Boogiepop Returns VS Imaginator Part 2

by Kadono. Kouhei

  It was a woman... no, a girl. And it looked as though she was dressed in her uniform, on her way home from high school.

  She did something at the gate, and, surprisingly, the lock opened. She had a key.

  “Well, now...” Spooky E grinned as he watched the girl enter the park.

  ***

  “Ow! Damn, cut myself!” Kinukawa Kotoe sucked the tip of her finger, scratched by one of the barbs on the fence around the abandoned amusement park. The taste of blood filled her mouth. “What am I doing?”

  She reached into her school bag and took out one of the cartoon rabbit decorated band-aids that she always had with her, and wrapped it around her wound.

  She felt very childish. Like she was three years old again.

  Nobody knew she had a key to the half-finished Paisley Park construction site. One of the countless companies with a claim on the ground belonged to her father, and when he brought the master key home, Kotoe had snuck out of the house with it and made a copy.

  Ever since, it had become her secret hideout when she was feeling depressed.

  The buildings in the park had been abandoned just after construction began, so they looked more like abstract sculptures than anything else, and the curved walking paths were all bare, waiting patiently for beautiful tiles to be laid upon them. But as Kotoe looked at the buildings as she walked, she felt as if she was about to cry a river.

  It was a very lonely place, and while she might have been a cheerful girl at home and at school, something about the desolate, deserted park tugged at her heartstrings. She had never told anyone about it, but...

  Part of her was convinced that she belonged in a place like this.

  Like there was something fundamentally missing inside of her -- a draft blowing through the cracks in her heart.

  This place, where they had tried to build a spectacular amusement park, was now a forgotten, pathetic little dream -- the kind of dream everyone has when they are young, but never achieves, only to become abandoned with time. Kotoe felt like she had never had that sort of dream at all.

  Of course, this seventeen-year-old girl was not consciously aware of this. But she indistinctly felt it, and this sadness remained inside of her, refusing to melt away.

  She walked on through the ruins, painted by the light of the setting sun.

  As she did, she thought about the only thing she ever thought about these days-- her cousin, Asukai Jin.

  (Jin-niisan. . . )

  She first met Asukai Jin when she was five years old, and she remembered it clearly, even now.

  Jin's father had come to borrow money from his younger brother, Kotoe's father, and Jin had come along with him. He must still have been in elementary school.

  She had only seen him from a distance.

  Kotoe's father had taken his wife's name, Kinukawa, and he behaved like the rightful heir, much more so than Kotoe's docile mother. He had thundered, “Stop begging,” to his brother.

  But Jin's father had persisted, until Jin said, quietly, “Uncle Kouji's right, Father. Nobody would lend money to someone who just wants it without any plan for using it.”

  When that clean boy soprano cut through the tension in the drawing room (decorated perfectly to her father's tastes), Kotoe had the strangest feeling that this boy would take her away from everything -- away from this life where she lacked nothing but could scarcely breathe.

  Much to her father's surprise, his brother agreed with his son Jin, and abandoned his attempts to beg for money based solely upon familial blood ties, and instead began to explain the details of his business plan.

  Kotoe didn't really understand the conversation from that point on, but ultimately, Kotoe's father did end up lending his brother some money. What Kotoe remembered was how Jin's farewell showed far better manners than his father's.

  He seemed so noble.

  He was her first love.

  She had looked forward to seeing him again, but it turned out that the start-up business that Jin's father had founded with the borrowed money had gone bust. They didn't return to Kotoe's house for a very long time. Occasionally, her father would refer to his brother as “that good-for-nothing,” which always made Kotoe extremely sad.

  It was four years before Kotoe met Jin again.

  Father and son called at the Kinukawa home once more. The father was extremely well-dressed, and surprisingly, he returned the money that he had borrowed. Plus interest.

  Kotoe's father muttered, 'Normally, you would also have to pay damages...” but he was clearly happy to have the money back.

  “But how did you get it?” he asked, but Jin's father just grinned.

  His son sat next to him, in the uniform from his junior high school. He didn't appear bored by the grown ups' conversation, but he also did not appear to be excessively interested either.

  He blended in so easily, and Kotoe, who was watching from the shadows, was mystified by this.

  “Say, Kouji, would you like a painting?”

  “Painting?”

  “First rate artists only. I'm in that line of work now.”

  “You sell paintings? You got a D in art! How do you know you aren't selling fakes?”

  “I leave all that up to him,” he said, pointing at his son. “He's a genius. He's won all sorts of awards for his paintings.”

  “Really? But even so...”

  “His eye is amazing. We buy stuff up at paltry sums, and a year later that artist explodes, and we sell it for ten times the price,” he said proudly.

  Even when praised, the boy stayed quiet.

  “Oh? So someday you might become a great artist like Picasso, Jin?” Kotoe's father asked, addressing his nephew for the first time.

  “That's my dream, sir,” the boy replied, without a trace of arrogance. His manner proved that he was the most together person in the room, Kotoe thought.

  He knew what everyone in the room was thinking, and matched it. He was perfectly at ease, yet he never gave off even a hint of being such.

