Story 2: Cry Your Tears

STORY 2
Cry Your Tears

 

On an ordinary wooden desk sat a picture of a cute young woman, dressed in a yellow beret and pleated yellow culottes. She posed flirtatiously in the picture, not a personal snapshot, but rather a collectable photo for her fans.

Every bit as commonplace as the desk at which he sat, a man stared at the photograph. His expression was deeply intense, to the point of ghoulishness.

Soon, the veins at his temples began to visibly throb. The large box cutter knife in his hand trembled in synchronized pulses. He ran the fingers of his other hand through his bristly, hedgehog-like hair and rustled it about. His face was broad and pudgy; his small, cowardly eyes seemed out of scale in comparison.

Now those eyes flashed with anger.

He raised the box cutter high. In the next instant, its tip sliced through the air and embedded in the photograph with a metal blade’s characteristic twang.

Though no one was there to hear him, he whispered, “This time—and I mean just this time…” He trailed off, as the anger in his eyes built to a boiling rage, then said, “I’ll forgive you. But never again.”

He pulled the box cutter free and touched his pointer finger to its edge. He pushed the blade into his flesh. Flecks of blood sprayed out from the wound, speckling the woman’s picture.

Despite the pain, the man gave an enigmatic smile. He looked back and forth between his sliced finger and the girl moistened with his blood.

Was it the forced smile of someone sad, holding back their tears? Was it one of frustration, of anger? Or was he happy?

No one but him could understand what emotions lay behind that smile.

With his bloodied hand, he reached for a small envelope at the edge of his desk. The paper was decorated with the kind of cutesy designs that would be right at home atop one of the desks at an all-girls’ school. On the reverse side was a hand-drawn heart.

Suddenly, the man’s expression turned grave, and he crushed the envelope in his hand. His eyes were those of a man in prayer.

Perhaps without knowing it, he repeated, “Never again.”

 

Kawasaki Yuma entered the studio dressed in a geeky Minky Momo vs. Godzilla T-shirt and faded denim jeans.

A slightly aged hair stylist greeted her with a high-pitched “Good morning, Yuma-chan!”

Yuma returned the woman’s greeting with a smile. “Morning!”

“He’s here already,” the stylist said. She patted the top of her head and showed a teasing grin.

Yuma dropped her voice. “You mean baldy? He beat me here?” Her prematurely bald manager’s perpetually grinning face popped into her mind.

The stylist nodded. “Bando-san is in high spirits today.”

“Really?” Yuma said. “Is it really that surprising that I got a commercial gig?”

“It’s the first he’s had since he started working with you. I don’t think he could help being excited about it.”

“I guess you’re right.”

Yuma gave the stylist a quick wave and went to the green room at the rear of the studio.

 

Bando, Yuma’s prematurely bald manager, approached her. “Good morning, Yuma.” He beamed so broadly that the smile brought creases to his face. “You look as adorable as ever. First-class idol singers like you are in a whole different league.”

Yuma thought, Always with the over-the-top flattery. She found his silver-rimmed eyeglasses and sweaty forehead depressing. And his hair is getting even thinner, too. Her eyes landed on Bando’s scraggly beard, and she smiled back at him uncomfortably.

“Yuma,” he said, “this could be your big break. A commercial. A TV commercial!” Bando spoke so fast little bits of spittle flew. “Sure, it’s only going to play in Tokyo, but this is Sanshin Denki. They’re planning a huge promotional push with you representing their new line of electronics.”

Inserting coins into a vending machine, Yuma muttered with disinterest. “I’m just there to get eyes on the ads of some local retail chain. We don’t need to get so worked up over it.”

“Yuma-chan, don’t be like that. This is a commercial. A commercial! It’s a lucky thing the company’s president is a fan of yours.”

Yuma took a gulp of her soda and shouted, “I hate that bald creep!” She made sure to put an emphasis on bald.

 

With a hint of a scowl, the stylist said, “President of a company or not, the guy’s tastes are a bit creepy.”

“Right?” Yuma said. “You think so, too—don’t you, Makki?” She waved a pink costume in her hand. “Look at this awful thing. It’s basically a cheerleader’s outfit.”

The stylist, Makki, said, “Wait until you see the hair style.” She offered a photo for Yuma to see.

The photo was of a cute girl with pigtails.

“Seriously?” Yuma groaned. “That hairstyle, with this costume—that bald president is a total perv.”

“Whatever the case,” Makki said, as she braided the idol’s shoulder-length hair, “his tastes are certainly…less than decent.”

Yuma was seated in front of a full-length mirror. She watched as Makki’s experienced hands transformed her hairstyle in no time at all. Looking at her new pigtails, Yuma had to admit she did look cute.

Makki said, “Yuma, you’re adorable. With that pink mini on, you’ll drive that old man wild.”

“I just can’t believe I turned eighteen, and now this is the costume I have to wear.”

“Well, think of it this way. Not many grown women who want to dress that way could make it work even if they got the chance to try.”

“That’s a good point,” Yuma said, as she stepped behind the curtain that separated the small dressing space from the hair and makeup room.

Alone behind the partition, Yuma smoothly discarded her T-shirt and jeans. Wearing only her underwire bra and bikini panties, she appraised herself in the mirror with a smile.

Her body had good proportions. Aside from her breasts, which were a little on the small side, her body curved in and out where it was supposed to. She put her hands on the sides of her waist. There was more give than she would have liked. It wouldn’t do for modeling.

Darn it, she thought. That’s my only flaw.

She remembered her boyfriend Yukio saying, “You’re not getting enough exercise, are you? You’re starting to get some fat on you.”

She hadn’t seen him for a little while now. Between rehearsing her new song and a string of nationwide promotional events, she hadn’t the time to get together with him. Not long ago, in her hotel room, she watched his supporting-role performance in a TV drama and realized how much she missed him.

I think I might be falling in love, she had thought.

Still dressed only in her underwear, she smiled bashfully at the memory. Then, reining in her distracted thoughts, she said, “All right!” before quickly putting on her pink mini dress and stepping out of the dressing room.

Yuma twirled, sending the hemline of the pleated dress precariously high up her thigh.

Thoroughly impressed, Makki said, “You look super cute!”

 

With the nervous eyes of an herbivore, the man readied his finger on the VCR’s record button. On the TV screen, three male pop idols performed an energetic choreographed dance. According to the program guide, she would be on next.

The trio’s song appeared to be reaching its conclusion. The music swelled, and the three struck their final poses.

The man pushed the button.

There were a few seconds of silence, then a young woman appeared on the screen.

She wore a cowboy hat, wild bangs peeking down to touch the tops of her eyebrows. Her wide eyes shone, dreamlike. A cowhide vest covered her white blouse, and jean shorts accentuated her rowdy charm.

A star-shaped brooch, placed near her shoulder, served as her only adornment. Though simple, there was something inexplicably flirty about it.

The woman kicked up a slender leg that stretched all the way down from her high-cut shorts. Then she threw her microphone toward the camera.

She pulled back the mic’s cord with her left hand, causing it to twirl in the air before returning to her grasp.

The move had been specially choreographed for this, Kawasaki Yuma’s new song, “Lariat of Love.”

As he watched her perform, the herbivore-eyed man grinned sloppily and bobbed his head up and down in time with the beat.

Under his breath, he said, “Yuma is putting everything into this song.”

His face said that he knew all there was to know about Kawasaki Yuma. On the bookshelves behind him stood tightly packed rows of recorded videotapes. The spines were labeled with dry-transfer letters that read Idols I, Idols II, and so on, but most bore the same name: Kawasaki Yuma.

The wall beside the bookcase was covered floor-to-ceiling with overlapping posters. Most of those featured Kawasaki Yuma, too.

On the TV, Yuma finished the song’s second chorus and moved on to the big finish.

 

I’ll snare you with my burning love.

Oh, my lariat of love.

 

As she said the last word—love—Yuma again performed her microphone lasso trick. After the mic had finished tracing its arc through the air and she’d caught it firmly in her grasp, she held it like a pistol, then gave a wink and shouted, “Bang!”

And the song was over.

The man stopped the recording and hurriedly turned on his radio because Yuma’s Happy Talk was to start at ten.

As he listened to the radio, he reviewed Yuma’s schedule for the day in his head.

Her radio show was pre-recorded today, which means her live performance on Golden Music was her last job for the day. After that, she’s free. Tomorrow, she has a live appearance on another radio show at eight in the morning, which means she should be going straight back to her home tonight.

The man imagined her out chatting happily with some guy instead of going home on her own. The thought of her with a man, even imagined, filled him with pain, followed by incredible rage.

She isn’t seeing anyone, he told himself. She couldn’t be. Look at her charming face. A girl that innocent, that adorable, couldn’t be seeing anyone.

Big, fat tears dripped from his diminutive eyes.

