Just then, the rabbit’s cutesy mouth curled into a twisted snarl, and a voice rasped out. “I’ll…kill…you.” The scratchy voice, muffled by the mask, sent an even deeper terror into Kunio. “I’m running out of time—not that you’d understand. September twenty-sixth. Her first live stage performance will be on the Marusho roof.”
Kunio fought the rising urge to run away screaming and instead put everything he had into squeezing the rabbit’s neck. The creature swung up his arm and drove an open palm strike into Kunio’s face from below.
Kunio’s head rocked back. His arms weakened. Then the rabbit was back on his feet, grabbing the stunned Kunio by both shoulders. He plunged his giant head toward the young man’s face.
Again and again, the rabbit head-butted him. The costume’s head was only a shell constructed out of light materials, but after enough strikes Kunio’s face began to welt and bleed.
Kunio no longer had any fight left in him, but the crazed rabbit kept slamming his head into the young man’s face. At some point, Kunio lost consciousness. His upper body had gone limp, and he rocked back and forth like a wooden marionette, each forward motion met with another strike. His face was a disfigured mess. Wide rivers of red blood flowed freely from his eyes, his nose, his mouth, and from wherever the skin had rent with another opening. An occasional gasping cough indicated he was still alive.
The rabbit took Kunio’s bloody face in both hands and pulled it up against his own. Then he whispered, “I’ll do this to anyone who tries to get in between me and Yukiko. And don’t you forget it.”
Yukiko sat at a makeup table in the green room provided for her by the Marusho department store staff. As she applied her makeup, she thought about her decision to go forward with the concert.
She was scared, certainly. She was very scared.
She knew she should have begged and pleaded to call off the event, but she’d done nothing of the sort.
It was the last thing she wanted to do, really—even after her manager gave her an easy way out, saying, “If you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to. I can come up with an excuse for you.”
It was a nice offer, but Yukiko viewed canceling her performance as letting that repugnant rabbit win. She didn’t want to lose—especially not to that rabbit. Her hatred toward her costumed stalker had grown into something too large for her to keep in check. What better revenge could she have than capping off her successful exhibit with a stellar live performance?
The police hadn’t been able to find Shimizu Kunio, a volunteer bodyguard who had gone missing from outside her apartment. Only the police and the young man’s direct relatives knew of his disappearance. The president of Yukiko’s fan club had gone to great lengths to ensure that the media remained ignorant of her volunteer security force.
Had the media found out about Kunio’s disappearance, reporters would have been on her like a pack of hyenas. Blaming her would have made for a great scandal.
Yukiko worried that the rabbit might have done something to the man, though she kept the thought to herself. She didn’t even tell Yoriko.
The rabbit’s true intentions remained a total unknown. All Yukiko knew was that he seemed to be fixated on her. Perhaps his ultimate goal was to make Yukiko his. If that were the case, then it stood to reason that he had attacked Kunio for interfering. Yukiko was convinced that logic was sound.
Up until now, the rabbit had terrorized Yukiko by appearing near her. But that was all he had done. He struck terror into her only to vanish like so much mist. That was his consistent pattern.
But now he had attacked someone. Even if that person had interfered, the change in the rabbit’s behavior was alarming. Had he finally revealed his true, violent nature?
She didn’t think that was what had happened—or at least, not exactly. Instead, she believed that the rabbit was now prepared to get her by any means necessary.
Yukiko shivered. Apparently, she hadn’t fully numbed herself to the terror.
Will he come here? she asked herself, then answered, He will. I’m sure of it.
But she wasn’t going to let him do as he pleased any longer. She was going to hold her concert just as planned, and if the rabbit came, she wouldn’t be alone. The talent agency’s staff was on hand, along with Oe Yuji—hungry to avenge his comrade—and a group of plainclothes cops there on Kanda’s insistence. Surely, they would be able to subdue him.
Yukiko glanced over to Yoriko, who was sitting on a sofa near the makeup table. Her manager looked on with a troubled brow.
The singer gave her as bright a smile as she could muster and said, “Yoriko-san, try not to think about it too much. If he comes, he comes.”
Yoriko nodded in acceptance. “Well, put on a good show today,” the manager said, sounding more reassuring than Yukiko could have managed in her position. “I took a peek at the audience, and the seats are absolutely packed. I heard there are hundreds who couldn’t even get in.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Yukiko said without pausing at her makeup. “Sometimes it’s easy to forget how grateful I am to have them.” She reached for the outfit she’d chosen for the event, then asked, “How much longer until I go on?”
Yoriko glanced at her watch. “About fifteen minutes.”
Nearly half of the Marusho department store’s rooftop space had been reserved for the live concert. The ice cream, yakisoba, and various other food stands had been cleared away, and a stage erected in front of the open space.
These department store temporary event spaces were often slapdash affairs, but Marusho went to the effort of doing it right. The stage platform scaffolding was solidly in place, and they had even set up a stage truss complete with lights.
Some four hundred chairs had been provided, and all of them were full. A standing-room crowd made up another three hundred or so attendees. People had even filled the rooftop’s amusement area, where there was a modest carousel, single-seat miniature trains, and other smaller-scale attractions. According to the event organizer, Marusho had never had a more highly-attended event.
As Yukiko walked from the green room to the backstage wing, she looked out at the packed crowd and couldn’t help but feel deeply moved.
There’s so many people, she thought. And they’re all here to support me.