I lose sight of you for a bit.
Just when it seems I’ve found you, you’re hopping around in another strange place.
It looks like a town at night.
The place is basically pitch-black, with giant, all-black structures here and there. They look like buildings with all the lights off, steeped in the dark of night. Having become more frog-like somehow, you roam about these alleyways the dark buildings create.
You’re like a delinquent girl donning some disguise in order to enjoy the nightlife in this maze of buildings.
The frog skin still covers your face, and it stays on no matter how many doors you pass through or what kind of place you end up in. It’s a unique transformation. While I didn’t initially have a name for it, the thing I’ve decided to call “the Frog” must be an Effect.
Which is why I’m glad you’ve kept it on your face without tossing it out.
“Mm-hmm,” I say to myself, asserting that I’ve done a good thing, and follow you as you bounce along, having cast aside all sense of human logic. Your movements have become rather nimble, so I almost lose sight of you several times.
Finally, we end up in some bizarre place, likely lost.
With so many buildings squished together and my vision inhibited by the darkness, I bump my head. This place is restrictive. I can’t move around like I should be able to. I’m trapped. It’s like the limits one sets for themselves — it’s apathy, resignation.
I’m not one to give up though, so I pull myself together and begin trying to climb the building. With no clear place to start, I reach my hand up the smooth wall, but then slide back down onto my butt. What am I doing?
As I scramble about, you skillfully slip through a crack in the wall and go even farther away. I cannot lose sight of you again, so I give chase.
The buildings here overflow with rainbow light, one that does seem like the neon seen in cities at night. It’s like a Christmas tree, all decorated and lit up. But it’s kind of garish, hurting my eyes and making me uneasy.
You remind me of someone slipping out of their boring home to experience the nightlife for the first time. However, there’s no place out there where you can relax or feel at ease. None of these buildings will take you in. They merely emit their harsh glow.
The sound of each of your footsteps echoes on and on. There are the sorts of sounds here that cause people to tremble, like rushing cars, the wails of sirens, and the din that eeks out of arcades and pachinko parlors. There are even sounds that seem like angry shouting and people sobbing.
This is the type of place where one cannot relax, where it seems that stress just continues to build.
I walk carefully through the glistening sea of neon.
“Wuhuh?!”
At least, I do, until I slam into something and topple back.
Whatever it is seems to have appeared suddenly in front of me.
“Wh-What is this?”
It’s a huge billboard with a neon glow of its own. It looks like a giant, harsh-looking man. He has arms, legs, and a face, and all of his features are overbearing. And yet, a broad smile stretches across his face, like someone who is obtrusively drunk.
He’s just standing there, his light flickering, enshrined like a statue of the guardian deity Niou.
“Ah, it’s just a decoration—”
He gives no sign of movement, merely looking like the billboard for some mysterious shop. I may be invisible, but the spot where I bumped into him really hurts.
Using the billboard for support as I get back on my feet, I once again let out a “Kyaa!”
At some point, something strange has begun wriggling around me.
“Wh-What?”
On closer inspection, there are tons of somethings. Swarms of them. Even though they give off vivid colored light, they appear to be some sort of living creatures. These tiny creatures move about in a strange, disorderly fashion — a lot like me.
All of them emit a neon light, but they each look different from each other. There are little winding tentacle-like things, arrow-like things like you would see on a banner, ghost-like things with small-but-wide eyes that are the only parts of them illuminated — the ones that stand out are what look like water fleas or parameciums, like microbes that wouldn’t normally be visible to the naked eye, but are almost comically inflated here.
It’s like the body itself is transparent and revealing the inner parts, making the capillaries and the entrails visible. It’s hideous, causing me to avert my eyes.
Though we’re often not conscious of it, microbes and bacteria exist all around us — even within us. And yet we unwittingly come into contact with them — somehow, these seem to be like that.
They’re normally something we aren’t aware of, but they definitely exist.
No matter how much of a plain, honest life one might live, if they step into a busy shopping area, they’ll notice people like fashionable girls and delinquents. These people seem like the denizens of another world. Even though they may live in the same area, be around the same age, one might never go near them, let alone speak to them—
You’re completely different from those throngs and crowds, like someone just going out to explore the nightlife. You neither brush against them nor look them in the eyes. However, as if you prefer this to being alone, you dive into the crowd of flashy, dangerous types.
