The slight outline of a new moon hung high over Suginami Ward.
Another loud BANG echoed through the night air. Keshi lay awake in bed in a cold sweat, staring at his front door through the darkness of his room.
"Yo! You awake?"
Hearing the voice, he exhaled a sigh of relief.
⋆ ⋆ ⋆
Keshi cracked the door just enough to see his neighbor, Eiji, grinning on the other side.
Eiji stood a head taller than him, with a long, boyish face—offset only by the scruff on his chin. His short, messy hair was dyed a brownish-orange color, with emerging roots that gave it the appearance of a custard pudding.
With the flair of a magician, he flashed an envelope. Even through the crack, Keshi could see it was stuffed full of paper yen notes.
"Happy Birthday!"
Keshi knew Eiji would try to come inside if he opened the door any wider, so he spoke through the narrow opening, hiding in the shadows.
"Eiji… Forget it. I'm out."
Eiji stared at him for a long moment, then disappeared from view. Keshi could hear him let out a loud, dramatic sigh in the hallway.
"Ugghhh, I knew it!"
Late one night, a few weeks after he first moved in, Keshi came back to the apartment to find someone sitting out on the curb, smoking cigarettes inside a ring of peanut shells and empty beer cans. He introduced himself as the noisy guy across the hall. Keshi didn't even know he had a neighbor.
After a bare minimum "nice to meet you," Keshi made his way up the stairs, only to hear footsteps coming up behind him—it was Eiji, still talking.
As soon as he made it to the fourth floor, Keshi cut him off with another "well, it was nice meeting you" then quickly retreated into his apartment. To his horror, the door didn't shut behind him.
What happened next was a total blur, but somehow, Eiji ended up in Keshi's bedroom, reclined across his futon, where he spent the next several hours eating snacks, spilling beer on his sheets, and talking his ear off about—Keshi couldn't remember what about—he couldn't believe what was happening.
Once the initial shock had passed, Keshi just sort of let it happen. He'd never had to kick anyone out before, and didn't know how someone like Eiji would react.
To his relief, he didn't have to do much of the talking. Every now and then, though, Eiji would interrupt himself to ask Keshi an invasive personal question. Each time, he lied. As if he was going to tell this total stranger about his life.
By the time Eiji got up to leave, the sun was shining through the curtains. On his way out, he remarked that he was glad to finally have a friend in the apartment his own age. Keshi would later learn that Eiji was 28 years old—11 years his senior.
Ever since that night, Eiji had latched onto him, and made a habit of showing up at odd hours.
Mostly, he'd just let Eiji talk—about their 60-year-old apartment manager's sex life, the girl on the train he thought was a mind reader, how much better he'd look with a gold chain, or—most often—his original manga. He'd been working on it for 15 years, and it seemed to be about something different each time.
Keshi decided he didn't mind too much. He had insomnia anyway, and was often up. Lately, however, all Eiji could talk about was one thing.
Eiji suddenly reappeared in the doorway—full of passion.
"You know what I had to do to get this?! Bad - boy - shit!"
He slapped Keshi on the forehead three times with the wad of cash—punctuating each word—then shoved the door open with his shoulder, forcing his way inside. He had on bell bottom jeans and a faded pink t-shirt with the English word: "THAT'S" written in bright red lettering. In his hand, a large bag of snacks and drinks from the convenience store.
"Don't be a pussy, dude. I told you, these guys are the real deal! You're really gonna wait till you're 20?!"
Keshi yawned, rubbing his left eye groggily.
"I can go another two years without an Ichor. I've made it this far."
Three months earlier, Eiji had gotten an Ichor implant. Keshi was surprised. He'd only ever heard the guy shit-talk them—and the people who had them—which, these days, was pretty much anyone over 20. In fact, he seemed to have an almost pathological aversion to anything new, even though the Ichor had been out for almost a decade at that point.
Having grown up around elderly people, Keshi was used to this kind of attitude, but thought it felt a little forced coming from someone like Eiji.
Once he got one, though, he changed. "Back before I had an Ichor…" became a standard sentence opener. It was annoying. Hanging out with him had become a pain, since he was always multitasking or distracted by something. This meant he'd become less talkative, which forced Keshi to be the one to steer conversation, leading to long stretches of silence.
