KISARAGI ATTENTION

“Oh! Mornin’, Momo! Lookin’ cute as always today!”
    “Hee-hee-hee! Yeah…”
    After a quick greeting, we passed each other by. That was the thirty-seventh encounter today.
    It was early morning as I walked through the nearly empty shopping center, far removed from the shortest, most direct route to school. Right now, there were no shops open, no customers milling about—or there shouldn’t have been. But the place was quickly beginning to come alive.
    A steady stream of people flew out of the stores I passed, as if waiting for just this moment to try to strike up a conversation.
    “Ooh, Momo! Off to school again? Try to enjoy summer break at least a little, eh?”
    “Uh…yeah. Thanks. Ha-ha…”
    Number thirty-eight.
    I gave an awkward greeting to the produce seller who popped out from behind his stand. Looking ahead, I noticed the road begin to swell up with people.
    “Ngh…!”
    I recoiled for a moment, but there was no time to sit and ponder over it. I made a right at the shuttered drugstore adjacent to the produce stand, attempting to escape down a narrow side path.

    I checked my watch as I began to trot along.
    If anything, I had it pretty lucky this morning.
    Usually, I’d screw up and have to retreat back in the direction of home by now.
    If everything went right, I might actually make it through the school gate with time to spare today.

    As I made a left at the T intersection, my legs gradually quickening their pace, I realized how wrong I really was.
    The line of people at the bus stop was long enough that not even two buses would be enough to hold them all. They must have been running behind schedule. A man in the back noticed me. The moment he raised his voice, everyone’s eyes were immediately upon me.

    —Oh, no. This is bad.
    Shrinking back at the chorus of cheers, my face turned ashen when I saw the clock hanging from the bus stop.

    My drawn-out groan was quashed by the drone of the cicadas.

    “Dahhh! I knew it…”
    The school gate was already closed, not offering enough space for a single straggler to get through.
    Of course, if it did allow people to get through, it wouldn’t serve much purpose as a gate. Thinking about it that way, it was doing a hell of a job.

    August 14th, 9:10 a.m.
    It was no longer a matter of being on time. I was so late, I had cut out the entire first period of summer school.
    I had successfully dodged all the autograph-seekers at the bus stop, but by then, my schedule was already ruined.
    My luck ran out for good when I started running down the main thoroughfare, the shortest route—a truly desperate decision.
    On the street, one of my lovey-dovey songs, the sort of thing I couldn’t deny was far too over-the-top, was being played at high volume. Posters advertising my new single were tacked up all over the place.
    A large plasma screen showed me dancing in an outfit that looked bent on smothering me in frills. The record shop underneath the screen was selling my new CD (debuting today, of course), and a line of people snaked out the door, hoping for a chance at the free limited-edition poster on offer.
    “If I hadn’t been passing by just then, who knows what would’ve happened to you…”
    My manager’s car, parked in front of the school, was a miniature utopia of air-conditioning. The short-haired woman in the driver’s seat had her arms draped over the steering wheel. She mumbled with the drone of a woman exhausted after a hard day’s work, even though it was still morning.
    “I…I’m sorry. But it wasn’t my fault! I think the buses were running late today or something, so there were all these students…”
    I tried my best to defend myself, but was stopped by a long, fatigued sigh.
    “Listen, I understand how you feel…and I know you think commuting by car would make you stand out too much.”
    “Um…yeah…”
    “I want to respect your wishes as much as I can, but…Well, I’m just not sure it’s practical any longer. I think we’re going to have to talk about this again soon.”
    She seemed terribly apologetic about it. I felt terribly apologetic about myself.

    After a moment of quiet, I looked at my watch. The first period was just about to end.
    “…Ah! I need to go…! Uh, I’ll call you later! Sorry!”
    I hopped out the passenger door, turned around, and bowed at my manager in apology. She waved me off, a resigned smile on her face.
    After bowing one more time as she turned off the hazard lights and drove away, I walked along the wall encompassing the school grounds and building, headed for the employee entrance. I could feel beads of sweat on my forehead, formed by the temperature difference between the brisk car interior and outside. The furor of the morning’s events had already made me sweaty to the point that my uniform shirt was sticking to my back, so it wasn’t much of an issue. Running around in this heat would make anyone perspire, no matter how much of a glittery sixteen-year-old your branding makes you out to be.
    Awful. Just awful. I want to go home and take a shower.
    The bell began to ring just as I reached the edge of the school wall.
    Crap. My second remedial class was starting in just ten minutes.
    I jogged up to the employee entrance and pushed the small intercom button. After a few seconds, the speaker crackled to life.
    Even through this cheap speaker, you could still hear a subdued, alien murmur of noise in the background, that classic trademark of school life. The thought of spending the whole day in that clamor was easily enough to fill my heart with gloom.
    “Can I help you?”
    “Oh, hello! Momo Kisaragi, year one…I’m late to my remedial classes, but would I be able to get in…?”
    I couldn’t guess how many times I’ve spoken with this office receptionist.
    It’s been about four months since I came here, but this may be the woman I’ve spoken to the most. It was sad to think that these little intercom chats were taking up more than ninety percent of my school conversations.
    “Ah, yes, Miss Kisaragi. I’ll unlock the door, so head over to the faculty room for me, please.”
    If there was anything I could take comfort in, it lay in how she didn’t ask me why, or get angry at me, or even make any unusual note of it any longer.
    “Thanks…Sorry.”
    The lock made a clunking sound, and I pushed open the door to the school grounds.
    The door closed automatically, locking itself shut with another clunk.

    The school grounds were infused with a sort of cool, refreshing atmosphere you never found outside. It was summer break, but the place was still open for club activities and summer-school students.
    —I had only just enrolled this spring.
    The school building, freshly renovated two years ago, had a fetching Western-style design to it, almost too gaudy for its intended purpose. It wasn’t quite up to the level of the glittering all-girl private academies you saw in shoujo manga, but it had everything from a needlessly elegant clock tower to little creeks, fountains, and nude bronze statues dotting the grounds.
    As if that weren’t enough, these weird tunnels made out of vines and grass and so forth seemed to be everywhere you looked.
    I don’t know who came up with this, but setting up this mistaken attempt at a fancy boarding school in the middle of a crowded cityscape was, I thought, just adding more chaos to the landscape. But—and it should have been expected—it was apparently a hit with young women, enough so that the school was constantly near the top of the prefecture in application count.
    This school caught my attention for very non-fairy-tale reasons (it was close to my house), but really, for someone like me with an overwhelming lack of study skills, getting accepted was nothing but pure coincidence.
    There were already a hopeless number of absences and tardies in my record, so I was going to summer school to make up for it. But even if I won the perfect-attendance award yearly, I’d probably still be forced into these remedial courses. That much, at least, I was confident of.
    I was also out of time.
    Scrambling for the faculty room as fast as I could, I clambered up three flights of stairs before reaching the glass door. Opening it brought me back to a blissful world of air-conditioned comfort once more. Standing in a chilly room made me all the more aware of how much sweat was dripping off me.
    I picked up my bag and slippers next to the shoe locker and hurriedly changed into my indoor footwear.
    “Agh! It can’t be that late already!…Oww!”
    As I folded up my slipper bag and bent over to remove the one for my outdoor shoes, something hard hit me on the head.
    Surprised, I looked up at a large man in a lab coat carrying an attendance ledger.
    “Uh…Ha-ha-ha! I…um, good morning?”
    “Was that meant as a question? If so, then yeah, it is still morning. Barely.”
    “Y-yeah…”
    Oh, no. I forgot that my first period today was taught by my homeroom teacher.
    I could slip past the other teachers, but this was one man I couldn’t fool.
    “You know, I’m not the sort of guy who likes to quibble about lateness, but I think you should have a look at this.”
    “Hmm? What’s this…? Whaaaaa?!”

