Chapter 5
DETERMINATION
I
The day was busy from the start.
Mima made three TV appearances in just the morning alone. Added to a spate of magazine interviews and other obligations, even her assistant Rumi had trouble keeping track of the full schedule. But no matter how frantic the day got, Mima did it all without a single complaint.
Only after she’d finished her guest role on an afternoon variety program did Mima and Rumi finally have time for lunch. The pair went into a small café adjacent to the Aozora TV studio. The lunch crowds had mostly cleared out. No one recognized the singer.
Rumi ordered a salad, and Mima went back and forth on a few items before deciding on the pilaf.
With a displeased twitch of her nose, Rumi said, “I still can’t get over what she tried to do to you.”
“She’s always hated me,” Mima said, “but the feeling is mutual.”
“Do you remember that magazine interview where she said she thought of you as her rival? Even back then, she sounded so full of herself.”
“She’s ambitious.”
Rumi’s frown brought creases between her eyebrows. “It’s not a matter of being ambitious. She’s delusional. You know what I think? I think she’s not right in the head.”
Without meaning to, Mima let out a sigh. “Rumi-chan, you shouldn’t talk like that. Badmouthing her won’t help anything.”
“I mean it. She’s crazy,” Rumi said, twirling her fork in the air for emphasis. “Look at how she used that reporter to try to drag you down. I wouldn’t put it past her to…” Rumi lowered her voice. “To be behind those calls and letters.”
Mima gently waved her hand, dismissive. “I don’t think so. I almost wish she’d put that man up to it—I’d feel safer, at least—but no, I don’t think he has anything to do with her.”
“I’m not so sure,” Rumi said, lips pouted. “I don’t mean to speak out of place, but you don’t know what that Eri is capable of doing. She even came up with that nonsense about you and Aran Naoto.”
Mima lowered her head and kept it that way for a while. Rumi watched her with concern, then asked, “What’s wrong, Mima-san?”
Mima snapped her head up. “Okay. I feel like I can tell you this.” The singer downed the water in her cup with a single gulp, then said, “She didn’t make up that story about Naoto.”
Rumi’s eyes went wide as she exclaimed, “What?”
“We dated, but it was just for a little while, and it was more than two years ago. I was serious about the relationship, but I could tell he wasn’t, so I broke it off.” Mima stared off into the distance. “He’s nothing more than a happy memory now.”
“But… but…” Rumi looked right at her. “You’re not dating him now, right? Eri is trying to make it sound like you’re still a thing. How low can she go? And you know what? Even if—if—you were still dating him, that’s your own business. Anyone who’d go tattling to some sleazy reporter doesn’t deserve to be an idol!”
II
Entering the K-TV studio building, Mima passed the open door to the makeup room and saw Ochiai Eri inside, standing before a full-length mirror. Her self-proclaimed rival was talking with the director of Sunday Studio, but Mima couldn’t make out their conversation save for the man’s occasional booming laughter.
Keeping her expression casual, Mima entered the room.
The director noticed her. “Hiya, Mima-chan.”
Mima offered the pair a slight bow, which Eri returned.
Mima approached Eri and asked, “Do you have a moment?”
The younger idol responded with a nod that said she knew full well what this was about.
The two women made their way to a small, plainly-decorated café inside the K-TV building, where Mima got straight to the point.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Mima demanded.
Eri’s lips formed a knowing smirk. “Whatever do you mean?”
“You can feel however you like about me,” Mima said, brushing aside a stray lock of hair with a casual flick of her hand, “but I’d like you to stop these cowardly attempts at sabotaging my career.”
Eri laughed through her nose and replied, “Mima-san, I respect you. That’s why I chose you as my rival. I even said as much in that interview. Surely I would never try to sabotage someone who I admire.”
Mima returned the laugh. “Eri-chan, let’s drop the pretenses just for today, shall we? I want us to both say what we mean. Now, you know a man called Sakuragi Shin, don’t you?”
“I’ve met him,” Eri replied. “He’s a reporter for a third-rate magazine. He did an article on me.”
“And that’s all?”
“Of course that’s all. Are you suggesting there’s something more?”
Anger colored Eri’s expression, but Mima’s stare remained unflinching.
