Sayuri was dreaming a dream of the distant past. This was an unusual thing. Living in the mountains was fairly harsh: working yourself to exhaustion before going home to fall asleep so deeply you didn’t have any dreams was a daily occurrence. Not to mention, Sayuri didn’t even want to remember her past.
It might be because these days she’s been worried about something. Disturbed, she’s running from reality into dreams, even though there’s nowhere to run, both in her dreams and in reality.
“～......♪” It was a memory from a long time ago; more than ten years in the past. That’s why the details were vague and blurry, and it was mixed in with some other memories— it was a very unclear dream.
Sayuri, still in her teens, was in an amusement park. It was the first time in her life she’d been to a place like this, so Sayuri was excited. It was fun and rare and she couldn’t wait, she expressed her high spirits.
She was a girl. That being said, Sayuri was not one to naturally be charming. Unless someone was already quite close to her, they wouldn’t know that she was so giddy. She looked standoffish, with pouting lips, as she sat and fidgeted on one of the many benches placed around the park. Her attitude would usually make one think that she was angry.
“.........♪” She wore baggy clothes that hid the lines of her body, as well as uncute gloves and boots that eschewed all form in favor of function. She also had on a pair of tinted glasses that didn’t suit her, and a knit cap that completely covered her black hair, which was a source of pride for her. As a sign of the season, she had a mask on to defend against the cold weather; it wouldn’t be good if she hurt her throat.
She was clearly trying to disguise herself, but she looked more like a believer in some shady foreign religion. She had little interest in fashion, and thus was similarly indifferent to her own outward appearance.
Sayuri was a heavy smoker in those days, but she was also trying to quit at that moment so she was chewing on some sweet gum to deceive her lonely mouth. She would put in more gum as soon as it lost its flavor, so the ball in her mouth had grown to a fairly considerable size. She was past the point of not being able to speak, and it was getting hard to breathe.
“.........♪” Chewing the gum for a long time had left her jaw tired, so now she was just rolling the gum ball around in her mouth like a piece of hard candy. The flavor ran out, so she reached into her pocket to try and fish out another piece of gum. Her search was not proving to be fruitful. Because of the gloves, she couldn’t feel around accurately for the gum with her fingers. Growing more and more annoyed, her already naturally sharp eyes started to look even more dangerous.
“I’m gonna burn my house down into an ugly black—” A singing voice came into her head unexpectedly, and gave Sayuri a start. Ceasing the search for her gum, Sayuri rubbed at her ear. The English was too hard for Sayuri, who was uneducated in that respect, so she didn’t know what was being said, but she did feel the eeriness. It resembled a scream.
For a while now, Sayuri had been listening to music from a portable CD player in the chest pocket of her overcoat (there was nothing small and fashionable like iPods or smartphones at the time) connected to a pair of earphones in her ears. That was also part of Sayuri’s job.
She didn’t particularly like music or songs, but wearing earphones and making it look like she was socially isolated prevented people from coming up and talking to her. It was a pretty convenient tool for Sayuri, who viewed communication as an annoyance. She was getting paid for this, too— listening to songs from various artists, and giving her impressions. Although the most she ever said was stuff like, “It was good,” or, “I hated it,” or at the very least, “I listened to it,” just those few words from Sayuri would set quite a few things in motion.
She could bend others’ jobs, lives, and futures for her own benefit. That would be somewhat scary, but it wasn’t at a level she would feel directly, so she was just a girl who knew nothing. Even now, she was doing nothing but listening to countless CDs with songs by artists unknown to her burned into them, clearing her workload in order from top to bottom.
This CD is a bust, thought Sayuri. There were too many ballads with calm melodies, and she didn’t really like those. “I like you.” “I love you.” “Love is wonderful.” The artist just repeated those lyrics. It was so repetitive that it started turning into some animal’s cry for her, before finally ending up as just some meaningless beeping sound in her ear.
It’s not like she had no interest in love, but in the end this was just someone else’s feelings of love, and Sayuri couldn’t empathize. To Sayuri, love was a more animalistic thing, like an instinct. If love gets too dramatically embellished, it actually starts to smell like lies— that’s why she was getting pretty tired of it— when, suddenly, that discomforting song started playing.
Did the person in charge of burning this CD put it in by accident, Sayuri wondered, and forget to fix his mistake? It started playing in a pretty half-assed spot, mixed in like white noise. The feel of this song was clearly different from the rest. That’s why she was surprised.
For a while there were no voices, just a melancholy melody, so she had completely thought it was just that kind of a song. Or, possibly, it was an instrumental version of another song. But apparently, it was just a long interlude. “I’m gonna run away now and never look back” The high pitched voice, which seemed to belong to a charming girl, shook Sayuri’s eardrums with English, from which she was unable to derive any meaning. So instead, she just strained her ears and listened.
Her heart beat fast, although she’d felt nothing at the several saccharine love-themed songs that came before. She wasn’t exactly all aflutter. If Sayuri was pressed to put a name to the feelings that welled up in her chest, it would be fear.
It felt like a nail had been put in her core, or as if it had been stabbed by a blade, which was then twisted around. Her surroundings suddenly went distant. Unable to stand her unease, Sayuri looked around. She saw an extravagant amusement park, one of the most prominent in Japan. She saw an unbelievably large crowd for a weekday. And in the middle of that crowd, on an unpopular bench was Sayuri, sitting like she was separated from the world, and trembling.
What the hell is this? she wondered, This tune, this song? It was doubtful that this was sung by a real human.
“AND NEVER LOOK BACK—” The lyrics were emphasized clearly, the volume rose, and Sayuri felt like a blow had been dealt to her body. She desperately tried to translate the lyrics and gain some peace of mind. The unknown is a scary thing— but Sayuri was abysmal at studying, and the English just sounded like nonsense to her.
BACK? Bakk— a bag? ‘Behind?’ I know ‘Look,’ it’s the name of a brand of chocolate— no wait, was it ‘to look?’ Look behind you? She turned around. A man stood there.