Act 1 1 I clipped my toenails, and my eyes glazed over like I was a dead fish. Clip…clip…clip. The sound echoed hollowly through my dim, decrepit apartment. I didn’t even feel like cleaning up the pieces that fell to the floor. Some ragged old professor’s lecture on literary history ran in the background on my laptop. I wasn’t even all that sure what he was talking about. It was boring me to death, so I had YouTube open in another window. The lecture was being recorded anyway, and it’s easier to watch it sped up a day or two before the test. Honestly, the most efficient thing for me would probably be to just do the assignments and not attend class. But that would be a little too depressing, so I attended classes in real time. Crunk, crunk, crunk… The air conditioner started making strange noises. My decrepit apartment had its own decrepit air conditioner. Every couple hours, it sputtered like a tunnel-boring machine. It failed miserably at cooling the air, too, so my sweat just seeped out into the humid air. I had assumed that being a university student in Tokyo would be endless days of excitement and that I might even get a girlfriend. It would happen naturally. I’d study a decent amount, work a little at a part-time job, drink a lot, go on dates, have some lover’s spats, and make up. I thought I’d be spending my days happily immersed in normal college stuff like that. But none of that happened. Yasunari Kawabata’s Snow Country begins with: The train came out of the long tunnel into the snow country. The earth lay white under the night sky. A similar set of simple lines could describe my college life. “The boy came out of his long days of studying for university entrance exams into the quarantined world. An empty summer lay waiting.” It was hopeless. My computer chimed and a chat message appeared on the screen. Kentarou Sugai: These days, love is nothing but a risk. I skimmed the message, finished up my toenails, then replied. Youichi Kamisuki: Love is a risk? Kentarou Sugai: Isn’t it? First, there’s the risk of getting COVID. And if you get married, you need money for that. On top of our college loans. As it stands now, we’re headed straight into another employment ice age. Plus, salaries in Japan are already abysmal… Sugai had been so negative lately that it was starting to affect me. I swear he used to be more positive. We first met at a university event, but soon after, all the classes went remote, so maybe I hadn’t had enough time to really get to know him. The news on YouTube was discussing the spread of the coronavirus. We had passed the peak of infections, and cases were beginning to decline. There were rumors that Kokusai Senan University, where I studied (or didn’t, really), would soon resume in-person classes. Before long, the news shifted to a story about a male police officer who had lost his gun—apparently, he had left it in a bathroom stall at Shinjuku Station. I stared blankly at the screen. I just wanted in-person classes to start again. Every day felt so empty, like I’d never go anywhere or do anything meaningful again. Was humanity on the verge of dying off, just like in Sakyo Komatsu’s Virus? Kentarou Sugai: Man, I hope the world ends. It’s like he read my mind. A quick rush of panic swept through me. Youichi Kamisuki: You want the world to end? Kentarou Sugai: Well, that would be more interesting, wouldn’t it? What was he even talking about? Then again, maybe he had a point. Perhaps it’s more in line with human nature. Enduring these long, monotonous days might be worse than dying instantly in a blaze of fire. Crunk, crunk, crunk… The boring machine started up again but soon finished its work. Somehow, both the literary history lecture and the news had ended without me realizing it. The warm silence stretched on, as dull and endless as flavorless chewing gum. My mind stagnated. Breathing became difficult. I reached for an anxiety med from my PTP sheet and swallowed it. My thoughts spiraled into chaos, slowly forming the image of Shinjuku Station. I was alone, walking toward a bathroom stall where the police officer had left his gun behind. It was an S&W five-shot revolver—the M360J Sakura. Picking it up, the gun felt cold and heavy in my hand. Slowly, I raised the barrel to my temple. I cocked the gun. All that was left was to pull the trigger, fire the bullet, and let the curtain fall on this stale existence once and for all. I tensed my finger. —BANG! I tumbled out of my chair, my heart pounding in my chest. The boundary between dream and reality wavered. Was I losing my mind? That sound just now—it felt real! A woman’s terrified shriek cut through my daze, filled with raw terror. “Help—!” BANG! Another gunshot echoed. I froze. What felt like an eternity passed as an eerie silence filled the area. The only sound was my heart pounding loudly in the stillness. Knees trembling, I managed to right myself and typed into the chat. Youichi Kamisuki: Oh my god, oh my god, I just heard a gunshot! Kentarou Sugai: WHAT? A gunshot? What is it? Yakuza? Youichi Kamisuki: I don’t know, but I heard a woman scream. Kentarou Sugai: Seriously? Could it have been a movie? I stopped typing. That was a possibility, of course. But it seemed too real, not