Story 1: Wake Me from this Dream
STORY 1
Wake Me from this Dream
A pulsing, numbing pain ran from the deepest folds of Toshihiko’s brain into the tangled tendrils of his nervous system. On the back of his retinas, dull reds and blues pulsed and flashed, their faded hues like washed-out dollops of distempered paint. A strange sound filled his ears, like the grinding of unoiled gears.
Toshihiko awoke.
Fat beads of sweat clung to his forehead. They felt cold on his skin.
Sitting up on his thin, single-layer futon, he quickly shook his head a few times before taking in a deep breath.
He felt a pain in his chest.
Lowering his head, he pressed his fingers against the back of his neck and was met with a sharp jolt of displeasure.
He felt like he’d just had a bad dream. He couldn’t remember what it was, but somehow, he was sure it hadn’t been pleasant. He thought he remembered there being a woman with plastered-on makeup; her bright red lips had twisted into a crumpled smile as she let out a shrill squeal of a laugh.
His forehead was sticky with sweat. His heart was beating fast.
Beside his bed stood a table whose plywood veneer had begun flaking at the edges. On the table was a twelve-inch tube TV, left on. The screen glowed in monochrome static, the snow-like pattern punctuated by pulsing flashes in the signal, each flash accompanied by an abrasive noise like a cicada’s call.
When did I fall asleep? Toshihiko wondered.
Irritated, he reached out to switch off the source of his nightmare (or at least, what he thought had been the likely source).
When he flicked the TV switch, the room went suddenly dark. He looked to his alarm clock. A little past six in the morning.
Pressing the thumb and forefinger of each hand against his throbbing temples, Toshihiko slowly got to his feet. He went over to his window and threw open the faded curtains.
Early morning sunlight filtered through the cracked, frosted window and filled his cramped four-and-a-half tatami mat room. But to the man newly awakened from a nightmare, even that gentle light felt sharp enough to slice into his flesh.
It stung his eyes.
As if chased away by the sun, Toshihiko retreated into the darker, malodorous kitchen. A pile of old dishes had amassed in the sink. Among them were rice bowls with dried-on grains, plastic spoons stained yellowish brown from instant curry, and glass cups half filled with cola long since gone flat.
Toshihiko pushed the dirty dishes to one side of the sink and turned on the tap. When the water gushed out, it smelled of chlorine. He cupped his hands and delivered a drink to his mouth.
Clouded with impurities, the water’s unpleasant taste struck the back of his throat. With an equally unpleasant sound, Toshihiko spat the water back out.
He felt nauseous. Fighting the sensation, he took in another mouthful of water, then spat it out again, repeating the process two more times.
Beside the sink sat a small bar of soap, cracked and dried out, with spots of mold growing on its surface. Toshihiko picked up the soap and rubbed it back and forth between his hands. Hardly any bubbles formed, but he used it to wash his face anyway.
He let out a deep sigh.
He felt the slightest bit better now.
Next to the sink was a single gas burner—lonesome, rusted, cheap. Toshihiko filled a pockmarked aluminum kettle with tap water and placed it on the cooktop.
He pressed the gas burner’s ignition switch. No flame appeared. Grease and dust had gummed up the auto-ignition mechanism, leaving Toshihiko no choice but to use a 100-yen lighter instead. He nearly burned his fingertips in the process, but at least he got the burner lit.
He reached into an adjacent cabinet with a fallen-off door and retrieved a jar of faintly moist instant coffee and a cup with a chipped rim and a panda on it. A crack ran right down the panda’s face. He absentmindedly tapped his fingers on the cup’s handle while he waited for the water to boil.
As Toshihiko stared at the kettle’s spout, which contained a few extra bends beyond the ones it came with, he found himself suddenly overcome with sadness. Tears began to well in his eyes.
Next year, I’ll be thirty, he thought. I can’t believe it.
He felt keenly aware of the loneliness that came with solitary living. It crawled stickily up his back like a slime-coated slug.
Eight years had already passed since he dropped out of college.
Time has gone so fast.
If he had graduated like he was supposed to, found a career like he was supposed to, he would probably have been promoted to section chief or some other managerial role by now. At the very least, society would have recognized him as a respectable, working adult.
He could have owned his own home, albeit a modest one, in which he could have lived happily with a wife and child.
