyebrows, glancing around at the large hallway and lavish decor before meeting her gaze. She maintained eye contact as she backed up toward the stairs, slowly removing her bathrobe to reveal a set that left little to the imagination.

He watched intently, heat building in his body as his thoughts exploded. Unable to resist, he followed her as she bounced expertly up the stairs.

The experience that followed reignited in her what she’d been trying to extract from her husband for months. How his hands travelled made her feel desired, and his soft, desperate voice made her feel beautiful. For the first time in what felt like forever, Asumi felt wanted—not just as a wife or an object, but as a woman.

The passion was so intense that neither heard the distinct sounds of a door opening, a pointed pause, or frantic footsteps on the stairs.

“I always knew you were a whore!” Hiro’s voice boomed, breaking through the tantric electricity of their connection.

The young man froze as Hiro grabbed his arm and dragged him ruthlessly from the bed, threw him down the stairs, and locked him out before he could regain a single stitch of clothing.

Asumi smiled, feeling no regret for her actions. She deserved better than him, and she took it.

Hiro stormed back into the room after a long absence. Before she could adequately gloat, he joined her on the bed once more and pinned her down beneath his deathly grip. He loomed over her, his hands gripping her wrists like iron. “You think you can humiliate me?” he hissed, his breath hot against her face. Her heart thundered as he reached into his back pocket, the gleam of the blade glinting in the light.

He momentarily held it in the air, his feral eyes locking with hers, revelling in her terror.

Powerless against his assault, she lay on the bed helpless as he slashed the knife across her face, splitting her skin from ear to ear.

“Who will think you’re pretty now?” He asked, all the tension leaving his body as he carved a second slash across her neck and left her to choke.

Asumi’s world faded into shadow and silence. Pain seared through her face and throat, a fiery agony that consumed what little consciousness she had left. Soon, even that began to dim. She tried to draw breath, but the air slipped away. Her lungs filled with the metallic tang of blood. Her vision blurred, and the bedroom faded into a swirling haze of muted colours drifting farther away.

She reached out, grasping for anything, but her translucent fingers passed through everything like air. The warmth of life ebbed from her body, replaced by a chill so deep it seeped into her very essence. The darkness did not bring peace. Instead, it wrapped around her like chains, pulling her deeper into a void where time and space ceased to exist.

As she floated in this suspension of reality, her mind’s eye replayed the gruesome scene repeatedly. She couldn’t stop recalling how her contentious gloat so quickly turned to horror and regret as Hiro slashed away what she treasured most.

“Who will think you’re pretty now?” His voice echoed around her, coming from all sides, from far away, from up close. Whispers filled the space around her, indiscriminate voices vying for her attention. Fighting through an unnatural heaviness, she opened her eyes and searched for her reflection in the rolling fog. Finally catching a glimpse of her face, her mouth split from ear to ear in a permanent, grotesque grin, she shrieked. Her mind writhed with sadness and despair. But as she screamed and screamed, it morphed into vengeful, boiling anger.

Through this intensity of emotion, she felt a pull. An invisible tether yanked her back to earth, their estate, and their bed, where nothing but a faint stain remained. Hiro had cleaned up and disposed of all evidence, so what called to her?

She pushed herself down the hall and into her makeup room, a familiar calm settling in her chest. She slid over to her beloved vanity and ran her translucent fingers over the ornate mirror. She flicked on the lighting, just for old time’s sake, diverting her gaze away from her reflection. Slowly, she opened the small drawer on the desk, and sure enough - her smartphone lay there, untouched.

She turned it on and flipped through her collection of selfies, the number of which grew in direct relation to how neglectful her husband had become over the last few months. She felt the anger boil back up as her spirit fused with the cell phone, desiring nothing more than to regain the beauty captured so eloquently by its camera.

Weeks passed before Hiro finally discovered the phone in the vanity drawer. He snatched it up in a panic, cursing under his breath. He dropped it again just as fast when he felt the screen burn into his fingertips.

More cautious now, he hovered his hand over the phone and picked it up carefully, relieved to discover it cool to the touch. “She really burned this thing,” He grumbled as he brought it straight to the local pawn shop and took their first offer.

The shop owner paid no mind to Hiro’s constant over-the-shoulder glances or sharp, frantic movements. It was none of his business where folks got their merchandise. He planned to have the phone assessed in the coming days to determine its true value. However, when it began whirring and blinking in the middle of the night, he placed it in his window with a mere 15% markup. He turned a quick profit when an app development startup scooped the phone for parts.