I love her too much for that. I devote all my time to loving her. She wouldn’t betray me with another man. Other women would, but not Yuma.

The man picked up a photograph from his desk. It was the collectable photo of Yuma from her early days.

He gazed into the grinning face of the yellow-bereted teen. He sighed and whispered words that came from the bottom of his heart. “Yuma, tell me the truth. There isn’t any other man. There’s only me.”

Yuma didn’t reply. She simply kept on smiling brightly back at him.

The man hugged the photograph to his chest. Then, slowly, he raised it up to his face.

“Yu-Yuma…”

He pursed his ugly lips into something uglier and gave Yuma’s face a wet, sloppy kiss.

 

In the small green room of a TV station, Yuma summoned tears to her eyes. She protested, “I’ll always be a second-class idol—just a nobody in a miniskirt. That’s why I’ve had to take every job that comes in. No one listens to my songs. They all just stare at my legs. Don’t think I don’t see that.”

Flustered by her outburst, the balding Bando said, “Y-Yuma-chan, don’t sell yourself short like that.” He put his arm around her shoulder as he attempted to comfort her. “You’re a terrific idol and a terrific entertainer!”

Yuma brushed away his arm. “If you actually think that, you should listen to what I’m saying. Do I really have to meet the president of that company in person?”

“Yuma-chan,” the manager said. “This is your job. Sanshin Denki is putting their full weight behind promoting you. Surely you can at least meet the president and say a few words.”

Yuma furrowed her eyebrows sharply. Filling her voice with acid, she said, “As long as that’s all I end up having to do for him…”

“Don’t be silly. Of course that’s all. You don’t have to worry about a thing. But I want to be clear—I’m not asking you to do this. I’m telling you, as your manager, that I expect you to do it.”

Yuma shook her head with a “Hmph,” then threw open the green room door. “And let me guess—I’m supposed to put my hair in pigtails and wear that pink mini dress. Fine. But I’ll tell you this: I’ll meet him, we can have a little talk—but that’s it.”

 

The man’s eyes were those of an elephant—an elephant, hesitant and motionless.

The man with elephant eyes stood frozen in place as he stared at a poster of Kawasaki Yuma hung up inside the train station. The poster was a B1-sized advertisement for Sanshin Denki, which everyone knew was nothing more than a sketchy retailer hawking electronics of questionable manufacture.

On the poster, Yuma’s wind-tossed miniskirt had lifted to reveal her slim, athletic legs in near entirety. The posters hadn’t been up very long, but they had already become extremely popular among the serious idol fans.

The cutesy pigtail look was a 180-degree change from her previous image, but apparently those other fans liked it.

In the poster, Yuma looked more girl than woman. The man stared into her face, his gaze intense enough to bore a hole through the paper.

“This is wrong,” he muttered under his breath. “It’s all wrong. This isn’t Yuma.”

Rage filled his elephant eyes as he withdrew the box cutter he’d concealed in his pocket.

He carved an X across Yuma’s face.

 

Kawasaki Yuma stepped out of her taxi and immediately felt anxious. A strange tightness gripped her chest.

For a moment, she stood in front of her apartment building and took deep breaths to steady her nerves.

It was eleven at night. At this hour, the upper-end residential street was empty, with not even a stray cat in sight. She told herself that the solitude was the source of her disquiet, and continued into the apartment’s entrance, where she entered her passcode on the security panel.

The door automatically slid open.

The building’s security system provided safety, but Yuma always thought it felt impersonal, lacking in human warmth. Tonight, it made her feel relieved. She rode the elevator up to the fifth floor and walked down the short open-air hallway to her door, which she unlocked with a key. Each floor of the building only had two units, and Yuma was the only one who lived on the fifth floor. She had complete privacy here.

As she was about to enter her apartment, she heard something fluttering above her head. She turned toward the sound and saw an object wedged in the crack at the top of the door. She reached up and took it.

It was a letter-sized envelope.

Yuma tilted her head in confusion. Who could have come and left this here?

A stranger shouldn’t have been able to get into the building. Had it been left there by another resident? She never really associated with any of her neighbors…

Was it Yukio? she thought, picturing his tanned face. But he has his own key. If he were here, he would have gone inside.

Who, then, could it be?

Yuma’s anxious worry returned. She flipped the envelope over.

Written in the rounded, distinctive characters that typified girlish handwriting were the words, From Someone You Know.

She had no idea who that could be. But something about the envelope tugged at her attention.

The rounded handwriting was cutesy, but somehow ominous. It presented an uneasy mismatch with the words it formed—adolescent characters making a formal announcement, From Someone You Know.

If words and handwriting could reveal a person’s character, what kind of person would have written this?

Yuma felt an indefinable worry. Someone had slipped through a hole in the building’s security system to come to her home; that much was certain. That person then put a letter into the crack of her door.

With trembling fingers, she tore open the envelope to find out what was inside.

The smell of sweet perfume met her nose. Inside the envelope, she found a single page of scented stationery. She unfolded it and read.

 

I’m not mad at you.
I’m not mad at you, because I believe in you.
I’ll even forgive your thoughtless actions—
I understand that poster was part of your job and
that you didn’t have any choice but to do it.
But that look wasn’t you. No, no, it wasn’t.
I might even start to not like you anymore…
That was a lie. Just a lie!
I could never hate you.
I’ll love you for the rest of my life.
On TV, you told me you loved me.
I won’t forget that.
If you betray me…
Oh, what a scary thought. So very scary.
Because I would never betray you.

From Someone You Know

 

Yuma gulped.

What did all that mean?

Several letters from her fans arrived at her agency’s office every day. Some letters were quite ardent, and some were nasty and harassing. But this message was not like those letters. Something was different about it. It was bizarre. And it felt all too real.

Maybe this is what had me feeling anxious earlier, she thought. A chill ran down her spine.

Yuma crumpled up the letter in her hand, envelope and all, and tossed it into the dustbin inside her entryway. Then she locked the door with both deadbolt and chain, and passed straight through her living room to her bedroom, where she burrowed into her full-size bed without stopping to remove her clothes.

She forced her eyes shut and pulled the duvet over her head.

Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—there was something she hadn’t noticed.

The disturbing letter had been flecked with tiny bloodstains.

 

When Yuma entered the agency’s meeting room, Bando and the other staff members were already at their seats around the table.

The sight of her manager’s face reassured her more than she would have expected. She sat in the chair next to him, leaned in to his ear, and spoke quietly. “I need to talk to you about something after the meeting. I got a strange letter yesterday…”

“A strange letter?” Bando’s voice held a mix of curiosity and concern. But before Yuma could explain, he cut her off, saying, “We can talk about it later.”

Bando cleared his throat, and the room went quiet as everyone turned their attention on him.

“I want to dive right in,” he announced. “Today’s theme is hop-skip-jump, Yuma! We’re going to take this opportunity to re-examine our plans for her going forward. We’ve been fortunate that her poster campaign for Sanshin Denki has been a hit, and we can expect her to rise in popularity, as well. Her new single, ‘Lariat of Love,’ is debuting strong at number thirteen on the next Oricon chart. With everyone’s hard work, I want to make this song an even bigger hit than her first single, ‘Crossing Love.’ I’d like to hear everyone’s thoughts on how to promote her further. Let’s have a lively discussion—all right, everyone?”

For the next hour, the team came up with numerous ideas to push Yuma’s sales, several of which she thought had merit. In the end, however, the team settled on the uninspired approach of going forward with both her new Lolita look from the Sanshin Denki posters as well as her signature wild image. Yuma understood this as the typical indecisive result that came about when a group talked out ideas together.

They would begin by nurturing the popularity of the Sanshin campaign, playing up troubles with stolen posters (even if they had to fake a few thefts). At the same time, they would try to turn the microphone lasso move from “Lariat of Love” into a fad among the youth.

With a heavy yawn, Yuma stood up and went into the next room, where there was a kitchenette. She took a canister of instant coffee from the shelf and poured a scoopful into a paper cup, which she then filled with lukewarm water from a wall-mounted hot water dispenser. Without adding sugar or milk, she took a big gulp that left a grainy bitterness lingering on her tongue.

She retrieved a handkerchief from the rear pocket of her culottes and wiped the corners of her mouth. When she looked up, she saw Bando hurrying her way.

“Would you like me to make you some coffee?” she asked.

He nodded and sat on a folding chair at a small table, wiping sweat from his brow.

While she prepared his drink, Yuma said, “That meeting sure was pointless. We wasted all that time just to come up with the most obvious approach.”

“Now Yuma-chan, you mustn’t say that. Even if we end up with the most obvious plan, it carries more weight when arrived at by consensus. Just you wait and see. The team’ll have better cohesion after that meeting.”

The manager accepted the cup of coffee and began pouring copious amounts of sugar into the liquid. He dumped in four spoonfuls and then a fifth.