    He took a paper out from the attendance ledger and handed it to me. It was enough to make me turn white.
    “You know what this is, right? Is that much clear enough?”
    “It’s my Biology I test…The one from last week.”
    “Ah, good. Glad that’s understood. Now, do you know what the number written next to your name means?”
    “Um…heh-heh. I’m not sure I do, actually…Ow!”
    He hit me with his ledger again. His expression never changes, so I always have to stay on my guard around him. He’s impossible to dodge, too.
    “Look. Your handwriting’s a bit…unique. Nonscientific, I could say. That I don’t mind, but after two weeks of remedial courses, you get a two? Are wegonna have to be here a hundred weeks before you get a perfect score?”
    The result of the test in my hands was devastating.
    I made the effort to write an answer down for every single question. Not a single one went unnoticed. But, save for one, there was a red X next to each response.
    The sight was unreal. I could feel myself getting dizzy.
    “But…but I studied and everything…”
    “What? Are you kidding?! You call this ‘studying’?! Look at this. ‘Question: Name one type of mammal. Answer: Crab or salmon.’ That’s studying?!”
    “W-well, my mother ate a lot of those back when she grew up on the coast in Hokkaido, so…I, I mean, I was wavering between that and ‘Deer or bear,’ so…”
    “Yes! Them! That’s right!…Why are you going on about your mother’s homeland in a bio test?! And why are you giving me pairs?! It says only one!”
    “What’s wrong with that? That’d be too lonely, having only one of them!”
    “Why are you trying to get all fancy with your test answers? You’re making no sense at all! Besides, if you put a deer and a bear together, the deer’s gonna get eaten!”
    “E-eaten…?!”
    Wavering against this barrage of criticism, I took another look at my test paper.
    I was completely befuddled by what could have caused this. I put every fiber of my body into taking this test, and the results were just brutal. What would my mom say if I showed this to her…? I didn’t even want to imagine it.

    —It’s always like this.
    No matter what I do, I wind up with these crazy results. And every time, I can feel people’s eyes honing in on me.

    Back in fourth or fifth grade, I drew a picture in class that happened to catch the eye of a famous author. He put it on the cover of his novel, and that novel wound up being a huge bestseller.

    Once I reached middle school I was recruited by the art club, and the work I submitted to a contest held at the beginning of my first year completely dominated the club president’s submission on its way to winning first prize nationwide. It was around that time when I began to feel the eyes of people around me gathering around not just my work, but myself.
    In my second year, I quit the art club; it was getting too uncomfortable for me and the other members. My afternoons were suddenly free, and while on a meandering after-school shopping trip, I began to get scouted more and more often by talent agents. I turned them down at first. The agency that reps me now just happened to call me up while my mother was having a few problems with work. I figured I would try to help keep the lights on a little.

    That was really the only reason. I had no particular interest in television or music. But even I had to admit it—I adored the idea of being a pop idol, going onstage and singing for the masses.

    My first gig as a would-be idol was to serve as the warm-up for one of the more established acts at the agency, basically chatting with the audience for a little bit. Even now, I don’t think I’m exactly gifted when it comes to public speaking but, at the time, the only thing running through my mind was “our household is riding on this; I’ve got to keep from getting fired, no matter what.”

    Once up onstage, I was so nervous that I honestly don’t remember what I talked about, but I suppose you could say I was an instant success. A perfect ten, results-wise.
    I had revved that audience to unheard-of levels of excitement, to the point where I was the subject of feature articles in magazines and tabloids. If there was any negative aspect, it was that I wound up becoming the main talking point of the show, not the main act I was supposed to be fronting.

    So there you have it. This girl chatting onstage, not singing or dancing or anything, an anonymous rookie idol, suddenly earning a massive, rabid fan base. The agency couldn’t have been happier with me, but ever since that day, the number of job offers has grown to positively scary levels, barely giving me time to breathe in between phone calls.
    It defied any measure of logic or common sense. There was no reason for it. I had no attractions to speak of. But everybody’s eyes grew increasingly fixated upon me.

    It made me realize all over again that I was far from a “normal” girl.

    “Hello? Are you listening to me?”
    “…Huh?! Uh, yes, sir!”
    “No, you weren’t. I’m not blind, you know. Is the summer heat making you faint or something?”
    “No, uh, it’s just that…that test was just, like, too much for me, so…Haha…”
    “That much I could tell, yes. I’ll give you a chance at a retest next week, so…just try your best, okay?”
    He looked at me with the downtrodden eyes of a man looking at a pitiful, wayward child.
    “Next week?! Ughh…I’ll try…”
    I thought I’d tried hard enough with this test.
    How am I supposed to try even harder…?
    “Try not to get too tense or anything, all right? I’m sure you’re still getting used to things around the school…and you’ve got a concert next week, right?”
    “Ah…! Y-yes…I do…”
    My face could not have been a very healthy-looking shade at this point. I held it down as much as I could, to not much avail.
    The teacher sighed and looked at me again, this time with gentle eyes that belied his exasperation.
    “Well, try not to work too hard…You can go home now, if you like. You mentioned you were shooting that TV drama today, didn’t you?”
    “Y-yes…Wait, no! I’ll go to class, okay? There’s still lots of time!”
    “Didn’t you see the remedial-course schedule? It’s the Obon holiday, so the first-year students are only here for first period today. Class will start up again in three days. You should really be keeping track, you know.”

    “Whaaa?! Oh, right…”
    I took out my schedule sheet. He wasn’t lying. I was only scheduled for the first period today.
    Of all the shameful ways to reveal to my teacher that I had been going to summer school without even looking at my schedule…
    “Uh…Well, okay! See you in three days!”
    “Yep. Hang in there. It can’t be fun, getting no rest during the holiday like that. I need to get back to work, so be careful on the way home, all right?”
    “Of course! I’ll be just fine! See you later, sir!”
    After a short bow, I crammed the test paper deep into my cubbyhole and stuck my slippers on top of it. Throwing on the outdoor shoes left abandoned on the faculty-room floor, I made my way out the door.

    Once outside, I was greeted with a chaotic symphony of cicadas.
    The sunlight I was suddenly reacquainted with mercilessly slung its murderous rays of heat upon me.
    The thought of having to walk the whole way back home from here caused me to let out a dejected sigh.

    “Ooooh…I should at least get something to drink first…”

    There was a vending machine on the path between the faculty room and the main school grounds. Once the mere thought of thirst entered my brain, it was impossible to drive it back out. Listlessly, I proceeded down the colorful gravel path to the vending machine.

    Next to the machine was one of those large, open public spaces, the kind you see in parks a lot, with an open roof made out of tree branches and vines and so on. Around the tables dotted underneath, several prim-looking female students were giggling with one another over something. They had probably just returned from watching one sports club or another hold a practice game.
    The gravel path ended underneath the open space, turning into plain dirt. The moment I set foot inside, every one of the girls immediately turned toward me.
    “Ah…!”
    I shrank back for a moment, but they didn’t appear to regard me with too much enmity or excessive interest. They gave me light smiles, then briskly exited the open space, whispering to one another in hushed voices.
    They were already gone by the time I tried to smile back at them. I could feel the sweat flow out of me, out of embarrassment or whatever else it was.

    With a sigh, I walked up to the vending machine.
    All the charmingly colorful labels pulled my attention in multiple directions, but I was firmly resolute. Only one drink could possibly wipe away the emotions I was dealing with right now.
    My eyes lit up when I caught sight of the black soda inside the plastic bottle, one whose shape was particularly unique among all the other selections.
    I took the pig-shaped change purse I had used for many years from my bag’s side pocket, flipped open the rear, and checked to make sure I had the right amount.
    Sticking my hand inside the pig’s back, I thrust the coins I found into the machine slot.
    The moment they fell inside, the buttons all lit up red, almost like a “go” sign for my throat.
    My aim was focused on one button in particular. Like the first alien-encounter scene in that one Western film I saw as a kid, I slowly brought my finger forward. When I pushed the button in, there was a beep, and in too short a time for me to measure or comprehend, the bottle appeared in the receptacle.
    I resisted the urge to glug down the entire bottle right there, one hand sassily resting on a cocked hip, every inch the lovely sixteen-year-old sitting down to enjoy her drink. The shaken-up bottle of carbonated drink product dangled from my fingers—but when in Rome, you know?
    Sitting at a table a distance removed from the vending machine, I unscrewed the cap on my much-anticipated soda.
    I had managed to keep my expression neutral up until now, but for this instant of bliss, there was nothing I could do. With the light psshh, my nostrils instinctively flared at the trademark lightly sweet scent from the lip of the bottle. If I had a mirror to look at right now, my face probably would have been unfilmable, something that would’ve horrified my agency. With that, I let the soda flow down my throat.
    Ahh…Whoever invented this drink must have absolutely hated summer…
    In fact, it seemed almost insulting to call this something as common as “soda.”
    It was mankind’s only tool for defending itself against the looming rage of the season’s heat.
    I felt something hot well up around my eyes. The first sip was complete.
    It would’ve been refreshingly satisfying to then slam the bottle on the table, a low, guttural groan of delight escaping my lips. But that, at the very least, I had to restrain myself from.
    An impartial observer would have noticed nothing unusual. Just an innocent girl having a drink and replacing the cap on the bottle. But my heart was filled with a sense of achievement, like a bent-over old man polishing off a pint of strawberry milk after a soak at the local public bath. I felt an urge to shout “Ooh, that really hit the spot!”