I try to follow you, but the mysterious creatures emitting the fluorescent lights get in my way, and try as I might to move, I can’t. It’s extremely hard to breathe here. Amid the din, they seem to be having a great deal of fun — it’s a parade for strange creatures. It’s Carnival.
If you were to join them, I’m sure you would be able to savor the invigoration. For someone like me, who doesn’t fit in, it just feels uncomfortable. It makes me uneasy. If I were to join in such a riotous celebration, I’m sure I would lose my way.
If I became a part of the pandemonium, I might never be able to go back to being a normal human.
It’s like being invited out by a bad friend who knocks your life off course.
However, you walk through the bevy of glowing things, unconcerned.
“Wait, wait up—”
I chase after you in desperation. Like a mother worried over her delinquent daughter.
I can’t get close to you in a place like this. No matter how much fun you’re having, there’s an air of destructiveness about this situation.
“Nmph?!”
I try to chase after you in a panic, but my nose butts up against whatever this short and stout thing is before me. I topple backward, unable to take it. These strange creatures cannot see me, are unaware of me, or they have no interest in me, moving along and doing as they like.
It’s a disadvantage that I can only worry about. If I try to go near them, I lose my balance all over again.
I ignore the strange creatures, pushing through them and passing beneath the inseam of the billboard that looks like a giant man, making my way over to you.
Once I’ve put a little distance between myself and that din, I breathe a heavy sigh of relief.
If this is a dream, it should be quieter than this.
The din is so painfully loud, it’s excruciating.
I pat my chest and lift my face—
Then I see it.
“Huh? What are you doing?”
You’re sitting down right in front of me. Your clothes look like those of a little girl, which makes the frog mask look even more bizarre. It’s like someone wearing makeup unsuited to them. And you’re shoving something into that giant frog mouth of yours. Like a predator devouring its prey.
It looks like a glowing bird.
Birds are generally a symbol of stress. You gulp it down intently. It looks like someone shoving a coin into a coin purse. You’re ingesting something just as bad as alcohol or cigarettes.
“Don’t eat it! Don’t eat something like that!” I shout and rush toward you.
It doesn’t look like something that would be good for you to put into your body. It will definitely make you ill. However, if you don’t eat something, you’ll die. So you swallow the bird whole, as if you can’t help but do so.
You’re like a starving child that wasn’t allowed to eat dinner.
What is it that you’re starving for?
Flapping its wings in a panic, the bird with the glowing neon light disappears from view.
Flustered, I shout at you.
“A-Are you okay?! Let me see it! Spit it out!” I scold you like you’re a baby, trying to get you to do as I say.
I grab your face and shake it about in an effort to make you spit up the glowing bird from earlier. Surprisingly, I can touch you. Maybe I can only interact with the frog mask covering your face.
You don’t seem very perturbed as the frog skin comes peeling off—
Your face is revealed, dripping with sweat or some other mysterious liquid. It’s your usual face, your eyes closed as if you’re sleeping — I feel relieved. I’m not sure what I would have done if you had undergone some sort of transformation inside that mask.
However, you suddenly grab your stomach and moan.
“Wh-What’s wrong? Are you all right? It’s because you’re eating strange things!” I peer at you, concerned.
All of a sudden, you begin to glow. I have no idea what’s going on. A neon light is emitted from every pore in your body. Like one of those strange creatures who wriggle about this world. You’re trying to become part of this night town by ingesting something forbidden.
Your entire body glistens with rainbow colors, from the ends of your hair to every inch of your skin.
With makeup and fashionable clothing, you transform from a rustic girl into some unfamiliar creature. That’s how it seems. And that gives me an extremely awful feeling.
“Spit it up! You don’t need something like that!” I desperately insist in a shrill voice.
I want you to live, pure as you are, unsullied and untainted. I don’t want you to become something unfamiliar to me. But to live is to become sullied. Knowledge and experience cling to you like filth, covering you.
You can’t stay a pure baby forever.
That is terrifying.
Your form might change, illuminate, and even though you’ll always be you... I don’t like it. It’s so frightening, I can’t take it.
However, still illuminated, you pass by me.
You’re like a fairy. Or rather, like a changeling child that has been replaced.
I run after you, as if you might be stolen away.
Wait.
Don’t leave me behind.
Don’t leave me alone.