Now Yuma saw where his round belly came from. All that sugar intake had given his stomach the gentle rise of a Moomin character.

Showing her a confident smile, the manager said, “Just leave everything to me. I’m going to get ‘Lariat of Love’ into the top ten. You can count on it.”

Mollified by his smile, Yuma said, “Thank you. I’ll do everything I can, too. How should I start?”

“Primarily, I want you to take care of yourself,” Bando said. “Your schedule is going to be packed with appearances and events all over the country. If you push yourself so far that you pass out, it’ll all be for nothing. Your health needs to be your top priority.”

He produced a notepad from his inside jacket pocket and began flipping through the pages so intensely Yuma almost laughed.

“Here’s what your schedule was like as of yesterday,” Bando said. “Tomorrow, you have a short event at Shoppers Plaza in Kyobashi, Osaka. The day after, you’re in some of the surrounding cities—first a handshake event at a department store by Hirakata Station, and then in the evening, a guest appearance at a karaoke contest run by local businesses in Korien. That’s it for those two days. Nothing too tough, there. But now that the whole team is on the same page, everyone will be working hard to fill in your schedule.”

Bando downed his sugary coffee impatiently and sprang from his folding chair like there wasn’t a minute to spare. He took two, then three steps toward the door before he stopped and belted out, “Oh, that’s right. I almost forgot what I came in here for.”

He returned to the metal chair and angled it to face Yuma. “You said there was something you needed to talk to me about. Something about a letter?”

When he said “letter,” Yuma’s body stiffened. Her eyes serious, she said, “Yes. A letter—a strange letter.”

Seeing her expression, Bando sat up straight and listened.

Yuma opened her clutch bag and pulled out the crumpled note in question.

“This is it,” she said. “It was so creepy, I threw it away right after I read it. But then I realized I wanted you to see it. So, here it is.”

When Bando finished reading the letter, he tilted his head in thought and said, “Hmm. You’re right, this is unusual—although, I do think it’s probably just from a fan gone overboard.”

“I probably shouldn’t be scared, but I am,” Yuma admitted. “I know it’s just a letter. I can’t quite explain what I’m feeling, but it’s not good.”

The idol looked over her shoulder. She thought she’d felt someone watching her.

“But Yuma,” Bando said, “no matter how scary it might feel, it’s just a letter, right? I’ve managed several idol singers now, so I know about this kind of thing. There’s a lot of this sort of fan out there. With Asaka Ai, we got a letter that said, ‘If I can’t marry Ai, I’ll kill myself.’ But you know what? He never did. If you start worrying over what’s in every single fan letter, there’ll be no end to it.”

Bando crumpled the letter back into a ball and tossed it into the wastebasket.

“Yuma-chan,” the manager said cheerfully, “if you’ve got enough time to worry about something like this, I’d rather you worry about your promotional tour. To be perfectly frank, our future is riding on it.”

Leaving the room, he stopped on the other side of the door and said, “If the person who wrote that letter tries to do anything to hurt you, I’ll give my life to protect you. Don’t you worry about it.”

He gave her a smile and a wave.

Yuma wasn’t entirely convinced, but she did feel a lot better.

 

For the fifth time that day, the man with the elephant eyes reached into the mailbox outside his room. Inside was a postcard ad for a loan shark business and several fliers for so-called “delivery health” call girl agencies. That was all he found.

He had gone to great efforts to find Yuma’s apartment, and a week had passed since he delivered his letter. She should have replied by now. She should have replied days ago.

The man returned to his room and clicked his tongue in frustration.

Why hasn’t she replied? Why?

He had poured his heart into his letter, so why hadn’t she replied?

True, he hadn’t written his name or address on the envelope. But the pair shared a soul bond. Signing it “From Someone You Know” should have been more than enough. And yet no reply had come.

The man asked himself, Is she wrong for not sending me a letter? Or was I the one who did something wrong?

No, he answered. I didn’t do anything wrong. And neither did Yuma. It wasn’t either of us. Someone else must have interfered. That’s the only answer.

The man pulled a Yuma fan club magazine from his bookshelf. The self-published fanzine was called Yukko Club—Yukko being the fans’ nickname for the singer. He opened the magazine and searched for the fan club’s phone number.

Once he got what he needed from the magazine, he got out his notebook and looked at the schedule he’d compiled of Yuma’s events.

Her next appearance was in Shoppers Plaza at Kyobashi. He narrowed his elephant eyes and made up his mind.

I’ll meet Yuma in person, and I’ll hear it straight from her mouth, with no one else to interfere. Then I’ll know how she feels about me.

 

Yuma took the bullet train to Shin-Osaka Station, then by way of a couple local transfers, she reached Kyobashi Station. On the platform there, a group of male students recognized her.

She had done everything she could to blend in as an everyday woman, with her hair in a ponytail, her makeup easy and natural, and her eyes behind black-rimmed glasses. Most of her fans wouldn’t have recognized her, but some of the particularly sharp-eyed students among the group had realized who she was, and they approached her, blabbering.

A pimple-faced junior high schooler slapped his friends on the back as he shouted, “See, I told you it was Kawasaki Yuma!”

A plump kid with silver-rimmed glasses stared at her agape and said, “It really is her!”

Another boy held out his right hand and said, “Would you shake my hand, please?”

Then, in the next instant, a number of the students thrust out their hands toward her.

In a manner that spoke to her familiarity with this kind of thing, she smiled for them and started to extend her arm to meet their handshakes. That was when Bando suddenly appeared from behind her, shouting, “No! No!”

He got in front of Yuma and spread his arms wide to keep the youths at bay.

He told them, “If you want to shake her hand, then come to the event space in Shoppers Plaza. If she does it special for you here, it wouldn’t be fair to the other fans who are waiting.”

The students glared at the balding interloper and hurled insults at him as they walked away.

“Why are you such a jerk?”

“Baldy!”

“I don’t want her autograph anyway.”

With a put-upon smile, Yuma looked to Bando and said, “It was just a few handshakes. I don’t mind.”

“You can’t be like that,” he lectured. “Once you start indulging them, they’ll just want more. Shake their hands, and they’ll want autographs. Give them an autograph, and they’ll want a picture with you. There’s no end to a fan’s desires.”

He led her to the end of the platform, where a set of doors led into Shoppers Plaza. He ushered her through.

A few minutes later, the next train arrived at the platform. Office workers, men and women alike, crowded out from the train’s doors. The platform was suddenly filled with people.

Lagging a little behind the throng, a single man was spat out from the train. With a slight stoop, he stood on the platform. He cleared his throat with a cough that could have come from a man twice his age. He spat out a gob of phlegm. If anyone had looked closely at him, they would have seen his unusually small, timid eyes.

It was him. It was the man with the elephant eyes.

A group of high school girls happened to be walking toward him as they chatted away about something or other. When he looked at them, his dark-skinned face turned a deep red. Quietly, he moved to the side of the platform so that they wouldn’t look at him.

He must have been in a bit of a panic, because when he moved, something dropped from his pocket. He let out a small, stifled cry and quickly bent over and scooped up the object—a large box cutter.

 

After greeting the marketing and promotion staff of Shoppers Plaza, Yuma went to an impromptu green room set up for her in the company dormitory. The four-and-a-half tatami mats of the Japanese-style room were dotted with stains and smudges, lending the cozy space a lived-in feel.

While her manager was out of the room for a pre-event meeting, Yuma quickly got into her stage costume—a white blouse, cowhide vest, jean shorts, and a brown cowboy hat. It was her costume for “Lariat of Love.”

The singer retrieved her microphone from her bag. She tested its weight in her hand and gave herself a moment to get re-accustomed to its feel.

Her manager had been the one to come up with the idea for throwing the mic like a lasso. Since Yuma had been in the baton twirling club in junior high, she learned the technique in short order. An idol without that experience would have taken years to perfect the move. Even still, despite already possessing the fundamentals, Yuma had needed to practice extremely hard before she had it down.

Several times, she had complained to Bando, “This is pointless. I’ll never get it.”

Her third song, “Summer Love,” ended with a move where she had to lift up the edge of her miniskirt and stick out her butt. When she started out performing that song, she cried and cried out of embarrassment and sadness, but learning this one was even harder. The lessons had taxed her, not only mentally, but physically as well.

When she saw “Lariat of Love” start rising up the Oricon chart, she felt truly happy. All her hard work was being rewarded.

Yuma returned the microphone to her bag. She let down her ponytail and brushed her hair all the way back. With the aid of the mirror over the sink, she applied a light layer of makeup. Now she was ready.

She plopped down on a floor cushion and waited for Bando to summon her.

 

Yuma made her entrance onto the small stage in Shoppers Plaza’s event space.

There among the seats was the man. His eyes were surrounded with little wrinkles, just like those of an elephant. When he saw Yuma in her cowgirl costume, he whispered, “Ah. Now this is Yuma.”