Now he had that same twitchy, glazed-over look in his eyes that everyone else had—where you could tell their attention was split between you, and a dozen other things happening far away, in a world you yourself had no access to.
"The Ichor stare" had become common parlance, and was mocked by an ever-decreasing minority. It was easy to make fun of, and frustrating when you were trying to get someone's full attention. But when Keshi called him out on it, Eiji got defensive and said it was no different from him always being on his phone.
The truth was, Keshi was jealous. The Ichor was a tool—the most incredible tool ever created, and Eiji was just using it to watch porn and play video games.
Keshi had his own ideas for how he'd use one, but being underage, he put those thoughts out of his mind.
Until recently.
A few weeks earlier, Eiji had met someone on the Neuro Net who claimed he could do the procedure for a cash fee, and he'd been trying to convince Keshi to do it ever since.
Of course, Keshi had heard of people getting implants before they were legal, but it still seemed too risky. He'd finally scraped together something of a life for himself in Tokyo.
Their building manager, a man named Sano, had bent a few rules so that he could stay there rent-free.
It was a better deal than he could have hoped for. An old danchi-style apartment, built in the 1980s. Two side-by-side bedrooms—though he kept the other one closed off to conserve heat—connected by a narrow hallway with a kitchen and bath on either end.
A bit run down, but more space than he knew what to do with, and Keshi didn't mind the cold. He'd borrowed an old kerosene heater from Eiji, who kept his own place at an impossibly high temperature. If nothing else, he thought, the gas might put him to sleep.
In any case, if he got arrested, not only would it put Mr. Sano at risk, it would blow up his whole living situation—and he wasn't about to go back to sleeping on the street.
For the first time in a long time, he had something to lose.
After weeks of harassment, though—mostly just to shut him up—Keshi finally said yes, knowing Eiji didn't have the cash, nor was he likely to find any.
"Come on, dude. We can play games together, it'll be so sick, like… Guhh!"
Eiji shook his hands excitedly. He kicked off his flip flops and headed straight for Keshi's room. Keshi sighed, locking the door behind him.
Light spilled out into the entranceway as Eiji hit the switch. Like the rest of his apartment, Keshi's bedroom was stark, lacking any real furniture or decorations.
"Man, I haven't seen this much cash since I was a kid…"
"You really want me to risk jail time—just to play Dreadzone with you?"
"Bro, no one's going to jail. People do this shit all the time, alright? My contact said they get hundreds of clients every winter. You think anyone's passing their entrance exams without an Ichor? Dude, half those assholes at Tokyo U cheated."
He let out a sharp tsk.
"Knew it."
"Yeah? Well, what if they screw it up? That's my brain, Eiji."
Keshi knew it wasn't a strong argument. The Ichor's whole gimmick was that it didn't actually touch the brain.
Eiji plopped down onto his futon.
"Alright. What's really going on, huh? I never see you anymore, and suddenly you're all—"
As Keshi stepped into the light, Eiji let out an involuntary shout.
"Jesus! Look in the mirror lately?"
Keshi turned his head toward the bathroom—where a gaunt, pale stranger stared back at him through sunken eyes. After a moment, the reflection furrowed its brow and ran its fingers through its hair.
Maybe he had started to neglect himself a little. Sure, he hadn't been eating much, and he could probably use a bath.
He couldn't remember when exactly he'd last done either.
"Yo, what kind of psycho doesn't lock their phone, anyway?"
Keshi whipped back around.
"Hey!!"
As he lunged toward Eiji, Keshi found himself staring into a black screen—after scanning his face, the phone unlocked. Realizing he'd been tricked, he tried to wrestle it from Eiji's hands—Eiji fended him off with his feet while scrolling.
"Fine, if I have to force it out of you, I will!"
"Give it back!"
"Would it kill you to open up just once?! We're supposed to be friends—ever think maybeIcould help?"
"That's not—"
All of a sudden, he stopped struggling. Keshi went slack in confusion as Eiji let out a tired groan.
"Not Frog Girl, dude…"
Keshi watched his phone slide across the tatami. An old photo of him and Runa building a snowman filled the screen—in it, he wore an orange frog hat that matched Runa's green one.
He sprang up and snatched the phone, quickly closing out of the photo.
