It's been about 5 minutes since he started absorbing Aimi.
Half of her body was inside his back. The other half by the waist, her butt and legs were poking out of him. He looked like a messed up Nazi experiment.
Hikaru was anxious if someone would knock on the door to ask about the screams earlier while he still had her legs dangling from his back.
He sent a thought command to his body, and it did exactly as he wanted.
Her body moved around to his front abdomen. It was much like flexing a muscle.
Now that he was no longer human, he could have precise control over his body that he never could have before.
Animals like humans have voluntary muscles (muscles used for a physical activity like walking) and involuntary muscles (muscles like the heart, intestine, blood capillaries, etc).
Hikaru felt he can now consciously control involuntary muscles and every other cell type. For example, fat cells that don't have any motor capacity can suddenly move at will. If he wanted to, he could flex fat instead of muscle.
He watched as fat cells from his stomach bulged out from one side and danced to the other side like the Harlem shake.
He pressed Aimi's legs against his body, increasing the affected surface areas to speed up the absorption. When his cells had merged with her skin cells, he let go of her feet.
He waited for a moment to see if it would fall off.
It didn't.
He tried pressing her inside him with his hands to increase the absorption rate, but it didn't sink in any further.
He noticed his body's volume didn't get bigger than it should, so he thought his body made some sort of super-compact space to fit her inside.
However, he couldn't push her deeper.
Was his body not storing it whole but breaking her down into nutrients?
Even if so, shouldn't there be a noticeable increase in volume around the size of a small bag at least?
The parasite's physiology goes against common sense, like quantum physics. He shouldn't surprise himself.
Hikaru felt the need to clean up the place before someone else comes. Although his dad was unlikely to come home right now, the consequences are too huge if it happened.
Then he had an idea.
No one knew of a perfect crime because it was perfect. No one had found out.
There wouldn't be any hard evidence if he used his body to absorb every drop of blood.
He picked up pieces of his cat and stuck it to his back.
Then he began touching every bit of blood he could see on the wall, floor and kitchen appliances. Even with the tooth that fell from Aimi earlier, Hikaru absorbed it all.
After he finished cleaning up, Aimi's body had almost assimilated completely with him. He left not even a single strand of hair.
Hikaru picked up the only proof of Harue's presence. Her cellphone.
He went to the mirror in his bedroom, and it surprised him that his body looked completely normal.
There weren't any of the tentacles that appeared from his abdomen or any of Aimi's body parts sticking out of him.
He examined himself with his hands, and it felt like ordinary skin. Even the texture underneath was just like normal blood and flesh.
He looked at his hand and to his surprise; the gash had closed a bit.
It's already amazing a wound of this size had clotted. At this rate, it will completely heal by tomorrow. Astonishing!
For a moment, he doubted his sanity. Maybe this was all just in his head and nothing he saw today happened. Perhaps killing his mother that day finally affected him, albeit it took two years.
However, that could not be true.
Hikaru's forefinger was touching the mirror…
Fifteen cm away!
Hikaru had pointed at the mirror with his finger. With the memory of the tentacles he once saw, his forefinger had stretched and touched the mirror.
He felt a cool sensation on the tip.
He felt stronger, faster, and more energetic.
When he walked up the stairs to his bedroom, he didn't feel any exertion on his legs. He could walk up the stairs a hundred times and not break a sweat.
Hikaru looked at the bloodstains on his uniform. He placed his hand over a stain on his white t-shirt and when he removed his hand; the stain had disappeared.
He had absorbed the red blood cells, but his shirt looked a bit chaffed. His control over his cells wasn't precise enough, and they targeted the clothing fibres as well.
Hikaru practised his precision as he touched many of the tiny and big blood stains over his uniform.
As a fast learner, Hikaru quickly got better. He spent less time erasing each stain while doing less damage to the clothing fibres.
Knock
Knock
'Father?'
It's too early for his father to come home from visiting mother.
He'd normally come home with the smell of alcohol and cigarettes late at night.
With one last bloodstain on his left shoulder, he brushed it with his hand, and it disappeared instantly. It looked like a magic trick.
Although he mastered the trick and removed all the bloodstains, his shirt was worn out, so he ripped it off and got another t-shirt to look presentable.
Instead of walking down the stairs, Hikaru jumped to the front door. When he landed, he hardly felt the impact.
Before opening the door, he looked through the peephole and saw a face he vaguely remembered as one neighbour he had seen when he moved in.
The man was around the same age as his father and had a wife and son.
His hair was so short that he almost looked bald.
He was tall and still wearing what seems typical of a truck driver attire.
A Blue long-sleeved shirt and then a grey top could be seen from his V-line.
Hikaru couldn't tell the reason for his appearance as he had an uninterested look on his face.