In a Daze

by Jin (Shizen no Teki-P)

  The pathway, just barely wide enough for a person to travel through, was lined on both sides by thin wooden fencing and the walls of apartment complexes.

  “Wow, this is pretty narrow…”

  Without answering, the woman plunged down the path, inducing me to reluctantly follow her. A shortcut to our shoot location, perhaps? It was starting to seem a bit odd.

  Once inside the corridor, the sensation of being a lab rat in a maze was overwhelming.

  If I turned a corner and a giant insect or something was waiting to attack me, where could I escape to?

  I was carefully advancing forward, taking care with each step, when I came to an abrupt halt. The sneakers of the woman I was following were stopped in front of me.

  “Here we are.”

  She pointed to a door, the number 107 on it, nearby the halfway point of the corridor. The wooden fencing stopped just long enough to allow for the door.

  “What? Here?!”

  Before I could finish, she opened the door and went inside.

  “H-hey, wait a…Hey!”

  The door closed, leaving me completely alone outside.

  Taking a more careful look at the building, I saw nothing but a sheer wall of concrete above the wooden fence. No windows, no nothing.

  It looked like no residence I was aware of; it was more like a warehouse or aboveground fallout shelter. And yet there was the number 107 on the door, its purpose an enigma.

  “This…this really isn’t my ‘friend’s house,’ is it?”

  If this was my friend’s house in the TV show, her parents must be moonlighting as mad scientists. A trip to my friend and her dad’s illegal human-experimentation lab wouldn’t have been completely out of the question for episode two of the series, but given that this was still the premiere we were shooting, you’d expect at least a little more background plot first.

  The building obviously looked sketchy, but for some reason, I was gripped by the urge to try opening the door.

  There were no other entrances to the building, no other nearby addresses, and yet this was 107. It piqued me, somehow.

  “Well…not like I know how to get back anyway. Guess I got no choice.”

  Unable to bottle my curiosity, I took a breath and opened the door. As I expected, this definitely wasn’t the house of my teen girlfriend.

  The moment the door was opened, I was greeted by a long, rectangular space, around the size of a roomy living room.

  Bare pipes ran across the ceiling, and the room was lit by a large number of unadorned lightbulbs hanging freely below the piping. Otherwise, the space was well adorned with fancy furniture—a table, a sofa, a small wooden armoire with a globe on top of it. For all the world, it looked every bit like a secret hideout was supposed to look.

  I could see all the usual home appliances around the complex, from the TV and microwave to the computer and refrigerator. The air conditioner was on, and the place certainly felt lived in.

  The atmosphere was still odd, however, what with the old, plainly non-Japanese volumes that lined a beat-up bookcase. It might be more accurately described as a witches’ coven, assuming the witches didn’t want to give up their modern conveniences.

  Four doors were spaced evenly across the far wall. The idea that there were more rooms to discover deeper inside made me ponder what kind of structural plan this building had.

  The woman from earlier was standing in front of the kitchen next to the entrance, fully stocked with an array of cooking tools. Taking another look around, I once again failed to find any TV staff or filming equipment.

  The sense of foreboding I felt ever since we arrived slowly began to take center stage in my mind.

  “Er…Could I ask where we’re…?”

  “Hey, Kano, here she is. You mind giving her the whole spiel for me…? Hey, wake up!”

  The hooded woman, just as uninterested in my questions as before, prodded the figure lying on the sofa.

  His body shuddered slightly, and I heard a slow, drowsy voice respond.

  “Mmmnghh…Mmm? Whudda you mean, ‘she’?”

  Moving his face away from the magazine that was covering it, a tired-looking man with narrow, catlike eyes revealed himself.

  “The new girl. The one you said would be showing up today? You’re the one who made all the arrangements.”

  “Oh, uh…Yeah, but…like, why is she…?”

  “You mind shaking the cobwebs out for me, man? Just give her the story.”

  “Huh. Well, okay. Whatever.”

