“Here’s what your schedule was like as of yesterday,” Bando said. “Tomorrow, you have a short event at Shoppers Plaza in Kyobashi, Osaka. The day after, you’re in some of the surrounding cities—first a handshake event at a department store by Hirakata Station, and then in the evening, a guest appearance at a karaoke contest run by local businesses in Korien. That’s it for those two days. Nothing too tough, there. But now that the whole team is on the same page, everyone will be working hard to fill in your schedule.”
Bando downed his sugary coffee impatiently and sprang from his folding chair like there wasn’t a minute to spare. He took two, then three steps toward the door before he stopped and belted out, “Oh, that’s right. I almost forgot what I came in here for.”
He returned to the metal chair and angled it to face Yuma. “You said there was something you needed to talk to me about. Something about a letter?”
When he said “letter,” Yuma’s body stiffened. Her eyes serious, she said, “Yes. A letter—a strange letter.”
Seeing her expression, Bando sat up straight and listened.
Yuma opened her clutch bag and pulled out the crumpled note in question.
“This is it,” she said. “It was so creepy, I threw it away right after I read it. But then I realized I wanted you to see it. So, here it is.”
When Bando finished reading the letter, he tilted his head in thought and said, “Hmm. You’re right, this is unusual—although, I do think it’s probably just from a fan gone overboard.”
“I probably shouldn’t be scared, but I am,” Yuma admitted. “I know it’s just a letter. I can’t quite explain what I’m feeling, but it’s not good.”
The idol looked over her shoulder. She thought she’d felt someone watching her.
“But Yuma,” Bando said, “no matter how scary it might feel, it’s just a letter, right? I’ve managed several idol singers now, so I know about this kind of thing. There’s a lot of this sort of fan out there. With Asaka Ai, we got a letter that said, ‘If I can’t marry Ai, I’ll kill myself.’ But you know what? He never did. If you start worrying over what’s in every single fan letter, there’ll be no end to it.”
Bando crumpled the letter back into a ball and tossed it into the wastebasket.
“Yuma-chan,” the manager said cheerfully, “if you’ve got enough time to worry about something like this, I’d rather you worry about your promotional tour. To be perfectly frank, our future is riding on it.”
Leaving the room, he stopped on the other side of the door and said, “If the person who wrote that letter tries to do anything to hurt you, I’ll give my life to protect you. Don’t you worry about it.”
He gave her a smile and a wave.
Yuma wasn’t entirely convinced, but she did feel a lot better.
For the fifth time that day, the man with the elephant eyes reached into the mailbox outside his room. Inside was a postcard ad for a loan shark business and several fliers for so-called “delivery health” call girl agencies. That was all he found.
He had gone to great efforts to find Yuma’s apartment, and a week had passed since he delivered his letter. She should have replied by now. She should have replied days ago.
The man returned to his room and clicked his tongue in frustration.
Why hasn’t she replied? Why?
He had poured his heart into his letter, so why hadn’t she replied?
True, he hadn’t written his name or address on the envelope. But the pair shared a soul bond. Signing it “From Someone You Know” should have been more than enough. And yet no reply had come.
The man asked himself, Is she wrong for not sending me a letter? Or was I the one who did something wrong?
No, he answered. I didn’t do anything wrong. And neither did Yuma. It wasn’t either of us. Someone else must have interfered. That’s the only answer.
The man pulled a Yuma fan club magazine from his bookshelf. The self-published fanzine was called Yukko Club—Yukko being the fans’ nickname for the singer. He opened the magazine and searched for the fan club’s phone number.
Once he got what he needed from the magazine, he got out his notebook and looked at the schedule he’d compiled of Yuma’s events.
Her next appearance was in Shoppers Plaza at Kyobashi. He narrowed his elephant eyes and made up his mind.
I’ll meet Yuma in person, and I’ll hear it straight from her mouth, with no one else to interfere. Then I’ll know how she feels about me.
Yuma took the bullet train to Shin-Osaka Station, then by way of a couple local transfers, she reached Kyobashi Station. On the platform there, a group of male students recognized her.
She had done everything she could to blend in as an everyday woman, with her hair in a ponytail, her makeup easy and natural, and her eyes behind black-rimmed glasses. Most of her fans wouldn’t have recognized her, but some of the particularly sharp-eyed students among the group had realized who she was, and they approached her, blabbering.