When he pictured it all, a masochistic smile came to his face.
Toshihiko was lazy by birth. He was under no illusions—attempting to delude himself otherwise would have been far too much work. When he was still in college, he never went to his classes. Nor did he go out with any girls. He was the kind of person who avoided interacting with other people.
It wasn’t that he lacked that common, human desire to go out and have drinks with friends, go on dates with women, and share in other such social experiences. If anything, he desired them even more than the typical person. But Toshihiko was excessively timid and shy to a fault. He found himself unable to approach members of the same sex, let alone women.
He was a pitiful man.
Not only was he timid and shy, he was unkempt, unclean, and indolent.
He wasn’t simply lazy; he took laziness to the extreme.
Needless to say, he truly loathed having to work.
The entire history of his work experience could be summed up by day-wage part-time jobs taken up only by necessity whenever his funds ran dry—jobs he dropped as soon as possible. Consequently, his life was one of constant and extreme poverty.
Most of his meals came ready-made in packets. His biggest luxury was the one beef-and-rice bowl he allowed himself per month.
After all other expenses were accounted for, he had hardly any money left over to spend on clothing, and the clothes he wore showed it.
Had he some fashion sense, he might have been able to make it work, but he didn’t, not even a shred. When he chose to loiter around the neighborhood outside his shabby apartment, it was in a sweat-stained T-shirt and outmoded bell-bottom jeans.
Take a moment to consider how cold the world would be to a man in his thirties, with no style, no money, no guts, no ambition, no friends, no hygiene, and a greater-than-average longing for the opposite sex.
To make matters worse, Toshihiko was short. His face was, as a matter of course, ugly. His hair, matted with grease and sprinkled with dandruff, was dreadful. His angular, bony features resembled the leftover parts of an amberjack fish, already gutted and filleted, and his eyebrows were off-putting and scraggly like dried kombu flakes. Below his bulbous nose rested slug-like lips that carried a vaguely oily sheen. Meanwhile, his eyes—somehow only his eyes—were round and pleasant, even innocent, in a way.
Each of these parts had been assembled into a countenance that was as clumsily put together as a face could be. If he were to work up the courage to approach anyone and offer them his diffident smile, that person—no matter how kind or compassionate—would likely turn tail and run.
Of that, Toshihiko was all too aware, painfully so.
The awareness shackled him, gradually drawing him ever deeper into the shell of his social phobia. He avoided social engagement, afraid he might offend anyone unfortunate enough to interact with him.
Toshihiko put a scoop of the instant coffee powder into his panda bear cup. Then he poured in the boiling water and swirled the contents. Wisps of steam ascended to his nose, but the stale coffee offered no aroma.
As he sipped the coffee, devoid of any flavor but bitterness, Toshihiko returned to his four-and-a-half tatami mat living space.
With the grunt of a man twice his age, he sat cross-legged on his futon mattress.
He let out a short sigh.
His mouth felt scratchy, but he didn’t think the bad coffee was to blame. A stabbing pain throbbed in his head, and he felt nauseous. He hadn’t felt right since he woke up. If anything, the nausea in his chest was gradually worsening, like some insect had eaten the upper half of his torso away.
Toshihiko shook his head vigorously a few times, then downed the rest of his coffee in a single gulp.
He coughed. Pain shot through his chest.
This was starting to get troubling. Toshihiko held his hand against his chest and thought, I think I might be sick.
A little over a dozen Betamax L-500 video cassette tapes stood in a row on Toshihiko’s table.
These cassettes were his most prized treasure—his only treasure. By shaving away at his food budget and skipping a rent payment here and there, he had slowly but steadily built his collection.
He had purchased a tape deck for 9,000 yen from a used electronics store in the Nihonbashi district. With its recording head, he etched his only fantasies onto the magnetic tapes.
What he dreamed of were pop idol singers.
When real life refused to fulfill what he lacked, he directed his longings toward the illusory images painted by the scan lines of the cathode ray tube.
He checked idol singer magazines for upcoming TV appearances of his favorite performers and taped nearly every show.
Unlike real people in the flesh, once recorded, the idols would never betray him. Recordings could be watched whenever he wanted to, for as long he wanted to. The idols never looked at him with the contempt normal women did, as if they had seen something dirty and repulsive.
No, the idols always looked at him with a smile.
