Boogiepop Returns VS Imaginator Part 1 (12 page)

A young man in white clothes, positively exuding confidence, strode directly into the alley.

“ -- ! Wh-who are you?!”

“Just to make sure, I'd better ask. You there,” he pointed at Masaki. “Do you want to save this girl?”

Masaki nodded, “Y-yes.”

“Then take her and run!”

With lightning speed, the man pulled the girl out of the ring of
kouhai
and shoved her towards Masaki.

Taking the man at his word, Masaki took the girl's arm, and fled the scene.

(Wahhh?!)

Shinjirou was horrified. They were running straight towards him.

But they were going too fast, and ran right past him without ever noticing that he was there.

(Wh-what's going on?)

He was a little relieved, but now more confused than ever. Things were playing out in a way that bore no resemblance to his original plans, and he could no longer follow anything.

He looked back at the man in white, and somehow, all his
kouhai
had already been defeated, and were lying in a bloody heap on the ground.

“Eeek!” Shinjirou let out a little shriek, and the man turned towards him.

“Can't say I think much of your methods,” the man said, like he had been well aware that Shinjirou had been hiding there all along.

The man smiled. It was a villainous, heartless smile.

“Aaaaugh!” Shinjirou ran for it.

He ran as hard as he could, not stopping until he reached the square by the side of the station.

Feeling safe, he relaxed. . . and realized that Masaki and the girl were sitting together on a bench on the other side of the square.

“Ah. . . !” he wailed.

He had been right.

It was obvious that they were drawn to each other. Especially Masaki, whose heart had been stolen by the girl. It was written all over his face. He'd never looked like that at school, all red faced and smiling.

“. . . . . . . . . !”

In that very moment, Shinjirou felt all of the energy drain out of his body.

***

A few days afterwards, Masaki went on a date with the girl. Shinjirou watched from the shadows, having followed Masaki every day since the incident.

(Augh. . . )

He ground his teeth as he watched the couple head for the movie theater. Masaki appeared to be quite surprised by how crowded the theater was.

They talked for a moment, apparently arguing.

(Oooh. . . )

Shinjirou waited hopefully. The girl joined the line on her own, leaving Masaki just standing there.

After a moment, Masaki turned and walked towards the main road.

Pleased by this turn of events, Shinjirou quickly followed after him.

Masaki looked all around as he walked, as if searching for some place in particular. With his heart pounding, Shinjirou took this opportunity to walk over to Masaki and speak to him. “Oh, Study Abroad. What are
you
doing here?” His tone was rather aggressive, out of habit.

“Ah, um, you know,” Masaki replied, scrunching up his face unhappily.

Shrinking back from this reception, Shinjirou said, “Yeah, I do. You're making some chick wait for you, huh?”

But Masaki just answered, “Sorry, in kind of a hurry,” and rushed off.

“Ah. . . !” Shinjirou wondered where he was going, but Masaki just ducked into a fast food place, and after a few minutes, popped out with a large paper bag and some drinks, and headed back to where the girl was waiting in line.

They began happily munching away on their burgers.

“. . . . . . . . . “

As Shinjirou watched vacantly, the girl suddenly kissed Masaki. To be strictly accurate, it wasn't technically a kiss -- she had actually licked off a blob of ketchup from Masaki's cheek with her tongue -- but to Shinjirou, this sudden display was far more erotic than any old kiss.

“. . . . . . . . . !”

Shinjirou's face turned white as a sheet. He was trembling.

Unable to take any more, he turned and fled.

***

“Ah, that'd be Orihata. She's in our school, yeah.”

Shinjirou had called everyone he knew, trying to find out the girl's name. And now he had it. He had the hateful name of his archenemy's girlfriend -- Orihata Aya. The very name only drew more questions. “What's she like?!” he urged.

On the other end of the line, a friend of his from elementary school hesitated, “I’m. . . well. . .” Then he sniggered, meaningfully. “You did her, then?”

“Huh? No, nothing like that. . .”

“Better be careful, man. Everyone knows about Orihata. Hee hee hee.”

“What do you mean?”