A trio of junior high school boys occupied the seats next to the man. They each unfolded one of those Sanshin Denki posters and waved them in the air.

Idiots, the man thought. What’s wrong with you ­people? You’re just a bunch of perverts lusting after little girls.

Filled to capacity with primarily middle and high-school-aged boys, the event space crackled with excitement. The man regarded the exuberant crowd with an annoyed glare.

They don’t understand Yuma’s true greatness, he thought. I’m the only one who understands. I’m the only one for her!

In an effort to restrain his agitated emotions, he reached into his pocket and squeezed the box cutter by its handle. The feeling of its cold metal against his skin calmed him, as if he were a babe and the knife were his mother’s breast. The sensation of the metal traveled across his skin and through his body, reaching into the depths his mind.

The man smiled.

Without even realizing it, he stopped caring about the other fans around him. The only ones in the event hall were him and Yuma—at least that’s how it felt, as his fantasy subsumed all other thoughts in his head.

 

When she finished singing “Lariat of Love,” Yuma returned to her green room with sweat on her brow.

Bando was there waiting for her, a cold glass of soda in hand. “You did great!” he said. “The crowd was really into it.”

Yuma accepted the glass of soda and downed it in a single go. Her cheeks flushed in exhilaration, she said, “That was amazing. It was like a rock concert out there.”

Bando said, “All that’s left is the handshake session, and we’ll be done here.”

Yuma nodded deeply and wiped the sweat from her forehead with the sleeve of her blouse.

 

A little table and a cushioned folding chair waited on the stage. The set made for a rather dreary locale, but that was par for the course for these kinds of events.

Dressed in her street clothes, Yuma climbed the three or four steps to the stage, sat on the metal chair, and looked out at the room. It was the same as always.

The mostly teenaged boys who had been passionately waving their arms for her song now obediently sat in their seats waiting for the chance to shake hands with her.

To Yuma, it was beautiful, but at the same time, absurd. She couldn’t help but let out a little chuckle.

The shrill-voiced woman emceeing the event announced, “We’ll now begin the handshake session. Guests with tickets numbered one through ten, please line up at the stage.”

 

The elephant-eyed man watched nothing but Yuma on the stage. He wondered how much it pained her to have to shake all those other men’s hands.

But worry soon wormed its way into his fantasy. What if she was actually enjoying it? He needed to find out. He wanted to ask her, “You only shake those other men’s hands because it’s your job, right?”

What would he do if she answered, “I don’t do it because it’s my job. I do it because I like it.”

As his mind worked through the scenario, he felt the blood drain from his face.

He struggled to remain in his seat. He couldn’t bear to wait another minute without knowing how she felt. He pursed his lips. He clenched his teeth. He gnashed them so hard that his molars made a sound like they were crunching on leaves.

Yuma, please don’t betray me. Please, please, you won’t betray me, right?

He put his ticket back into his pocket, and his fingers brushed against the box cutter.

 

Yuma put emotion into each and every handshake. She held on to each fan for at least three seconds. She looked them in the eye and gave them a smile.

After around 150 handshakes, the effort started to tax her. Her hand didn’t feel like a part of her anymore. It was like it was someone else’s.

She looked out at the audience. Roughly half were still waiting. Though she kept reminding herself she should be thankful that all these people wanted to meet her, deep down she was so dreadfully sick of it.

 

His turn had finally come.

When he put his foot on the steps leading up to the stage, his entire body tingled. A single word came unbidden into his head: destiny.

This is my destiny.

He saw each step that brought him closer to Yuma as a step toward his destiny.

He climbed onto the stage, and Yuma was there, a few short meters away. For some reason, seeing his soul mate up close, he felt a little flustered. Just two, maybe three more steps, and they would be nearly touching.

His composure was faltering.

If this isn’t fate, he asked himself, then what is?

With his eyes locked on to Yuma, he took one step, and then another, toward that which he believed was preordained.

 

Just then, Yuma felt a prickling pain in her chest. Lightly, she held her right hand over her heart where she felt the discomfort. It wasn’t the pain of a physical wound or an illness. It was something more unusual.

A premonition, she thought in realization. That’s what this is—a premonition.

As she kept on shaking the hands her fans offered to her, dread and that unfamiliar pain swelled in her chest. She understood that her body was trying to warn her on some primal level. Something sinister was drawing near. It was the same dread she had felt standing outside the entrance to her apartment building.

She looked into the face of the boy standing nervously in front of her. Was he the source of her distress?

 

When the elephant-eyed man saw he was now second in line, he felt a rush of energy springing up from somewhere deep within, like magma racing up an erupting volcano. But at the same time, he also felt a pain that was hard for him to place. It was something akin to shame, or maybe how a virgin bride might feel as she faced her wedding night.

He became suddenly embarrassed at the thought of Yuma looking upon his face and his appearance.

What will she think when she sees me? he asked himself. The thought made his body flush hot from head to toe in anxious embarrassment. He wasn’t a handsome man. A dreadful worry sprang up from the depths of his mind. What if she hates me?

He ground his teeth, forward and back, like a chewing elephant. He felt as if sharp little pins were pricking into the backs of his eyes.

Oh, if only I were good-looking…

The thought hurt. It truly hurt.

How much pain I endure for you, Yuma.

He stared at her, unblinking.

You wouldn’t betray a man who loves you as much as I do. You won’t betray me, right?

Please, don’t betray me!

 

For an instant, Yuma flinched.

The hand she was shaking felt oddly sticky.

The guy was probably sweaty—they often were—but his hand felt gummier than sweat usually did. It was almost like some kind of bodily fluid, and on top of that, he smelled vaguely like a wild animal.

Yuma pulled away her hand sharply. She looked at his face. His skin was darkish, rubbery, and creased like a tire tube. His dull eyes reminded her of an elephant, and they stared at her anxiously. His expression was lonesome, yet aggressive.

Could it be him…? Yuma wondered. Was he the source of her dread?

She turned her head to break away from his stare and said coldly, “Next in line.”

 

When he faced Yuma, the man noticed her give him a signal.

She looked at him and nodded slightly.

At the time, he thought, She really does know who I am. He felt her message like it was an electric signal she transmitted directly into his brain. A long time ago, when he watched her on his television, she had sent him a message from beyond the curved glass tube: I love you. But now, at this short distance, the signal was all the stronger. It was too strong, in fact, distorting beyond recognition.

This isn’t working, he thought. I still can’t tell what she’s feeling.

To ask her what she felt for him, he concentrated his own feelings and sent out a signal back to her. As their hands grasped, their passions manifested into sweat.

Is this sweat not my question manifested in form? And look, see how sweaty her hand is, too. Is that not her feelings for me, manifested in form? She loves me; that’s why she sweats so.

With a satisfied smile, he thought, Is this how passionate a woman can become for the man who loves her?

He tightened his grip to say, I love you.

And that’s when it happened.

Yuma suddenly broke away from his hand.

Then, as if she were speaking to a complete stranger, she said, “Next in line.”

The man was stunned.

What? he thought. Does she hate me?

His grim fear returned to dominate his thoughts. A sound like an elephant’s trumpet escaped his nostrils.

 

Yuma’s gaze froze on the man with the elephant eyes.

As he stared back at her, his body began to visibly tremble.

Suddenly, without warning, the letter—that sinister letter—came to her mind.

Somewhere, beneath his animal stink, this man smells the same as the letter.

 

The elephant-eyed man fought to hold back the impulse bubbling up from deep inside and everywhere. Inside his pocket, he squeezed the box cutter as hard as he could, as he struggled to suppress a savage, violent urge.

 

Yuma sensed physical danger and stood reflexively. Bando came running from backstage.

Yuma’s eyes locked onto the man’s. She felt that something terrible would happen if she looked away.

 

Despair filled the man. He could read the mixture of terror and contempt in Yuma’s eyes. Inside his pocket, he exposed the blade from its handle. His mind began to work like a computer circuit, racing down the branching paths of potential outcomes.

Do I stab Yuma with this box cutter? But then he thought, If I stab her with this many people around, what will happen next? I’ll be captured, arrested. I have to restrain myself for now and wait for my next chance.

He turned his back to Yuma.

 

Somehow, Yuma carried out the handshake session to the very end. Exhausted, she leaned against Bando as he walked her into the green room. All she could think about was that man.

“Make sure he’s not here,” she said. Her frightened eyes darted into the shadows around the door.

“Make sure who’s not here?” Bando asked.

“You know who I mean. The man with those elephant eyes, of course. He’s not hiding on the other side of the door, is he?”

“Calm down, Yuma,” he said as soothingly as he could. “Nso one can come here. The public isn’t allowed in this area.”

