Perfect Blue: Complete Metamorphosis

by Yoshikazu Takeuchi

  The man stepped inside, and for the first time she got a clear look at him.

  His long, disheveled hair hung over a craggy, angular face with little eyes, a big nose, and thick lips. He stood with a slouch and was stocky around the waist.

  The man spoke. “You’re that assistant girl.” His voice was hoarse and unpleasant.

  Still on the floor, a wide-eyed Rumi looked up at him and nodded once.

  “You’re Mima-san’s assistant,” the man said.

  Rumi nodded again and again.

  “Well, I want you to assist me now,” he said with a smirk, strangely and vaguely shy. He looked her in the eyes while she shook her head violently from side to side.

  “No!” she shouted. “Absolutely not. Who do you think you are, coming into another person’s home like this?”

  The man leaned over her, right down into her face. He stared her down. “I’m going to make you come with me whether you like it or not. Look me in the eye. Do you see how serious I am? I want your help and I’m getting it.”

  Rumi pushed at him with both hands and said, “Don’t get any closer! I’ll call for help. The walls here are thin. Someone will come right away!”

  She got to her feet. She was ready to scream the moment he tried to do anything else. The apartment building was occupied mostly by families. If she screamed, especially at this hour, someone would surely come running.

  She returned his stare, speaking firmly, “Now go home.”

  The man’s lips curled up at both edges. “I’ll be going nowhere. Not until you agree to come with me, that is. And you will come with me, be sure of that. You don’t have any choice.”

  In a calm motion, he reached for his rear jeans pocket and pulled out a photograph.

  “Look at this,” he said, holding the picture in front of her face.

  When she saw it, she let out a little cry. It was a picture of Mima and Aran Naoto together.

  “You know what this picture means,” the man said. “The media would love to get their hands on this. But you wouldn’t want that to happen, now, would you?”

  Rumi shook her head no, tears filling her eyes.

  “If I offer you this picture,” he said, “you’ll help me, won’t you? It won’t take long.”

  Wiping her eyes, Rumi nodded.

  III

  Why isn’t the door locked? Mima wondered, standing at her apartment door. She remained there for a moment, hand on the doorknob, head tilted, while she dredged her memory, wondering if she’d forgotten to lock the door before she had left.

  She didn’t think that was the case, but no other explanation came to her.

  She deliberately avoided connecting the unlocked door with the shapeless dread that still lurked in the in the pit of her stomach. If she had thought the two were related, she never would have been able to set foot inside.

  Slowly, she pushed the door open and, heart thumping away, she stepped in. The apartment’s lights were on, and her answering machine was switched off.

  Did I really leave the apartment like this? Exasperation over her carelessness edged out her fear.

  Then she smelled something. It smelled good, and it was coming from the kitchenette. She looked that way and saw a wide variety of food neatly laid out on the counter.

  Mima clapped her hands in realization. Rumi had come over. Now that Mima thought about it, her manager had been acting strangely, too. From the look on his face, Bon-chan had seemed like he’d been hiding something.

  So Bon-chan wanted to throw me a surprise party. Rumi didn’t leave early—he must’ve sent her out to get things ready.

  “Rumi-chan,” the singer called out. But there was no answer. “Rumi-chan!”

  Mima circled her room. She even looked in her closet, and in the shower room and the water closet. Rumi was nowhere to be found. She’d been cooking, that much was certain. But what had stopped her—and where had she gone?

  Maybe she’d forgotten some ingredient and ran off to get it at the convenience store? Surely she would have locked the door if she had had to leave the apartment empty.

  What had happened to her?

  Mima returned to the front door, opened it, and looked outside. Perhaps Rumi was out in the hallway. The dimly lit space gave no sign of any presence—not Rumi’s, not anyone’s. Only the cold, nighttime air occupied the passageway.

  Mima closed the door and sat in the foyer.

  Her concern expressed itself as irritation. She thought, If Rumi were going to leave, she could have at least written a note.

