Day 5, August 22, 2015
Aria sat quietly on the upward escalator of the subway station. Sunlight fell across the back of her hand, turning it a faint red. She stared at the patch of skin for five seconds without moving.
She was wearing that old floral dress she'd bought from ZARA back in 2015, before it got overdone. The fabric was thick and slightly suffocating in the heat. She hadn't brought a bag. Her phone was tucked into one pocket, loose change into the other, like someone who had just crawled out of another timeline with only the essentials.
Her weekend began with a cup of black tea and an unexpected silence.
No AAPL. No BABA. No charts. No green and red spikes.
When she woke up, her first thought was—"The market's not open today."
It took her half a minute to realize it was Saturday.
Sitting on the tatami mat, she opened her phone and tapped into the Notes app. At the very top, it still said:
Day 5. You are still here.
She didn't write anything new. She copied the line, then deleted it.
A LINE message popped up. Rina: "Let's go to 109. I heard they're having a sale."
Aria hesitated a few seconds before replying: "Okay."
The streets of Shibuya looked like the center of the world. People, people, and more people, all pressed into each other like air wasn't a necessity.
At the intersection, Aria stood waiting at a red light, eyes sweeping across the crowd, short sleeves, short skirts, selfie sticks, perfume, the glare of plastic shopping bags. Snatches of Mandarin, Korean, and Kansai dialect drifted past her ears. It all felt like she had stepped into an open-world video game called Reset Life.
Rina showed up five minutes late, wearing a white Supreme T-shirt and a denim skirt, sipping from a 7-Eleven milk tea.
"You look better," she said, twirling her straw. "A few days ago, you looked like your mom was about to fly to Tokyo to set you up with a blind date."
"Just a bit anxious," Aria said with a smile.
They wandered through the building from the first floor to the fifth, trying on dresses, checking out sneakers. Rina was a stream of company gossip who kept clocking in late, was hooking up with someone from HR, and discovered Kobayashi was making double her salary.
Aria mostly nodded along. It had been a while since she last saw Rina, and somehow, chatting with an old coworker felt good. Like being human again.
"You know the new temp's sleeping with Kobayashi, right?" Rina asked suddenly, eyes gleaming with mischief.
Aria didn't answer. She just put the hanger back on the rack and said, "Knew it."
They ended up at a Chinese restaurant near the edge of Center Street. The place was nearly empty.
A handwritten red sign taped to the door said "¥980 Lunch Set." The glass door handle was a bit greasy. The signboard was faded. Entering felt like walking out of Shibuya's polished fashion bubble and into a dusty version of Chinatown.
Cash only. The menu was a stack of A4 sheets sealed in plastic covers, edges curling from wear.
The waitress was a middle-aged woman with a heavy accent and a wary look in her eyes. She seemed to recognize Rina and gave her a quick nod. "Back again, huh."
Rina ordered fried noodles and dumplings. Aria picked a random item—mapo tofu over rice.
While they waited, a boy who looked like he worked at a host club walked in and ordered three takeout meals. He slapped a thick wad of cash on the counter without counting it. The owner took it quickly and slid a business card into the plastic bag along with the food.
Aria glanced at it.
A QR code and a faded line of text:
Mr. Liu | Nightlife | Currency Exchange | Stock Market
She didn't say anything. Just looked down and kept eating.
"This place's pretty popular with the Kabukicho crowd," Rina said quietly, biting into her dumpling. "It's cheap, and… convenient. You should add that guy on WeChat. My friend says he does foreign currency exchange. Way better rates than the banks."
Aria smiled faintly but didn't reply. She turned off her phone's shutter sound and casually snapped a photo of the back of the card.
They had just stepped outside when the sky above Shibuya turned soft orange with the evening light. The crowd shimmered in it, each person's head catching a bit of glow. At a crosswalk, Rina nudged Aria's arm and gestured with her chin.
"Over there."
A drunk salaryman was stumbling out of a pachinko parlor across the street, cheeks flushed, hair messy, dragging two plastic bags.
One bag held what looked like gift boxes wrapped in gold foil and red ribbons. The other contained something metallic and shiny—tiny silver balls or some kind of prize tokens.
He turned and walked straight into a narrow shop next door with a dusty old sign that said "Specialty Buyer."
Rina squinted and smiled. "Let me tell you one of Japan's little secrets."
Aria didn't say anything.
"Gambling with cash is illegal here. But pachinko's everywhere. So what do they do? Easy. You can't win money directly. You get 'prizes' instead."
She pointed to the silver balls.
"Then you walk out and take them to a completely 'unrelated' shop next door, and they magically turn into cash. Technically legal. Actually laundering."
She paused for a second, then added, "People in Kabukicho use the same method. Especially clubs, massage places, and restaurants that deal with a lot of cash. These exchange shops are always conveniently nearby."
Aria's gaze followed the drunk man as he exited the shop, now with crisp bills in hand. He tossed both plastic bags into a garbage bin without looking back.
She said softly, "So the money's clean. The prizes are gone. A perfect loop."
Rina nodded. "Exactly. Japan's version of legal laundering. Quiet, smart, and polite."
They walked on through the crowd. Aria didn't say another word.
That night, she curled up on her tatami mat, staring at the ceiling. One finger tapped absently against her phone screen.
She opened her photo gallery and stared at the snapshot of Mr. Liu's card.
She didn't add him.
She didn't delete the photo either.
She had seen the edge of something.