Boogiepop Returns VS Imaginator Part 1 (10 page)

It’s often said that every town has two faces, one for day and one for night. That's true enough, I suppose, but realistically, the difference is not so distinct, not so clear. Sadly, there is really no easily understood line drawn between the territory of safe, happy daylight and the sinister domain of the night.

For example, right now there's a girl sitting on a bench in front of a train station, sunlight gleaming brightly all around her. She's wearing traditional casual fashion, and anyone who looked at her would think she was a very ordinary middle class girl.

She appears to be waiting for somebody. She's got a town events guide rolled up in her hand, and she keeps tapping the ground with the toe of her shoe.

But if you watch the girl long enough, you'll begin to see a pattern hidden in the tapping. There's a rhythm to it, the same spacing between the taps, repeating.

Wait a little longer, and at last a boy comes over to her. He looks ordinary as well, clothes and hairstyle pretty bourgeois, like he gets a decent allowance.

“Yo! Waiting for someone?”

Not the most natural pick up line ever, but not likely to attract much attention if overheard.

“Yeah, at one o'clock,” the girl nods. Mind you, the time is well past three.

“Okay, this way,” the boy says, jerking his chin for her to follow.

This particular location has a police box in it, and there's never been a fight here. It's just that kind of place.

Whether she'd been waiting for him, or waiting for someone else, they leave the square together and head into town.

They look like any other young couple. They don't stand out at all. Why, they are the most ordinary pairing in the world.

They wander towards a deserted area of town, a zone slated for redevelopment.

The old buildings haven't been knocked down yet, and they're surrounded by dingy office buildings and crumbling stores that have long since shed all signs of what they used to sell.

The whole lot is surrounded by ropes with “no trespassing” signs hung on them. Yet the young couple pays them no attention, and ducks right under.

They tum down a narrow space between two buildings, where several men are waiting for them.

“There you are.”

“Only one today?”

These 'men' all appeared to be less than twenty years old.

The boy quickly goes over to them, and they all look the girl over for a moment.

She stands and takes it. “. . . . . . . . .”

“So, how much do you want, girl?” the oldest looking of the men asks. He wears a leather jacket and flashes her a sleazy grin.

“Everything,” the girl answers back, emotionless.

“Huh?”

“
I'd like you to give me everything you have
,” the girl says without a trace of hesitation.

The men look a little put out. “Girl, do you even know what you're doing? You know who we are?” the guy in the leather jacket says fiercely.

“I do. You're flunkies for a drug dealer. You sell drugs to whoever gives the signal.” Her face is completely calm, no eagerness, nothing unnatural.

“Flunkies?! What we got here's gonna go for a few million. You got that kinda cash?”

“No,” the girl says flatly.

This outlandish declaration leaves the men gaping. “What?! What'd she say?!”

“I have no money. But like I said, I'll be taking all your drugs now.” You could even call her voice chilly.

The flabbergasted men's shoulders gradually start to shake. Obviously, from anger.

“You asked for it!”

“Little bitch!”

The men launch themselves at her.

She turns and runs.

“Wait right there!”

“Don't even think about getting away!”

“I don't need to,” the girl says, and tums the corner.

The first man after her rounds the corner, and the moment he does, he goes flying over backwards.

“. . . . . . . . .”

The men's eyes bug out of their heads.

A figure stands before them in a very strange outfit.

He's dressed in a long, black cape and wears a black hat shaped like a pipe atop his head. His face is covered in make-up, white face contrasting with black lipstick. It's a hideously embarrassing outfit, completely retarded.

“I’m, don't do anything stupid. You cannot defeat me,” the cloaked figure stammers. It's clear why the first man went flying-this cloaked figure packs one hell of a punch.

“What the hell are you?!” The men gape. Understandably.

“I'm calling myself Boogiepop. . .  apparently,” the weirdo says, with a strange lack of confidence.

“Huh?”

“You some kinda cosplayer or somethin'?”

“Of course you've never heard of me. Only the girls know,” the weirdo mutters to himself.

“What?”

“Oh, never mind.”