To Toshihiko, starved of both emotional and physical love, the idols’ smiles seemed like those of angels.
He inserted a cassette into the tape deck and turned on the TV. He pressed the play button, and warm hues filled the screen.
Surrounded by colorful lights and a dazzlingly vibrant set, a slender young woman in a yellow dress kicked up legs so pale they might have been transparent. She sang passionately, a charming little song.
I love, love, love, that bashful you.
No matter how deep and strong my feelings
You pretend not to notice.
At the final chorus, the camera cut to a close up on the young singer’s face. She brushed her left hand through her hair, silky and a little short, and curled her cherry blossom lips in a coquettish smile.
Her name was Asaka Ai. She had debuted with the song “Lemon Season” two years ago, and while she wasn’t among the biggest names, she still maintained a respectable amount of popularity.
Though Toshihiko didn’t quite understand why, she was his favorite idol. Perhaps her inability to make it to the top resonated with his own life.
But more than anything, Toshihiko admired how earnest she was. Ai was always kind and courteous to the TV show hosts and the other talent with whom she shared appearances, as well as to the behind-the-scenes staff—though the last part was just Toshihiko’s guess.
He had watched his videotapes of her countless times. When a tape ended, he would rewind it and immediately watch it again from the beginning. For nearly every day in the past week, he’d done nothing but hole up in his small apartment watching his tapes of her again and again.
His feelings toward Ai surpassed the boundaries of a simple fan. He wanted to talk to her, if only just once. He wanted to go on a date with her, if only just once. Here he was, nearly a thirty-year-old man, believing these fantasies with total sincerity. It wasn’t normal.
It was clearly abnormal.
He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to have his arms around her. And yes, he wanted to have sex with her.
In the confines of his dingy apartment, his desires had escalated unchecked.
He thought about what he could do about it all.
He considered researching her schedule to find a time and a place where he could meet her in person. He wanted to talk to her, face-to-face, and pour out all his feelings. He wanted her to understand the passion he carried for her.
He wanted Ai to see him as a real person.
But there was a problem.
He didn’t want Asaka Ai to see his ugly face—there was no way he could allow that. His atypical, even zombie-like features were not fit to be seen by her.
He wanted to meet her. He wanted it so badly he felt like he might die.
But he couldn’t. With his face and the life he led, he could never meet her.
Nevertheless, his heart ached in yearning.
He hugged his arms around the TV, where Asaka Ai remained on the screen, and his inner voice cried out from deep within.
Ai... Ai-chan...
He squeezed his arms tight. The TV’s plastic shell creaked under the pressure. Tears trickled down from Toshihiko’s eyes.
He had rejected the world and its realities, and for that, his love for Ai had grown all the deeper, all the more severe. Over time, his thoughts had reached a terrible conclusion.
I will kill Ai, and myself.
It was no joke or simple passing thought. He was seriously considering acting on the idea.
His gaze went to the kitchen and to the sliding-door cabinet beneath the sink, where he kept his kitchen knife. It was brand new, purchased recently.
He looked again at Asaka Ai on his TV screen and then back to the cabinet.
His lips twisted into a smile.
For the past few days, Toshihiko hadn’t set foot outside his apartment. He had eaten hardly anything. He was hungry but felt no desire to eat. Drinking only his bitter coffee, he sat in his gloomy room, watching his videos of Ai. He’d watched them from morning until night.
Both mentally and physically, Toshihiko was strained to his limits. He couldn’t stop crying. He cried in loud, heaving sobs. Atop his flimsy futon—which he never bothered to fold and store away—and amid the hanging, raw stench of old sweat and dried semen, the nearly thirty-year-old man cried and wailed the name of a girl around half his age whom he’d never even met. He cried, and he cried, and he cried.
Thud.
The strange sound had come from his cracked, frosted window.
Toshihiko went over to it and threw open the curtains. In the span of a moment, a shape passed across the glass, and then it was gone. He thought it looked like a stooped-over person, but it might have just been a trick of his imagination.
Toshihiko became aware of a dull, lasting pain in the left side of his chest, just above his heart. He moved his hand up and pressed down where it hurt.
His flesh squished under his hand.
The shock registered not in his mind but as a physical, electric force that shot through his body. For a moment, his thoughts went blank. Then, hesitantly, he felt at his chest again.
