*
“Look at that,” said Shunsuke as Ruriko exited the elevator doors and blew into the lobby. He was watching the music videos playing beneath the acrylic floorboards. “Look at me! I’m so young.”
There were little pale pink pills of synthetic fur stuck to Ruriko’s sleeve, tangled among stray bits of hair. She picked them off furiously, tossing them into the air, where they wafted aimlessly away. “Who?”
“Me. Rina, look at this.” He grabbed her arm, and she seized his wrist with her other hand so hard that he looked at her with alarm. “Shit, what’s your problem?”
“Don’t call me Rina. It’s Ruriko.”
Shunsuke let go. “Right. Now it is. I forgot.” He pulled back and scratched his neck; beneath his well-shined shoes, his teenage self writhed in high definition. “I’m guessing it was a bad night for you.”
Seeing Miyu always left a complicated taste in her mouth. “Buy me ramen tonight,” she said. “Tonkotsu, extra pork.”
Shunsuke, to his credit, made good. He didn’t complain when she took the seat closest to the stall’s far wall, either, even though that was his favorite place to sit. “You know, in all the months we’ve been coming here, I’ve never seen you order anything different,” he said. “Always tonkotsu, maybe extra pork if you can afford it after blowing all your money at Aidoru.”
Don’t get your hopes up, Ruriko had told Shunsuke after their first post-Aidoru dinner, nine years and two months after the Harajuku Astro Hall catastrophe. The hotel had been open for just a year under her family’s management, and she’d already been feeling raw over one intrusion into her past. And then there was Shun in the lobby, so slick and confident that looking at him made her teeth hurt. I’m not planning on fucking you.
Good, he’d said, offering her his lighter. It’s mutual. He’d kept his word, and so had she, and after a career spent under public scrutiny, that pressureless friendship had been a relief. If they had tried this ten years ago, Ruriko knew it would never have worked.
“There’s nothing wrong with having a favorite,” said Ruriko, chasing one of her last bamboo shoots around her bowl. “You’re nothing if not consistent yourself.”
“I order something different all the time.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Ruriko nodded at Shunsuke’s briefcase.
He grimaced and kicked it farther under the bartop. The metal buckle caught a stray pocket of light and flashed back into Ruriko’s eyes. She caught sight of a tuft of short, bleached blond hair snagged on the briefcase’s lock before it disappeared behind Shunsuke’s legs. “But the same kind of ramen! That’s so boring. Don’t you ever want to try something new?”
“No.” It was true; sticking to a very regimented schedule was something Ruriko hadn’t been able to shake, even a decade after her dancing days were over. All she needed for her graphic design work was her computer, her tablet, her notebooks, and the comfortable nest of books and pillows she’d built for herself. She exercised alone in her apartment, and groceries were delivered to her door. Ruriko kept mostly to herself these days, and she had little desire to leave the small, ordered world she’d so carefully constructed. Shunsuke and the other Aidoru regulars might well be psychopaths, but they were also the only other humans she saw on a regular basis.
Shunsuke, Ruriko amended as she watched him drain the dregs of his spicy miso ramen, was definitely a psychopath. But he was self-contained. There was only one person he ever hurt, and visiting Aidoru helped him deal with that.
Shunsuke set down his empty bowl. His wristwatch slid forward, baring a tangled mass of flattened scar tissue before his sleeve slipped down to cover it. “Let’s get drunk,” he said, and Ruriko had no objection to that.
Three and a half beers later, Ruriko was back on the Aidoru Hotel’s booking website, scrolling over Yume’s face. There was a menu on Yume’s main page (Group IRIS, 154 cm tall, 49 kg, black hair, B cup, brown eyes, active 2011–2014), and when Ruriko tapped on it (as she always did; how many times had she been here before?), a dropdown list of dates and times unfolded beneath her fingers. A list of all of the original Yume’s data scans and uploads, from the first time she’d let the talent management agency scan her memories and impressions (as they all did; how many times had they been told it was a contractual necessity?) to the last time, and every week in between. She scrolled all the way to the end of the list, to the last available entry.
October 8, 2014.
She slammed her phone down. “God fucking dammit!”
Shunsuke peered over at her. “Careful. That’s how you get cracks in the screen.”
“I don’t know why I keep coming back,” Ruriko said into her hands. “I know it’s fake. I just—God. I keep hoping that someone will find and upload another entry. Just a couple more days’ worth of data. A couple more memories. Just a little more time.” Bitching with Kaori about their talent agency, loitering in the park with Miyu. Yume’s voice in her ear as they stood together on the subway platform, waiting for the last train of the night.
Shunsuke rested his palm on her shoulder. His touch was unexpectedly gentle. He didn’t tell her what they both already knew. “Let’s get you home,” he said instead.
*
“I wish they’d get their shit together,” said Kaori Aoki. “When they fight, it affects us all. Yume works us harder; Rina skips out on responsibilities. But something must have happened, because Rina stormed in late today and Yume’s not talking to anyone unless she’s barking orders.” She sighed, scratching her short-cropped hair.
Two days ago, someone had offered a bootleg copy of what they claimed were Kaori Aoki’s last memories, recovered from some ancient talent agency database, to the Aidoru. Ruriko had swallowed her disappointment—why Kaori? She didn’t care about Kaori, not the way she cared about Yume—but demanded that her family purchase the upload anyway. It probably wasn’t legit, but . . . just in case.
But the longer she spent in the room with Kaori, the more the memories seemed to check out, and the more terrible hope rose in Ruriko’s chest. If it could happen for Kaori, then maybe it wasn’t impossible to think it could happen for Yume, too.
“We’re running out of time before Harajuku, and their bickering is so petty,” said Kaori. To this version of her, the fight between Yume and Rina had occurred just that afternoon.
She was right. It had been petty, most of the time. But this latest fight hadn’t been. Ruriko had kissed Yume in the studio, when the two of them were alone, and Yume had freaked out. Not because she didn’t want to be kissed. Because Ruriko had done it in their workplace. What if someone saw? Yume had demanded. The wild, panicked, accusing look on her face had stabbed Ruriko straight in the heart. You could ruin both of our careers!