The girl comes up behind the weirdo. And like she's reading a script, she exclaims, “Boogiepop! These people are bad! Get them!!”

“Right, I've had just about enough of. . .”

The men move to attack. Several of them are clearly experienced fighters. They know what they're doing.

. . . So I couldn't hold back.

***

As soon as all the men had been thoroughly beaten, the cloaked figure went through their pockets, and removed a large number of little plastic bags filled with drugs.

Stuffing these into the pack on his side, the weirdo darted away.

His breathing was ragged, less from exhaustion than panic, and at last, he took shelter under a rarely used pedestrian overpass.

The girl was waiting for him there -- Orihata Aya.

“Thank you, Masaki,” Orihata said, smiling.

The cloaked weirdo took off his black hat.

That weirdo was me -- Taniguchi Masaki.

“Ugh! This outfit is freakin' hot!” I griped. “You have no idea how hard it is to fight dressed in this thing!”

“But according to the rumors, this is the outfit he wears,” Orihata said, moving around behind me and untying the cloak.

“Girls' rumors! I bet they never put any thought behind them at all.
Grr
”

“Towel,” she said, handing it over. I scrubbed my face with it, and the make-up came off soon enough. I felt much better already.

Obviously, I had been following them since Orihata left the station.

As soon as she entered the redevelopment zone, I quickly hid in the shadows and changed. . . even went to the trouble of putting black lipstick on to seal the effect.

What was I doing, you say?

Well. . . I was playing super-hero.

I was punishing all the evildoers in town. But please, don't ask me why. This was all Orihata's idea.

She took the pouch off my hip, scooped the drugs out of it, tore open each of the bags, and poured the contents out in the nearest ditch. The brown water dissolved the white powder relatively quickly, and there was no sign of it a minute later.

'Millions of yen, they said. . . ' I thought, absently. Not that I thought it was a waste, or that I wanted that money. It's just that for most people, I could see how that amount of cash could easily become a motive for doing something illegal.

“You're a hero, Masaki,” Orihata announced.

“I. . . I guess.”

“Thanks to you, about a hundred people have been saved from drug addiction. That's a
good
thing.” She sounded like she was still reading off some invisible cue cards plastered nearby. And the tone of her voice made it hard to tell if she was being serious or still playing along.

I just didn't get it. She had known all the signs and code words for that transaction earlier, but how the heck would a girl like her know that kind of crap? I asked, of course, but all she said was, “Almost everyone knows.”

“Oh? Your hand. . .” Orihata's gaze stopped on my left hand. I had grazed it, and there was a little fresh blood on the surface.

“Just a scratch.”

“I'm sorry. It's all my fault,” she said, taking my hand gently, and tending to the wound with a first aid kit she'd brought with her.

Her hand was so soft, and her face was close enough that I could feel the warmth of her breath.

Beneath the deserted walkway, it was just me and a girl standing close together, bound by a shared secret. The sad thing is, I'd never even held her hand.

And before I knew it, I was a hero.

What am I
doing
. . . ?

***

“-- They all know Boogiepop,” she said. It was the first time she ever used that name. “Do you?”

“Never heard of it. Uh, what is it?”

“They say he's a
shinigami
. Or a killer.”

“A. . . ?” I gaped at her.

She just continued on. “It's just an urban legend, some sort of monstrous character, but they say this boy kills people when they are at their most beautiful, before they have a chance to grow old and ugly. That sort of thing.”

“Weird.” It certainly sounded like the sort of thing that would show up in girls' horror stories. I bet he was supposed to be pretty also. “So what?”

“Masaki. . . will you
become him
?”

“Uh, ex-excuse me?”

“I know you can do it. You're so strong. You might be a little tall, but not by too much.”

“W-wait a sec! This is a killer, right?” My mind reeled. I couldn't follow the first thing she said.

“No, the killer thing is nothing more than reputation. In fact, he seems to save people more often than kill them.”

She was talking like this guy actually existed.

“Y-you want me to s-save people? From what?”

“Anything.”

“Anything?”

“Anything we can.”

“. . . . . . . . .”