His hand felt a small, plump softness.
His face went pale with stunned confusion.
He probed the protrusion with his fingers. As he squeezed at the softness, he wondered, Am I sick?
His grimy, flabby chest felt as if it had taken on the gentle firmness of a woman’s breast.
He opened the top of his pajama shirt to look inside, and there it was. A breast. Two of them, even. He’d never seen a woman’s breasts in real life before.
Two tiny, pink points stood in areolas wrinkled by emotional distress. His stale, sweaty odor had been replaced with a fresh, feminine scent not unlike a baby’s milky smell. His skin wasn’t the familiar oily yet dried out and cracked mess he was used to seeing, but was instead smooth, like moistened porcelain.
Toshihiko couldn’t believe it was real. He thought he might still be caught in that earlier nightmare. The deep, throbbing pain persisted in his head.
That’s what this is, he thought, taking great efforts to convince himself. This is a nightmare.
His mental state had been pushed too far to accept it as real. He was far too fragile for such a leap.
But reality was not to be denied as some dream. He had no choice but to accept the truth because it wasn’t just his chest.
Appearing from the sleeves of his pajamas were a set of arms, and hands and fingers and palms, that were not as they had once been. His smooth skin was so pale it might have been transparent.
He put his hands in his hair to see if it too had changed. What he found wasn’t his familiar mane, held stiff not by styling gel, but by accumulated oils. No—the hair he found was healthy, smooth, and flowing.
He touched his face. Gone was his angular, bony structure. In its place were petite features, from his eyes, to his nose, his mouth, and his lips, which were as soft and supple as freshly picked cherries.
Toshihiko ran to the kitchen. Somewhere on the windowsill above the sink, he had left a mirror. Impatiently, he picked it up. Its reflective mercury backing had begun to chip away.
He looked at his face and his heart nearly leaped out of his mouth. He gulped reflexively.
The face looking back at him had skin as pale as if it were dusted with flour. Its cheeks had a faint, healthy red tinge to them. Its eyes were bright and black. Its nose was dainty, and its lips were moistened. It was the face of an angel.
It was the face of his beloved Asaka Ai.
The resulting shock was tremendous. Toshihiko retained his thoughts and his personality, but his body had transformed—into the idol Asaka Ai.
Unable to cope with the shock, he let out a crazed scream that resounded through the apartment, otherwise quiet in the early morning.
The voice, too, was as pretty and clear as a ringing bell.
An hour had passed.
Toshihiko had finally calmed himself. He sat up on his futon and began turning an analytical eye toward the situation he now faced.
From the top of his head to the tips of his toes, he had completely transformed into Asaka Ai. But whatever had happened to his body on the outside, his insides all seemed to be in working order. In fact, he felt better now than he had as Toshihiko.
What luck, he thought. What luck that I don’t have any friends. What luck that I don’t socialize. My parents—my only family—never leave the countryside. That means that I get to live the rest of my life here in this apartment with Asaka Ai.
As soon as he came to that realization, shivers of delight ran through his body.
Because he had little in the way of friends or acquaintances, hardly anyone ever came to visit his apartment. He would be able to stay there with her forever, with no one to interfere. His most beloved idol was his, and his alone, to do with as he pleased.
Until this moment, he had wished someone would wake him from this dream. Now he wished that, if it was indeed a dream, no one would ever come to disturb him from it.
In body, he was Asaka Ai, but in mind, he remained himself.
Before long, he realized that he could play with her body however he wished.
He only had one fear.
What if Ai-chan (that is, he himself) were found by someone? He might be accosted by some strange man.
He thought back to the suspicious figure he’d seen in the frosted glass window but shook his head vigorously to cast away his worry.
He wanted Ai-chan to remain his forever.
For now, Toshihiko thought in an attempt to reassure himself, I just won’t leave the apartment.
Now was not the time to worry. It was the time to thank the heavens for bestowing him with such an opportunity—and to enjoy it as much as he possibly could.
Slowly, Toshihiko began removing his pajama shirt. The dirty fabric slid away to reveal naked skin that practically shined in comparison. His shoulders carried a gentle, seductive slope, and on his chest were two pert breasts.
Toshihiko ogled his naked form with all the greasy lust of his almost thirty-year-old male mind.