Yuma shook her head forcefully. “Not him. He could come here. Nothing is impossible for him.” She squeezed Bando’s hand. “He came to my apartment. Only you and I are supposed to know I live there. But he found it anyway.”

Bando put his arm around her shoulders. “You’re safe,” he said. “Even if he managed to come here, he couldn’t do anything with all the staff around. Besides, you don’t even know if he’s the same guy who wrote that letter.”

Yuma nodded. But as she did, she thought to herself, No matter what anyone else says, I know he wrote that letter. I know from his smell. And I know he’ll come to me again…

 

The man stood near the rear entrance to Shoppers Plaza. He took the box cutter from his pocket, blade exposed. He placed its cutting edge against his palm.

Yuma, he thought, these are my feelings for you.

He pulled the knife across his skin. Blood gushed out from the wound. Letting it pool in his hand, he approached a poster advertising Kawasaki Yuma’s live performance and handshake session.

He reached for the poster and smeared his blood across the paper, as if instilling it with his feelings.

Beneath the film of red, Yuma smiled out at the world. He jabbed his pointer finger at her nose and said, “Yuma, this is the second time I’ve forgiven you. Please, I beg you, don’t betray me again. This is the last time. You get no more chances after this.”

 

Yuma dialed the phone number, partly resigned to the expectation he wouldn’t answer. But, much to her surprise, this time he did.

“Yukio!” She spoke somewhat louder than she’d intended. Then, a bit peevishly, she said, “What’s been going on? I keep calling you, and you’re never there.”

“Come on, don’t be like that,” Kawai Yukio protested. “You’re the one who said not to call you so much because you’d be too busy with that new song.”

“But, but…” Yuma waved the receiver, as if in denial. “But something really scary happened to me.”

Like a cord stretched tight finally snapping under the strain, Yuma broke down crying.

Yukio said, “Yuma, it’s all right. Look, we’re talking now, aren’t we?” With tenderness, he added, “If there’s something bothering you, you can tell me about it.”

“I…was so scared.”

Between sobs, she told Yukio everything that had happened, from the letter to the man who had come to the handshake event.

Yukio was silent, and then he said, “That does sound strange. I have some pretty weird fans myself, and sometimes they’ll send me their underwear or clippings of their hair—but I’ve never received a letter like that.”

“Right? It’s not normal. I think he’s obsessed—he’s crazy.”

“I’m just not so sure of the connection between the letter and the man at the handshake session,” Yukio said. “I think you might be too on edge, and you’re overreacting.”

“I’m telling you, it was him. I know it. No, I don’t have any hard evidence. But I’m sure of it. He smelled the same as the letter.”

“I feel like you’re overthinking this,” Yukio said, doubt evident in his voice. “Well, whatever the case, he hasn’t done anything to hurt you so far, and he can’t be shadowing you everywhere you go. Just be a little more cautious of what’s around you, and I’m sure you won’t have anything to worry about.”

“He’ll come,” Yuma muttered.

“What did you say?” Yukio asked.

“He’ll come. I know he will. He’ll come to my apartment!” Shivering, she added, “Maybe he’s already on his way here.”

 

The next day, Yuma entered her agency’s office and found Bando waiting for her with a fierce look on his face.

Full of cheer, Yuma asked, “Ban-chan, what’s wrong?”

Bando had no smile for her. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong, you ask?”

He thrust a tabloid magazine at her and demanded, “What’s this?”

It was one of those low-class, celebrity gossip rags.

“What about it?” Yuma said defensively as she took the magazine and began flipping through the pages. Halfway through, she found the photograph that had fouled Bando’s mood.

The picture was of Yuma and Yukio together. It was from when they had snuck out on a date about a month ago. They were in a small, low-key snack bar, snuggled up to each other as they drank beer.

Who could have taken that picture? Yuma wondered in honest confusion. There wasn’t anyone in the bar who remotely looked like a photographer.

“You sure made a mess of things,” Bando said, “drinking with a man when you’re underage. Even worse, you’re going out with some C-grade idol, way beneath your level. If you’re going to date someone, you’d better make sure it’s a star. Then we’d have enough clout to keep pictures like this from surfacing.”

Bando put his hands on his head, pushing his fingers through what little hair he had left. “The media will be all over this. They can’t get enough of gossiping about popular idols. It’ll probably be on TV within the week.”

Feeling no sympathy, Yuma grew angry. “Look how worried you are, now. When I told you about that letter, you weren’t bothered at all. You obviously care more about my CD sales than you care about me.”

Bando glared at her. “Yes, your CD sales are important. But what I care about is for you not to become damaged goods. When these kinds of pictures go public, your fans are hurt the most. In the end, you’re the one whose career is affected.” He clicked his tongue in annoyance.

Somewhat concerned now, Yuma thought, After climbing to the top five, “Lariat of Love” will start to slip back down—and my popularity might go down with it.

She stepped toward Bando and clasped her hands around his. “I think it’s going to be fine. These days, it’s okay for idols to drink and go on dates. People appreciate honesty more than the fake innocent act. Don’t worry. It’ll all work out.”

Bando shook his head slowly, then said, “Well, we can’t take back what’s already printed. Maybe you’re right, and we’ll get some publicity out of it.” He let out a deep sigh. “You completely shut down the president of Sanshin Denki, but you’ll date a cheap idol like this. Yuma, I don’t think you were made for the entertainment world.”

“Maybe I wasn’t,” Yuma said with a grin.

Bando returned her grin and joked, “You’d better watch out for the crazy fans. If they see this picture, they might lose it. Those fans can be scary sometimes.”

He’d meant it just as a joke and nothing more. But Yuma didn’t take it as one.

He’s right, she thought. Ban-chan is right. If that man sees this picture…

For a second, everything seemed to go dark.

 

“I’ll kill them! I’ll kill them!”

At a tiny bookstore near the train station, the man stabbed a tabloid magazine again and again, shouting repeatedly. At the cash register, a female clerk averted her eyes from the spectacle. Apparently, she’d decided that ignoring him was the best way to ensure her own safety.

“I’ll kill them! I don’t know when, but I’ll kill them!”

He’d slashed and shredded the picture in the magazine until the paper barely hung together.

The photograph was of Kawasaki Yuma and Kawai Yukio. Yukio had his arm around Yuma’s shoulder.

Jealousy filled the man’s heart, and his chest felt painfully tight. In that moment, his jealousy was so strong that he thought it might kill him. He resented that picture for making him feel this way. He resented the couple in the picture.

At some point, he began to cry; tears dripped down from his chin. He felt a burning sensation in his nose as salty snot began to stream out his nostrils. He felt sorry for himself. Why did he have to be hurt like this?

Suddenly, he looked up in realization. A glimmer came to his dull eyes, and he thought, I’ll tell Yuma. He smiled. I’ll tell Yuma to break up with him. If I can just talk to her, she’ll understand.

But then he remembered how Yuma had looked at him during the handshake session. He pictured her expression of terror and contempt. Dejected, full of self-doubt, he turned his face down.

She might not understand. The thought struck fear into him. What if she doesn’t understand? What if she hates me? He squeezed the box cutter’s handle. Then I won’t have any other choice. I’ll have to find strength in this blade. I’ll have to turn to my last resort.

Having found a new determination, the man was calm once more.

 

After finishing her recording for a TV talk show, Yuma took a taxi back to her apartment. She got out of the cab and looked around, as was her habit, to make sure no one had followed her home.

Seeing no one, she went in through the front entrance. The door wouldn’t open for anyone without a matching key and number code. Thanks to the security system, the apartment provided complete safety. As long as she was here, she need not be afraid.

But that man had come inside. At least once, he had come.

Yuma exited the elevator and hurried to her door. She shut it quickly behind her and engaged the lock, then the door chain.

It still wasn’t enough to put her at ease. She ran to her phone and called Yukio. He didn’t have any work tonight and when they had spoken earlier, he’d said that he would come over.

The answer machine picked up.

“Yukio, it’s me,” she said. Her voice was trembling. “Come over as soon as you get this message. I’m in my apartment. Please, come right away.”

Her sixth sense was trying to get through to her. She could feel something—something beyond words. She sensed that something terrible was coming for her. It was getting close.

She thought she heard footsteps.

 

The doorbell rang. Yukio had come. Yuma unchained the door.

Yukio is here. She could think of nothing else. The sound of the doorbell had erased all fear.

As she opened the door, she pouted. “You’re late. I’ve been waiting for—”

A man slid inside, through the open doorway.

It wasn’t Yukio.

It was a man she didn’t know.

She didn’t know this man, but she’d seen him before.

Somewhere in her memories, he was there.

But who was he?

“You’re Yuma-san,” he said in a high-pitched voice, shrill enough to rattle the lid of hell itself. “You’re Kawasaki Yuma-san.”

The moment he had opened his mouth, her nose caught the smell. It was familiar. She knew, beyond any doubt, this was the man. This was the man who had filled her with terror at the handshake session. This was the man with those elephant eyes.