    Once my refreshment session was complete, I took a deep breath. Here, in the shade, the heat seemed more tolerable than before. I began to think about my plans for the rest of the day.
    “I’ve got some free time now, so I…um…?”
    I looked at my watch. It still read fifteen minutes after eight. I recoiled for a moment, then remembered that it was stopped when I woke up this morning. My mother bought it for my birthday last year. I kind of liked it. It was far too soon for it to die on me, and I didn’t recall abusing it to the point where it’d break on me, so the batteries must have been dead. I could have my idiot brother look at it when I get home.
    Reluctantly, I took out my touchscreen phone, pink cover attached. I always carried it around, but it saw use almost exclusively for work-related contacts.
    I supposed I would be using this phone like a pro-level high schooler if I spent every night talking with my besties about my favorite TV programs, or what true love is, or whatever. But I didn’t watch much TV—samurai dramas were about it—and I would need to make some friends first before I could start talking about love.
    I was fully aware of why this was so, but it never struck me as a particularly inconvenient state of affairs. Still, I never liked using this phone much. Every time I picked it up, my mind would fill up with this sort of abject emptiness. I didn’t know why.
    “Nine thirty…We start shooting at two, so I need to be home by one, but…”
    Tapping the schedule app on my phone, I was rewarded with a dizzying array of business appointments.
    August 14th was busy as always. I had the TV drama shoot at two p.m., an appearance at a live talk–radio show starting at six, and a concert rehearsal after that.
    My manager was scheduled to drive over and pick me up at one.
    I was used to it, but the sheer congestion of my schedule as of late was enough to trigger my depression. After that first stage act, I was bombarded with all kinds of offers. The work that arose from that single appearance had completely changed my life. My concert next week was meant to commemorate the single that launched today. Apparently it was almost unheard of for a singer to score a solo show so soon after her CD debut.

    It was all great. It made me happy and everything, but that song was filled with all kinds of bad memories for me.
    Chiefly, this was because I caught a terrible cold on the day of recording. My manager chewed me out, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, the extremely nasal voice I had to use during recording made my producer explode with glee. I had “beautifully expressed the dilemma of a young girl’s unrequited romance,” he told me, and that was the take they used on the CD.
    I was too dazed by the fever to really notice anything at the time, but later on, when I heard my nasal-voiced song start to play across town, my appetite immediately dropped to half its normal level. Summer vacation is one thing, but thinking about how I was supposed to go around school once the new semester started made me grow even more morose.
    I sighed, tensed up by my thoughts. The boiling heat was dragging my spirits further downward.
    I could feel the sweat, which had busily cycled between nothing and free-flow all day, once again gradually bead up on my forehead.
    “I should just go home…”
    No point sticking around here. I put the phone in my pocket and stood up.
    Feeling a lightly cool sensation from my legs as they freed themselves from the chair, I turned my eyes toward a faraway point. Across the school building, all around the fairly large fields that lay beyond, I could hear shouts echoing from all the sports clubs as they practiced.
    This must be what they call “youth.” It felt like something foreign to me, like something was rushing me right past it.
    After a sigh (I couldn’t guess how many that made it today), I began to walk off. As I did, I saw a flyer placed on the table where the girls had been sitting earlier.
    The colorful, cartoony lettering and lineup of typically cutesy characters you see everywhere in ads revealed that it was a flyer for a new “fancy goods” shop near the rail station.
    They were apparently holding a big launch event today and yesterday, with 13TH and 14TH written in large, splashy numbers.
    After looking around and very carefully crossing over, I picked up the flyer, only half-interested in what it had to say.
    The next moment, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

    “…Ahh!”

    To be honest, I was never one for cutesy girl-power accessories like this store sold, but there was one photo, likely placed on the far corner of the flyer just so every square inch of the ad could be filled with something. LIL’ SOCKEYE STRAP, the caption said. It was absolutely, unbelievably cute.
    The thing was printed so small on the flyer that you could really only get an idea of its shape and general atmosphere, but judging solely by the silhouetted legs growing out of an extremely unlikely part of its body, it was definitely a shining light in the phone-strap genre.
    Swallowing nervously, I turned my head around, making sure the coast was clear.
    Looking at the flyer, I noticed the words LIMITED TIME ONLY! front and center, although it wasn’t clear what they referred to exactly.
    I took a breath, then jammed the flyer into my bag.

    Glugging down the rest of the bottle, one hand sassily rested on a hip, I tossed it into the trash and hastily left the school grounds…

    —I was dizzy, no doubt from running full-bore under the punishing sun.

    The alley I had ducked into was lined with a jumble of uniformly gray buildings, likely part of a larger apartment complex. It felt like a labyrinth. The air was a little cooler, probably thanks to the shade, but I had no time to spend mulling over it.

    I couldn’t catch my breath.
    Hunching downward, I put one hand on the wall, sweat drip-dripping off my face and leaving wet marks on the ground.
    Removing my bag, I collapsed in a heap.

    “Huff…huff…”

    Slowly, my breathing regained its normal tempo.
    My head, still not quite caught up with current events, gradually shuddered back into operation. I recalled the conversation I had just experienced, and now tears began to drop out of my eyes.

    I leaned back against the wall, curling myself up, knees against my chest.
    Something in me wanted to cry out with every decibel I could muster, but bad things would happen right now if I made any noise.
    I pressed my face against my bag, but my eyes were still a flash flood of tears. I had no idea what would happen to me.

    Why did it have to turn out like this?
    I wish I never had this kind of body.
    I want to speak normally, to go shopping normally, to live normally.
    I have no idea what I am, and I wish I could just erase it all.
    I wish I could’ve just died alone! Alone, with nobody ever finding me!

 
Let’s go back a little.
    After leaving school, I visited a public bathroom to change into what I hoped were my drab, unremarkable street clothes.
    But the moment I arrived at the main street on the way to the rail station, several dozen people turned their eyes toward me at once.
    I couldn’t have looked more different from the frilly girl on the giant plasma screen looming over town, but one by one, they came closer to me, calling my name.

    Oh, crap. The moment the thought flashed across my mind, it was too late.
    The street would just begin to get crowded around this time of day. I hadn’t thought my plan out far enough.

    In a moment, a crowd had formed. I couldn’t go anywhere, forward or backward.
    They all had their phones in hand, trying to take pictures of me with their cameras.

    In a flash, the crowd grew even deeper. All I could do was stare at the 360-degree wall of cameras pointed at me.

    Did I do something wrong?
    I didn’t have enough self-awareness. That much was my fault.

    But still, I wanted to at least try to act like a normal girl, just a little more. That’s all.

    The noise of the constantly clicking shutters, coupled with the murmur from the growing crowd, was a harsh static like none I’d heard before. The suddenness of it all nauseated me. Just as I thought I was about to collapse, a police siren washed out the sound instantly.
    It was not that narrow a sidewalk, but apparently the crowd had bubbled out into traffic to the point where someone called the authorities. But they still didn’t let me through. If anything, I felt like the siren was a huge billboard in itself, beckoning yet more onlookers to snuff me out.

    But I was the one calling them all to me.
    The eyes of everyone on this street were locked in.

