And then I saw it.
There was something white under the desk, crammed all the way towards the back. Like a scrap of paper crumpled into a ball.
“Mm?”
It caught my interest, so I dove down to fish it out.
I flattened it out. It was a page of sketchbook paper with a drawing of a girl penciled on it. The artist's initial guidelines were still left below the face. Clearly a failed sketch.
“. . . . . . . . .”
There was something creepy about it.
I felt like I'd seen it before.
Like I knew this girl.
(Who is she?)
As I sat there thinking, I heard footsteps from the hall.
(Uh-oh. . . !)
I panicked. There were no other rooms in this hallway, and the only reason anyone would come down here was to come directly to this very counseling office.
(What should I do? Um. . . um. . . )
In hindsight, I should have just left the room casually. After all, the door wasn't locked, and I was a student here, so it wouldn't be at all strange if I had just simply come by for some counseling. I could always say I'd gone, but nobody was there.
But since I was feeling a little guilty, I just stayed and hid under the desk. It was a fairly large desk -- it filled about a sixth of the room -- with enough room for a large computer with plenty of desk space left for paperwork.
I hunched down in the shadow of the drawer, and breathed as quietly as I could. I was completely hidden.
The footsteps stopped in front of the door, and several people came in.
“-- But Asukai-sensei, we really are friends. We don't hate each other at all, right, Yuriko?”
“Y-yeah. . .”
Sounded like two girls and a man. The man must be Asukai Jin.
“Mm, maybe a bad choice of words. See, almost all humans hate each other. I just meant that you were no exception. I'm not making it out like you two are a special case or anything.”
Asukai Jin's voice was very calm, a clear, beautiful tenor.
“But, that's so. . .”
“. . . . . . . . .”
One of the girls was pretty outgoing, while the other one mostly did whatever she was told, it seemed.
“Shall we get started. . . ? What is it?”
“I’m.. .er, are we really going to. . . ?” The stronger girl asked, sounding a little nervous.
“Everyone else is. If you don't want to join them, I'm not forcing anybody.”
“No, we'll do it!” The follower said.
“Yu -- Yuriko?”
“Let's do it, Misaki. I don't want to be just an exam student anymore. . . ..!”
“Yuriko. .. . . .”
“What do you think?” Asukai asked. “This is your choice to make. I can't make it for you.”
“Tell me exactly what to do. That way I can. . .”
(What the hell are they talking about?)
Completely forgetting that I was supposed to be hiding, I started to get annoyed by the incomprehensible conversation.
Asukai continued, detached. “I can't. The Imaginator doesn't force anyone. It's a simple choice. You can influence events, or you can be swept along by them.”
Imaginator?
A word I knew suddenly popped out, surprising me. That name was from the work of a writer I had been a big fan of. I wasn't sure if it had the same meaning here or not, though.
Forgetting the danger, I poked my face out a little, peering up into the room through the gap between the chair and the drawer.
The girl called Misaki was biting her fingernails.
“Asukai-sensei, can you do me alone?” Yuriko asked. The two girls had similar hair styles and faces.
“Hmm?” Asukai Jin's face was hidden from my vantage point. All I could make out were his white clothes.
He was moving slowly towards me. I stiffened, but he didn't pull the chair out. Instead, he sat down on top of the desk.
Inches from my face, he started swinging his long, slim legs. I'd never seen a man's legs this close up before. I could feel my cheeks burning, for no reason.
“Then you'd need a different partner, someone other than Kitahara-kun.”
“I'll find one!”
“Wait, Yuriko!” Misaki yelped. I couldn't figure out why she was so upset.
What were they up to? What were they talking about doing?
“Like I have a choice! You don't want to?!”
“But I. . .”
“Get out!”
“Eh?”
“You have no right to be in the same room as Asukai-sensei!” Yuriko yelled harshly. It was no surprise he had said that they hated each other.
'N-no! That's just. . . okay, I'll do it! Please, Sensei, I'll do it!” she said, turning her gaze above me, presumably looking Asukai Jin in the eye.
“All right. I respect your decision.” Asukai Jin stood up.
Suddenly, he reached out his hands to the girl's chests, and started undoing the buttons, stripping their shirts right off.
(What?! Whaaaat?!!)
I panicked. I'd been worried it was something like this, but for it to be this sexual. . .
But the bare -- chested girls turned not towards Asukai Jin, but towards each other.
They closed the gap between them, and placed their hands on each other's shoulders.
“Stop there. . . now, don't move,” Asukai directed, just as their breasts were about to touch.
He turned his back towards me, and reached out towards their breasts.
Their transformation was dramatic.
Simultaneously, the girls flung their heads back, mouths gaping wide like some sort of animal, the air quivering at their soundless howls. The hands resting on each other's shoulders clenched up tightly, nails digging into the skin, drawing blood.
I swear this was not the kind of transformation that pain or pleasure can cause. It was like they had temporarily ceased to be human, like. . . like something was being torn away from them.