  The man she called Kano sat up on the sofa. He took a look at me and flashed an eerie smile, as if just remembering something.

  “Um…Can I…um…?”

  “Welcome, newbie, to the Mekakushi-dan! Thank you very much for helping us out with our operation!”

  Standing up and giving me a brisk, gentler smile than before, he began to energetically regale me, talking over my stilted question.

  “Currently, we’re involved with things like evading the ‘eyes’ of the police as we infiltrate really dangerous places and, you know, borrow a couple things. Stuff like that. I’ll fill you in on all the details later…Well, okay, not all the details, maybe. You know what I mean. Like, I want to fill you in on everything I can, though. Anyway, this is our hideout. Maybe you guessed this already, but you thank that lady sitting there with that death stare of hers—oh, don’t give me that look! Yeah, yeah. Kido, then. She’s our boss. But don’t let her scare you—it’s real comfy in here, once you get used to stuff. Anyway, all this decor is her doing. As far as our member roster goes, there’s her, there’s me…Oh, I’m Kano, by the way. Us, and around two others…well, maybe three, if things turn out. That’s about all of us. We don’t usually do much in, like, the public eye, so to speak, but, you know, we like to keep things loose around here. Uh, what else…?”

  “W-wait! Wait a second! Um…the meka-what? Dangerous places…? We’re, we’re still talking about today’s drama shoot, right? Where’s the director? I…I came here to tell you I’m not gonna be an idol anymore! But you…You…Who are you guys?!”

  My mind had completely failed to catch up with this sudden turn of events. I had far too much to ask.

  Was this all part of some scene or another…? It couldn’t be.

  The script handed to me a few days ago was just your textbook high-school romance story.

  There was nothing in it about hideouts or “infiltration” or anything.

  I had to speak up because he was giving me this whole tale in the most matter-of-fact tone of voice. They’ve definitely got the wrong girl here. Help out with their “operation”…? I had entertained aspirations of trying a little part-time work for a change of pace, but nothing like this.

  “…Hang on a second. You’re a pop idol…? Kano, what is going on here?”

  The hooded woman—Kido, the boss, whatever you wanted to call her—stormed up to Kano, who did nothing but nod and smile at every question I had just asked.

  “What do you mean, what? She’s, like, all the rage right now. See? Look.”

  Kano opened up the magazine he’d shielded his head with earlier and showed the boss a page.

  The issue had a special feature devoted to the single I was debuting today. Oh, lord, I hated that photo they took of me. They used the pic for the two-page opening spread, and my eyes are half-closed. Awful.

  The hooded woman snatched the magazine away and peered at it, the color gradually leaving her face as she cycled her gaze between me and the article.

  “You…She…You told me you had promised to meet this new candidate today and wanted to check up on her first…You said you wanted her to join up if we liked her…”

  “Yep. Sure did. All lies.”

  “You said she had ‘potential’…! You made me drag a public celebrity over here, Kano!…And you lied to me?!”

  She repeatedly rapped her knuckles on my face in the article as she continued her griping.

  I’m right here, you k
now…She could have at least a little courtesy.

  “Yeah, I know I lied, but I didn’t think you were listening. You just sat there listening to your music. Like, you didn’t even acknowledge I was talking to you! Then you go out by yourself and bring her back here on your own volition? If you ask me, this is more your fault than mine.”

  “I went out by myself because I kept shaking you and you wouldn’t wake up! If you were awake that whole time, why didn’t you at least call me?!”

  “Because you never pick up! You’re, like, always listening to music on that thing anyway! Like some sad, friendless nerd, you know? That, and I didn’t feel like bothering.”

  “Oh, so instead you made me go out and—”

  “—Um, excuse me!”

  The two of them simultaneously turned toward me. The man called Kano was smiling as always, but the other woman looked far more hostile at the moment.

  “Um…so, is it fair to say this is all a big mistake, then…?”