Captivated by the beauty of his breasts, he cupped one in each hand and lifted them from below. He pinched his nipples between his thumbs and forefingers and felt the rush of a deep thrill only women could understand.
With the perverse stare of a man, Toshihiko watched as the idol groped her own chest. He experienced the act from both sides at once, the woman’s physical pleasure and the man’s emotional thrill. He squeezed Ai’s breasts so hard the sensation edged into pain, and he let out a wordless moan.
Driven by his ecstasy, he removed his pajama pants. Thrusting out from his yellowed briefs were the two athletic legs he had so thirstily watched on his television screen.
Toshihiko traced his fingers up from his calf to the top of his thighs. When his hand reached his briefs, he yanked them off without pause. Toshihiko’s inner thoughts revealed themselves on Ai’s sweet face, twisting the charmingly cute features into ugliness.
Toshihiko’s eyes fixated on a single point. With full intensity, his male gaze bore down upon the meeting point between Ai’s pale thighs. Toshihiko picked up the small mirror from beside him and drew it near the space between his legs.
In whispered awe, he said, “This... this is Ai’s...” but the rest got caught in his throat.
His fingers wriggling like spider legs, he fondled her hidden place with unbridled lust.
Several hours later, his passion had ebbed. His body weary, Toshihiko lay on his futon.
On the TV near his bed, Asaka Ai was performing her newest song, while he watched in the form of the fully naked Ai. A perverse pleasure ruled Toshihiko’s body.
As if in sudden recollection, Toshihiko snapped his fingers. With a grin, he stood up and went over to his cheap, freestanding canvas wardrobe. He opened the zippered front and withdrew a paper bag from the back.
Inside the bag was an eye-piercingly yellow mini dress with plenty of frills, a copy of one Asaka Ai frequently wore. He had bought it in secret, driven by his deep yearning for her.
When Toshihiko was alone, in the middle of the night, he had sometimes dressed himself as her. He had pretended to be her, then anguished over his unrequited love.
But now he really had become her.
His passions stirred at the thought of being able to embrace the real Asaka Ai, in her real dress. Fresh waves of emotion coursed through him.
Wearing the dress now, he spun in place. Its hem floated and danced in the air, exposing—for a brief moment—the naked form beneath.
It’s beautiful, Toshihiko thought. Feverish shivers of delight ran through his body. He hugged himself, his arms crossing over his chest, and a new fountain of desire flooded through him.
Ai, Ai, Ai-chan, he cried out inside himself as he lay back down on the futon.
Suddenly, a feeling of dread came over him.
His eyes went to the window.
He could sense an unseen watcher’s intense gaze upon him.
Toshihiko approached the window and looked through a small gap between the panes of frosted glass.
It was now evening. On the street, he caught glimpses of salarymen hurrying home and housewives shopping, but he saw no sign of the figure that had frightened him.
It must have been my imagination getting carried away, Toshihiko thought. He turned from the window and started toward the middle of the room.
That’s when it happened.
At the corner of his vision, he thought he sensed something that didn’t feel right. He put his eye up to the window.
A tall electric pole stood beside a house across the street. There, lurking in its shadow, was a stooped-over man trying to escape notice.
An indescribable terror gripped Toshihiko.
Toshihiko knew the man hiding behind the utility pole would come back to peek through the window into his room. The man was like Toshihiko had once been—timid and afraid of strangers but filled with incredible lust.
The thought made the soft, downy hairs of his body stand up on end.
He must be another sick fan like me, Toshihiko thought with certainty. And not just a fan of any idol singer—a fan of Asaka Ai. He’s been watching me—watching Asaka Ai—through the gap in my window.
Toshihiko’s right eyelid twitched. He won’t be able to contain his desire. He’ll come back to watch again.
Or, he thought as the blood drained from his face, he might already be coming.
Quickly, Toshihiko checked to make sure his door was locked. It was.
He let out a deep sigh of relief and collapsed onto his futon. Deep down, he wished that he was worrying over nothing, that he had nothing to fear. But he knew better. All he had to do was look inside himself to know exactly what that kind of person was thinking.
That kind of man was clever, if nothing else. He appeared meek but was capable enough of taking action.
And so, Toshihiko knew the man was coming.
He turned off the TV and made himself alert. He couldn’t know from where the man would come. He couldn’t allow himself to relax. He needed to watch, listen, and be ready.