    A number of police officers clawed their way toward me through the crowd.
    One of them placed a hand on my shoulder, barking some command. The next moment, I plunged into the ever-so-small hole in the crowd they had created.

    I tried to keep going forward, but it was like an endless tunnel to me.
    I felt like the writhing masses were going to crush me, and the road ahead grew narrower and narrower.
    Groping around for purchase, I felt someone pulling my hand forward.
    The next thing I knew, the way was clear before me, giving me a full view of the wide street.
    I wondered who had rescued me. I had no time to find out.
    Hurriedly, I broke into a run, but when I turned around, I could see the throng chasing after me, like they had all merged into one larger creature.
    I escaped down a side alley, which reduced their numbers, but now they had scattered, pursuing me with phones in hand.
    Pressing down the road, I kept running, no destination in mind, choosing whatever twist and turn seemed the most convoluted and hidden.
    I could no longer tell up from down. All that mattered was running.

    “Ah…!”

    I ran down a narrow path, only to find it terminate at a dead end.
    Turning around in a panic, I found that retracing my steps was not an option.

    —My chest burned. I could hardly breathe.
    I stood there, spent, my thought processes shut down, and then my phone began to ring.
    Flustered, I looked at the screen. It was my manager.
    I tentatively answered the call. From a room alive with the sounds of phone conversations, my manager began to speak, almost in a snarl.
    “Hello?! Where are you?!”
    “I, I don’t know…I, uh…”
    “The police just called the agency. This entire place is in a panic! Ugh… Why did you have to do this now, of all times?”
    “Um, I…I’m sorry that—”
    “Do you even realize what you are right now?! Listen! You aren’t a ‘normal’ girl, all right? You should have known that this would happen!”
    “…ormal?”
    “Hmm? What did you say? Speak up so I can hear you…!”
    “Am…am I really that abnormal?! I changed clothes and everything…but they all…they all looked at me, like I was some weird thing…! I, I can’t take this! I’m not going back anymore…! Thank you for everything!”
    “What…? Wait, wait a—”
    I ended the call, not bothering to hear her response.
    What did I just say? I had only barely caught my breath. My mind was still subfunctional.
    All I knew was that I had done something very, very bad, and I thought I understood how much trouble I had just put upon so many people. But, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t will myself to call back and apologize. Anything but that.

    Amid the incessant whine of the cicadas, the faraway sounds of traffic, and the feeble vibration I felt from the air vent along the wall, time passed. How much, I didn’t know.
    I didn’t think anyone had pursued me into the alley I was slumped down inside, but I could no longer move, sitting there as the seconds floated on by.
    I wondered if my mother had heard about what happened yet.
    She had always cheered me on, no matter what. Nobody was happier for me when news of my CD release broke.
    I was so happy to see that. It made everything else seem worth it.
    And now I’ve gone and stabbed her in the back, too.
    All I thought about was myself, and now I’ve messed up all these other people’s lives…
    These emotions I was powerless to repress welled up into tears, one after the other, flowing out of my eyes.
    I thought about going off to some faraway land, but no matter where I went, there was probably no escaping other people’s eyes. I knew that much already. I knew how “abnormal” I was by this point…

    Suddenly, a deeper sense of anxiety coursed across my heart.
    Casually, I removed my face from the bag and turned to the side. The sight I saw there made my heart jump out of my throat.

    “Ah…Aaahhhh!!”

    I lost my balance, my body unprepared for sudden physical activity, and I landed sprawled out on the ground.
    Someone was standing at the exit of the dead-end alley.
    It was the middle of summer, but the hood on his long-sleeved jacket was covering his head, his long hair flowing out from the sides.
    The surprise was that this man was close enough to me that I could have reached out and touched him.
    Did he silently make his way all the way over here? If he did, I was in deep trouble.
    I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
    On the ground, unable to move or defend myself, I was in what I suppose you’d call “dire straits.”

    “Oh, uh…Sorry. I wasn’t trying to surprise you or anything like that…”
    I heard a slightly husky, yet warm female voice emanate from the hood.
    “…Eh?”
    I was already seeing my life flash before my eyes, prepared for whatever horrible fate would befall me. I could barely manage a pathetic reply to her kind words.
    Looking up at her again, I spotted a refined-looking face and pale white skin.
    By the way she carried herself I assumed she was a man, but she was female…and one who most people would classify as beautiful.
    I was still on the ground. She knelt down so our eyes could meet, took another look around our surroundings, then spoke in hushed tones.
    “I saw all that…stuff that just happened. That was quite a show you put on there.”
    “That…stuff?”
    “The crowd on the sidewalk. I didn’t think it’d erupt into such a huge thing like that, though.”
    If she had caught all that, that meant she had pursued me all the way from the massive mob to this empty alleyway.
    So was she just another one of the rabble, another curious onlooker hoping for a peek at me…?
    The bleak depression from before returned to the forefront, this time mixed with a smattering of anger.

    “I…I’m quitting all of this, okay? So please…please, stop chasing me! Uh…I mean, if you want an autograph, then okay, but…”

    Huh. Look at that. I really could say what I really thought sometimes.
    And if I got that much across, that should hopefully make her understand. She seemed like a sensible enough woman.
    For an emergency like this, I could whip up an autograph no problem. I prayed it was enough to make her happy.
    Gingerly, I opened my eyes to gauge her response. She looked blankly at me, her stare indicating she had no idea what I was talking about.
    “Um…No, I mean, I wasn’t chasing you, and I don’t need your autograph either. But you quit your career for this…?”

    The response was wildly off the mark from the reaction I expected.
    She wasn’t pursuing me? So if she’s not a fan of mine, then…
    I felt my anxiety ease off a little bit before tightening once more.
    If she wasn’t a fan, then was she here to kidnap me or something like that?
    Does she want to take me for ransom?! I don’t have anywhere to run! This is really, really bad!

    But the woman didn’t attack me. She simply stood there, hands thrust into her pockets.
    She then took out a cell phone, no cover, completely unadorned.
    “It’s still a bit before the appointed time. I guess it’s just an accident that you showed up here, but this actually works out great. We’re right nearby, too.”
    “Huh? The appointed time…?”
    “Hmm? I’m pretty sure I was told one p.m. Or did I get that wrong?”
    I took out my own phone and looked at the screen. The amount of missed calls and messages waiting for me on the standby screen was getting a tad out of hand.
    The reality facing me was now exposed in plain, digital form, making me feel like I had taken a heavy ball of iron and swallowed it whole.
    The readout notified me that it was exactly half past ten.
    One p.m…The appointed time…

    “Oh…”
    Now it all made sense to me.

    This woman was part of the film crew for the TV drama.
    That would explain why she followed me all the way from the initial chaos, even though she swore she wasn’t part of the crowd.
    The fact that she was aware of the one p.m. meet-up time with my manager made it all the more likely. The agency probably sent her over once they heard about the chaos to make sure I would make it to shooting on time.
    Still, I was no longer in any mood to say “Oh, sure, no problem, I hear you loud and clear.”
    I had just clearly told this woman that I had decided to quit.
    Yet she was still intent on taking me with her…which was her job, yes, but I was no longer interested in blindly following orders.
    I forced myself up to my feet and spoke to this woman, already walking toward the alley exit.
    “Um…I decided to quit my job. And I don’t want to go back home for a while, either, so…like, do you understand what I mean?”
    This time, I was calmer, more collected with my words. Surely she would get the message this time.
    “…Sure, sure, I know you’ve made up your mind. So would you mind just following me for now?”
    Her expression was gentler as she looked me in the eye and began walking again.
    I could see the wisdom in fleeing from this woman and finding another hole to hide in. But I couldn’t. She seemed to understand me. She knew my mind was made up, and her expression made her seem trustworthy enough.

    If I went to the studio, my manager would be waiting for me.
    She would be absolutely livid, no doubt about that.
    Imagining the all-time mother of lectures looming in my future, I could feel my tear ducts loosening up already.

    But I had to tell her. I had to make it clear.
    I wanted this to end today.
    I would explain everything about how I felt, I would accept all the rage that I’d get for it, and that would be that.