LucidLens AR had experienced rapid growth that they could not sustainably afford. Their solution: repurpose second-hand devices. The low price of the recent smartphone model surprised them, especially given its excellent condition, but who were they to turn down some good luck?

“How’s it coming, boys?” The founder sauntered into the stuffy basement, where three technicians worked diligently on their newest AR filter.

“Pretty good, boss,” the lead developer piped up. “Makeup filters are all the rage right now, but ours is by far the most realistic. I think we have a winner here.”

“Excellent. Will it be ready for testing by end of day?”

“You bet.”

Harley wired the software to the testing environment with a few hours left before the sunset. Going through the same motions he had so many times before, he barely even looked at the screen until he heard a ghostly voice echo through the room:

“Am I pretty?”

Startled, he glanced at the screen to see a giant close-up of a woman’s face, mouth covered in a bloodied surgical mask. The eyes bore so deep into him that he felt his soul exposed.

“Huh? I haven’t even connected the -” He fiddled aimlessly with the wires before him as the air grew thick and icy.

“AM I PRETTY?” The voice boomed again.

“What? Y-yes?”

The image flashed, and the surgical mask disappeared, revealing a wide, unnatural grin that stretched across her face.

Fear tightened in his chest as she inched closer. He could have sworn he heard blood drop onto his keyboard with a splash.

His lungs finally releasing, Harley screamed as the woman jumped from the screen and slashed a sharp fingernail across his face to form a perfect, traditional Glasgow smile.

“Who will think you’re pretty now?” Asumi spoke into the void. She cackled as her smile widened and her strength grew. Her spirit settled into the code of the new filter as she ensured the file uploaded itself to all photo-sharing social media.

**

“Ooh, I like that one!” Emi said with a laugh as she watched her friend’s face become a monkey through the screen of their video call.

“I swear,” Hana said through chuckles, “You can make yourself anything with these filters.” She scrolled some more, each changing her face or surroundings for a split second.

Watching intently, Emi jumped as a scary, bloody face appeared over Hana’s for a second. “Wait, go back; what was that horror filter?”

Hana scrolled until it appeared again. Emi cringed as the face overtook Hana’s, the eyes boring into hers.

“No!” Emi heard Hana say with a laugh before scrolling away from the creepy face again.

"What?”

“Oh, this filter asks if it’s pretty!” Hana replied, still laughing. “But not with that stringy hair and bloody mask.”

“Weird. Maybe it’s some crazy new marketing scheme for a horror movie.” Emi speculated, only dwelling on the thought momentarily before they moved on to selfies with AR dog ears.

Hana got ready for bed later that night, having almost immediately forgotten about the new horror movie AR filter. But her casual, mocking “no” and the laugh that followed burned in Asumi’s mind as if Hiro himself had killed her all over again.

Following the digital trail to Hana’s phone, Asumi slipped into the digital ether, her vengeful spirit crawling through the lens until she stood behind Hana. Waiting for the perfect moment to reveal herself, Asumi watched, her face burning as goosebumps appeared on Hana’s skin.

“Jeeze, why’s it so cold in here?” Hana wondered out loud. She reached for her phone to check the time, but it wouldn’t turn on. Scrunching her eyebrows together, she shook it back and forth, certain her battery had been almost full. She shook her head and reached for her comb instead, snatching it with a frown.

Looking back to her mirror, the cold in the air gripped her chest as she saw Asumi behind her, arms creeping over her shoulders. She filled her lungs and screamed, the metal comb hitting the floor with a soft clink. Whipping around to defend herself, she saw no one. Frozen in fear, she cried out in agony as a thin, bloody line appeared on her face, stretching from one ear to the other.

“Who will think you’re pretty now?” Asumi asked, holding Hana's gaze as she slashed her throat and watched the life leave her eyes.

Hours later, the house teemed with police. Hana’s parents were patiently interviewed, and confused officers searched her room for evidence of a break-in. Buried in an evidence bag, no one noticed when Hana’s phone screen clicked to life.

As the investigation raged on, a final selfie uploaded itself to Hana’s popular account: a gruesome mirror shot of her bloody new Glasgow smile with the caption: “Am I pretty?”