  Sitting there stewing about it wasn’t going to help anything. Mima shook away her foul temper and slowly stood back up. That was when her eyes caught sight of a small red object next to her pumps beside the door. Mima stooped down to pick it up. The thing looked like a small scrap of colored paper.

  She held it in her hand and inspected it. Whatever it was, she had probably stepped on it and gotten it stuck to the bottom of her shoe. She wadded it up to throw it away, and her fingers became wet with a faintly red liquid.

  It was a rose petal—a red rose petal.

  A red rose petal!

  Instantly, with that realization, her blood froze. Unbidden, her sixth sense began clamoring inside her thoughts. A rose petal. A red rose petal…

  Her primal intuition roused the fear and anxiety she had so assiduously tried to forget. They emerged from the edges of her consciousness and came out into the open, no longer possible to ignore, their heads held high and arms spread wide.

  Desperately, Mima tried to banish the truth from her thoughts; if she let herself appreciate what that rose petal signified, her mind would fall to pieces.

  Mima needed a lifeline. She went to the phone. She’d reach out to her manager, have him come over.

  She didn’t know where he was. He could have been at the television station, or his own apartment, or at the agency’s office. But she needed to find him and get him here. If she didn’t, she worried this incomprehensible terror would soon drive her mad.

  Fretfully, she reached for the phone, when suddenly, it rang.

  On conditioned reflex, her hand went to the receiver. Subconsciously, she knew she shouldn’t answer, but her hand, unbidden, had already lifted the receiver and placed it against her ear.

  “Hello,” came the man’s voice. “Is… is this Mima-san?”

  Mima felt the last fragile barriers of denial fall, leaving no separation between her conscious mind and subconscious terror. Her body trembled as she heard the hoarse voice speak. “Hello, Mima-san? This is Mima-san, isn’t it?”

  It was the voice of the man who had tormented her over the phone, the sick stalker who had given Rumi that letter—the same one who had personally delivered another message to her very door.

  Her voice shaking, Mima said, “What do you want? Who are you?”

  “Who am I? You know who I am, Mima-san.” The man’s voice took on a mocking tone. “It is I, your Darling Rose.”

  Starting to reclaim her composure, Mima resolved to get this creep to give up his location so that she could send the police after him. “All right, ‘Darling Rose,’” she said, “what do you want with me?”

  “I’m glad you asked,” the man said. “I’m calling to request your presence. You can’t say no, mind you. I’ll wait five minutes. Come to my location within five minutes. I’m in K-TV’s old studio in Azabu. If you run from your apartment, you should get here in about four to five minutes. But five is what you have. If you try to contact your manager or the police, you won’t make it in time, so don’t try it. Five minutes, starting now.”

  The man sounded as if he were going to hang up the phone. Before he could, Mima said, “What are you talking about? There’s no way I’m going to some abandoned studio. Just tell me your name and where you live, and I’ll meet you there instead.”

  “You won’t come? That won’t do at all. You know Rumi-chan, don’t you?”

  “Rumi? What’s happened to her?”

 
“Nothing has happened to her yet. But if you don’t come here, she’s going to die. If you’re even one second late, she will die.”

  “Wh-what are you saying? Is she there with you?”

  Mima pressed the receiver to her ear. She could hear Rumi’s voice, faint and distant, saying, “Mima-san… Don’t come… don’t come.”

  In blind fury, Mima shouted, “You have Rumi?! You have Rumi?!”

  “That’s right. And if you don’t come, she dies. This is not a joke. I killed that whore Ochiai Eri, you know—one more kill won’t make a difference to me.”

  The man’s voice had grown flat, detached, and somehow that was even more forboding than before. Mima believed it. He really had killed Eri.

  “All right,” she said. “I’m coming. The old K-TV. I just want you to let Rumi go.”

  “If you come, I’ll spare her life. I promise you that. But you’d better hurry. Here we are still talking, and you’re already down to four minutes.”

  Chapter 8

  CONFRONTATION

  I

  Mima ran.