Her voice trembling, Yuma said, “Who are you? Why are you here?”

The man calmly locked the front door from the inside and moved the chain into place.

“I…I’m a huge fan,” he said. He looked away in embarrassment. Even his ears had flushed red.

“If you’re my fan,” Yuma said as firmly as she could, “then come see me at a concert. This is my private space. It’s not a place for fans to come.”

That’s right, she told herself. He’s your avid fan. You need to be strong with him.

Staring him down, she ordered, “Now leave!”

The man’s face turned an even deeper shade of red, but he said, “No. I won’t leave.”

He narrowed his elephant eyes, as if he were trying to bring something into focus. Then he retrieved a roll of brown packing tape and said, “I’m here because I’m going to ask you to do something.”

Moving quickly, he circled behind Yuma’s back. Without giving her a chance to escape, he wrapped his arms around her from behind.

“St-stop!” Yuma shouted as she flailed her legs, both of them bare below her short denim skirt.

The man bound her wrists with tape, pushed her onto her side, and straddled her body. Then he bound her ankles together, leaving her completely helpless.

He stood up and looked down at her, satisfied with his work.

“Yuma, I’ll forgive every time you’ve wronged me before. But in exchange, I want you to sing only for me from now on.”

She saw a crazed look in his eyes, and she knew she had to do something to escape him, or else.

Bound hand and foot, Yuma asked, “Why? Why are you tormenting me?”

The man’s lips twisted into a frown. Stammering, he said, “You—you think I’m tormenting you? You’ve got it all wrong.” His eyes rolled back so that only the whites showed. “I’m not tormenting you. I would never do that, no matter what happened.”

He sounded like a child making excuses after his mother caught him doing something naughty.

Maybe that’s how I can handle this, Yuma thought. Whatever else he is, he’s still a fan. He just might listen to me.

She thrust out her wrists, wrapped in tape, and said firmly, “Then how do you explain this? You wouldn’t call this tormenting me?”

The man’s dark complexion slowly turned darker, and he began breathing roughly. “N-no—see, that’s not to hurt you. B-but if… if I didn’t do it, you’d run away.” Keeping his head lowered, he looked at her with only his eyes. “And if you were to run way, I might not be able to control myself. I might do something we’d both regret.”

Now his eyes entreated her to understand. “Some­times,” he explained, “I lose control of who I am. When I think about you betraying me, I sometimes lash out in violence.” He gulped. “That’s why… that’s why…”

As he started to get flustered, he suddenly pictured that photograph of Yuma and Kawai Yukio. Yukio had his arm around her shoulders, and she was smiling, happy for the embrace.

A dark cloud of jealousy began to form, not just in his head or in his heart, but throughout his entire body. His hands shook, and a low rumble emanated from his throat. Then his small elephant eyes popped open so far they seemed they might fall out. He turned that widened gaze upon Yuma.

She sensed she was in danger. She curled her arms and legs like she was a shrimp and tried to wriggle away.

But in the next moment, he started slapping her face.

“How could you?” he shouted. “How could you look so sweet and be with… and be with someone like him?”

He grabbed her by her shoulder-length hair and lifted up her head, then shook her left and right.

Through grunts of pain, Yuma said, “St-stop it!”

But the man kept shaking her. His face took on a demonic look as he shouted, “How about this?! How about this?!”

“St-stop…”

Then with a little snapping sound, a few dozen of her hairs pulled loose. The strands clung to his fingers.

Yuma’s head dropped to the carpet. She remained still, frozen from the pain and terror. Some moments later, she heard the man sobbing. She cracked open her eyelids and saw him holding his head in his hands. Her hair was still stuck to his fingers.

“Forgive me,” he said. “Please forgive me. I didn’t mean to do that…”

Fat tears spilled from his small, ugly eyes. He looked at her with those watery eyes, and their gazes met.

“Y-Yuma-chan. I’m sorry. But… but it’s your fault. That happened because of the way you’ve been acting. You must never meet with that man again.”

Pushing through the pain in her face and her head, Yuma looked up at him. “All right. I won’t see him again. So please, take off this tape.”

The man bobbed his head in approval and began to slowly pull apart the stubborn tape. As he worked at it, he said, “Thank you, Yuma. Thank you for forgiving me. Thank you.” He began to cry again, but this time with tears of admiration and relief.

“But Yuma,” he added, “I’m just going to come out and say it. Just because you’re free to move again, don’t think you can run away. If you try to run, this is going to get scary.”

“Of course I won’t run,” Yuma said, as she eyed the distance between herself and the door. “I wouldn’t even think of it.”

She felt she could outrun him, at least with a head start. Freedom was not far away—just across the living room, through the front hall and out the door, then down the emergency stairway.

The problem was the door chain. She worried that he might catch her while she stopped to undo the lock. No outcome could be worse. He’d bind her with that packing tape again, and she’d be completely helpless. If only he’d remove his attention from her for just one minute, maybe two. Then she could have time to unlock the door and escape.

The man was laughing.

“I’m so happy,” he said, taking her hands in his. “You’re right here in front of me. Not a poster or a picture, but the real Yuma.” He pulled her hands quickly toward him, and the momentum carried her body after them, so that she leaned against him. A cold chill ran through her.

I would rather die than be held by him, Yuma thought, and meant it.

He put his arms around her and looked her up and down, fire in his eyes. The edges of his lips began to twitch. He clenched his fists so hard they trembled. He seemed to be trying, through great effort, to contain the lustful feelings that had come over him.

“Yuma is an idol,” he muttered to himself, but this close, Yuma heard every word. “She’s a cute, adorable idol. We can’t have sex, no matter how much I want to. Oh, how much I want to. But we can’t…”

His eyes burned with an animal lust as he gazed at her face, then her neck, then her breasts.

He exhaled deeply.

He pressed his hands against his chest.

“We can’t!” he cried. “We can’t. We can’t have sex!”

He unzipped his jeans and pulled out the ugly thing that had swollen and risen between his legs. The unwashed smell quickly invaded the air around them.

“Yuma,” he said, “you mustn’t watch this. We can’t have sex, so I have to do this instead.”

He turned his back to her and began stroking himself. His shoulders rose up and down, and his breathing became heavy.

For a moment, Yuma watched in stunned silence as the carnal scene unfolded. She had never seen a man do what he was doing, let alone a man such as him. His body began to shake, as if a spirit had possessed him. He seemed to be building toward climax. His back curled, and his hand began to quicken.

Calmly, Yuma thought through her situation. It’ll probably take him another two minutes or so to finish. This might be my chance to escape. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the man, rapt in his act of self-pleasure. Slowly, careful not to make any noise, she began walking. Leaving faint depressions on the carpet, she walked toward the front hallway. Please don’t finish yet, she prayed. Take it nice and slow. Enjoy yourself.

Reaching the front door, she looked over her shoulder to make sure his attention remained occupied.

She could hear him moaning now.

Good. He was still going.

Yuma reached for the door chain. Her gut was screaming at her to hurry, but she took her time, making sure not to raise the slightest noise.

She put her hand on the doorknob. When she turned it, the door opened with a click.

I made it! she thought, as the path to liberty presented itself before her. She took her first step into the freedom for which she yearned. But she couldn’t take a second step. Something incredibly strong pulled her back inside.

It was him. He grabbed her with one hand on her shoulder. He spun her to face him. Their eyes met. He looked more elephant than man.

With his other hand still in between his legs, he howled.

At the same time as she screamed, the man finished.

 

“I told you,” he said, stroking Yuma’s hair.

She cried, shaking her head.

The man sat cross-legged, having placed her across his lap. She’d tried to struggle, but he was stronger than he looked, and she hadn’t been able to pry herself free.

Giving it everything she had, Yuma pleaded, “Forgive me. I won’t run away anymore…”

The man regarded her with sadness in his eyes. “No, you’ll run. I wish I could believe you, but you’ll run.”

The man withdrew a box cutter from his pocket. He pushed out the blade, and it click-click-clicked its way through the notches built into the handle. Yuma knew what that sound meant.

“No! Stop!” she screamed, before panic turned her words unintelligible. There was no doubt over what he was about to do. If she didn’t escape, he was going to stab her.

As she flailed about, he held her in place with his other hand.

She opened her mouth wide and bit down on his inner thigh. The bitter taste of his denim jeans filled her mouth.

“That won’t work,” he said. “I’m not stopping. All right, Yuma—are you ready?”

His face emotionless, he pushed the box cutter’s blade into the bottom of her foot. Sharp pain shot all the way up to her brain. When she screamed, her voice sounded nothing like that of an idol, but like an old woman being strangled, on the verge of death.

The man said, “Yuma, you’re just going to have to endure this. Just a little longer, okay?”