like sound coming from a speaker. Youichi Kamisuki: I think it was real. I’m going to check it out. Kentarou Sugai: Hey, that’s dangerous. Don’t do it! I slid open the glass door. A wave of hot, humid air rushed in. A mummified moth lay on the balcony. The partition to the east had a strip of yellow tape that read IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, BREAK AND ESCAPE TO THE NEIGHBORING ROOM. —Break? I thought I was ready…but I hesitated. I turned around, put on some socks, and came back. Apprehensively, I climbed over to the other side of the railing. Two stories up was higher than it looked. A fall from here would do more than leave a bruise. Carefully inching sideways, the white bone-like handrail squeaked beneath me. Brittle paint and rust flaked off, drifting to the ground. “Ouch…!” A thin red line appeared across my rust-covered right hand, blood seeping from where the peeling paint had cut me. I winced at how much it stung, then glanced back up. And that’s when I saw it. A tabby cat had appeared out of nowhere. Its erect tail swayed back and forth as it balanced, walking along the handrail, heading straight toward me. I grabbed it and looked into its eyes. Our eyes locked, and— —BANG! The darkness shatters as light pierces the depths of my vision. A startled meow echoes—the cat, napping on the balcony, jolts awake from the gunshot. My vision swirls. I see someone lying prone on the other side of a screen door. I spot the back of another person as they exit out the front door. Everything happens so fast that I can’t tell if it is a man or a woman. A pool of blood spreads across the floor. I spin around and jump up on the handrail. I notice a man in a T-shirt and shorts—that is to say, me—shuffling down the handrail… I was seeing scenes from the past, stored in the cat’s eyes. Eyes are incredible storage devices. They hold more than just visual memories. Those tiny globes carry all five senses, along with the emotions of the person they belong to. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had this strange ability—to “connect” to someone else’s eyes and read their past experiences, like accessing data from a computer hard drive. I need to hurry and save her…! Just as I tried to break the connection, the vision changed. It was a woman’s room. There was a large bookshelf and tasteful decorations. The room was nice. It felt like a sandstorm had just died down. The scenes I see in people’s eyes usually contain some amount of noise. But this room I was seeing…was calm. A smooth silence and silky light filled the space. It was like actually being there. A woman looked at me, her brownish-beige hair in a bob. Her large eyes were anxious and open wide. The irises shone an almost hazel color, or a light brown with flecks of green. My mouth hung agape. I couldn’t look away. She suddenly yelled out. “Watch out! The handrail is going to break!” In that very moment, a terrible crack echoed as the handrail gave way. The neighbor’s brick wall crumbled, scattering their bonsai. I grabbed onto the balcony just before it collapsed. Quarantine had left me out of shape, and it took all my strength to hang on. Gravity kept pulling at me… Gritting my teeth, I used every ounce of energy to pull myself back up. I collapsed onto my hands and knees, gasping for breath. That could’ve ended horribly if that woman hadn’t warned me. —And then it hit me. Eyes only show me scenes from the past. So how had a woman from the past warned me about something in the future—? The cat, unfazed by the chaos, groomed its belly as if nothing had happened. My heart raced. Nervously, I reached out toward it, but the cat sprang up, causing me to pull my hand back. It glanced at me briefly before slipping through the partition and heading toward my room. “…First things first…” My voice rasped in my throat. I had to help her. I stood on shaky legs and opened the squeaking screen door. Its shadow slid off her pale legs, like coarse stockings being pulled away. For some reason, I instinctively muffled my footsteps as I entered the room. The metallic smell of fresh blood hit me hard. I buried my face in my hands, squeezing out a breath. She had died instantly. There was no doubt. It looked like she had tried to run for the front door but had been shot in the back of the head. Her body had fallen forward. The woman appeared to be around my age. She wore a blouse and shorts that accentuated her long legs. I could see the left side of her face—she was pretty, with a sharp nose, a pointed chin, and a graceful E-line. “It might not be too late…” Trembling, I forced myself over to the body. Carefully avoiding the pool of blood, I bent down and rested my left cheek on the floor, staring into her eyes. Framed by thick lashes, her large eyes were now hollow, tear-streaked wells. Though her tear ducts had dried, droplets still clung to her gaze. The bullet’s exit wound jutted out of her forehead. I fought the urge to vomit. When a person died, the memories stored in their eyes quickly faded, like their soul was leaving the body. But this was so close to the moment of death—there might still be a chance to glimpse a clue about who killed her. I locked onto her gaze, making the