The Bully

[cyberghostface]

Unlike Junji Ito's other stories, there's no supernatural horror here and it's all the more scary for it. Also a trigger warning for depictions of child abuse.

Right to left, as usual.

The story opens with two lovers, Yutaro and Kuriko, sitting a playground. Kuriko tells Yutaro that she doesn't know if, once she tells him her story, that he will still want to get married to her.


She says she used to come to the playground because she wanted to hang out with him.





Eventually the boy, Nao, becomes attached to her. He keeps on wanting to play with her and he quickly becomes an annoyance. One day, as a joke, she says she wants to tell him a secret and then screams into his ear. She asks if she scared him, and he tells her there's a humming in his ears.



Eventually the bullying grows worse and worse, but because of the initial kindness, he keeps on coming back to him. At one point, she becomes concerned that he told his mother about the bullying. Nao insists that he didn't, but to prove it, Yuriko insists that he visit the neighborhood dog (who is called "Devil").



After that, she ran away and never saw him again as his mother moved with him. Back in the present, the woman tells Yutaro that she was a horrible child, but he is unbothered, saying that's how kids are. She says that there's an epilogue to the story, however...she bumped into Nao the other day.


The two bond, with Nao claiming to have enjoyed his childhood with her.







Four years later, Hiroshi is a small child and Kuriko is struggling to be a single mother. It's tough, and one day she snaps and calls him Nao. Hiroshi is confused.

Comments

[zabilac]

Sooooo...it's about a mentally unbalanced mother?

[superfangirl1]

The last scan. Omg I just want to reach out and save the little boy with lots of hugs afterwards. :(

[silverzeo]

.... so she's Japanese Lois Griffin, getting her kicks and joys at the expense of others, including her children...

[kamino_neko]

...

Well.

That went to a weird fucking place, didn't it?

[the_phantom]

You took the words right out of my mouth.

[espanolbot]

Wait, it's the Arkham City version of Harley Quinn! :D Only a horribler person.

[leoboiko]

I've read a lot of Junji Ito. No other story hit me as bad as this one.

[auggie18]

This didn't hit me as hard as his other stories, mostly due to the lack of body horror and the general air of hopelessness. Don't get me wrong, it's still horrible, but there seems like there could possibly be a happy ending. Japan does have Child Protective Services and this woman is clearly unbalanced. (Happy ending being a relative term for a Junji Ito story. Like the only where the boy's neighbor is a ghoul trying to kill him, but in the end his parents believe him because the house next door mutates into living flesh trying to get him and they agree to move.)

[whitesycamore]

Well. I'm creeped the hell out, and not in the fun way.

More the "I want to cry" way.

[shadowpsykie]

i find it slightly MORE disturbing that Nao married her ONLY so that she would have a kid that looked just like him and then leaving her (knowing that it might cause her to revert....)

[jelly_ace]

You know, I see Junji Ito's name for so many times here in S_D, and I should know better than to click the link. But no, I had to click, I had scroll down, and then BOOM. Another sleepless night.

[blackruzsa]

Oh oh god.
That's horrible. :(

[silverzeo]

Yeah, Harl would sing "Momma's Little Baby" sweetly to the kid... while blowing up a gas station...

[silverzeo]

Cause it is the most real...

[flint_marko]

I think he was trying to hurt her, but I don't think he knew their kid would look exactly like him.

[janegray]

Yeah, but what if she kills or maims him before the CPS can intervene? In her backstory she threw a small child at a guard dog D:

[halloweenjack]

This is actually less traumatizing than I'd initially feared, because it starts out with a fair degree of psychological realism, but then takes a hard left into woo-woo land in the last page.

[donnblake]

"After I tell you about how I'm dumping you and getting married to some other dude, I'll understand if you don't want to marry me anymore."

Well. Well that's very understanding of you, you complete lunatic.

[webhead]

As the father of a toddler, this is the most terrifying thing I have ever read.