Asukai Jin quietly stood before them, calmly doing something I couldn't see.
Every time his shoulders shifted, the girls shook, bodies convulsing.
Like he was tinkering with them. But near as I could tell, he never touched their bodies directly. What on Earth was he doing?
“. . . . . . . . .!!!”
The girls gave one last great spasm, and Asukai Jin moved away.
Worn out, the girls leaned against each other. They were covered in sweat.
They were panting. . . but their faces looked human again, reason restored.
The girls looked at each other. . . and giggled.
So terrifying was their expression that I felt like something had its hand around my heart.
They looked exactly the same.
The features of their faces had not changed. In fact, their expressions were so identical that the resemblance between them that I had noticed before had grown far less pronounced.
But that expression -- the emotion the muscles in their faces were shifting in reaction to -- I couldn't help but feel like it was identical.
“How does it feel to be true friends?” Asukai Jin asked.
“Nice. . .”
“Completely wonderful.”
Smiling, the girls stood up, and began dressing each other.
“That's good,” Asukai Jin replied, and I swear I heard a flicker of a smile in his voice.
“Asukai-sensei, we're no longer afraid of anything.”
“We feel like we could change the world for you right now.”
They came over to him.
They took his hands, and kissed the back of Asukai Jin's hands like a pair of princesses swearing their allegiance to some heroic knight of legend.
I was shivering so violently. It took all my self-restraint just to keep my teeth from chattering. I couldn't move for a full three minutes after they left the room.
(Wh-what was that? What just happened here.. .. ..?)
; Stiffly, I crawled out from under the desk, and spread out the drawing once again as my hands trembled.
I remembered her now. The girl in the sketch had gone to my high school.
Her name was Minahoshi Suiko.
But she had killed herself. She was long gone.
The sketch was clearly Asukai Jin's, though. . . so how in the world was he connected to her suicide?
IV
Why are we afraid of the dark?
Even though it is the inevitable
result of living. . .
-- Kirima Seiichi (VS Imaginator)
It’s often said that every town has two faces, one for day and one for night. That's true enough, I suppose, but realistically, the difference is not so distinct, not so clear. Sadly, there is really no easily understood line drawn between the territory of safe, happy daylight and the sinister domain of the night.
For example, right now there's a girl sitting on a bench in front of a train station, sunlight gleaming brightly all around her. She's wearing traditional casual fashion, and anyone who looked at her would think she was a very ordinary middle class girl.
She appears to be waiting for somebody. She's got a town events guide rolled up in her hand, and she keeps tapping the ground with the toe of her shoe.
But if you watch the girl long enough, you'll begin to see a pattern hidden in the tapping. There's a rhythm to it, the same spacing between the taps, repeating.
Wait a little longer, and at last a boy comes over to her. He looks ordinary as well, clothes and hairstyle pretty bourgeois, like he gets a decent allowance.
“Yo! Waiting for someone?”
Not the most natural pick up line ever, but not likely to attract much attention if overheard.
“Yeah, at one o'clock,” the girl nods. Mind you, the time is well past three.
“Okay, this way,” the boy says, jerking his chin for her to follow.
This particular location has a police box in it, and there's never been a fight here. It's just that kind of place.
Whether she'd been waiting for him, or waiting for someone else, they leave the square together and head into town.
They look like any other young couple. They don't stand out at all. Why, they are the most ordinary pairing in the world.
They wander towards a deserted area of town, a zone slated for redevelopment.
The old buildings haven't been knocked down yet, and they're surrounded by dingy office buildings and crumbling stores that have long since shed all signs of what they used to sell.
The whole lot is surrounded by ropes with “no trespassing” signs hung on them. Yet the young couple pays them no attention, and ducks right under.
They tum down a narrow space between two buildings, where several men are waiting for them.
“There you are.”
“Only one today?”
These 'men' all appeared to be less than twenty years old.
The boy quickly goes over to them, and they all look the girl over for a moment.
She stands and takes it. “. . . . . . . . .”
“So, how much do you want, girl?” the oldest looking of the men asks. He wears a leather jacket and flashes her a sleazy grin.
“Everything,” the girl answers back, emotionless.
“Huh?”
“I'd like you to give me everything you have,” the girl says without a trace of hesitation.
The men look a little put out. “Girl, do you even know what you're doing? You know who we are?” the guy in the leather jacket says fiercely.
“I do. You're flunkies for a drug dealer. You sell drugs to whoever gives the signal.” Her face is completely calm, no eagerness, nothing unnatural.
“Flunkies?! What we got here's gonna go for a few million. You got that kinda cash?”
“No,” the girl says flatly.
This outlandish declaration leaves the men gaping. “What?! What'd she say?!”
“I have no money. But like I said, I'll be taking all your drugs now.” You could even call her voice chilly.
The flabbergasted men's shoulders gradually start to shake. Obviously, from anger.
