1.02: Elephant in the RoomHer mother continued to be my ally. She called sometimes, telling me little things: which university Reiko had chosen, what clubs she’d joined, what kind of men she’d dated and discarded.

  The st one she mentioned was older. Four years, at least. Rich. Polished. Cold.

  “She wears too much makeup around him,” her mother said once, voice tight. “She’s trying too hard. I don’t like it. Would you go to the amusement park for me? I need to know if their retionship is healthy. When she talks about him, she smiles, but her eyes…” She shook her head.

  I nodded dumbly at her. She was right. Something in me snapped right then. Even though I knew she might hate me for going, I had to know.

  That lie carried me all the way on the train, hunched over with my hoodie’s hood up, gripping the strap with sweaty fingers. I’d stopped at my pce and grabbed it on impulse. I repeated that I’d accept her retionship with him like a mantra. If she’s smiling, you’ll leave her alone. If she’s ughing and smiling genuinely, you’ll walk away. If she’s glowing around him, you’ll disappear for good. That’s all I need.

  But the moment I arrived at the park gates, my resolve wavered.

  The pce was huge. Families drifted past with balloons and popcorn buckets, couples walked hand-in-hand toward the roller coasters, and children shrieked from the direction of the Ferris wheel. I’d worked here making money in that elephant costume for a whole summer, the sun turning the costume into a fuzzy oven.

  The air still smelled of yakisoba, sunscreen, and something sweet. Probably caramel and cotton candy. I barely registered any of it.

  I kept to the edges, shoulders rounded, doing everything possible to blend into the background. I avoided open spaces like the pgue, moving between vending machines, behind signs, ducking under awnings, slipping between groups. Every time a staff member looked my way, I flinched, worried they’d accuse me of creeping.

  Why did I come? What am I doing? She told you to leave her alone. She meant it this time.

  But that didn’t stop me from searching.

  After nearly an hour of wandering, I started losing hope. Maybe she wasn’t here yet. Maybe her mother had given me the wrong day. Maybe this was all one more humiliation I’d chosen for myself.

  My stomach rumbled, reminding me I hadn’t eaten. I drifted toward a concession stall, ordering yakisoba, mostly to justify standing there.

  The smell almost snapped me out of my trance.

  Almost.

  That was when I saw her.

  Reiko-chan stood near a shaded seating area, holding a drink with a slice of lemon floating inside it. Her makeup was heavier than usual. It felt deliberate, polished, almost theatrical. She wore a stylish outfit that seemed chosen to impress: yered accessories, a short skirt, color-matched jewelry. She looked… strangely expensive. Way more than I thought she made. It was like she belonged in a magazine.

  Right beside her stood him.

  Taller than me. Sharper than me. Hair styled immacutely, his jawline sculpted out of pure smug. His suit was too crisp, too well-fitted; his watch caught the sunlight proudly. That thing alone was worth more than my yearly sary. So much for all my hard work.

  I froze behind the yakisoba stand.

  My heart climbed into my throat.

  They were talking about something I couldn’t hear or make out. Well… he was talking and she was listening and nodding. The guy seemed to love the sound of his own voice. I studied them for a long moment, and took a long sigh. I was about to turn away, satisfied that Reiko would be taken care of for the rest of her life if things went well for her, but something caught my attention. I knew her better than anyone else.

  Even at a distance, something in her posture was wrong.

  Her smile was bright, but the one she wore right then wasn’t the kind she used to give me. Her smiles were sincere ever since the pyground. That smile that she wore wasn’t the kind that reached her eyes. Was he too shallow and stuck up to notice that?

  This smile was practiced. The smile of an actress incarnate. Polite. Maybe even strained.

  Still, she looked… happy enough. Or she was trying to be. Did that count? Maybe it did.

  I stepped back automatically, pcing my yakisoba on a nearby bench. I couldn’t it eat now. I couldn’t move. I pressed myself behind a light pole, then slipped behind a row of gacha machines, keeping only the faintest line of sight.

  My chest tightened painfully.

  She’s with him now. She chose him. You don’t belong here Susu. Walk away.

  I almost did right then. Maybe trying was enough, despite what her mother said to me. I had the feeling that I’d be ruining something important for her if I took another step towards her. So I turned away and took two steps toward the exit.

  “Idiot!” Reiko’s voice cut through the noise. “Susu! You don’t like amusement parks. Why are you here? I know exactly what you’re doing.”

  She wasn’t wrong. I liked them even less after working as a mascot at one. This very same one.

  She stormed over, parting the crowd, her eyes bzing. He followed her, his hands shoved in his pockets. There was something sinister about him. I shrank back on reflex. Was I more afraid of him or her?

  “N-no… I just wanted to see you one st time,” I said, honesty spilling out before I could shape it into something less pathetic.

  “Get lost,” she said, grabbing my shirt and yanking me down to her height. “I don’t want to see you ever again, Susumu. We aren’t friends anymore.”