Toshihiko heard strange footsteps in the hallway outside his apartment. They seemed to drag miserably across the floor.
It was him. Toshihiko knew it was him. The footsteps were not the product of an overactive imagination.
There, listen. Just as Toshihiko had dreaded, they stopped outside his door.
Knock, knock...knock.
Even the way he knocked was hesitant.
Hearing such a cowardly knock reminded Toshihiko of his former self, and the likeness sparked an angry irritation. The only thing to do to a man like that was to meet him head-on and tell him off.
Toshihiko approached the door and spoke. “Who is it?!”
It came out harsher than he’d intended. He felt as if he could see the man’s stunned reaction on the other side of the door.
The man didn’t respond. Toshihiko could hear him breathing heavily through his nostrils.
Toshihiko pressed his attack. “Who is it? What do you want?”
Still no response. The breathing became louder.
Toshihiko raised his voice. “If you don’t have a purpose here, then leave. I’m calling the police.”
Before he’d finished speaking, the footsteps ran off.
The cowardly man had withered and fled from Toshihiko’s (Ai’s) threats.
It was a relief. Exhausted from the fear and anxiety, Toshihiko slumped weakly to the floor in his entryway. There, he began to think.
He pictured his terrifying stalker fleeing red-faced, and he tried to imagine what that man was feeling.
What if that had been him—the man he used to be? If his beloved Asaka Ai had spoken to him like that, what would he have done?
Toshihiko considered it carefully.
First, he would have run away. He would have run, crying, as fast as he could.
But then what?
Filled with determination, the timid man had come to visit the idol in a once-in-a-lifetime act of courage. But he’d been flatly and coldly told off—and not just by anyone, but by his beloved idol. He wouldn’t have the courage to come calling a second time.
The man was surely in emotional shambles now. He would never see Asaka Ai again.
If that had happened to Toshihiko, what would he have done?
He knew the answer without having to think about it.
There was only one answer.
I would kill Ai, and myself.
The terrible phrase, almost forgotten, filled his chest.
Toshihiko felt as if every pore on his skin closed up.
The man would have no other options available to him. He would watch Ai for the right opportunity, and he would act.
Slowly, quietly, the greasy man would come, knife in hand, with dreadful intentions.
Toshihiko closed his eyes and tried to shake the mental image. But no matter how hard he tried to banish it, the vision remained seared into his mind.
Resolving to protect Asaka Ai, and by extension himself, he stood and walked to the kitchen where he kept the thirty-centimeter-long kitchen knife he’d purchased to kill Ai, and himself. As he opened the cabinet under the sink, he grinned cynically at the strange irony that he would protect Ai with the very same blade he’d bought to kill her.
Toshihiko’s heart froze. Cold sweat materialized on his forehead.
The knife was gone.
It had been there, but now it was gone without a trace.
Toshihiko put his hands to his head. Someone had stolen his knife. And he knew who it was. That man. Who else could have done it?
Skriiiiiikkk, came a noise.
Toshihiko jumped.
The sound had come from his window. Something sharp was scratching at the frosted glass.
Toshihiko hurried back to his room and looked to the window.
The tip of a blade was slowly scraping from left to right.
It’s him, it’s him. He’s here. He’s come with the knife to kill Ai—and me!
Toshihiko’s body froze as if bound hand and foot. He couldn’t even scream. His eyes were locked on the window.
Following the knife’s path, a mop-like mass smushed and smeared against the glass. Toshihiko knew what it was—hair. The man was pressing his greasy hair against the window. Slowly, the knife and the hair moved right to left. The knife etched a thin, sharp gouge, and the oily hair left a wide slug’s trail.
Finally, the knife and the hair reached the window’s edge and disappeared.
Toshihiko wondered where the man had gone but quickly realized where—the man was going around to the apartment building’s entrance.
His fear was not groundless. As proof, only moments later, those miserable, dragging footsteps returned to the hallway, before stopping right in front of Toshihiko’s door.
Bang bang, came the knock. Bang bang.
Even upon hearing that ominous sound, Toshihiko remained frozen, standing in the middle of the room. He was too afraid to move.
The knocking became louder. Bang bang!
The man outside was timid no more. He had come in unwavering conviction. He would kill Asaka Ai.
