Love as Scripted is the sixth chapter in the twelfth volume in the Horror World of Junji Ito series, The Bully, and is also the sixth chapter of Museum of Terror vol. 3.
Plot[]
Takahashi tells his girlfriend, Kaori, that he needs to broaden his mind for his writing by dating other girls. He gives her a videotape of himself that he made and tells her to play it any time she misses him and he will always be there. In her anger, she shouts that she will never let him leave her, and stabs him with a kitchen knife.
As a flashback, Kaori remembers their days together as part of an amateur theatre group, the place where she met him. She ignored warnings from a friend that Takahashi has dated every girl in the group, then callously dumped them when he grew bored - always giving them a tape of himself when he breaks up with them. Takahashi dismissed these concerns as malicious rumors; but soon enough, he took an interest in another girl.
Back to the present Kaori tries to figure out what to do with his body. She starts digging through his belongings and finds a script titled Kaori and I, consisting of a series of imagined conversations between them. When she plays the tape, she discovers that it contains Takahashi enacting his side of the script. Kaori is shocked that the tape and script amount to six full hours of conversation. She begins reading out her own part of the script and becomes absorbed; believing Takahashi is somehow still alive inside the television.
The real Takahashi crawls towards her, begging her to call an ambulance before he bleeds to death. But Kaori tells him that she doesn't need him anymore; she loves the Takahashi in the videotape, who will never leave or betray her. She kills the real Takahashi by breaking a bottle over his head and replays the tape.