  She let go. I fell onto the pavement.

  The older man strolled up, still hands in his pockets. “Who is this punk?”

  “Nobody,” she said, without looking at me. “Just a fool. Doesn’t matter. He always runs away crying.”

  He smirked at me and shrugged, extending his arm to Reiko with a smile.

  She nodded, taking his arm and walked off on the man’s arm.

  I didn’t cry. It started raining in Tokyo some time ter.

  That was the second time I lost her.

  After that, her mother’s calls got shorter, then eventually stopped. When I finally gathered the nerve to call Reiko’s number myself, it went straight to voicemail.

  I was worried about that, so I kept trying. It was stupid of me. I knew that.

  One day it didn’t go to voicemail.

  This line is not in service.

  When I heard that, I told myself it was fine. My st connection with Reiko was gone. It was done, a clean cut. That was probably for the best.

  I told myself she’d be happy with Mr. Cold Eyes. I’d never find another woman like Reiko, not for the rest of my life and if I never did, that was fine with me. There was only one person in the whole world who could fill that hole in my heart.

  I threw myself into my work until the days blurred. When I got home, I’d colpse on my futon, not even bother to do anything with my computer, nor my video game consoles. Those sorts of things weren’t as fun anymore. My collection of Tekku games and other fighting games all reminded me of her. I enshrined them in a dispy case and found other things to do.

  There were all kinds of things that I could explore. Things that wouldn’t make me think of her.

  I was gradually getting better, my head clearer, my determination firming, but then the call came.

  I was on the train home early from work that day. I felt wrong in a way I couldn’t describe… like my skin didn’t fit on my bones right. The car rocked gently, fluorescent lights humming overhead, advertisements smiling down with carefully manufactured cheer.

  I stared at a spreadsheet on my phone, pretending to care.

  Caramelldansen started pying.

  For a second, my heart stopped.

  I stared at my phone’s screen for a long moment.

  Reiko-chan.

  Caramelldansen.

  Do-do-do-oo, yeah-yeah-yeah-yeahVi undrar ?r ni redo att vara medArmarna upp nu ska ni f? seKom igenVem som helst kan vara med (Vara med)S? r?r p? era f?tter (Oa-a-a)Och vicka era h?fter (O---)G?r som viTill denna melodi (Oh-wa-ohwa-ah)...

  I fumbled the phone up to my ear, so happy. “Reikochan!”

  The line was silent.

  Then it cut.

  Maybe she’d misdialed, I thought wildly. Maybe she’d reconnected her number and hit mine by accident. Maybe she was embarrassed and hung up. Maybe this was my chance to reconnect with her! If she could call me…

  I hit redial so fast I almost dropped the phone.

  This line is not in service.

  Something rustled in my p. A folded newspaper y there. It felt heavier than my computer. I didn’t remember picking a newspaper. Red pen circled a headline in clumsy, smeared strokes.

  University Student Reported Dead in Apparent SuicideBody Discovered at Foot of Shinjuku High-Rise

  Her name was there.

  The world thinned and spinned.

  By the time I realized I was crying, my face was wet. By the time the train reached my station, my legs were moving on their own, running up the stairs, through streets I didn’t see, up the stairwell to my apartment.

  I smmed the door behind me, locked it, and slid down until I was curled in the genkan, screaming into my knees.

  For a week, I barely left that spot.

  Days bled into each other after that.

  Nightmares of her broken body. Nightmares of an empty mask watching. Vomiting up what little food I could force down. Showering once, twice a week if I could stand seeing my own face in the mirror.

  Eventually, hunger and rent notices combined into something heavier than my grief.

  I dragged myself back into the world.

  That’s how I ended up here again, in front of the mirror, knotting my tie with shaking fingers, telling myself over and over:

  You have to go to work.

  You can’t die yet.

  You haven’t even found out what really happened.

  “She’d never kill herself. Not her.”

  I finished the knot, grabbed my briefcase, and shuffled to the kitchenette. Breakfast was toast with the mold cut off and a makeshift egg omelet, dressed with ketchup in a stupid little winking face. Why’d I do that? Pretending that she was alive, my wife, cheering her husband on as he left for work in little ways that mattered. Pathetic.

  I wished that silly ketchup doodle was my real face. People ughed at stupid things. Laughter would be better than the usual anxiety and fear that people showed.

  I ate every bite like it was a st meal.

  Keys. Phone. Wallet. Jetman keychain hanging from the strap of my briefcase, pstic worn smooth by years of anxious fingers.

  I slid into my shoes in the genkan, hand on the doorknob.

  For a second, everything around me blurred and I was back in the park, sun hot on my neck, sand under my shoes.

  A little girl stood in front of me, fists on her hips, trying to look brave.

  “What kind of yakuza kid are you supposed to be?” she demanded.

  My chest ached.

  “The kind who keeps going when the world’s falling apart,” I whispered to the empty apartment.

  I opened the door.

  And stepped out into the st normal day of my life.

  Relwing