Toshihiko needed to do something. The locked door provided no true safety. The man would break it down to come in, if that was what it took.
Toshihiko knew this. And yet, he couldn’t move.
The knife sank into the thin, flimsy wood of the door. The blade’s tip glistened as it jutted from the interior side. The man twisted the knife, widening the tiny slit it had made.
A thin finger reached in through the door. A jagged splinter cut into its flesh. Blood began to form along the scrape.
Undeterred by the injury, the man began prying at the board with nothing but his finger. More of his skin tore, and blood began dripping from his fingertip. Nevertheless, he kept pulling at the board.
Soon, he had created enough of an opening to slide his arm in and undo the latch. The door creaked quietly open, and the man stepped in, bathed in the red light of the sunset outside Toshihiko’s window.
The man wore a sweat-stained T-shirt and dirty jeans. His greasy, matted locks clung to his angular face and curled into points on either side of his head. Catching the sunset’s light, the two points shone like Astro Boy’s hair. The man’s hand gripped the sharp knife tightly.
Toshihiko saw that the knife was the same one he had bought.
The man took one step toward Toshihiko and then another.
Toshihiko knew he was about to be stabbed. He knew he had to run. But his body wouldn’t move. The more he panicked, the more firmly frozen he became.
The man spoke.
“A-Ai-san! I... I...”
His voice sounded as if it came up from the depths of hell. The voice was clammy and unpleasant, like that of a drunk and frustrated salaryman shouting unintelligibly at a karaoke bar.
“Forgive me, Ai-san,” the intruder muttered as he bowed his head repeatedly. “This was my only option.”
Then, with an inhuman wail, he rushed toward Toshihiko with intense speed.
Toshihiko could see it in the man’s eyes—
I will kill you, and me.
The stench of the man’s body assaulted Toshihiko’s nose. In the next instant, he felt a burning pain in his side, as if he’d been struck by hot tongs.
Blood began soaking through his yellow dress.
The man withdrew the knife. White fatty tissue clung to the blade, then spilled out and dangled from the open wound.
Toshihiko looked down at the yellow dress, the red blood, the white fat. He found a strange beauty in the colors.
The man took the bloodied knife in a reverse grip. He plunged it into Toshihiko’s chest. The pain felt like a strip of tape pressed against his skin and then forcefully yanked off.
Unable to move, Toshihiko was at the mercy of the man’s knife.
The wound went deep into his chest. Blood sprayed out in a fountain. In an instant, his yellow dress was yellow no more.
The man twisted the knife inside his chest.
A numbness spread from the wound. Toshihiko began to cough; blood burbled from his mouth.
As the man showered in Toshihiko’s blood, he said, “Ai-san, Ai... You’re beautiful. You’re so cute.” His voice rose into a crazed shriek. “You’re beautiful. You really are. Every day, I’ve touched myself watching you. I’ve done it more times than I could count. You understand how I feel about you, don’t you?”
The man’s flushed face was right in front of Toshihiko’s.
The man’s features, angular and bony, resembled the leftover parts of an amberjack fish, already gutted and filleted. His eyebrows were off-putting and scraggly like dried kombu flakes. His nose was bulbous. His lips were slug-like, with a vaguely oily sheen, and his eyes were round and pleasant.
On the verge of unconsciousness, Toshihiko thought in sudden realization, So, that’s who he is.
He understood.
The man had Toshihiko’s face.
He had Toshihiko’s smell.
He had Toshihiko’s personality.
So, that’s who he is.
He’s... he’s me.
The man looked into Toshihiko’s eyes, then blinked in sorrow. Toshihiko felt an indescribable love for the man.
I’m going to die soon.
In those last moments, Toshihiko looked the man in the eyes with as much affection as he could and gave him a smile.
The man smiled back at him.
Still smiling, the intruder slashed his own throat open with the knife.
As he coughed, fresh blood spilled from his mouth. He tried to say something through the coughs but couldn’t form the words.
To Toshihiko, it sounded like he had said, “Thank you.”
The man was telling him, Thank you for understanding how I feel.
The two shared a blood-soaked embrace. They held each other tight for as long as their strength held out. Then, still entwined, they fell to the floor.
The two became one.
The sunset painted the room in deep, deep red.
It was a terribly tragic sight.
Why did it have to be so tragic?