“You asked for it!”
“Little bitch!”
The men launch themselves at her.
She turns and runs.
“Wait right there!”
“Don't even think about getting away!”
“I don't need to,” the girl says, and tums the corner.
The first man after her rounds the corner, and the moment he does, he goes flying over backwards.
“. . . . . . . . .”
The men's eyes bug out of their heads.
A figure stands before them in a very strange outfit.
He's dressed in a long, black cape and wears a black hat shaped like a pipe atop his head. His face is covered in make-up, white face contrasting with black lipstick. It's a hideously embarrassing outfit, completely retarded.
“I’m, don't do anything stupid. You cannot defeat me,” the cloaked figure stammers. It's clear why the first man went flying-this cloaked figure packs one hell of a punch.
“What the hell are you?!” The men gape. Understandably.
“I'm calling myself Boogiepop. . . apparently,” the weirdo says, with a strange lack of confidence.
“Huh?”
“You some kinda cosplayer or somethin'?”
“Of course you've never heard of me. Only the girls know,” the weirdo mutters to himself.
“What?”
“Oh, never mind.”
The girl comes up behind the weirdo. And like she's reading a script, she exclaims, “Boogiepop! These people are bad! Get them!!”
“Right, I've had just about enough of. . .”
The men move to attack. Several of them are clearly experienced fighters. They know what they're doing.
. . . So I couldn't hold back.
***
As soon as all the men had been thoroughly beaten, the cloaked figure went through their pockets, and removed a large number of little plastic bags filled with drugs.
Stuffing these into the pack on his side, the weirdo darted away.
His breathing was ragged, less from exhaustion than panic, and at last, he took shelter under a rarely used pedestrian overpass.
The girl was waiting for him there -- Orihata Aya.
“Thank you, Masaki,” Orihata said, smiling.
The cloaked weirdo took off his black hat.
That weirdo was me -- Taniguchi Masaki.
“Ugh! This outfit is freakin' hot!” I griped. “You have no idea how hard it is to fight dressed in this thing!”
“But according to the rumors, this is the outfit he wears,” Orihata said, moving around behind me and untying the cloak.
“Girls' rumors! I bet they never put any thought behind them at all. Grr”
“Towel,” she said, handing it over. I scrubbed my face with it, and the make-up came off soon enough. I felt much better already.
Obviously, I had been following them since Orihata left the station.
As soon as she entered the redevelopment zone, I quickly hid in the shadows and changed. . . even went to the trouble of putting black lipstick on to seal the effect.
What was I doing, you say?
Well. . . I was playing super-hero.
I was punishing all the evildoers in town. But please, don't ask me why. This was all Orihata's idea.
She took the pouch off my hip, scooped the drugs out of it, tore open each of the bags, and poured the contents out in the nearest ditch. The brown water dissolved the white powder relatively quickly, and there was no sign of it a minute later.
'Millions of yen, they said. . . ' I thought, absently. Not that I thought it was a waste, or that I wanted that money. It's just that for most people, I could see how that amount of cash could easily become a motive for doing something illegal.
“You're a hero, Masaki,” Orihata announced.
“I. . . I guess.”
I just didn't get it. She had known all the signs and code words for that transaction earlier, but how the heck would a girl like her know that kind of crap? I asked, of course, but all she said was, “Almost everyone knows.”
“Oh? Your hand. . .” Orihata's gaze stopped on my left hand. I had grazed it, and there was a little fresh blood on the surface.
“Just a scratch.”
“I'm sorry. It's all my fault,” she said, taking my hand gently, and tending to the wound with a first aid kit she'd brought with her.
Her hand was so soft, and her face was close enough that I could feel the warmth of her breath.
Beneath the deserted walkway, it was just me and a girl standing close together, bound by a shared secret. The sad thing is, I'd never even held her hand.
And before I knew it, I was a hero.
What am I doing. . . ?
***
“-- They all know Boogiepop,” she said. It was the first time she ever used that name. “Do you?”
“Never heard of it. Uh, what is it?”
“They say he's a shinigami. Or a killer.”
“A. . . ?” I gaped at her.
She just continued on. “It's just an urban legend, some sort of monstrous character, but they say this boy kills people when they are at their most beautiful, before they have a chance to grow old and ugly. That sort of thing.”
“Weird.” It certainly sounded like the sort of thing that would show up in girls' horror stories. I bet he was supposed to be pretty also. “So what?”
“Masaki. . . will you become him?”
“Uh, ex-excuse me?”
“I know you can do it. You're so strong. You might be a little tall, but not by too much.”
“W-wait a sec! This is a killer, right?” My mind reeled. I couldn't follow the first thing she said.
“No, the killer thing is nothing more than reputation. In fact, he seems to save people more often than kill them.”
She was talking like this guy actually existed.
“Y-you want me to s-save people? From what?”
Boogiepop Returns VS Imaginator Part 1 Page 7
