site 32: Ririka Nishizono

Monday, February 29th

I softly folded up my blue umbrella. Just as I did, a raindrop blew down from the tree above me and landed right on my head. The coldness made me shiver. I just barely managed to avoid gasping out loud.

It was afternoon on a weekday in the middle of winter, and Inokashira Park was usually empty at this time. With the rain having just come to an end, there was barely anyone here. That’s why I always found myself coming here whenever it rained. I’d walk through the silent park with my blue umbrella. It was enough to make myself imagine I was in a fantasy world, and it made me very happy.

And today, I’d found something unexpected, as well.

“A devil haunts this park!” The man was on the park’s open-air stage, giving a speech. It was more like screaming than a speech, though.

I was his only audience. I certainly didn’t expect to meet him here. I must have used up all my good luck for the day. I’d seen people talking about him before online.

—In Inokashira Park, you can find God.

“God” was him.

He was wearing a filthy blouson, sweatpants, and a white baseball cap with vertical stripes that was stained black in places. The shoulders of his blouson were covered with dandruff. He was short and hunched over. There was no way to tell how old he was, but his face was lined with wrinkles. He had to be at least fifty.

“The land of Musashino is tainted with the electromagnetic rays of Wardenclyffe! Of course, this park is tainted, too!” God’s voice echoed clearly throughout the quiet park.

The only people in this space now were me and God. It seemed to me a very happy encounter. And for some reason... what he said seemed strangely interesting. So I simply stood there in silence, and tried my best to make out what he was saying through the screams and shouts.

“Nikola Telsa’s experiment continues! It’s a worldwide system using the Tokyo EM towers!”

What did he think of my presence here? He hadn’t looked at me once since I’d stopped here to listen to him. There was no way he wouldn’t have noticed me. From up on the outdoor stage, he could see his surroundings clearly.

So why didn’t he try to look at me? Did he not care about me? Was he so caught up in his own words that he didn’t care about anyone else? Was he too drunk to realize that there were other people around? Was he deliberately ignoring me? Was he simply embarrassed? Could God get embarrassed? No matter how old he was, it hurt my feminine pride a little to be completely ignored by a man.

Of course, he had no idea what I was thinking. He just kept yelling. Once in a while, he would bring the bottle of sake he was holding up to his mouth, but it was already empty. But after a while, he would forget that it was empty, and bring it back up to his lips, only to get angry when he found it was empty. Then a bit later, the process would repeat.

“How cute...” I whispered so he wouldn’t hear me.

It was a personal theory of mine that every man in the world was cute. Their age didn’t matter. I felt myself becoming unable to hold back. I wanted to capture his every moment and put it down on paper. I thought that impulses like that only existed in manga.

I decided to sit down on a bench in front of the stage. But the bench was wet from the rain, and if I did sit down, I’d get covered in mud. I didn’t want to do that, but I quickly got an idea, and put the weekly manga magazine I’d bought this morning down on the bench. Then I sat down on it. Now I wouldn’t have to worry about getting wet. I felt a little bad for the model on the cover of the magazine, but I was very pleased with myself for coming up with the idea.

As I sat down, I could hear a clink from the pendant on my chest. I’d bought the pendant on impulse because I liked the sound. But God didn’t even seem interested in the sound.

“Two huge antennas are pointed at Musashino twenty-four hours a day, right under the public’s eyes! The fact that the people don’t show their rage is proof that they’re brainwashed!”

—I knew he noticed me, too.

Just imagining it made the filthy old man seem even cuter, and I shivered. I took out my sketchbook from my bag, and carefully observed him as I ran my pencil down the white page. I would sketch a portrait of God. The idea struck me as romantic, and I chuckled to myself. Perhaps I would make it the title of my next book.

“You can’t see it, hear it, or smell it! But it eats away at our lives! The hospitals won’t help! They’re full of dark conspiracies!”