  She ran through the nighttime streets. She ran until her legs ached, until her heart strained—but still she ran. She weaved through Tokyo’s south-central Azabu district, moving through back roads lined by quiet, upscale apartments and residences, turning right here, left there.

  She wondered how long it had been since she ran like this. In her first year of high school, she’d placed fifth in her school’s marathon race. That was probably it.

  She’d walked from her apartment to the old K-TV studio building once before. She had no reason to measure how long it took, but it had to have been more than ten minutes.

  I don’t know how that freak kidnapped Rumi, but he’s using her to get to me. He’d threatened to kill her if she was even one second late.

  Mima spurred her aching feet into a full-on sprint. As she ran, she felt her thoughts grow clear. A cold rage against her stalker began to swell throughout her body. If she said she wasn’t afraid, she would have been lying, but far more anger filled her heart than fear.

  She had only known this man through his calls and his letters, but his voice and his handwriting had revealed enough of his character to thoroughly repulse her. Now they were going to meet face-to-face, and she fully intended to tell him exactly what she thought of him.

  On and on Mima ran—to keep Rumi safe and to put that creep in his place.

  Before Mima stood a Daruma Shipping distribution center. The facility’s broad, metal gates were closed up, their bars offering a view of several dozen large trucks stationed in a large parking lot. Circling the grounds was a long stonework wall dotted with an occasional red-tinted light. The former K-TV studio building was just on the other side.

  Still running, Mima followed the wall. There were few streetlights in this part of Azabu; she couldn’t run at full speed, since she couldn’t make out the ground at her feet. Only the dim red lights ahead served to guide her way to the studio.

  Suddenly, the wall ended, revealing the former TV building in the distance. Against the dark night sky, the building formed an even blacker silhouette, a long flat slab reminiscent of a giant crocodile. Mima ran straight for the crocodile’s great black mouth.

  The studio hadn’t been used for three years. About a year ago, she’d heard that the building was going to be torn down and replaced with a shopping and recreation center.

  Mima climbed the stairs to the front entrance. Crisscrossed chains barred shut the sliding glass doors; a sign read NO TRESSPASSING. Cobwebs and dust had accumulated along the doors’ upper track. No one had been in or out for months. Mima peered in through the glass and saw nothing but a deep darkness. She wondered if the building even had working electricity.

  Mima circled around to the rear entrance. It, too, was chained up. Only the emergency exit off to its side was unlocked. That door stood half open.

  That must have been where the man had gone in.

  Mima readied herself and opened the door wide. The hinges released a metallic shriek that spurred her onwards.

  A pungent, musty smell greeted her nostrils. At her feet lay messy piles of scrap lumber and cardboard. The hallway had become just another storage space.

  It was dark; Mima could hardly see anything at all. She proceeded down the corridor slowly, taking care not to trip over anything. After a little while, a faint light spilled out from a side passage.

  Her eyes had become so adjusted to the dark that even that faint light seemed eye-piercingly bright.

  Drawn in by the light, Mima came into a room.

  It was a green room. Mirrors with little counters lined the side walls, and a sink stood at the back. Hanging from the ceiling was the source of the light, a fluorescent tube in a yellowed, dangling ballast.

  Did that mean the building’s power was on?

  While Mima squinted up at the light, a voice came from behind her. “I brought a portable generator,” the man explained.

  Mima gave a start and turned around. The man was standing there. Mima took a good look at him. This is him. This is that freak.

  “Finally, we meet,” he said. His smile chilled her to the core; it put a burr in the pit of her stomach.

  The man had long and greasy hair, cow-like eyes, and lips that were much too red. As she inspected his face, she felt the terror of minutes ago begin to creep its way back over her. Mima tried to guess what this man had in store for her, and the question made every hair on her body stand on end.

  The man said, “Mima-san, look at this.”

  He pointed to the T-shirt he was wearing. When she saw what was on it, her eyes went wide.

  It was a character from an anime TV show called Be an Idol!, which had heavily featured Mima in its advertising. Once her involvement had finished, she’d had little enough reason to think about the show—but she remembered the T-shirt. It was a prize from a promotional giveaway held when the anime first aired.