Mima said, “This Sakuragi was watching my apartment. My manager caught him and loosened his lips. Do I have to say more?”
“It sounds like you’re suggesting that I sent Sakuragi to your apartment.” Eri rose from her chair and let out a deep laugh. “Mima-san, you really are getting old and out of touch. I’ll tell you how the world works. It’s a reporter’s job to dig through famous people’s private lives. I don’t tell him where to go—he goes wherever he decides. I never put that Sakuragi up to anything.”
Mima slapped her hands on the table and stood from her chair as well. “I see how it is. Well, I know what you are. I won’t ‘suggest’ that you seduced that reporter into doing your bidding. But I’ve got one thing to say to you. You keep saying I put on an innocent girl act. But I believe that an idol has to have some real innocence in her. If that comes across as an act, or as being out of touch, then so be it.”
Mima looked Eri right in the eye and continued. “I’ll make this as clear as I can. Eri-chan, you can make yourself as sexy as you want. But sexy and promiscuous aren’t the same thing. Idols who are loose with men always end up hated by their fans. The core of an idol’s pride is the innocence deep within her heart. You’d do best to remember that.”
Eri doused Mima with the water in her cup. She shouted, “I don’t care what you think!” and ran from the café.
When Ochiai Eri got to her green room, she immediately took out her cell phone. She called a number twice without getting an answer, but her third connected.
“Hello, Naoto?” Eri said, irritation edging into her voice. “Are you free tonight?”
Aran Naoto spoke with the hoarse voice of someone who had just woken up. “Is this Eri? Why are you calling me so early?”
“Come on, I can call you whenever. So, are you free tonight?”
“I need a little more notice than that,” Naoto said. “How about another day?”
“If that’s how you’re going to be, then fine. I don’t need to see you again, anyway!”
“Hey, hey, wait a minute.” Naoto sighed. “You always have to have it your way, don’t you?”
Eri said, “So you are free tonight. Roppongi. 10 p.m. You know the place. Don’t be late.”
Naoto clicked his tongue. “You’re not giving me much choice.”
Eri hung up, cutting off any further protest. Her lips formed a tight smile as she thought to herself, I’ll show that poseur. We’ll see what she has to say for herself then.
She looked at her own face in the green room’s mirror, affording herself a deep nod.
III
The man carefully began unwrapping the cloth from his arm. Sharp pain flashed across the limb, and the pungent stench of rotten flesh filled the air. Clinging to the cloth were splotches of blackened blood and dried out flakes of skin.
The man closely inspected his bared forearm, the middle of which had turned a blackish red. The area stung with a prickling, itchy pain.
The man probed the painful patch with his fingernail. With each little scratch, the discolored flesh flaked away and scattered. The layer beneath was sticky and wet. He gave the area a wipe with the scrap of cloth and intense pain spread through his entire arm.
The man narrowed his already small eyes and felt grief.
“A failure, after all,” he muttered under his breath, gazing upon that festering patch. “I might need to revise my plans.”
He impatiently rubbed at the discolored skin with all five fingers of his other hand. The flakes of dried skin mixed with the wet, sticky layer below to form gelatinous globs, which he wiped away with the cloth.
But even after the arm had been scrubbed clean, dots of a clear, oozy fluid reemerged from the wound. He pressed one with a firm finger, and yellowish pus spurted out.
The man’s eyes remained fixed on his sickly-colored forearm as he fought to bottle up the rage building in the pit of his stomach.
“Why? Why wouldn’t it take?” he shouted.
He threw the blood and pus-covered rag to the floor. “I went through so much effort to take that skin. I worked so hard for it—for Mima’s sake! Why? Why wouldn’t it stay on?”
He pounded a fist against his desk. He put his hands over his head and dropped to the floor, convulsing.
The skin must stay on. The skin must stay on. The skin must stay on…
He lifted his head.
Before him was a poster of Kirigoe Mima. Innocently smiling, she gazed at him. She spoke inside him. If you really care about me, don’t give up. Keep trying—just a little bit longer.
He felt like something had struck him on the head.
“That’s right, that’s right,” he said. He sat up in the middle of the small room. “This is for Mima’s sake. I can’t give up so easily.”