connection. Her memories surged forth, accompanied by the deep, crimson sensation of death. Most of the memories had already disintegrated. The images were blurred, the voices distorted, and time itself seemed to warp— A scream. The sound of breaking glass. A web of cracks flash across a mirror, reflecting a face filled with terror. Turning around, I see a gun—an M360J Sakura. I fling out my arms and run like an animal fleeing death. My heart pounds. My long hair obscures my field of vision. An intense pain, and there’s an explosion of vivid flowers. Pixelated, glitchy flowers bloom as the bullet destroys the visual cortex at the base of my skull. A pitch-black cavity gapes in place of the stamen and pistil, sucking up the glimmering petals in an instant, eventually swallowing every last thing around it, like a swirling black hole. It feels like I’m about to disappear into that darkness, too, and I scream. I feel the “touch of death” with terrifying clarity. The cold of absolute zero penetrates the very core of my soul. It ebbs and flows like a violent wave, shattering me as necrosis slowly begins to set in before I’m finally carried away. I try to break the connection but can’t. It feels like a nightmare I can’t wake up from. I grit my teeth and resolutely put all my force into the nape of my neck, and— I snapped back to reality. The face of the corpse lay before me, and it felt as though I had crawled out of the hole in her forehead. A strange pain throbbed in my chest, and I scratched at it. Coughing like I was trying to dislodge a Ping-Pong ball stuck in my throat, I finally caught my breath. The touch of death had never felt so vivid. My body was cold as stone, yet my heart felt like it was on fire. I retched, but there was nothing in my stomach. Unsteadily, I rose to my feet. The bullet was lodged in her makeup mirror, spiderwebbing cracks running across its surface. Lipstick had fallen to the floor near my feet, and only her lower lip was painted red. My mind wandered. So this was how it had happened. She had been doing her makeup when the first shot missed and hit the mirror. The second shot had struck her as she tried to flee… But anyone could have figured that out just by looking at the room. Ultimately, my ability had been of no help whatsoever. After giving my report to the police, I didn’t make it back to my apartment until seven in the evening. I could still hear officers filing in and out of the apartment next door. After so much time spent holed up alone, all the sudden activity left me shaking with exhaustion. I took my anxiety meds and collapsed into bed. My forehead burned fiercely, and vivid images of flowers flickered behind my eyes. The cold, piercing sensation of death stabbed into my brain like icicles. School would expect an explanation for why I missed my other classes. But I couldn’t move. I should just sleep. Maybe a group of elves would come in the night and hook me up to a nutritional IV, like something out of The Elves and the Shoemaker by the Brothers Grimm. I was just starting to drift into a light sleep when I heard it. —Meow. The faint call of a cat. I jumped out of bed. The curtains to the sliding door were still open, and the light from my room illuminated the cat lying on the balcony. I hesitated for a moment, then placed a bowl on the floor and poured some milk before slowly opening the door. The cat sauntered in like it did this every day and helped itself to the milk. “I completely forgot about you…” As I stroked the back of its neck, the cat raised its tail and squinted happily. Once it had finished the milk, I picked up the bowl. This cat was far too comfortable with people to be a stray, but it didn’t seem like anyone was looking after it. No collar, either. I couldn’t stop thinking about the woman I had seen through the cat’s eyes. How had she spoken to me from the past? And how had she warned me that the handrail was about to break? One simple explanation came to mind, but it was too outlandish to believe. There was no way it could be true. The only way to know for sure was to confirm it with the woman herself. I looked into the cat’s eyes— The scene from earlier replayed in my head. The gunshot, the figure lying prone behind the screen door, the pool of blood spreading across the floor… My ability has rules. When I look into someone’s eyes, the first thing I usually see is a memory tied to their most recent powerful emotion. That’s why I saw the memory of the cat’s “surprise” from earlier. After that, I can start searching. I can choose an approximate time, like searching for a word on the internet. Of course, it depends on the person’s emotions, and sometimes I lose control. I wandered through its memories, like pressing into the waves of the ocean. Eventually, some strange, unknown gravity began to pull me in. Before I knew it, I was standing in front of that woman. The room around her was filled with tasteful decorations and a large bookshelf. For the briefest moment, her eyes glistened with the hint of tears. A vague sadness seemed to wash over her face, flickering in her eyes and cheeks like the soft hues of twilight. But just as quickly, it faded like a mirage, and she smiled brightly.
Chapter 2
15 min read