    My resolve fully regained, I followed in the woman’s footsteps.
    Once I was by her side, I realized that the segment of my face I had pushed into the bag was a wet mess of tears and sweat and…whatever else.
    “Ugh…”
    “Mm? Something wrong?”
    “No, uh…It’s nothing.”
    “…You sure? I mean, you’ll definitely want to wash that bag and your clothing later.”
    I could feel my face burn like fire, as if someone had taken a match to it.
    “Y…yeah…”
    Her perception was sharp. Whoever she was, she was no doubt gifted in her job.
    After spending what seemed like the entire day running from this, running from that, I wanted nothing more than a cold shower.
    I let this desire occupy my brain as I walked, keeping a little distance behind the woman in the jacket.
    We made a right out of the dead end, then a left at the second intersection afterward. Next we took the first small pathway on the right, followed it to the end, made a left…
    I followed the woman as she silently kept walking, not exchanging a word of conversation.
    It felt like we were diving deep into the far reaches of town. I’d had no idea any of these streets existed.

    If I recalled correctly, the scene we were scheduled to shoot today involved me visiting the house of a “less-than-wealthy” friend.
    It made sense. The multifamily units and apartment buildings that lined the streets were not exactly breathtaking.
    The crew was no doubt busily preparing for the shoot right now. I was unsure how I would broach the subject of my decision.
    My stomach hurt terribly.
    “Over here.”
    Without warning, the woman in the jacket stopped and changed direction.
    She was pointing toward a narrow, dimly lit corridor, one that made the twisty passages we were navigating up until now seem like opulent multilane boulevards.
    The pathway, just barely wide enough for a person to travel through, was lined on both sides by thin wooden fencing and the walls of apartment complexes.

    “Wow, this is pretty narrow…”

    Without answering, the woman plunged down the path, inducing me to reluctantly follow her. A shortcut to our shoot location, perhaps? It was starting to seem a bit odd.

    Once inside the corridor, the sensation of being a lab rat in a maze was overwhelming.
    If I turned a corner and a giant insect or something was waiting to attack me, where could I escape to?
    I was carefully advancing forward, taking care with each step, when I came to an abrupt halt. The sneakers of the woman I was following were stopped in front of me.

    “Here we are.”

    She pointed to a door, the number 107 on it, nearby the halfway point of the corridor. The wooden fencing stopped just long enough to allow for the door.
    “What? Here?!”
    Before I could finish, she opened the door and went inside.
    “H-hey, wait a…Hey!”
    The door closed, leaving me completely alone outside.
    Taking a more careful look at the building, I saw nothing but a sheer wall of concrete above the wooden fence. No windows, no nothing.
    It looked like no residence I was aware of; it was more like a warehouse or aboveground fallout shelter. And yet there was the number 107 on the door, its purpose an enigma.
    “This…this really isn’t my ‘friend’s house,’ is it?”
    If this was my friend’s house in the TV show, her parents must be moonlighting as mad scientists. A trip to my friend and her dad’s illegal human-experimentation lab wouldn’t have been completely out of the question for episode two of the series, but given that this was still the premiere we were shooting, you’d expect at least a little more background plot first.

    The building obviously looked sketchy, but for some reason, I was gripped by the urge to try opening the door.
    There were no other entrances to the building, no other nearby addresses, and yet this was 107. It piqued me, somehow.

    “Well…not like I know how to get back anyway. Guess I got no choice.”

    Unable to bottle my curiosity, I took a breath and opened the door. As I expected, this definitely wasn’t the house of my teen girlfriend.
    The moment the door was opened, I was greeted by a long, rectangular space, around the size of a roomy living room.
    Bare pipes ran across the ceiling, and the room was lit by a large number of unadorned lightbulbs hanging freely below the piping. Otherwise, the space was well adorned with fancy furniture—a table, a sofa, a small wooden armoire with a globe on top of it. For all the world, it looked every bit like a secret hideout was supposed to look.
    I could see all the usual home appliances around the complex, from the TV and microwave to the computer and refrigerator. The air conditioner was on, and the place certainly felt lived in.
    The atmosphere was still odd, however, what with the old, plainly non-Japanese volumes that lined a beat-up bookcase. It might be more accurately described as a witches’ coven, assuming the witches didn’t want to give up their modern conveniences.

    Four doors were spaced evenly across the far wall. The idea that there were more rooms to discover deeper inside made me ponder what kind of structural plan this building had.

    The woman from earlier was standing in front of the kitchen next to the entrance, fully stocked with an array of cooking tools. Taking another look around, I once again failed to find any TV staff or filming equipment.
    The sense of foreboding I felt ever since we arrived slowly began to take center stage in my mind.
    “Er…Could I ask where we’re…?”
    “Hey, Kano, here she is. You mind giving her the whole spiel for me…? Hey, wake up!”
    The hooded woman, just as uninterested in my questions as before, prodded the figure lying on the sofa.
    His body shuddered slightly, and I heard a slow, drowsy voice respond.
    “Mmmnghh…Mmm? Whudda you mean, ‘she’?”
    Moving his face away from the magazine that was covering it, a tired-looking man with narrow, catlike eyes revealed himself.
    “The new girl. The one you said would be showing up today? You’re the one who made all the arrangements.”
    “Oh, uh…Yeah, but…like, why is she…?”
    “You mind shaking the cobwebs out for me, man? Just give her the story.”
    “Huh. Well, okay. Whatever.”
    The man she called Kano sat up on the sofa. He took a look at me and flashed an eerie smile, as if just remembering something.
    “Um…Can I…um…?”
    “Welcome, newbie, to the Mekakushi-dan! Thank you very much for helping us out with our operation!”
    Standing up and giving me a brisk, gentler smile than before, he began to energetically regale me, talking over my stilted question.
    “Currently, we’re involved with things like evading the ‘eyes’ of the police as we infiltrate really dangerous places and, you know, borrow a couple things. Stuff like that. I’ll fill you in on all the details later…Well, okay, not all the details, maybe. You know what I mean. Like, I want to fill you in on everything I can, though. Anyway, this is our hideout. Maybe you guessed this already, but you thank that lady sitting there with that death stare of hers—oh, don’t give me that look! Yeah, yeah. Kido, then. She’s our boss. But don’t let her scare you—it’s real comfy in here, once you get used to stuff. Anyway, all this decor is her doing. As far as our member roster goes, there’s her, there’s me…Oh, I’m Kano, by the way. Us, and around two others…well, maybe three, if things turn out. That’s about all of us. We don’t usually do much in, like, the public eye, so to speak, but, you know, we like to keep things loose around here. Uh, what else…?”
    “W-wait! Wait a second! Um…the meka-what? Dangerous places…? We’re, we’re still talking about today’s drama shoot, right? Where’s the director? I…I came here to tell you I’m not gonna be an idol anymore! But you…You…Who are you guys?!”
    My mind had completely failed to catch up with this sudden turn of events. I had far too much to ask.
    Was this all part of some scene or another…? It couldn’t be.
    The script handed to me a few days ago was just your textbook high-school romance story.
    There was nothing in it about hideouts or “infiltration” or anything.

    I had to speak up because he was giving me this whole tale in the most matter-of-fact tone of voice. They’ve definitely got the wrong girl here. Help out with their “operation”…? I had entertained aspirations of trying a little part-time work for a change of pace, but nothing like this.

    “…Hang on a second. You’re a pop idol…? Kano, what is going on here?”
    The hooded woman—Kido, the boss, whatever you wanted to call her— stormed up to Kano, who did nothing but nod and smile at every question I had just asked.
    “What do you mean, what? She’s, like, all the rage right now. See? Look.”
    Kano opened up the magazine he’d shielded his head with earlier and showed the boss a page.