“She looks all good girl, right? Like some choir chick? Oh, but she's a total slut.”

The rude word caught Shinjirou totally off guard. “Wh-what?”

“I know dozens of guys who say they've done her. Hee hee.”

“Really?”

“She'll do anyone that asks. Go for it, man. Say her name and she'll follow you anywhere. Course, you gotta watch out that you don't catch somethin' from her. . . hee hee hee hee.”

“ -- “ Shinjirou couldn't answer.

Did Masaki know about this?

Ever since they'd met, Masaki had appeared more alive, even from a distance, like his life had taken on new meaning. It seemed like he was really in love with her and that made his every waking moment enjoyable.

Additionally, his previously reluctant reception to the girls who flocked around him shifted, and he spoke to them warmly. Living proof of the old counselor's maxim that the better your life is going, the nicer you are to other people. This made him even more popular than ever, but Shinjirou was way past being jealous of that.

Masaki was in the midst of the kind of love that comes along only once a lifetime. . .  and the girl probably didn't deserve any of it. Surely lurking in his future was a horrendous heartbreak. But what could Shinjirou do?

(-- Just leave them be? Yeah, a guy like that deserves to be put through the wringer by some lying, evil bitch!)

Yes, sometimes he thought like that. But at other times, he thought he might be able to take advantage of the situation and somehow get closer to Masaki.

(Auuuugh. . . )

The test was right on top of them, but Shinjirou never thought of anything but Masaki and Aya, and as a result, his scores plummeted.

He abandoned his studies to do nothing but obsessively follow Masaki -- and, of course, Orihata Aya, who was almost always with him. And gradually, he started keeping an even closer eye on Orihata Aya than he did Masaki. He would lie to his parents and tell them he was going to cram school, but in reality he would venture out and stand outside Orihata's apartment building, beneath the wintry night sky, feeling the north wind slice his body to ribbons.

“Aaugh. . .”

He had no conscious recognition of how creepy his behavior was. No, he was merely following Orihata Aya because he was desperate to know the truth -- why did Masaki like her? But the meaningless irritation pouring out of him prevented him from understanding.

“I'm gonna figure out who she is. . .” he muttered to himself in the darkness. The lights in Orihata Aya's room were off.

From Shinjirou's stalker-ish observations, he gathered that Orihata Aya must live alone. He'd never seen any sign of other family members in the apartment, and the lights inside were never left on -- whether Orihata Aya was there or not. After a date with Taniguchi Masaki, the lights would go on for about ten minutes, presumably while she was in the shower, but they'd be turned off right afterwards.

Does anyone go to sleep that fast?

At first, his perverted mind thought that she might be doing something naughty, and this fantasy excited him initially -- and the knotty mess of that feeling made Shinjirou hate himself even more. But as his observations continued, he realized that this occurrence happened each and every time she came home, like clockwork, and he began to doubt that possibility. No one masturbates like that, not even Shinjirou.

The most troubling thing about these observations was realizing how dull Orihata Aya's life really was. She never watched TV or anything. She just sat there in total darkness. Did this girl even have a private life?

On days when she didn't meet Masaki, she would come directly home from school, go out to buy a
bento
at the convenience store for her dinner, and the lights would go off shortly after she returned home with it. Most of the time, the
bento
was a plain
nori bento
; nothing to spice up her meals at all.

It was like this girl did nothing. She just went through the normal motions of life, but never actually lived it.

(Why would anyone go for an expressionless mannequin of a girl like her. . . ?)

One thing Shinjirou realized quite quickly from his observations was that his friend was a liar. There were no signs of the mythical parade of men his friend had so playfully spoken of. No, there was only Masaki. There were no indications at all of her ever going off with other men, and this left him with absolutely no evidence at all to confront Masaki with.

(shit. . . )

Teeth chattering in the cold, Shinjirou carried on stalking her. Had anyone seen him, they would certainly have called the police.

***

Then one night. . .

Shinjirou was staring up at OrihataAya's room when the door slid open. The lights inside remained off.

It was really cold, so it couldn't possibly be an attempt to air the place out.