  The evening developed into a drinking party, and Jin and his father spent the night at Kotoe's house.

  Kotoe wanted desperately to talk with Jin, but he never left his father's side, and she never had the chance.

  Only once, when Jin came to the kitchen to get a glass of water for his father's stomach pills, was she able to say, “Um...”

  There she was, standing in front of him, the moment she'd been longing for.

  “Oh, sorry. Can I get some water?” he asked politely.

  “C-certainly!” Kotoe replied.

  Her mother said, “What a good boy,” and handed him a cup of water.

  He bowed his head, and left.

  Kotoe wanted to call after him, but she couldn't think of anything to say, and so she could only watch him leave.

  But that evening, when Kotoe woke in the middle of the night and came down to the kitchen for a drink, she found Jin standing alone in the garden, looking up at the night sky.

  It was winter outside, and all he had on were the pajamas they'd found for him, so it must have been terribly cold out.

  He looked so sad. She'd never seen him look anything but calm, so Kotoe was a little shocked.

  She wanted to know what he was thinking about, but she thought it must be something difficult that she wouldn't be able to understand. This meant she didn't know what to do. So she stood there for a while, and eventually he turned and spotted her.

  “Ah... !” she exclaimed, and he bowed his head, and came over to the outside of the house.

  Kotoe hurriedly unlocked the window. “Wh-what are you doing?” she asked. When she opened her mouth, a white cloud came out.

  “Sorry, didn't mean to surprise you. I was just wondering if it would snow.”

  “Snow?”

  “Yeah. It looked like it might, but...”

  “You like snow?”

  “Yeah. Childish of me, huh?” he grinned.

  “Aren't you cold?” she asked, and instantly regre
tted it. What a stupid question.

  But he didn't seem to notice. “Sure, it's cold. I was just about to come inside,” he said softly, bobbed his head, and walked away.

  Kotoe watched him go again.

  At the time, they were just relatives. They had no other connection. So once again, quite some time passed without the two of them seeing each other.

  (But... )

  Kotoe stopped in front of the most eye-catching remnant, a spiral tower that was to have been named “The Ladder.” Like Asukai Jin had done as a boy, she looked up at the sky.

  But of course, it was not snowing. After all, it was April.

  (But... Jin-niisan's father, so awful... )

  His cause of death was still unclear.

  He was walking along the street, and suddenly, he vomited up blood and fell over. It was all so sudden that the police suspected he'd been poisoned.

  But there were no traces of anything like that. Witnesses had said that just before his death, he'd eaten lunch at a perfectly ordinary family restaurant. Nobody who worked at the restaurant had any connections to him. Clearly, it wasn't poison.

  Even so, the whole ordeal left Asukai Jin orphaned.

  “We should help him,” Kotoe said.

  Her mother asked, “Why don't we adopt him?”

  But since her father had married into the family, he felt it would never do for him to take in his brother's child. Besides, Asukai Jin himself refused to entertain such notions, telling them not to worry.

  His father's business was handed off to others, and most of the inheritance went to various debts and obligations, but Jin quickly secured a full scholarship to an art school, and a job as a cram school teacher took care of his living expenses. Very efficient.

  Kotoe was somewhat relieved.

  If they had adopted him, then she would have become his sister. Sure, it was a dream, but as long as they were cousins, the possibility remained.

  But no matter how quickly Asukai Jin had taken charge of his situation, that sad boy who stared up at the night sky remained. Kotoe could still see it in him.

  He had some sort of burden. He'd carried it for a very long time.

  (And yet... )

  Recently, Jin was acting strangely.

  Wandering around all night long, coming back with what looked like bloodstains on his clothes... and even worse, he was oddly cheerful.

  He had always been affable, easy to get along with and well liked. That hadn't changed, but...

  The only person who had listened to her problems was a girl from her school named Suema Kazuko. They weren't close enough to be called friends, but she had listened carefully, and told her, “Why don't you leave things up to me?”

  She had telephoned later and added, “I'll clear things up, but until then, you'd better stay away from him.” Which meant Kotoe hadn't seen Jin for a while.

  Suema Kazuko seemed reliable, and she would probably be able to figure things out far better than Kotoe herself could ever manage. But she still missed him.

  “Jin-niisan...” she whispered, looking up at the red sky.

  “Is that your man's name?” a voice asked from behind her.

  Surprised, she tried to turn around, but the electric monster's hands had already latched onto each side of her head.

  There was a crackle, and she could feel her brain's functions rudely interrupted.

  “........... ?!”

  Kinukawa Kotoe was unconscious.

  ***

  “Her name's Kinukawa Kotoe, and she's seventeen, eh?” Spooky E had gone through the pockets of his newly acquired prey, and found her Shinyo Academy Student ID.

  “So, that's how she had a master key,” the monster whispered, glancing over towards a sign at the side of the park. The name “Kinukawa Enterprises” was printed on it.

  “Damn, she's loaded...”

  Had she been awake, she would have shuddered at the sight of the sinister smile that split Spooky E's face from ear to ear. His big round eyes stayed wide open, making it even more horrible.