God was a worthy model for a sketch. There was an incredible intensity in his wrinkled face, and in the way the saliva flew from his mouth as he spoke. It would’ve been nice if he could’ve stood still while he maintained that expression, but I couldn’t exactly give God posing instructions. That wasn’t the only reason it wasn’t turning out the way I wanted. My hands were also turning numb from the cold.

I’d started drawing this sketch on a whim. Should I continue it? Or should I stop? I was uncertain, but I kept drawing, when—

I heard footsteps on the gravel behind me. I felt like someone had interrupted my private time with God. I resisted the urge to sigh and turned around.

There was a small young man standing there, in a brown suit, a beige trench coat, and a beige cap. “Huh? That’s strange. The guy on Yahoo Auctions told me that this was where he’d hand over the Vanguard card. Maybe it was a mistake to believe someone who wanted to hand it over in person.” He was tilting his head and saying something I really didn’t understand.

My holy encounter came to an end, and the stadium quickly returned to the vulgar, normal world. The young man kept looking around, and then fixed his gaze on me.

“Oh, are you the person I’m supposed to be trading with? My screen name is ‘Hello there, I’m Zenigata.’”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m sorry,” I said with a smile.

The young man took off his cap and slowly bowed. “My apologies. You see, I won an auction for a rare Vanguard card. I picked one where I could get the card in person so that I could show it off to those bratty middle schoolers as soon as possible, and they told me to meet them here. But it looks like I’ve been tricked. Man, what a screw-up. But you know, there are a lot of very pretty women like you who play Vanguard lately, so I did have some small hope in my heart when I spoke to you, you see.”

He was squirming a little as he moved. How strange. At least, there was no one I knew who was like him.

“Heh... what a cute student you are. Is that cosplay?”

“I may not look it, but I’m a college graduate. This is my work uniform.”

“Oh? Then you’re older than me. Still, if you ask me, you’re very cute.”

The man in the trench coat with the boyish face suddenly assumed a very serious expression and stood straight up. “You’ve just stolen something very important from me.”

“Oh? What might that be? What is it that’s so important?”

“My heart.”

I’d heard that phrase somewhere before. I couldn’t help but break out laughing. He had the line and the motion down pat, but he was still tiny, with a young boy’s face, so it all looked so funny.

“By the way,” he gestured toward the stage.

“The pollution is not limited to Musashino, nor to Tokyo, nor even to Japan! It’s already spreading out into the whole world!” God was still shouting, oblivious to me and the boy in the trench coat.

“Who is that guy?”

“God.”

He looked surprised at my answer. “You know God?”

“No. I don’t know him.”

“But you’re drawing that old guy— I mean, God—”

“I’m just doing it on my own. I haven’t spoken to him.”

“He won’t get mad?”

“He doesn’t seem to care, actually. I’m sure God is a very tolerant person.”

“May I see?” I nodded happily, and handed him my incomplete sketch. “Wow, this is great! Are you with one of the wall circles? Hmm... but wait. This isn’t a moe type of picture, is it? It’s very good, though. I think I’ve seen it somewhere before. Hmm, are you a student? Maybe at an art school?”

I shook my head. “I’m a student, but not at an art school. At Seimei over there.”

“Do they have an art major over there?”

“They don’t.”

“Your drawing’s too good for you to be a mere student...” He thought for a moment about something that didn’t matter at all, and then suddenly raised his head in surprise. “That’s right. This is Kichijoji. There are a lot of manga authors that live in Kichijoji. That means you must be a manga author, too! Let me shake your hand! And then I’ll never wash it again!”

I hadn’t said a word about being a manga author, but he offered his hand out to me anyway. I looked at it and shrugged.

“I am a manga author, but not a professional one.”

“Does that mean you go to Comiket? What genre? If it’s BL, that’s kind of not my thing. But I really do think that I’ve seen this art style before.”

