Mima pressed, “That’s all he said?”
“That’s all he said,” Rumi said.
Mima hummed in thought. She swirled her wine slowly, a seemingly subconscious action. Then she said, “Here’s the thing—the photo album, it’s going to be really racy.”
“Racy?” Rumi said, blinking rapidly.
“You know, sexy. Dirty. We had the planning meeting today. Bon-chan said that if I’m going to do a photo book, I’ve got to really go for it.” Mima grinned. “Maybe even full frontal.”
Rumi looked uncertain as to how she ought to respond. Cautiously, she said, “And did you agree to it?”
“Of course I did. These days, an idol can’t survive on just being cute.”
Rumi bobbed her head in understanding, but her expression carried a hint of dejection.
Mima continued. “What I wanted to talk with you about was how far I should go. How much do you think I should expose?”
Rumi took in the question, then said with tact, “You know better than I do, but I think you should hold back as much as you can. You’re still selling singles and albums as you are now.”
“Fifty thousand copies, maybe.”
“Then I think you shouldn’t change your image too much. I’d rather Kirigoe Mima remain the pure girl. And…” Rumi stopped herself.
“And?” Mima prodded softly.
Rumi turned her face away and covered it behind her hands.
“Rumi-chan, what’s wrong? If there’s something you want to say, you can say it.”
Mima took Rumi’s hand. Rumi shook her head from side to side. After a moment, she seemed to have gathered herself, and she looked Mima in the eye and said, “Mima-san. Please don’t be mad at me when I tell you this.” Her eyes were serious. She pressed on. “I’m… I’m worried about your fans.”
“My fans? You mean that my current fans might leave me,” Mima said, failing to see why that had gotten Rumi so shaken up. “We’ll deal with that if it happens. If I worried about that sort of thing, I’d never be able to do anything.”
“No,” Rumi said with a big shake of her head. “That’s not it. I’m not worried about those fans. I’m worried about the…obsessive fans.”
Obsessive fans. Mima’s expression stiffened. What is she trying to tell me? She couldn’t mean…
Thoughts of the man on the phone returned to her again.
Her voice rising, Mima demanded, “Just who are you talking about?”
“Some of your fans don’t like the idea of you changing your image,” Rumi said.
“Sure they don’t, but so what? Who cares about what those fans think?”
“But… but…” Rumi was shaking her head more fiercely now. “Mima-san, please listen to me. The truth is… the truth is…”
Crying, Rumi told Mima about her encounter with the shadowy figure outside the green room.
“I didn’t think I was ever going to have to tell you,” Rumi said, sniffling. “I thought he was just some freak. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and I read the letter he gave me. And—and…”
Mima could never have imagined someone like that could have gotten so close to her—right outside the room where she herself had been. “What did it say?” Mima demanded, half shouting. “Tell me, what did it say?”
Reluctantly, Rumi dug through her purse and withdrew a crumpled scrap of paper.
Mima took the page—snatched it, really. “This is his letter?”
It was a perfectly ordinary piece of stationery. She placed the paper on the table and carefully smoothed it out. The words had been written with a ballpoint pen. She poured over the message, intently focused.
The more she read, the more the color drained from her face.
Dear Mima-sama:
I expect that you might never read this letter.
That’s because I am unable to mail it to you. I don’t know your address. I’ve tried as best I can to learn it, but to no avail.
I found your phone number from your appearance on Oshare Fifties. (You may recall the segment where you called your own answering machine. I recorded it on video tape and played it back hundreds of times until I figured out your number. It was a lot of hard work.) I thought I might be able to look up your address from the phone number, but that ended up being wasted effort.
That’s when I got the idea to go meet you directly at the television station and hand deliver this letter.
But that might not be possible. There is a chance you will never read this letter, but I am writing it with the belief that you will read my message to you.
Here it is.
Please stay the way you are.
I hope you will never change and that you will always stay the same.
I heard a rumor—which I highly doubt is based on any merit—among a fraction of your devoted fans that you are going to put out a risqué photo book. Personally, I can’t believe such a nasty rumor.
But if someone is pressuring you, forcing you to do it against your will, I will stake my life to protect you.
You are Kirigoe Mima.
Please go on being Kirigoe Mima.
If you were to change, I don’t know what I would do. I might even lose myself completely… The next thing I know, we both could be dead. I don’t want that to happen, so please, stay as you are.
Sincerely,
Your Darling Rose
P.S. I’m worried that this letter might not reach you. I will call you soon to find out. I promise.
When she’d finished reading the letter, Mima glared at Rumi and shouted, hysterical, “Rumi-chan, why did you hide this letter from me? Why didn’t you tell anyone about that man?”
Rumi shook her head like a little child scolded by her mother. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I was wrong. I…”
Mima took in a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. She took several such breaths until she gradually felt more in control.
Seeing Rumi a sobbing wreck before her, Mima realized this was no time to let her own emotions run away from her. Rumi kept quiet because she didn’t want to upset me, Mima told herself. She was only trying to do right by me.
Mima gently grasped Rumi’s hand and said, “Rumi-chan, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. It’s all right now. I won’t yell at you anymore. You can relax.”
Rumi squeezed Mima’s hand back tightly, then looked at the idol with teary eyes and said, “I-I was scared. That man scared me. There was something wrong about him—something really wrong.”
Mima put her arms around Rumi and hugged her tight. “It’s all right. It’s all right,” she said, as much to herself as to her assistant. “He can’t come here. We’re safe.”
Rumi was nodding, her head against Mima’s chest, when the phone’s ring split the night.
Mima’s body stiffened. Her heart threatened to jump from her throat.
I will call you soon to find out, the ominous letter had said.
Mima reached for the receiver.
Rumi jolted as if she had touched a high-voltage current. “Don’t answer,” she shouted. “You can’t answer! It might be him…”
Mima pulled back her hand. The two women, frozen like statues in their embrace, stared at the phone as its ringing droned ominously on.