He held his breath, watching, and Orihata Aya came out on the veranda alone. . . in her underwear.

Her hair was a mess. She looked like she'd just woken up. Didn't she have anything else she could sleep in besides her underwear?

“. . . . . . . . . “

Silently, the girl put her hands on the railing, and stood there, not moving. She was immobile, stiff, staring down from her veranda.

(. . . . . . . . . ?)

Shinjirou looked up at her through the binoculars he had with him, and shivered.

Orihata Aya's trademark mask-like face was gone. She was biting her lower lip so hard that it had turned blue, and she was shaking like a leaf. He could tell from the uncanny light shining in her wide -- open eyes that it was not because of the cold.

Something was tormenting her. . .  but what?

She looked as though she was about to jump.

(H-hey -- )

Shinjirou gulped, but kept watching.

Her lips parted, and she whispered something. The same words, over and over and over.

She kept on whispering and whispering until eventually Shinjirou couldn't stand it any longer. He had to get in closer.

Shinjirou quietly scampered towards the building's outer wall, and it was there, carried on the chilly wind, that her 'spell' reached Shinjirou's ears.

It went as follows:

“I have no right to fall in love. I have no right to fall in love. I have no right to fall in love. I have no right to fall in love. I have no right to fall in love. I have no right to fall in love. I have no right to fall in love. I have no right to fall in love. I have no right to fall in love. I have no right to fall in love. I have no right to fall in love. I have no right to fall in love. I have no right to fall in love. I have no right to fall in love. I have no right to fall in love. I have no right to fall in love. I have no right to fall in love. I have no right to fall in love. I have no right to fall in love. . .”

On and on and on it went, like she was spitting out blood.

Shinjirou was bewildered.

(Wh-what the hell. . . is she
saying
?)

He couldn't comprehend it. . . but deep inside his body something made him shiver, and it wasn't the cold. Something in him had responded to her single-minded intensity. Something perhaps very similar to what Taniguchi Masaki had felt about her.

But it was beyond Shinjirou's capability to understand it.

“So you're the one who's been following Camille around? You got a crush on her. . .  or something?” A voice snarled from behind him.

“ -- ?!” He spun around in shock, but he wasn't quick enough. The hideously fat man behind him -- Spooky E -- reached out with both his hands and grabbed ahold of the young stalker.

Electricity raced through Shinjirou's body, and he passed out instantly, crumpling to the ground.

“Huh. . . “ Spooky E sneered, picking Shinjirou up in one hand like a shopping bag, and carried him around to the building's garbage dump.

Above them, oblivious to their presence, Orihata Aya struggled desperately to crush her feelings for Taniguchi Masaki, shivering in her underwear, whispering over and over, “. . . I have no right to fall in love with him. . .”

***

Spooky E stood in the darkness, hands on the sides of the unconscious Anou Shinjirou's head. His fingers slowly, slowly moved across the boy's scalp.

With each movement, bits of Shinjirou's body would twitch. Once, the ring finger on his left hand curled; another time, his right eyelid opened, then shut.

“O. . . o. . . aahhh. . .” His mouth opened, meaningless sounds spilling out. “O. . . o. . . rihata. . . Orihata. . . Orihata Aya. . .”

When the words acquired meaning, Spooky E grinned. He had reached the part of Shinjirou's brain that knew about her.

Spooky E briefly removed his hands, stuck his fingers in his mouth, and licked them all over. Once they were covered in saliva, he placed them back on Shinjirou's head.

Spooky E's hands generated a very low power electromagnetic wave. He could use this to shock the cells in someone's brain, and manipulate their memories and their very psyche. His power was called “Spooky Electric.” It was where his code name was derived from. He was a synthetic human. By licking his fingers, he was able to increase the conductivity of the very electromagnetic wave he was generating.

*Okuy, Anou Shinjirou. You will no longer pay the slightest attention to that girl or anything to do with her,” Spooky E said. He had discovered the boy's name from the student ID card in his pocket.

“I will not.”

“From now on, you will have no personal desires,” Spooky E whispered, massaging the boy's frontal lobes.