At some point, he'd let it slip that he was looking for someone. Aside from a name and a few photos, though, he hadn't said much else. Eiji seemed to think she was just a school crush or something.
Even so, he soon started tagging along as Keshi did his walks around the city. Eiji didn't have a job, living comfortably off of his UBI and government assistance payouts, which left him free to come and go as he pleased.
At first, he had a list. Names, places that might provide a lead. Sometimes they'd look together; other times they'd split up and regroup later. When the list ran out, Keshi didn't know where else to turn, so he just wandered aimlessly, asking people on the street if they'd seen her.
No one had.
At a certain point, it was clear Eiji's heart wasn't in it. He'd try to pull him away—to get Korean BBQ, go bowling—or check out some old movie he'd had never heard of. Usually, he'd give in, but it always felt like such a waste of time.
Once Eiji got an Ichor, though, he started making excuses, and lately, he'd stopped coming altogether.
Keshi didn't care. He hadn't come to Tokyo to make friends, or to hang out.
He was there on a mission.
Eiji rummaged through his convenience store haul, pulling out a pack of Jagariko potato sticks and a box of chocolate almonds.
"Maaan, we looked literally everywhere… If she were here, your ass would know."
He tossed Keshi the chocolates without glancing up. Keshi caught it and frowned.
"Forget it. I'll do it alone."
"I'm just saying… you're trying to find a missing person in a city of missing people."
"You want me to just give up?"
"Nah, man. Never! But I know a guy stuck in a rut when I see one."
Eiji cracked open a can of beer and took a swig, then let out a refreshed sigh.
"You love her. Kinda gay, but whatever. I get it. All I'm saying is… this?"
He gestured loosely at Keshi, spilling beer on his bed.
"Isn't working. Time to wake up to reality."
Keshi furrowed his brow. For the past several weeks, he'd been cooped up in his room avoiding just that.
Months of fruitless searching had taken their toll. He'd become paralyzed, spending his days and nights scrolling through old photos and chats, re-reading years of unread messages.
His once powerful motivation had begun to warp into something else—a gnawing desperation—that was starting to eat away at him from the inside. He could feel himself disappearing by the day.
At times like these, he could hear Runa's voice in his head:
"You are so embarrassing."
A joke, when she'd say it.
Eiji popped a few potato sticks in his mouth, chewing loudly.
"I'm not saying an Ichor'll fixsh all your problemsh…"
He paused, thinking as he swallowed.
"Even though it pretty much solved all mine."
"Then maybe your problems weren't real to begin with…"
Keshi stared at the floor, suddenly ashamed.
"You could be right. She could still be in Tokyo. Or, her parents grabbed her and got the hell out. She could be stuck on a farm in Bumfuck, Tochigi for all we know."
Eiji crunched down on another Jagariko.
"Hey, she's half, right? They might've left the country. I would, if I had that kind of money."
That first night Eiji came over, Keshi had said he was from Minato Ward. A convenient lie. But ever since, Eiji had it in his head that he went to a fancy private school, and came from a rich family.
"Point is, you're not gonna find her wandering around the city like a lost puppy. And you're definitely not gonna find her on that phone. I don't know if you've noticed, but the Internet's a ghost town."
Keshi glanced down at Runa's profile. Next to her photo it said:
Last online: 4 years ago
"Listen. I know I talked mad shit before, but this thing—it'll turn your whole world around. And I'm not telling you to stop searching. I'm telling you there's one place you still haven't looked…"
Eiji pointed to his own head.
"Here."
Suddenly—as if sparked by something beyond his senses, an image flashed across Keshi's mind—only for a moment.
Had he been dreaming before?
It had been so long since he'd dreamt of anything at all…
The image vanished.
Eiji shrugged.
"Who knows, maybe she's out there, searching for you too."
Keshi turned to stare out his apartment window. When he got to Tokyo, he told himself he'd do whatever it took.
And for a while, he did.
His hand tightened around Runa's profile photo.
If there was even the slightest chance…
"Either way, you gotta stop this, or you'll wake up ten years from now, full of regret, knowing you can never go back. Take it from me…"
Keshi watched the lights outside pulse and swirl inside his dark reflection in the glass.
"...Nothing's gonna change until you do."