I wasn’t quite sure how to handle the way he was talking. It was as if he knew something and was playing dumb, waiting for me to say it myself. No, it wasn’t “like” that at all. He was after me from the start. But he wasn’t here to hit on me. He was here for some other reason. My intuition was sharp when it came to those things.

I decided to try and tease him a little.

“You’re lying, aren’t you?”

“What do you mean?” He tilted his head in surprise. Every movement he made was overly dramatic.

I sighed audibly. “Where did you see my books? I’d like to know. Tell me. That is, if this isn’t some elaborate pickup attempt.”

“Hmm... the thing is, I really can’t remember. Man, I’m so lame. I’m really feeling lame right now. Sorry, can you at least tell me your pen name? Or even the name of one of your doujinshi. Maybe I’ve read it.”

“My pen name is Ririka Nishizono, or—”

“Yes, I know that.” He was the one who told me to give him my name, but before I could finish he cut me off and grabbed my hand.

The look in his eyes had changed. It was like a sheep instantly transforming into a wolf. And that was what made the smile when he grabbed my hand so scary.

“I thought so. You knew it from the start, didn’t you? You’re very mean.”

“Your book, The Bottom of the Dark Water, is being talked about a lot online. Did you know that?” He rubbed the palm of my hand as he spoke.

“Are you sure it’s online?”

“Of course.”

“Are they talking about how it’s not very good, for instance?”

“Yes. I read it myself, and it wasn’t.” I much preferred to have him tell me that right to my face. Not that I would ever like him. “But it was very interesting. Particularly the third story. That was very good.”

“The third story?” It was pornography about the twisted love between two men. “I thought you weren’t into BL?”

“Correct. But the contents of the story were very interesting. I’ve been hoping I could get a chance to ask you how you came up with it. I mean, most people couldn’t dream up a story like that. Who would ever think of raping your lover’s corpse, then ripping out their tooth with a knife as a memento?”

It was the strangest thing imaginable to be talking about on an afternoon in a park after the rain, and I couldn’t help but twist my lips in a chuckle. “I don’t come up with my ideas.” I softly shook his hand away.

I stood up from the bench and stared into his eyes. He didn’t look away. Was he trying to find out what I was thinking? Or perhaps, trying to keep me from seeing what he was thinking?

“Offer up a sacrifice! Offer up a sacrifice before the world system is complete!” As we stared into each other’s eyes, as if in an intense love scene, God ignored us and kept screaming.

I took a step back from him. “Everything I draw is—” I took back my sketchbook. “Something I see in my dreams.”

And when I told him that, he suddenly sighed. “Anyway, about the code...”

I was uncertain how to handle this sudden change of subject. It was just like earlier. He wasn’t letting me take control of the conversation.

“Did you say... cord? Like earphones?”

“No, no. C. O. D. E. Code.”

“I don’t understand.”

“If you’re seeing things in your dreams and putting them into your manga, are those dreams prophetic ones?”

And now we were back to the same subject as before. I was getting all confused. The boy in the trench coat pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to me.

“This is a copy of your work, The Bottom of the Dark Water.” He pointed to a very ordinary panel. One of the objects in the background was circled in red pen. “Look here. There’s letters written there, right? In the English alphabet. What do they say?”

“C, O, L, A.” It was a thing of soda. I’d modeled it after an image I found online. I had fiddled with it a bit, though.

“No, that’s not right. You can tell, can’t you? You drew the thing.”

“Yes. This says C, O, D, E. What of it?” Then he took out a photograph.

It was evidently taken in a dark room. On the floor, in red paint, I could just barely make out the word “code.”

“Does this have something to do with my work?”

“It was the dying message of a murder victim.”

My dream had become real.

“Who... are you?” I asked. I couldn’t even hear God’s speech anymore.

“You should know who I am without me needing to tell you. I may not look it, after all, but I’m—” He smiled a thin smile and drew closer to me, and whispered into my ear. “I’m the detective in your manga.”