He swung the box cutter again and again into the bottoms of her feet. Blood gushed freely from the gashes. By the time he was done, she was too weak to even cry out.

He looked at her ruined feet. With disgust in his voice, he muttered, “You won’t be able to run from me anymore. You have to accept it now. You’re going to stay right here and sing for no one but me.”

 

Yuma opened her eyes with a start. She awoke to a throbbing pain in her feet. She must have fallen unconscious, but for how long she didn’t know. She looked down at her feet and saw that they had been wrapped with a towel, now stained through with red.

Coming to grips with the pain, she looked around the room. The man wasn’t anywhere to be seen. He might have been in the living room, but she heard nothing from that direction. The door chain was still unlocked. If she could only crawl that way…

She put a little weight on her feet and was immediately met by a stab of incredible pain. She wasn’t going anywhere.

Maybe someone will come rescue me. She thought of Yukio. That’s right, I have Yukio. As soon as he hears the message I left him, he’ll come.

She felt the blood return to her face. She repeated the thought, trying to make herself believe it—trying to will it to be true. As soon as he hears my message, he’ll come right away. Yukio, come quickly! Come right now!

She clasped her hands in prayer and stared at the door. Come before that demon returns.

Then, as if someone had answered her prayer, the doorbell rang. She heard a key slide into the lock.

It’s Yukio. Yukio came for me.

Yuma sat up, anticipating his rescue. The knob turned, and the door swung open.

“Yukio!” Yuma cried.

This time, it really was him. Kawai Yukio stood on the other side of the door.

When he saw her there on the floor, blood on her feet, his expression filled with shocked disbelief. And then he stepped inside.

“What happened to you?” he said.

Or rather, that was what he started to say. About when he said, “What happened,” a figure silently appeared out of hiding. Before anything else could occur, the man slashed Yukio’s throat with the box cutter.

Air burbled unnaturally out from Yukio’s throat as he collapsed on the spot. When his face struck the carpet with a clap, the wound on his throat split open wide and blood exploded out like fireworks.

The man casually tossed aside the box cutter and said, “That’s what you get!”

“Yukio!” Yuma cried out. Oblivious to her pain, she crawled to the front door, where she cradled her lover’s head in her arms. From the single line that had been drawn across his throat, the blood kept coming out in little spurts.

He had died almost instantly.

Having witnessed the death of the man she loved most, a new emotion sprouted deep inside her. She wanted to kill the man who did it.

Then, that very man pulled Yukio from her arms and tossed him into the bathroom like so much garbage into the can. Yuma picked up the discarded box cutter at her feet and turned a hate-filled stare at the man. He noticed her looking at him and approached her with his arms spread wide.

“What’s wrong, Yuma? I just took care of a man who was pestering you. He tried to spoil things between us, and I punished him for it. You promised you weren’t going to see him again, didn’t you? You should look happier to be rid of him. Give me a smile.”

Yuma shook her head. “You despicable monster. You’re the one I want dead!”

The man was taken aback. “Wh-what did you say?” The veins on his temples stood out. “I’m doing everything I can for you, and you say you want me dead?”

He glared at her. All sense of self-control vanished from his eyes. And then, with incredible speed, he rushed toward her. He yelled, “Before I do anything else, I’m going to make you pay!”

She gripped the box cutter tightly in both hands. She lifted the blade high above her head.

The man, roaring like a wild animal, was nearly upon her.

She swung the box cutter at the top of his shoulder. The blade dug into his shoulder blade and slid down at an angle, shaving off a centimeter-long patch of flesh. She had swung with so much force that the leftover momentum sent her staggering forward a couple steps.

The man held his hand over the wound as the blood came gushing out. “Yuma!” he shouted. His eyes clouded with a cold, shark-like fury. “Yuma! What have you done? You really mean to kill me?”

Blood seeped through his fingers and trickled down his arm. Yuma renewed her grip on the box cutter and glared at the man.

“Don’t come any closer,” she said. “I’ll kill you. I-I mean it.”

Standing on one knee, she held the weapon in front of her. The edge of her short skirt lifted, revealing a glimpse of her underwear.

The man’s lips twisted into an ominous grin. “You’ll kill me, you say? You would kill a man who loves you as much as I love you?” Locking his eyes on hers, he slowly approached her. “Do you really think that little body of yours is capable of killing me?”

The anger vanished from his eyes. In its place came the look of a vulture seeking its prey. He let out an eerie, birdlike cry and charged in to tackle her.

As he ran at her, she brought the box cutter down with her full strength behind it. The blade’s tip sunk into his back. A good hit, but—

The man only grunted.

He kept coming, grappling with her. He took hold of her waist with both hands and threw all his weight upon her.

The smell of sour meat assaulted her nostrils. His flabby body reminded her of a waterbed she’d tried out on a TV show once. His bulk sunk in around her. She flailed her arms and legs, but he didn’t budge.

“You smell nice,” he said. “So, this is your smell. It’s delightful.”

The man buried his face in Yuma’s chest and breathed in deeply. His stubble scratched around the tips of her breasts. The sensation was so disgusting that it nearly caused her to black out.

“I won’t restrain myself any longer,” he said. “There’s no turning back for us now. No matter what I do, you’ll always hate me. It’s better for me to act on my true feelings.”

He pulled down her blouse and bra, then brought his lips near her exposed breasts.

“So th-these are your breasts…”

He put her nipple into his mouth and roughly began to suck.

“Stop! Stop!” she cried.

Caring nothing for her protests, he sucked at her nipple so hard that it felt like he might tear it off. The man’s breathing became rougher, and he drew his waist in closer to her. She felt his stiffness against her thigh. For the first time in her life, Yuma cursed herself. She cursed everything that had led her to this moment.

Why did this have to happen to me? What did I do to deserve this? Is it just because I’m an idol?

Even as she gagged at the stench of his body odor, she reached around him and pulled the box cutter from his back.

His fingertips slithered up through the bottom of her skirt, where they impatiently tugged at the edges of her panties. His crooked fingers pressed against her most sensitive area.

Just then, Yuma stabbed the box cutter into his upper arm. The blade sliced through the surrounding fat and mangled the muscles beneath, and she learned that even this monster could screech in pain.

But then, he slapped her with incredible force. The impact was so strong, she felt like it might break her face, but she refused to let go of the box cutter.

“Damn you,” he snarled. “Look what happens when I go too easy on you. You start getting ideas.”

Greasy sweat beaded on his skin as he bore through the pain. He stepped over her and stomped his foot down on her chest. The wind rushed out of her lungs and escaped her lips in a bubbly mix of air and spittle.

Yuma cursed him silently, senselessly swinging the box cutter, slicing across his legs over and over.

The man grunted and put his hand to his ankles. “I can’t move my foot,” he said tearfully. “I… I can’t move it.”

Those wild slashes must have shredded the Achilles tendon of his left leg.

Now we’re in the same position, Yuma thought. She formed a tight-lipped smile as if to say, That’s what you get.

Wriggling her body like a snake, she shifted herself over to the side of the hallway. Following the wall, she crawled like an inchworm, pulling herself toward the front door. She moved even slower than she had thought possible. Her legs were nearly useless. She had to drag herself with only the strength in her arms and hips. Drawing on every energy reserve she had, she advanced—however gradually—toward the door. She didn’t look back over her shoulder, only forward, ever forward.

Holding his hands against ankles that wouldn’t stop bleeding, he looked toward her and said, “Whatever I have to do, Yuma, I’m not letting you escape.”

Yuma nudged the half-open door with her head, creating enough space for her to pass through, into the outside hallway. She turned toward the elevator and willed strength into her leaden arms. She was not all that muscular to begin with, and the fierce fighting had exhausted her limbs to the point of numbness.

And then, she couldn’t move them anymore. She tried to reach for the handrail that ran down the hall, but she couldn’t lift her arm. Her body was overcome by total exhaustion.

I need to rest, she told herself. With one final effort, she sat up and leaned her back against the railing, to give her body the respite it needed. Sitting there, slumped against the wall outside her apartment unit, she looked out the window and saw several stars twinkling in the sky.

Night had fallen without her knowing it. Cars honked their horns in the distance. A cool wind comforted her weary body. She heard what sounded like a nighttime baseball game coming from a TV on an upper floor.

Yuma felt keenly aware of the irony around her. Just a tiny distance away waited a wide-open world where she could be the idol Kawasaki Yuma, living in pampered comfort and basking in admiration. But here, in these confines, she was trapped in hell. Hades had Cerberus, but this hell had its own, even more relentless, jailer.

Why… why does everything have to be so tragic?

As she gazed at the twinkling stars, she began to weep.

But reality was not going to allow her any time for sentimentality.

Her apartment door opened like a creaking coffin, and the man’s head peered out from within. His head snapped in her direction. “There you are,” he said with a smile.

