you are his, and he is yours. he is yours as much as you are his. this is not just a mere statement; it is fact. mr. scarletella had been following after you relentlessly ever since you had been transported to the otherworld—he would not quite describe it as a ‘chase’, per se, but he had surely been persistently on your tail, nonetheless—and now, despite your earlier resistances, you were with him. together. just as it should have been from the very start.

he does not know when exactly had this obsession sparked. perhaps it had been there ever since the very first time you’d dumped a dead body in his notorious ‘ghost apartment’. mr. scarletella was sure that that had been a sign—you were there for him, leaving him offerings right at his (literal and metaphorical) doorstep, because you were interested in him too—you liked him too, didn’t you? that must have been what it meant—not that mr. scarletella would have accepted any alternate outcome other than the one he had already firmly convinced himself of.

and you had given him a name. there, at his most vulnerable, a broken red umbrella held in your hands. mr. scarletella was sure that he would not have preferred it any other way. even if you instead decided to kill him right then and there, perhaps he would not have minded dying at your hands—what a beautiful defeat that would have been. but no—there, you had given him a name, despite his relentless pursuit for yours first—that name you’d been referring to him as from that point onwards. a name he would gladly adopt for you, as there is nothing on this earth that mr. scarletella would not do for you if you so desired it.

you were together, at long last. him with you, you with him. now, the new urban legend was a story of two individuals—one wearing a white raincoat, holding a striking red umbrella, and a tall looming figure clothed in scarlet hues behind them.

“me like you,” mr. scarletella murmured as he stood beside you, simply because he enjoyed giving the reminder.