  After I hesitantly asked the question, the woman called Kido rubbed a frustrated hand on her hooded head, sighed, and answered.

  “Well…it looks that way. Sorry for the confusion. You can go ahead and leave if—”

  She stopped midway, suddenly realizing something. The color drained from her face all over again.

  Simultaneously, Kano, who had sat back down on the sofa, began to softly giggle to himself.

  “You! You knew this was the wrong girl the whole time and you just told her everything! We can’t let her go if she knows what we’re doing, can we?!”

  “Ha-ha-ha…Well, come on, Kido! You kept bugging me to give her the story, right? Oh, man, what a trip this is—”

  Kano was sadly prevented from any further gloating by a sudden fist to the head.

  Kido, so calm and emotionless for most of the short time I had known her, had transformed. Her expression belied panic and rage. The casual thought came to me that she couldn’t have been too far removed from me agewise, maybe a little older.

  I imagine I should have been a bit more anxious, but if anything, I felt fairly serene. It was as if these people were incapable of instilling fear or nervousness in others. They were odd, of course, what with calling themselves a “dan” like they were a gang or something and living in an oddly well-decorated hideout, but I somehow couldn’t will myself to see them as bad people.

  “Um…”

  I opened my mouth to ask a question, but was cut off once again.

  “Ughh…Look, what’s your name?”

  “Huh?”

  Kido, sighing as she asked the question, took a seat next to her cohort.

  “I said, your name. Mine’s Kido. This dingbat over here is Kano.”

  She was female, no doubt, but her manner of speaking was more gender-neutral than anything else. It was hard to gauge her personality.

  The man next to her, still smiling gleefully despite the “dingbat” evaluation, looked fairly mature at first glance, but upon further review, he couldn’t have been that much older than me either.

  “Oh, uh, my name’s Momo Kisaragi. I’m sixteen years old, and…”

  I instinctively gave my age alongside my name. It was not something I would call a habit per se, but she reminded me of the judges I dealt with during my auditions.

  Ugh. I did not need to be reminded of that. I fretted over the idea they would treat me like some bubble-headed idol, all too ready to flout her fame around others.

  “Kisaragi, huh? You sure are an idol, I guess, what with giving your age alongside your name and all.”

  See? This is awful.

  “No! I didn’t mean that! It was just an accident! I’m not in the habit of doing that or acting like this is an audition or anything! I mean, I don’t have any friends or anything, so when I get talking, I kind of get carried away and say weird things sometimes! Ha-ha…ha-ha-ha…”

  —The silence was painful. I wanted to crawl into a hole and have someone shovel dirt over me.

  “Yeah? Hmm. Must be pretty tough.”

  “Y-yeah…”

  Now they’re taking pity on me.

  Kano began snickering again. Kido silenced him, this time with a shot to the stomach.

  “I’m not really sure what to do…Really, to be honest, I’d love to just send you back home right now, but now that we’ve revealed all of this to you, that would be kind of bad for us.”

  “I guess so…now that I’ve heard all that…”

  “Thanks to this idiot here.”

  “Ha-ha-ha! I told you, Kido, this is all your fault by this…Okay! Maybe not!”

  The moment Kido turned her head, Kano immediately began to backpedal, arms held to the side to protect his stomach.

  “You know, though, maybe this isn’t as terrible as you think. I was looking at this live feed on the net earlier, and, like, that ‘trait’ you have is amazing.”

  The net…? Live feed? Video from that horror show out on the street? I had no idea so many people saw that.

  “Amazing? Her?”

  “Oh, for sure. Hey, did you always have a tendency to attract attention to yourself? Like, even before you started being an idol?”

  “Huh? Uh…yes. Yes, I did.”

  Something about way he used the word “trait” agitated me.

  Noting my response, Kano lightened her stare, her attention diverted to this new discovery.

  “Judging by the scene out there, it’s a pretty strong trait, too, right? I’m impressed you decided to be an idol at all.”