    The issue had a special feature devoted to the single I was debuting today. Oh, lord, I hated that photo they took of me. They used the pic for the two-page opening spread, and my eyes are half-closed. Awful.
    The hooded woman snatched the magazine away and peered at it, the color gradually leaving her face as she cycled her gaze between me and the article.
    “You…She…You told me you had promised to meet this new candidate today and wanted to check up on her first…You said you wanted her to join up if we liked her…”
    “Yep. Sure did. All lies.”
    “You said she had ‘potential’…! You made me drag a public celebrity over here, Kano!…And you lied to me?!”
    She repeatedly rapped her knuckles on my face in the article as she continued her griping.
    I’m right here, you know…She could have at least a little courtesy.
    “Yeah, I know I lied, but I didn’t think you were listening. You just sat there listening to your music. Like, you didn’t even acknowledge I was talking to you! Then you go out by yourself and bring her back here on your own volition? If you ask me, this is more your fault than mine.”
    “I went out by myself because I kept shaking you and you wouldn’t wake up! If you were awake that whole time, why didn’t you at least call me?!”
    “Because you never pick up! You’re, like, always listening to music on that thing anyway! Like some sad, friendless nerd, you know? That, and I didn’t feel like bothering.”
    “Oh, so instead you made me go out and—”
    “—Um, excuse me!”
    The two of them simultaneously turned toward me. The man called Kano was smiling as always, but the other woman looked far more hostile at the moment.

    “Um…so, is it fair to say this is all a big mistake, then…?”

    After I hesitantly asked the question, the woman called Kido rubbed a frustrated hand on her hooded head, sighed, and answered.
    “Well…it looks that way. Sorry for the confusion. You can go ahead and leave if—”

    She stopped midway, suddenly realizing something. The color drained from her face all over again.
    Simultaneously, Kano, who had sat back down on the sofa, began to softly giggle to himself.

    “You! You knew this was the wrong girl the whole time and you just told her everything! We can’t let her go if she knows what we’re doing, can we?!”
    “Ha-ha-ha…Well, come on, Kido! You kept bugging me to give her the story, right? Oh, man, what a trip this is—”
    Kano was sadly prevented from any further gloating by a sudden fist to the head.
    Kido, so calm and emotionless for most of the short time I had known her, had transformed. Her expression belied panic and rage. The casual thought came to me that she couldn’t have been too far removed from me agewise, maybe a little older.
    I imagine I should have been a bit more anxious, but if anything, I felt fairly serene. It was as if these people were incapable of instilling fear or nervousness in others. They were odd, of course, what with calling themselves a “dan” like they were a gang or something and living in an oddly well-decorated hideout, but I somehow couldn’t will myself to see them as bad people.

    “Um…”
    I opened my mouth to ask a question, but was cut off once again.
    “Ughh…Look, what’s your name?”
    “Huh?”     
    Kido, sighing as she asked the question, took a seat next to her cohort.
    “I said, your name. Mine’s Kido. This dingbat over here is Kano.”
    She was female, no doubt, but her manner of speaking was more gender-neutral than anything else. It was hard to gauge her personality.
    The man next to her, still smiling gleefully despite the “dingbat” evaluation, looked fairly mature at first glance, but upon further review, he couldn’t have been that much older than me either.
    “Oh, uh, my name’s Momo Kisaragi. I’m sixteen years old, and…”
    I instinctively gave my age alongside my name. It was not something I would call a habit per se, but she reminded me of the judges I dealt with during my auditions.
    Ugh. I did not need to be reminded of that. I fretted over the idea they would treat me like some bubble-headed idol, all too ready to flout her fame around others.
    “Kisaragi, huh? You sure are an idol, I guess, what with giving your age alongside your name and all.”
    See? This is awful.
    “No! I didn’t mean that! It was just an accident! I’m not in the habit of doing that or acting like this is an audition or anything! I mean, I don’t have any friends or anything, so when I get talking, I kind of get carried away and say weird things sometimes! Ha-ha…ha-ha-ha…”
    —The silence was painful. I wanted to crawl into a hole and have someone shovel dirt over me.
    “Yeah? Hmm. Must be pretty tough.”
    “Y-yeah…”
    Now they’re taking pity on me.
    Kano began snickering again. Kido silenced him, this time with a shot to the stomach.
    “I’m not really sure what to do…Really, to be honest, I’d love to just send you back home right now, but now that we’ve revealed all of this to you, that would be kind of bad for us.”
    “I guess so…now that I’ve heard all that…”
    “Thanks to this idiot here.”
    “Ha-ha-ha! I told you, Kido, this is all your fault by this…Okay! Maybe not!”
    The moment Kido turned her head, Kano immediately began to backpedal, arms held to the side to protect his stomach.
    “You know, though, maybe this isn’t as terrible as you think. I was looking at this live feed on the net earlier, and, like, that ‘trait’ you have is amazing.”
    The net…? Live feed? Video from that horror show out on the street? I had no idea so many people saw that.
    “Amazing? Her?”
    “Oh, for sure. Hey, did you always have a tendency to attract attention to yourself? Like, even before you started being an idol?”
    “Huh? Uh…yes. Yes, I did.”
    Something about way he used the word “trait” agitated me.
    Noting my response, Kano lightened her stare, her attention diverted to this new discovery.
    “Judging by the scene out there, it’s a pretty strong trait, too, right? I’m impressed you decided to be an idol at all.”
    He acted like he knew everything about me. I drew my eyes downward, feeling like he had a direct link to my heart.
    “My mother was having a lot of trouble workwise for a while. I thought I would help out a little. But why…?”
    “Hmm? Oh, just a hunch. ’Cause, like, even by celebrity standards, that’s not normal. How much people are drawn to you, I mean. It’s like the total opposite of Kido. Man, if Marie were anything like you, I bet she woulda offed herself by now. Ha-ha-ha!”
    “Marie’s special. Anyway, that’s a whole different thing.”
    “Yeah, true. Speaking of which, where is she? Do you think she’s still angry?”
    “Um…I think I’ve kind of lost track here…”
    That was understating it. I was in a state of utter confusion. They didn’t seem like bad people, but I still had no idea who they were, no idea what would happen to me next.
    “Oh! Sorry, sorry. Um…well, just have a seat, all right?”
    “Okay…”
    The two of them pointed me to a sofa between themselves and the table.
    Sitting directly across from Kano, I began to feel like this was turning into a very unexpected intervention.
    “To put it as simply as possible…like, how Kido mentioned earlier too, letting you go home right now would present us with a few problems. So I want you to stay with us for a little while. I know that’s, like, an enormous inconvenience to you, so in exchange, you could say, we have a proposal.”
    “A…proposal?”
    “Yeah. To sum up, we can cure you of your body’s, uh, tendencies. More like ‘suppress’ them, maybe? I think we can help with that. If you need us to, of course…That’s about all we can offer, right, Kido?”
    “Looks like it, yes. But either way, right now, we can’t let you leave.”

    This was the most unbelievable thing I had heard all day.
    It was the first time I ever met someone who offered to do something about my “tendency.”
    But it went without saying that I couldn’t easily accept it.
    Judging by this conversation, it was entirely possible they were just trying to get on my good side.
    How could they “cure” me of anything in the first place? It’s not like I was sick, exactly.
    If I could have done anything about it, I would have long ago. But I didn’t have a clue.

    “Well…um…If you could cure it, that’d be great, but…”
    “Yeah, see? I figured you wanted to be rid of it. You sure can’t control it, I can tell that much. Everybody’s got their own natural traits, of course, so we’re gonna have to test out a few different approaches as we go, but…”
    “Test out?”
    Could I really place my trust upon these people?
    I had just met them, I knew nothing about their backgrounds, and they were definitely into something bad.
    But at the same time, I had never met anyone before who understood what my body was doing to me.
    That faint hope—“if I could ever get to be normal”—was now so strong, it drove me to rely upon these perfect strangers at my time of need.
    “You know, though, this kind of brings back memories. Remember that conversation we had, Kido?”
    Peering into my face, Kano closed his eyes, as if trying to remember something.
    “Yeah…I do, maybe.”
    “You were still pretty cute back then, Kido. All, like, ‘Oooh, I’m gonna disappear if this keeps up, help meeee’ and—ow ow ow!”
    Before he could finish, Kido grabbed Kano, taking a firm grip of his side. I wondered if he would be all right. She did seem to like hitting there the most.
    “I shoulda made you disappear first.”
    Despite the death grip on his side, Kano kept smiling.
    “Heh-heh. All sweet memories now, aren’t they…? You know, though, she isn’t gonna believe us if we just, like, say we’ll cure her. You mind showing her, Kido?”
    “Why me? You do it.”
    “Yeah, but mine isn’t as obvious as yours, right? It’d be easier if we had Marie here to show her, but I ain’t gonna poke a stick in that hornet’s nest yet.”
    “Ugh…All right. Guess it’s my fault too, a little.”
    With that, Kido rose with a sigh and walked to the doors on the far side of the room. Opening the second one from the right, I could see something shaped like a cot inside.
    “Um…what are you gonna show me?”
    “Well, you know, some evidence to show why we might be able to cure that trait of yours. You’ll see what I mean once she gets started.”
    Evidence? What kind of evidence? Is she going to cart out someone more captivating than even I am before he got these guys’ treatment or whatever?
    Come on. This isn’t a late-night ad for some diet plan. It’s not like they could show me some before/after pictures.
    As I pondered this, the door closed as Kido disappeared into the room.
    Kano was beaming as always. Presumably he was waiting for Kido to bring someone (?) out from the room.
    I decided to wait with him, wondering what I should be expecting.

