Kamiya abused the tap as if it were some defiant creature. The rent gaped wider and wider. The very thought of the damage this was wreaking on the stage made Kamiya freeze from head to foot in utter horror. He felt like running away and just leaving everything to take care of itself.
With the finger of one hand still stuffed in the pipe, Kamiya started groping for the drainpipe with his other hand. The only way he could resolve the situation was to remove whatever was clogging the drainage. He pushed his finger into the pipe and extracted the dirt that was jammed inside. Long, bleached strands of hair came out on his finger. So the culprit was hair! Hair washed into the pipe had clogged it, and prevented the water from draining away. Kamiya vigorously shook his hand to get rid of the hairy debris on his finger. Yet no matter how hard he shook his hand, he could not dislodge the strands. They clung to his finger and felt strangely alive.
Unconcerned, he continued inserting his finger into the drainpipe and extracting the clogged hair. No matter how many times he repeated the procedure, the water trapped in the sink showed no signs of going down. He paused to rest his hand. As he did so, he happened to turn and look down at his feet. He almost jumped with surprise.
Covering the entire area of the floor, the hair removed from the pipe undulated in the water like so much seaweed floating in the sea. There was so much hair in the water that he couldn't see the colour of the floor beneath. What amazed him was not only the sheer volume of hair, but also its colour. The tangled mass was an indescribable mixture of hues: black, white, brown, red, pink, all merging to form a faintly disgusting blend. The overall effect was unpleasant enough that Kamiya tried to keep the hair off his feet by alternately standing on one leg and then the other.
In the end, he found it better to sit sideways on the edge of the sink, although the seat of his pants would get drenched. In this position he continued his efforts to unclog the drainpipe. He was unable to fathom why such an enormous amount of hair had come clogged from a sink that was intended for washing brushes, cloths, mops, and other cleaning gear. Although it defied his imagination to account for how such a thing had occurred in the first place, it was ultimately irrelevant. His only real concern was to deal with the situation somehow and divert the crisis at hand. Despite having lost his part at the last moment, Kamiya was fond enough of the company to not want to see it suffer a disaster. He simply had to do whatever he could to minimize any damage that this leak might cause to the troupe.
Had his efforts been rewarded? He suddenly heard a gurgling sound, accompanied by bubbles appearing in the middle of the sink, where a small vortex began to form. The water was draining through. Although he felt that he was making some progress, he did not relent. If anything, he redoubled his efforts to unclog the pipe. The tiny trickle of water that was now getting through was not likely to stop the leak. First he had to ensure that water was draining away in sufficient quantities, and after that he'd have to fix the broken tap. Only then would he feel that he'd dealt with the situation.
Having finally unclogged the drainpipe completely, he turned his attention to repairing the tap. He first paused to think how best to go about it. The water pressure was too great for him to effectively plug up the pipe. It occurred to him that his best bet would be to insert the tap into the pipe and bind it in place with wire or something of that sort.
He scanned the restroom for a suitable piece of rope or wire, and realized that he was in the ladies' room. Until now, he hadn't noticed that there was no row of urinals. The women's restroom was a realm he'd seldom penetrated, but this was no time for idle fantasizing. He opened the door of a broom cupboard at his side. There lining the shelves he found a stock of toilet paper. On the floor was a stack of buckets, along with a couple of mops. He was looking for something like a piece of string that was strong enough to secure the tap in place. He got down and crawled around in the cramped cupboard in search of some string. Beside the stacked buckets lay a coil of green tubing, which turned out to be a hose. It seemed a bit too thick and unwieldy for securing the tap.
When he pulled the hose, however, it felt much more elastic than expected. He decided that it might just prove sufficient for tying down the tap after all. He hauled the hose out of the broom cupboard.
The tap had sunk to the bottom of the water in the sink. He fished it out with his hand. It resembled the severed head of a dragon, with its mouth gaping. Opening the disattached tap, he pressed it into the mouth of the pipe and wrapped the hose around it several times, concluding with a tight knot. Checking to make sure that it was secured firmly in place, he slowly turned the tap off. The gush of water came to a halt. Not a single drop of water leaked from anywhere. The flow had been staunched.
Kamiya breathed a deep sigh of relief. Although it was hardly a creative achievement, he nonetheless felt a surge of accomplishment.
'If this were a performance…' He wondered just how he'd express this relief onstage. It'd be too silly and obvious to jump gleefully with joy. But a smile wouldn't do, either. If he looked in the mirror now, he'd probably see a man with a vacant expression. If anything, he'd still look agonized.
In fact, he ought to look in the mirror to see how his current state of mind was reflected on his face. He'd learn the most natural expression for a situation like this.
As he used two mops to soak the water off the floor, Kamiya made his way to the mirror. He looked closely into it, and a chill ran down his spine. He was momentarily unable to tell what was provoking the reaction. It was not so much his reasoning as his senses that had detected something unnatural. There couldn't possibly be anyone else in the women's restroom, here in the shell of a disco that had gone out of business two years ago. Yet something felt weird, didn't quite make sense.
He wondered how he had failed to notice it until now. No doubt his mind had been so preoccupied that he'd seen but not registered it. Once he'd finished dealing with the leak, it must have started to rise to the fore of his consciousness.
In the mirror he saw the stall doors to five toilets. The doors of the two stalls to the left and the two to the right were open. Only the door of the stall in the middle was closed. The doors were designed to remain closed only when a stall was occupied.
… In other words.
Kamiya turned around and took a long hard look at the closed stall door. It seemed inconceivable that anyone could be in there.
All the lights had been out when he'd reached this floor. The restroom had also been in complete darkness. Kamiya had had to turn the lights on.
He was torn as to what he should do next. He didn't want to get involved in anything unusual. He'd already completed what he'd come here to do. He heard a voice telling him to return to his post on the double. All the while, his curiosity was becoming harder to resist. After all, inquisitiveness was a highly desirable quality in an actor. Wasn't Kiyohara always telling them that?
Kamiya moved a little closer and gave the door a poke with the end of the mop handle.
The door refused to yield.
He then tried giving the door a push with his hand. But the door wasn't stuck. It was locked from inside.
He was about to ask whether anyone was in, but thought better of it. It seemed such a silly question, and if someone actually replied, he'd die of shock.
Reining in his curiosity, Kamiya gradually backed away from the door. He told himself that it was high time to get back to the sound effects booth.
Every time he moved his feet, the hair that he'd pulled from the drainpipe got tangled on his heels. He hadn't realized until now that the water flooding the restroom floor was forming a current. The water began to flow towards the closed stall door and into the space beyond.
The noise of a toilet being flushed came from the stall. As if drawn to the sound, the water covering the floor rushed into the stall, gurgling under the locked door.
Kamiya steadied himself, his frame now rigid from head to toe. Whoever it was inside the stall had just finished. Kamiya heard the metallic sound of the door being unlatched, and it began to open. Through the crack, he saw something black squirm - not just one, but innumerable black forms, squirming.
There was a tense hush. A sharp scream had brought Kamiya's consciousness back to reality somewhat. He'd been so deeply immersed in his acting that he'd forgotten why the collective gaze of an audience was upon him. He'd been breathing the very atmosphere of his own performance.