  He acted like he knew everything about me. I drew my eyes downward, feeling like he had a direct link to my heart.

  “My mother was having a lot of trouble workwise for a while. I thought I would help out a little. But why…?”

  “Hmm? Oh, just a hunch. ’Cause, like, even by celebrity standards, that’s not normal. How much people are drawn to you, I mean. It’s like the total opposite of Kido. Man, if Marie were anything like you, I bet she woulda offed herself by now. Ha-ha-ha!”

  “Marie’s special. Anyway, that’s a whole different thing.”

  “Yeah, true. Speaking of which, where is she? Do you think she’s still angry?”

  “Um…I think I’ve kind of lost track here…”

  That was understating it. I was in a state of utter confusion. They didn’t seem like bad people, but I still had no idea who they were, no idea what would happen to me next.

  “Oh! Sorry, sorry. Um…well, just have a seat, all right?”

  “Okay…”

  The two of them pointed me to a sofa between themselves and the table.

  Sitting directly across from Kano, I began to feel like this was turning into a very unexpected intervention.

  “To put it as simply as possible…like, how Kido mentioned earlier too, letting you go home right now would present us with a few problems. So I want you to stay with us for a little while. I know that’s, like, an enormous inconvenience to you, so in exchange, you could say, we have a proposal.”

  “A…proposal?”

  “Yeah. To sum up, we can cure you of your body’s, uh, tendencies. More like ‘suppress’ them, maybe? I think we can help with that. If you need us to, of course…That’s about all we can offer, right, Kido?”

  “Looks like it, yes. But either way, right now, we can’t let you leave.”

  This was the most unbelievable thing I had heard all day.

  It was the first time I ever met someone who offered to do something about my “tendency.”

  But it went without saying that I couldn’t easily accept it.

  Judging by this conversation, it was entirely possible they were just trying to get on my good side.

  How could they “cure” me of anything in the first place? It’s not like I was sick, exactly.

  If I could have done anything about it, I would have long ago. But I didn’t have a clue.

  “Well…um…If you could cure it, that’d be great, but…”

  “Yeah, see? I figured y
ou wanted to be rid of it. You sure can’t control it, I can tell that much. Everybody’s got their own natural traits, of course, so we’re gonna have to test out a few different approaches as we go, but…”

  “Test out?”

  Could I really place my trust upon these people?

  I had just met them, I knew nothing about their backgrounds, and they were definitely into something bad.

  But at the same time, I had never met anyone before who understood what my body was doing to me.

  That faint hope—“if I could ever get to be normal”—was now so strong, it drove me to rely upon these perfect strangers at my time of need.

  “You know, though, this kind of brings back memories. Remember that conversation we had, Kido?”

  Peering into my face, Kano closed his eyes, as if trying to remember something.

  “Yeah…I do, maybe.”

  “You were still pretty cute back then, Kido. All, like, ‘Oooh, I’m gonna disappear if this keeps up, help meeee’ and—ow ow ow!”

  Before he could finish, Kido grabbed Kano, taking a firm grip of his side. I wondered if he would be all right. She did seem to like hitting there the most.

  “I shoulda made you disappear first.”

  Despite the death grip on his side, Kano kept smiling.

  “Heh-heh. All sweet memories now, aren’t they…? You know, though, she isn’t gonna believe us if we just, like, say we’ll cure her. You mind showing her, Kido?”

  “Why me? You do it.”

  “Yeah, but mine isn’t as obvious as yours, right? It’d be easier if we had Marie here to show her, but I ain’t gonna poke a stick in that hornet’s nest yet.”

  “Ugh…All right. Guess it’s my fault too, a little.”

  With that, Kido rose with a sigh and walked to the doors on the far side of the room. Opening the second one from the right, I could see something shaped like a cot inside.

  “Um…what are you gonna show me?”

  “Well, you know, some evidence to show why we might be able to cure that trait of yours. You’ll see what I mean once she gets started.”