    …But, after more than a minute of silence, Kido failed to return.
    I turned my eyes toward the cuckoo clock on the wall, then a modern digital one nearby. Really, there’s nothing that makes time go slower than waiting for something when you have no idea what it is.
    His smile nailed to his face, Kano began reading a magazine as if nothing was amiss. The door stubbornly stayed shut. What was I even doing here?

    “Um, could I—Ahhhhh!!”
    I had just turned to Kano, ready to ask him what we were waiting for, when an unbelievable sight shook a scream out of me.
    Next to Kano, as he flipped through the pages, was Kido, sitting just as she was before.
    There was nothing she could have hid behind between us and the door. I didn’t move out of my seat the whole time.

    “Wh…wha…huh? W-why? When did you…?!”
    I had leaped out of the sofa, almost sending both it and myself toppling backward. Kido looked at me coldly, telling me with her eyes that I was a tad out of line.     
    “Well, there you have it! Quite a surprise, huh?”
    Kano, watching me grip the sofa’s backrest tightly, looked like he couldn’t be enjoying this more.
    Kido sighed. “That was kind of over-the-top, wasn’t it? Stop looking at me like you’ve seen a ghost or something.”
    “That wouldn’t be far from the truth, though—oww!”
    Kano’s smile held steady against yet another punch in the side. It made me wonder if he took pride or something in his ability to keep a smile painted on at all times.

    “So…so what was that?”
    Sitting back down on the sofa, I asked about the phenomenon I had just seen.
    To be honest, the sense of lingering fear made me reluctant to look directly at Kido.
    “Well, Kido…You know, she’s the same as you. Okay, more like the exact opposite, but her thing was that, ever since she was a kid, she couldn’t ‘get’ anyone to look at her.”
    I listened to Kano’s explanation in sheer disbelief.
    “I think you probably get the picture, but you, like, totally didn’t notice her, right? It’s kind of like she can keep that going forever.”

    She had completely escaped my notice.
    It was as if I had averted my gaze for one moment, and suddenly, she was there.
    It felt like some kind of Houdini-style magic trick.

    “Somewhere along the line she started training herself to control it, and that’s where we are today. So, like, that’s why I think we can help you maybe take control of your own traits a little more, so—”
    I shot upward, my palms slamming against the table.
    “I’ll do it! I’m staying here! If…if you need any chores done, I’ll do anything you need! And that…uh, “operation”? Lemme help you with that, too! So…please, please let me into the Mekameka-dan!!”

    There’s always hope left in the world, I guess.
    I had to go through a lot of bad situations with this body of mine, but never in my life had my heart been so full of hope and excitement for the future.
    If I stay here, I know they can cure me.
    I can go out shopping like a normal girl, I can talk to people like a normal girl, I can even make friends like a normal girl!
    “Oh, uh…well, great! Super! By the way, it’s Mekakushi-dan. That’s kind of important.”
    “Mekakushi-dan! Yes!! I’m ready!!”
    “I really wish you’d stop using that stupid name. It’s not like you’re gonna have a chance to tell the general public.”
    Kido’s muttered interjection stopped Kano and me in our tracks. I realized that my pulse had quickened in the excitement.
    “Eesh, Kido, way to pee on our parade…But anyway! Welcome to the group, Kisaragi.”
    “Th-thank you!”
    “Pretty momentous occasion, huh? Or at least it would be if the boss wasn’t here to mess it all up for—ow! Hey, that hurt!”
    I was reasonably certain his arm wasn’t supposed to bend that way. But he was still smiling!
    Kano must really be proud of that…habit. Or whatever.
    I cracked a smile as I watched the exchange. It hadn’t taken me long to get used to their antics. As I smiled, the rightmost door on the far wall suddenly opened.
    In it appeared a small girl, her hair white as snow, almost as if she had just stepped out of a picture-book world.
    “Mm? Oh, look who finally came out! Hey, Marie…”
    The girl turned toward us as her name was called. She jumped slightly, like she had seen a monster, before scurrying back into the room she came from.
    “…Figures.”
    “Just like you’d expect, huh? Marie’s so easy to predict sometimes.”
    “Uh, sorry about that. That was Marie just now. I’d like to get you acquainted as soon as we can, but…”
    “Um…Did I do something to make her hate me?”
    I was used to people looking at me with furtive, prying eyes, but that reaction was enough to make even me feel ashamed of myself.
    “Nah. Don’t worry about it. She’s that way around everyone. Kano, could you try to get her in here for me?”
    “Whaaa? No way, man. I don’t wanna deal with you-know-what if I end up pissing her off.”
    “Well, it’s your own fault she’s in a snit like that in the first place. Just because she was wearing different socks than usual doesn’t give you the right to laugh in her face.”
    “But they just looked so, like, weird! Besides, Kido, you didn’t react to them at all. You sat there like a rock!”
    “Well, that beats laughing maniacally at her, doesn’t it?! Better not to react at all than react like that.”
    “Yeah, but Marie was looking for a reaction. That’s why she came out wearing those socks in the first place. Same difference, if you ask me…But this ain’t doing us any good. You go get her, okay? She’s a lot more likely to come out if you do it.”
    “Kano, you have got to be—”
    “Come on. I’m right, aren’t I? This job calls for a woman’s touch. Otherwise we’d be rocking the boat too much.”
    “…Ugh. All right. But don’t blame me if something happens to you afterward.”

    Kido stood up, traveled to the far end of the room, and opened the door the girl they called Marie had peeked out from earlier.