Yuma put her head in her hands and said, “No more, no more…”

But then, forcing her arms to move again, she began crawling to the elevator.

With only the use of his left arm and right leg, the man emerged into the hallway and came after her. Reaching the elevator, Yuma stretched out her arm to press the call button. But the man was already upon her. His hand closed around her calf.

“I’ve caught you, Yuma,” he said. He clamped his fingers down hard, and the pressure rekindled the pain from the wounds on her feet. “Even if you kill me, I’m never letting go.”

His grimy fingernails dug into her skin.

Yuma gave up on the elevator. She turned her body toward the emergency stairway. With the man’s fingers digging into her, it would take an extreme measure to free herself of his grasp.

Then an extreme measure is what I’ll take.

She threw herself rolling down the stairs. The sudden force caused the man to lose his grip. His nails tore off little strips of flesh from her calf, but at least she was free.

Yuma tumbled down to the landing where the staircase doubled back, halfway between stories. Her head slammed against the concrete, but she ignored the pain as she turned herself to roll down to the next floor. Once she made it there, she’d call for help as loud as she could. Maybe then she could be set free from this hell.

But cold, merciless reality came to shatter such hopes. When she looked down the stairs, she saw the fire door was shut, sealing any hope of escaping that way behind it. Faced with this dead end, she looked up the stairs from where she’d come. The man was looking back down at her.

“Yuma,” he shouted. “I’m coming!”

“You’re what?” she shouted reflexively in confusion.

The next moment, he was sailing through the air like a pro wrestler diving from the top rope. If he landed on her with his full weight, he might crush her to death.

Pushing with her head, she arched her neck and lifted her shoulders from the ground. She rolled to the side.

His soft landing taken from him, the man slammed into the concrete with a loud crunching sound and crumpled into a heap.

But he was still breathing, moaning in pain. He started to rise, shaking. He was still alive.

Yuma looked at her hands. There, forgotten but still held in her right hand, was the box cutter.

She looked to the man’s face. Blood streamed down his forehead. Pain had twisted his countenance into a grimace. His eyes were teary, pleading her for help.

As she watched this man who had taken so much from her, and caused her so much pain, she was overcome with a feeling that she could not define.

“Goodbye,” she said. “We’ll never meet again.”

She pushed the box cutter deep into his right eye.

 

She tumbled in through the open door of her apartment and immediately felt ill. Stomach juices began pushing their way up, bringing their acidic taste to the back of her mouth. The cuts on the bottoms of her feet hurt even more than they had before. She brought her hand to her head, and everywhere she touched, her fingers were met by cutting pain. Scratches and scrapes covered her arms and legs. Her blouse was open, and her bra was exposed.

Looking back on it, she’d been through an incredible fight.

Dragging her legs behind her, she crawled into her living room. She began to weep.

I’m safe, she thought. As she crawled she let herself cry. After some time, she looked up bleary-eyed and thought, My manager—I need to call him.

Rather than dial 110—the emergency number for the police—her first thought was of calling her manager.

With great effort, she sat up and stretched out her arm toward the telephone in front of her. The fight had left her weak, and she struggled to reach it. Finally, just as her fingertips landed on the receiver, she felt a strange pressure on her leg.

Something sticky pressed down on her skin. She turned her head to look over her shoulder. What she saw was totally red.

What is that? She tilted her head in confusion. Her mind couldn’t unpack what her eyes were seeing. It looked like some red thing reaching out a tentacle to grab her leg.

No, not a tentacle. It was an arm. A red-painted human arm.

It had to be…

Yuma thought for a moment. Then the answer came to her. When it did, she laughed. But as she laughed, her face gradually froze.

“No! No more!” she cried in a deep, shoulder-heaving scream.

Answering her scream, the red thing whispered, “Yuma…”

There was no denying it anymore. It was the man. It was the man she’d thought dead.

She didn’t want to believe it. She didn’t want to, but it was him. As proof, the box cutter she’d stabbed into his eye was still there, standing straight out from the socket.

The now one-eyed man muttered under his breath as he pulled her ankle toward him. Flailing with her entire body, she managed to shake free from his grasp. She crawled away from him, her arms bent like a cricket’s.

She couldn’t make her legs push. She could hardly move her body at all. But she kept pushing herself ever forward, propelled by terror. The man crawled after her, much in the same way, using his arm alone.

“Yuma, it’s me,” came the hoarse voice from behind. “It’s me…”

Hearing him speak, she felt her body begin to give up what little strength it had left.

“Please Yuma, don’t go. Wait for me. I want to die with you. We’ll go to heaven together.”

 

Yuma summoned every last shred of willpower she had and used it to keep fleeing from the voice.

But even that willpower was beginning to weaken.

What good will running do? Where can I go?

Ahead of her was a sliding glass door. On the other side, a balcony. Beyond that, only death. Flinging herself over that railing would bring her certain death.

Acting only on unconscious instinct, Yuma slid open the glass door and exited onto the balcony. There, she put her hands on the railing and turned herself around to face her enemy.

The man was only a few meters away.

Crawling on his stomach, he raised his head like a snake to look at her. He kept on staring, with the box cutter protruding from his eye and his face painted red with blood. His mouth dropped open, and he gave her a broad, happy smile.

“Yuma, we’re going to die together. Not alone. That makes me so happy, Yuma.” He stuck out a purple-tinged tongue and licked the blood from around his lips. “Tell me, how would you like to die? You probably want it painless, I bet.”

He slithered one step forward and asked, “How does strangling sound?” Another slithering step. “We could both jump off the balcony.” Another step.

She shook her head, No, no. She didn’t want to die. More than that, she didn’t want to be killed by this man. Trying to put what distance she could between herself and him, she kept her back against the railing and sidled to the right.

The man’s head turned, locked on to her, as he pulled himself forward with his arm. Backed into the corner of the balcony, Yuma now truly had nowhere left to go.

The man stared at her, savoring the moment. “You ­really are pretty, Yuma. You’re so cute when you’re scared. You see now—you have nowhere left to run.”

He was now two meters away.

“You know, now that I think about it,” he said, “I think I’d rather kill you with the box cutter, after all. It will hurt some, but you’ll just have to endure it.” He put his hand to the box cutter embedded in his eye. “Besides, I’ve endured so much pain for you already.”

He pulled out the knife. With a messy, wet sound, a jelly-like object came out with the blade. Countless thin tendrils hung down from it.

It was his eyeball.

Fresh blood gushed out from the empty cavern of his eye socket.

“It hurts, Yuma. Oh, my eye really hurts.” He shook his head again and again. Then he adjusted his grip on the box cutter. “But this pain doesn’t even compare to how much it hurt when I learned you were seeing another man.”

As if with the last of his strength, the man sat up, and then stood. Severed Achilles tendon or not, he stood.

“Yuma, it won’t be much longer now. First, I’m going to stab this into your eye. And then your throat. And finally, your heart.”

The man aimed the tip of the box cutter at Yuma and rushed toward her.

With her back to the railing, Yuma had nowhere left to run. One word filled her thoughts. Death.

Her arms and legs trembled. She wet herself. As if her body had crumbled beneath her waist, she slumped to the floor. Her rear landed first, followed by her hands.

What? Her hand had landed on something hard. She grabbed it instinctively, recognizing the feel of the object immediately. My…microphone. She had used this microphone to practice her final move for “Lariat of Love.”

Her thoughts flooded with memories of the long hours spent practicing in her apartment.

It was so tough. I worked so hard to learn that. That’s why… that’s why…

She looked up. The man’s deep red face was before her eyes. The box cutter was almost upon her. Only the shortest of distances stood between her and death. She had no more time.

“I’ll give you your wish!” she shouted.

For a moment, the man hesitated.

“I’ll sing for you,” Yuma said. “I’ll sing only for you.” Her hand tightened around the mic. The lyrics replayed in her head:

 

I’ll snare you with my burning love.

Oh, my lariat of love.

 

She threw the microphone.

At nearly the same time, the man swung the box cutter.

Cable in tow, the microphone brushed past the knife and went winding around and around the man’s neck.

Yuma twisted her body to the side, avoiding the descending blade and then yanked on the cable, putting all her weight behind it.

The cable went taut, and the sound of snapping neck bones rang out flatly. The man let out one last grunt before collapsing on the spot. For a second, his body rattled violently. And then he was still. His face puffed out like that of a drowned corpse, and a purple hue began to show through his dark skin.

I did it!

Yuma had won. She had defeated the monster. As her consciousness finally began to succumb to exhaustion, she knew she had won.

On the verge of passing out, she began reeling the microphone in by its cable. The mic slowly unwrapped from the man’s neck and returned to her. By the time she had it tightly in her grasp, she was on the verge of losing consciousness.

She held the microphone like a pistol and pointed it at the fallen man. In the last moment before passing out, a voice shouted inside her, victorious.

Bang!