  “Which means she's got cash. Perfect. I can use her to find this 'Imaginator.’”

  The monster licked his fingers, and thrust his saliva-drenched hands into Kotoe's beautifully treated hair.

  ***

  The next thing she knew, Kinukawa Kotoe was walking along the street at night. She was herself again.

  “……..”

  But she failed to wonder what she had been doing all this time. She was neither surprised nor confused.

  “……..”

  The street was filled with clusters of people, freed from the stress of the day. Older men, faces already flushed with booze, young lovers chattering happily in cafes.

  Ignoring this peaceful world, she headed straight for an ATM, and began withdrawing money. It was early in the month, so there was no one else in line.

  The machine had a limit of 300,000 yen per transaction, and she withdrew this in full ten times. Three million yen in all.

  Without so much as flinching, she put the bills into her school bag.

  She then headed directly to a nearby dance club.

  Once before, a friend had taken her there. Kotoe herself had been unable to get swept up in the crowd's enthusiasm for the indie band's passionate, yet unskilled performance, and she had never gone back.

  But now, without the slightest trace of hesitation, she headed straight down the stairs to the dimly lit basement entrance.

  She paid the five thousand yen cover charge (which came with a free drink), and went in. Her ears were instantly filled with a horrific noise. Kotoe never glanced at the band, wailing away on stage, or the audience, bobbing their heads and waving their arms around. No, she headed straight for the drink counter.

  “'Sup,” said the spiky-- haired, punk-- styled guy behind the counter, listlessly. He put a paper cup in front of Kotoe.

  Ignoring the drink entirely, Kotoe said, “I have a question.”

  “Mm?”

  “You ever heard of the Imaginator?”

  The punk's expression changed the moment the word left her mouth.

  “Wh-what... ?”

  “You have?”

  “No, never!”

  “Liar,” Kotoe declared.

  The punk flinched. He leaned over and whispered in her ear, “I don't know where the hell you heard that, but you really shouldn't say that name out loud. It might-- “

  Before he could finish, “What? The Imaginator?” interrupted a man sitting in the comer. He was a two- meter tall skinhead. “Where'd you hear that name, high school girl? You know where that asshole is?”

  The man advanced on her, the thick soles of his boots so loud they could be easily heard above the racket on stage.

  “That asshole? This Imaginator is an individual?” Clearly, the man had failed to frighten Kotoe at all.

  “I'm the one asking questions!” he yelled, grabbing the collar of Kotoe's uniform.

  He lifted her into the air.

  “Don't you piss me off! Everyone in my band's screwed up now, all because of that Imaginator freak! What the hell did he do to them?!” The veins stood out on his bare scalp.

  Swinging around at the end of his arm, Kotoe shook with the waves of his anger.

  But she simply asked quietly, “So, the Imaginator does something to people, and moves them over to its side? Does it use religion or something?”

  The skinhead frowned at her, puzzled.

  “How exactly were they changed?” she continued.

  “Girl, who are you?” he asked, putting her down.

  He'd been sure she was just some cocky kid, but there was something far stranger about her behavior.

  Kotoe gave an enigmatic smile. “Just in case things aren't perfectly clear, I'm not asking for any favors.” She pulled a wad of cash out of her bag. 100,000 yen. “I'm buying information.”

  The skinhead's eyes bugged out of his head. “Who are you?” he said again.

  “No friend of the
Imaginator,” she purred.

  ***

  “... I've never seen the Imaginator directly. But I know a guy who saw something goin' down on some back road.”

  They had shifted location to the empty locker room, where the skinhead had begun talking.

  “Something?”

  “His words. He wasn't really sure what. But there were several of them, and the Imaginator sent them all flyin'. Yeah, that's what he said-- not punched, not kicked, not even beat-- he just sent them flyin'!”

  “The guys who got beat weren't pussies or anythin'. This isn't just some tough guy winning a street fight. This is bigger than that. After the dudes went flying, they stood up, and they started pinning down their buddies that were still standing. Their own buddies! This Imaginator turned their friends against each other!

  “So no matter how badly you get messed up, you can never lay a finger on the Imaginator. Everyone that's crossed paths with that mother ends up slammed into the pavement, pukin' blood. I seriously don't know what he is. Must be some kinda monster. Like Dracula, or somethin'.”

  “What happened to the people he beat up? Have you talked to them?”

  “They... they were... I mean...”

  “Your friends were different?”

  “I saw Tsuyoshi only once after. He was walking through town alone. We never really got along that well, but since everyone else had up and vanished on me, I called out to him. He turned around, looked happy to see me.”

  “How is that strange?”

  “He's the type that always snarls, 'Shut the hell up' when you speak to him. Least if he's alone. He's usually always with some chick. But this time, he was grinning, like someone had... stripped all his thorns off. Creepy calm.”

  “Where had he been?”

  “He said he hadn't been anywhere in particular. Insisted it was just a coincidence we hadn't bumped into each other until then. At the time, I still hadn't heard about the Imaginator, so I didn't know Tsuyoshi'd gone up against him. I only heard about that later. So at the time, I was just confused. But I haven't seen him since. He won't answer his damn phone.”