The man clutched his hands to his head. Weakly, almost whining at first, he said, “I… I… I wasn’t calling to harass her. I could never have gone to such great lengths simply to bother her. I’m only thinking of what’s best for Mima-san. I’d do anything to save her. Those phone calls came from a place of sincere devotion. I even took off Ochiai Eri’s skin for her!”
Rumi’s face turned white. “You…took off Ochiai Eri’s skin?”
But the man was still talking. He pressed his hands around Mima’s. “You remember this place, don’t you? This is where you gave your first performance of your debut song, ‘Innocence Forever!’ You wore a white cardigan and a yellow flared skirt. You were the picture of cute. And that ending! Cherry blossom petals filled the stage, and you finished in this stance.”
The man struck a pose, his arms and legs bent, backside sticking out a little. It was too surreal, repulsive, a sight from a nightmare—this dingy man striking a pop idol’s pose in this dingy room. Reflexively, Mima looked away.
The man said, “The flower petals danced about in the wind, just like Mima-san’s flared skirt; the fluttering edge suggested a glimpse of her panties but never truly revealed one. To this day, I can remember the excitement, my heart beating in my chest.”
He continued. “That’s the Mima-san I want to remain. That’s my only desire.”
He looked at Mima and then to Rumi. “But Mima-san changed. It was a shame, but she changed. And once someone changes, it’s hard to get them back the way they were. Even so, it’s not too late. I’ve resolved to bring Mima-san back to her proper course—clearly my old passive methods, like the letters and calls, won’t do anymore. I admit I maybe went a little overboard with how I brought you here, but it needed to be done.”
The man withdrew a knife from the shopping bag. The blade’s tip gleamed in the dull light.
Rumi gasped. Mima positioned herself between Rumi and the man.
He said, “I truly, truly am Mima-san’s fan. My adoration for her is pure. Untainted. I’ve never touched myself to her, not even once. I would even die for her.”
The man’s thick red tongue came out and passed across his lips. As he spoke, the obsession shone brighter in his eyes.
“Mima-san, do you understand the purity of my feelings for you? You really understand, don’t you? Don’t you think it’s wonderful for a person to be so pure of heart he’s willing to die for someone he loves? Mima-san, I know you understand the purity of my feelings, because that’s who you used to be. When you debuted as an idol, you were innocent—like me. My purity, my innocence, those are what you need, now more than ever.”
Mima and Rumi paid little attention to the speech. Instead, their thoughts were focused on finding an opening for escape. But just now, they sensed that if they moved even a hair’s breadth, that massive knife would claim their lives—and so they kept stone still.
“I’ve thought about this very seriously,” the man was saying. “If Mima and I became as one, then Mima would be able to forever remain the same Mima she used to be. My soul and her body—that would do perfectly, wouldn’t you agree? And so I thought long and hard. How could I bring us to that perfect union? I thought and I thought—and I found the answer.”
The man opened his beady eyes as far as he could manage, his face that of a man lost in dreams.
“It goes like this—I’ll take off my skin.” He paused, then said, “You heard me right. I’ll take off my skin—from my face all the way down to my waist. Then, Mima, I’ll take off your skin. You can figure out where it goes from there.” As he inspected his knife’s edge, he added, “Rumi-chan, you can figure it out, too, can’t you?”
Rumi’s lips trembled as she said, “You’re—you’re insane. You’re insane!” She clung to Mima from behind.
The man looked at Rumi as if she were the one talking nonsense. “I’m not insane. I’ve never been more clear headed. So. Right now, I’m going to remove my skin. Then I will do the same to Mima. After that, I’ll put her skin over my face and body. On the outside, we’ll be Mima. On the inside, we’ll be me. We two will be one. The Kirigoe Mima of today will go back to being the Kirigoe Mima of her debut.”
The man laughed. “This makes me so happy. I’ve never felt this happy before.” Carried away by his emotions, the man kept on laughing. As he did so, he turned his back on them.
Mima saw her chance.
She squeezed Rumi’s hand and whispered in her ear. “Listen to me. We’re going to run away. I’ll count to three, and then we run.”
Rumi’s face was pale, but she nodded.
“Okay. One… Two… Three!”
At the same time, Mima and Rumi took off running, fleeing out the door and into the darkened hallway.
“Damn!” the man said—and then he was after them with astounding speed.
In her panic, Mima lost control of her footing and collided into a wall. The next instant, the man’s hands were on her back. With incredible strength, he pulled her into him, wrapped his arms around her, and hauled her back into the green room.
“Let go of me!” she screamed. “Let go of me! You say you’re my fan, don’t you? Then let me go.”
Grumbling under his breath, the man tossed her over by the sink at the rear of the room. He was retrieving a spool of brown packing tape from his bag when Rumi came back in.
Mima shouted, “No, Rumi! Stay away. Save yourself!”
Rumi ignored her and charged at the man, who promptly clubbed her on the back of the skull with the butt of his knife. The woman grunted and collapsed in a heap.
The man pried up the edge of the tape with his fingernails and gave Mima a grin. “All right, hold out your hands. Ah, and no more running. If you don’t do as I say, I’ll stab Rumi until you listen. Now be a good girl and hold out those hands.”
Closing her eyes in acquiescence, the idol thrust her arms out in front of her.
Moving quickly, the man wrapped the tape around her wrists, then laid her down on the floor, where he bound her ankles together in the same style.
“Good,” he said. “Now you won’t be going anywhere. I need you to be patient for a little while, but it’ll be over before you know it. I got plenty of practice peeling up Ochiai Eri.”
The man tapped the flat edge of his knife against his cheek and showed Mima a chilling smile. “I go first. I want you to watch this, Mima. This is how deep my devotion is for you.”
The moment he finished talking, he pushed the knife’s tip into the bottom of his scalp. Then, in a single motion, he traced around the side of his face until he reached his chin. With a sickening wet sound, a thin incision formed in his skin.
“Arrggh!” the man cried. “Ouch… Oh, this hurts. But I can take it.”
Again the man put the knife’s tip at the middle of his hairline, then made an identical cut down the opposite side of his face.
He adjusted his grip and began another incision, from the base of his neck to the top of his shoulder. The man’s howls of pain echoed through the darkened hallways. With each scream came another splatter of bright red blood.