  The man puffed out his chest with pride. “I’ve kept really good care of it.”

  Then he took a step toward Mima.

  The idol took a step back. She asked, “What about Rumi? Where is she?”

  The man furrowed his eyebrows and muttered, slightly disappointed, “Mima-san. You were two minutes late.”

  Mima slumped to the floor. “You—you killed her? Did you really kill her?”

  The man suddenly burst into a gleeful belly laugh. When the laughter subsided, he made a gesture with his hand.

  From behind him, Rumi appeared. “M-Mima-san,” she said.

  “Rumi-chan!” Mima ran to her as they called out each other’s names. “Rumi-chan, you’re all right!”

  The two women hugged each other tight.

  The man gave another chuckle. “I’m sorry to have given you such a scare. I was never going to kill her. All that matters is that you came. Beyond that, she means nothing to me.” He spread his arms wide. “Now, you’re probably wanting to know why I summoned you here. Isn’t that right?”

  Still holding on to Rumi, Mima glared at her tormentor. “I am,” she said. “I very much want to know why you’ve done this to us.”

  The man’s gaze turned distant as he said, “I wanted to protect you.”

  He reached for a paper shopping bag that was sitting on the floor and pulled it over to him. From inside, he retrieved a poster. “This is a life-sized poster of you, Mima-san. It’s from when you made your debut.” He unrolled the sheet. “You were so adorable back then.”

  He caressed Mima’s printed face gently. She felt it as if were her real flesh he was stroking. A chill ran through her body.

  “I wanted to make you remain as you were then,” he explained. “I wanted to keep you as you were. That’s why I called you all those times. I even wrote you. But no matter what I did, you insisted on changing.”

  Rumi pushed Mima’s arms away, then got to her feet. She walked up to the man and thrust a finger at him. “Just who the hell do you think you are, talkin
g like that? It’s up to her if she wants to change or not change. What she does is none of your business!”

  Mima took Rumi’s hand and pulled her back in, away from the man.

  He gave Rumi a sharp look, quickly losing his temper. “Don’t—don’t upset me! I’m not saying any of this for my own good. This is for Mima.”

  “And I’m saying it’s none of your business!” Rumi shouted. “I’ll make this as clear as I can. You’re no man; you’re a coward—from your creepy phone call harassment to your threatening letters… to the very way you brought us here!”

  The man clutched his hands to his head. Weakly, almost whining at first, he said, “I… I… I wasn’t calling to harass her. I could never have gone to such great lengths simply to bother her. I’m only thinking of what’s best for Mima-san. I’d do anything to save her. Those phone calls came from a place of sincere devotion. I even took off Ochiai Eri’s skin for her!”

  Rumi’s face turned white. “You…took off Ochiai Eri’s skin?”

  But the man was still talking. He pressed his hands around Mima’s. “You remember this place, don’t you? This is where you gave your first performance of your debut song, ‘Innocence Forever!’ You wore a white cardigan and a yellow flared skirt. You were the picture of cute. And that ending! Cherry blossom petals filled the stage, and you finished in this stance.”

  The man struck a pose, his arms and legs bent, backside sticking out a little. It was too surreal, repulsive, a sight from a nightmare—this dingy man striking a pop idol’s pose in this dingy room. Reflexively, Mima looked away.

  The man said, “The flower petals danced about in the wind, just like Mima-san’s flared skirt; the fluttering edge suggested a glimpse of her panties but never truly revealed one. To this day, I can remember the excitement, my heart beating in my chest.”

  He continued. “That’s the Mima-san I want to remain. That’s my only desire.”

  He looked at Mima and then to Rumi. “But Mima-san changed. It was a shame, but she changed. And once someone changes, it’s hard to get them back the way they were. Even so, it’s not too late. I’ve resolved to bring Mima-san back to her proper course—clearly my old passive methods, like the letters and calls, won’t do anymore. I admit I maybe went a little overboard with how I brought you here, but it needed to be done.”