“You're strong, Masaki. You can become Boogiepop.” She stared at me intently.

Overwhelmed, I fell silent.

Her gaze suddenly shifted away. “I'm sorry. I know I have no right to ask something like this of you. . .”

She hung her head. Her shoulders shook.

Deflated like that, she looked so small. I felt like my chest was being torn apart.

“So if I. . . become this Boogie -- whatsit, will that. . . make you happy?” I asked, unable to bear the silence.

She looked up. “Will you?”

“Sure, I'll do it. I don't know what it is I'm doing, but I'll do what I can.”

“Really. . . ?”

“Yeah,” I replied, too embarrassed to add, 'If it makes you happy.'

“I'm sorry, Masaki,” she buried her face in her hands. “I really am. This is too much to ask. . .”

“I said it was okay. We're friends, aren't we?”

“I'm so sorry. . .”

She always seemed so sad. She apologized so often that I felt I had to do something. Still, I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd taken a step into some strange new dimension.

***

At that time, I was unfortunately still unaware that Boogiepop wore such an embarrassing outfit.

Orihata bought a huge swath of black cloth, almost like a theater curtain, at a do-it-yourself fabric shop, and fashioned a cloak and hat out of it. I was appalled when she showed it to me. It was hideous.

“You want me to walk outside. ..in
this
?”

“You will change before you 'appear.' Until then, it can remain hidden. . . in a sports bag or something.”

She produced a big Nike bag from out of seemingly nowhere.

“W-wait, I. . . I really have to put this stuff on?”

This was like what a street performer would wear from some long forgotten decade.

Despite my concerns, Orihata simply said, “That's how it goes. “

I took the cloak, the decorations clattering, thinking again that this was a step I shouldn't be taking.

It was well made. She'd sewn it carefully, and the fabric was doubled over. It was really thick. You would never think for a minute that it was handmade, which made it all the more serious. . . and more embarrassing to boot.

“But what if someone I know sees me?” I asked, still underestimating my predicament.

Orihata answered that one easily. “Don't worry. You'll be wearing make-up. No one will ever recognize you.”

***

This all brings us back to the here and now, with Boogiepop roaming the streets.

The first thing we tried was to have Orihata walk down back roads at night and try to attract would -- be molesters, which I would then proceed to beat the ever-loving crap out of. As heroic as it sounds, I felt like I was working some sort of con. Still, if someone tried to attack Orihata, I wasn't about to just stand there and let them have their way with her.

“I thought you could do it. You're really strong,” she said.

I am a guy, after all, so I can't say that hearing that didn't make me happy.

So, we kept it up, like today.

Until I started doing this, I really had no idea how dangerous this town really is. Don't believe what people tell you. Japan isn't nearly as safe a place as the government and media leads you to believe. The proof was in how easy it was for Orihata --  our “bait” -- to lure in prey.

If you must know, my karate master had been forced to leave Japan after an epic bout of violence, but a man with as powerful a sense of justice as he had could hardly have lived in Japan without getting mixed up in stuff. I was no different than my master at this very moment. Which is why if he only knew his student was following in his footsteps. . . he'd be furious!

But why exactly Orihata wanted me to do this; that was something that I couldn't for the life of me figure out. The most worrisome thing of all was the more that I did it, the more I found myself enjoying this little “game.” And not just because I was with Orihata. . .

“School's going to start up again pretty soon. What then?” I asked, as I stood there in a back alley, letting her apply my Boogiepop make-up.

“. . . . . . . . . . . .” She didn't answer.

After covering my face with skin cream, she began patting white foundation all over it.

“Be honest, how long can we really keep this up?”

“. . . . . . . . . .” She said nothing, calmly applying my eyeliner.

Her face was inches from mine. Her lips were slightly puckered, as if she were about to kiss me.

“What do you say?”

“. . . . . . . . . .”

Boogiepop's face was apparently very, very pale. Below the eyes there were black lines, or blueish shadows. Then on top of that, he wore a hat that covers his eyes, making him look inhuman -- like a ghost. If I met him on some darkened street at night, I'd probably wet myself.