A pimple-faced junior high schooler slapped his friends on the back as he shouted, “See, I told you it was Kawasaki Yuma!”
A plump kid with silver-rimmed glasses stared at her agape and said, “It really is her!”
Another boy held out his right hand and said, “Would you shake my hand, please?”
Then, in the next instant, a number of the students thrust out their hands toward her.
In a manner that spoke to her familiarity with this kind of thing, she smiled for them and started to extend her arm to meet their handshakes. That was when Bando suddenly appeared from behind her, shouting, “No! No!”
He got in front of Yuma and spread his arms wide to keep the youths at bay.
He told them, “If you want to shake her hand, then come to the event space in Shoppers Plaza. If she does it special for you here, it wouldn’t be fair to the other fans who are waiting.”
The students glared at the balding interloper and hurled insults at him as they walked away.
“Why are you such a jerk?”
“Baldy!”
“I don’t want her autograph anyway.”
With a put-upon smile, Yuma looked to Bando and said, “It was just a few handshakes. I don’t mind.”
“You can’t be like that,” he lectured. “Once you start indulging them, they’ll just want more. Shake their hands, and they’ll want autographs. Give them an autograph, and they’ll want a picture with you. There’s no end to a fan’s desires.”
He led her to the end of the platform, where a set of doors led into Shoppers Plaza. He ushered her through.
A few minutes later, the next train arrived at the platform. Office workers, men and women alike, crowded out from the train’s doors. The platform was suddenly filled with people.
Lagging a little behind the throng, a single man was spat out from the train. With a slight stoop, he stood on the platform. He cleared his throat with a cough that could have come from a man twice his age. He spat out a gob of phlegm. If anyone had looked closely at him, they would have seen his unusually small, timid eyes.
It was him. It was the man with the elephant eyes.
A group of high school girls happened to be walking toward him as they chatted away about something or other. When he looked at them, his dark-skinned face turned a deep red. Quietly, he moved to the side of the platform so that they wouldn’t look at him.
He must have been in a bit of a panic, because when he moved, something dropped from his pocket. He let out a small, stifled cry and quickly bent over and scooped up the object—a large box cutter.
After greeting the marketing and promotion staff of Shoppers Plaza, Yuma went to an impromptu green room set up for her in the company dormitory. The four-and-a-half tatami mats of the Japanese-style room were dotted with stains and smudges, lending the cozy space a lived-in feel.
While her manager was out of the room for a pre-event meeting, Yuma quickly got into her stage costume—a white blouse, cowhide vest, jean shorts, and a brown cowboy hat. It was her costume for “Lariat of Love.”
The singer retrieved her microphone from her bag. She tested its weight in her hand and gave herself a moment to get re-accustomed to its feel.
Her manager had been the one to come up with the idea for throwing the mic like a lasso. Since Yuma had been in the baton twirling club in junior high, she learned the technique in short order. An idol without that experience would have taken years to perfect the move. Even still, despite already possessing the fundamentals, Yuma had needed to practice extremely hard before she had it down.
Several times, she had complained to Bando, “This is pointless. I’ll never get it.”
Her third song, “Summer Love,” ended with a move where she had to lift up the edge of her miniskirt and stick out her butt. When she started out performing that song, she cried and cried out of embarrassment and sadness, but learning this one was even harder. The lessons had taxed her, not only mentally, but physically as well.
When she saw “Lariat of Love” start rising up the Oricon chart, she felt truly happy. All her hard work was being rewarded.
Yuma returned the microphone to her bag. She let down her ponytail and brushed her hair all the way back. With the aid of the mirror over the sink, she applied a light layer of makeup. Now she was ready.
She plopped down on a floor cushion and waited for Bando to summon her.
Yuma made her entrance onto the small stage in Shoppers Plaza’s event space.
There among the seats was the man. His eyes were surrounded with little wrinkles, just like those of an elephant. When he saw Yuma in her cowgirl costume, he whispered, “Ah. Now this is Yuma.”
A trio of junior high school boys occupied the seats next to the man. They each unfolded one of those Sanshin Denki posters and waved them in the air.
Idiots, the man thought. What’s wrong with you people? You’re just a bunch of perverts lusting after little girls.
Filled to capacity with primarily middle and high-school-aged boys, the event space crackled with excitement. The man regarded the exuberant crowd with an annoyed glare.
They don’t understand Yuma’s true greatness, he thought. I’m the only one who understands. I’m the only one for her!