    “Agh…?!”
    The moment the door was open, there was a dull thud, followed by a short yelp of surprise. Beyond the door, I could see the girl from before, teary-eyed and holding her forehead.
    She had apparently stayed right by the door after returning to her room, causing it to bang her in the head when Kido opened it. The boss, her back turned to us, pointed a thumb back toward where we were seated. After a quick peek, she shook her head, tears still welled around her eyes.
    “Umm…She—she obviously hates me, so…”
    “Nah, nah, she’s just…like, super shy around other people. Though it’s kinda worse than usual today.”
    Kano returned to his magazine, rapidly flipping through the pages, apparently not too disturbed at the sight.
    The door was still open, letting me hear bits of the muted conversation as Kido tried her best to coax the girl out of the room. I couldn’t decipher all of it, but the words I could make out from the girl—“scared” and “I can’t” being among them—all had negative connotations, each of which cut me to the quick.
    “Um…if you think it’s not gonna happen…”
    The moment I started speaking to Kano, I heard the door slam shut.
    In front of it were Kido with the girl they called Marie, still hiding behind her.
    The white hair that came down to her hips looked soft and fluffy, like the fur of some creature from the snowfields. I could image how nice it would feel if I buried my face in it.
    “Ooh, great job fishing her out of there, boss.”
    Kano closed the magazine he was reading long enough to give Kido a light round of applause.
    Kido returned to her original seat, the young girl sitting right in between her and Kano.
    Up close like this, she looked like a doll come to life…Her eyes were a light shade of pink, her skin a paler white than even Kido’s, and her long, mesmerizing white hair gave her the air of a forlorn woodcutter’s daughter from a rustic folktale.
    But she still tried to conceal her face from me, her eyes swiveling between random empty points on the table in front of her. She recited to herself “It’s okay…It’s okay…” over and over again like an incantation, and she must have known that I could hear it from here.
    “Anyway, here’s Marie. Sorry it took a while to get her out here.”
    The girl’s shoulders tensed up when her name was called. Gingerly, she looked up at me.
    “Shy” wasn’t the half of it. As the new woman in town, I felt obliged to give the best first impression I could.
    “G-good to meet you, Marie! I, uh, my name’s Kisaragi! I guess we’ll be living together for a little while, so…so I’ll try my best to help out, so, uh, thanks in advance!”
    Her shoulders stiffened once more when I began to speak, but apparently the message came through, because by the time I had finished, her expression was notably less strained.
    “……”
    But she was still frozen in place.
    “Uh…Ha-ha-ha! So, uh, that’s pretty much the story, so…”
    To avoid diving headlong into silence, I made a feeble attempt at breaking the ice further. My lack of verbal skills made me all but defenseless whenever silence fell upon a conversation. I really need to buy a book on communication skills sometime…
    Despite my expectations, however, the silence didn’t last long.
    “My…My name is Marie…It’s, it’s nice to meet you…”
    She spoke very, very softly. It took a moment to realize that she was attempting to introduce herself.
    Her eyes began to swivel around again, her white skin turning a shade of red all the way to her ears.
    “I, um, I’ll go make some tea!”
    She had apparently reached her tolerance limit. Marie got up off the couch and hurriedly skipped over to the kitchen.
    “Oh, um, no need to go to the trouble!”
    Great. Just when I thought we had something going, she runs off on me.
    “Man, look at Marie! What a trooper.”
    “I’ll say. She’s never talked that much with a stranger before, has she?”
    Both of them had nothing but kind words for Marie’s performance.
    “R-really?!”
    I couldn’t hide my surprise at that very unconversational conversation being so worthy of praise.
    “Well, you know, you’re maybe the fourth person she’s ever spoken directly to, so you probably don’t know what the baseline is.”
    “The fourth person?! W-what does Marie usually do, then…?”
    “What’s she do? Hmm…Well, to put it in a modern way, she’s kind of… unemployed, I guess.”
    Kano looked to Kido for support as he spoke.
    “Yeah. Usually she never leaves her room at all, so maybe ‘shut-in’ is more appropriate.”
    “Oh…I, I see.”
    I suppose it was my fault for prying, but I felt a little sorry for Marie being freely called a shut-in by the very people she lived with.
    “Though, you know, it’s probably about time Marie started, like, doing something, don’t you think? I mean, she’s in her second year of life as a full-time acrophobic.”
    “We’ve been through that a thousand times. You know how she clams up for a while whenever we bring it up.”
    “Yeah, but…Hmm? Something up, Kisaragi?”
    “Ah! N-no, no! It’s…nothing…”
    All this talk about a two-year unemployed shut-in was hitting a bit close to home. Kano probably noticed it in my helpless-looking expression.

    He looked a bit puzzled, but apparently decided against prying any further.

    “You know, maybe Kisaragi joining up won’t be such a bad thing for her, huh?”
    “Maybe. She seemed really excited about it.”
    “Huh? Excited? In…what way, exactly?”
    “Well, I mean, look. She’s gonna bring in two of her favorite teacups. She never lets us use those, so it’s gotta be for you, Kisaragi.”
    Looking over toward the kitchen, I spotted Marie busily clinking and clanking away as she made a batch of hot tea. There were four white cups lined up on a nearby tray.
    It was hard to tell if they were valuable at first sight, but two of them were plain, while the other two featured a fancy pattern of animal pictures.
    “Ah…”
    The sight honestly overjoyed me.
    Here was Marie, a girl who wasn’t exactly a social butterfly by any measure, bringing out her favorite cups purely for my sake.
    It was no doubt her way of welcoming me to the household.
    I could feel a pang of gratitude somewhere around my chest.
    Thinking about it, it seemed like ages since I had last spoken with a girl anywhere near my age.
    Thanks to my odd work hours and my body’s unique “traits,” I almost never found myself in a one-on-one conversation at school.
    “You know, I was kinda worried at first, but I think she’s really opening up to you. I just love seeing you girls interact with each other! It’s about time we got a little feminine glamour around this—”
    Kano looked over to Kido as he spoke, only to be greeted by her sullen, petulant expression.
    I immediately recognized the cause of it, just as Kano said “Oh…” to himself.
    “You think so, huh? Well, you got me, okay? Absolutely nothing ladylike about me, so…you want me to apologize, or what?”
    “Whoa! No, no, no! I know you change your hair conditioner sometimes, Kido, and you’ve got that really frilly skirt you pose in front of the mirror wearing—ow ow ow!!”
    Kano had to have seen that one coming.
    “By the way, Kisaragi, don’t you think you should contact the agency or your parents or something? We probably don’t want this blowing up too big.”
    “Oh! Right, right! I totally forgot!”
    “Ngh! Kido, get your hand off me first! I’m tapping out, I’m tapping out…!”
    Without a twitch in her facial expression, Kido had clamped her vise grip around Kano’s arm.

    I should start by calling my manager…Actually, forget that. Too scary. But maybe send a message, at least…
    Plucking my phone out of my pocket, I saw that the flood of calls, texts, and voice messages had ballooned to an apocalyptic torrent.
    My stomach churned in pain.
    How should I tell them about this? Thinking about it, this has been a pretty bizarre turn of events.

    I decided to just let the words flow as I composed my message.
    “I’m currently in the hideout of a group called the Mekakushi-dan. I think they can cure this condition I have. Please don’t worry about me. Tell my family not to worry, either. I’m really sorr—”

    —Getting this far into the message, I heaved the biggest sigh of the day so far.

    My recipients would probably think I ingested some weird mushrooms or something.
    Reading this out of context, this was plainly not a message a sane person would send.

    “How do you think I should put this? This…situation?”
    “Um…I don’t know. I’m sorry…”
    I turned toward Kido, hoping for some guidance, but all she did was sit there, looking distressed. Perhaps she felt indebted to me for accidentally taking me here.

    “Mmm…Well, this message isn’t gonna cut it. There has to be some better way of putting it…”
    “The tea’s all set to…Wa-a-a-ahhh!!”

    Just as my eyes turned back to the phone screen to take another stab at my farewell message, tea rained down from above on my right.
    A fairly sizable amount of liquid poured over my head and the phone.
    “Yaahhhhhhh!!”
    It was all so startling that, for the nth time today, I let out the loudest scream I could.
    Getting splashed with all that tea was one reason, yes. The other major culprit was the “Sending…” window on my screen.

    “Ahhh! Nooo! I, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!!”
    “I-it’s fine! Just get something to wipe this up!”
    In a panic, Kido pointed Marie, still sprawled on the floor, toward the kitchen.

    I furiously tapped my finger on my phone’s “Cancel” button. No response.
    Nothing could be done any longer. The phone completed the send, and then, as if wrapping up the final task of its cursed life, quietly breathed its last. What had this girl done to me…?

    “Okay, here’s a—a-a-a-ahhh!”
    This time, my head was draped with an unwringed, sopping-wet towel.
    The bitterly cold liquid ran down my hair, pooling around my seat.
    I looked around me, washcloth still atop my head.
    There was Marie, white as a sheet, ready to cry at any minute—
    and Kano, snickering, that smile still on his face—
    and Kido, scratching her hair through her jacket hood, looking embarrassed.

    —Man…What a pain. But, you know, it didn’t really matter.

    I was beginning to feel like all of this was just too much fun. I hadn’t felt this way in far too long.
    This may be a bit (okay, more than a bit) of a twisted way of thinking, but at that moment, I thought to myself: This must be what “youth” is like.
    Is this how it feels when you’re messing around with the guys in your school clubs?

    No doubt the sun’s blinding rays were still shining outside, the whining drone of the cicadas still as loud as always.

    On that summer’s day, I made up my mind.
    And to make my resolve clear, I said it out loud.



“—I swear I’ll do my best for the Mekakushi-dan!”

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• Title: Kagerou Daze, Vol1_ In a Daze
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