He stared hard at her and turned away. Ruriko bit her lip to keep any more of the venom bubbling up in her mouth from spilling out.
Looking at the tall, lanky shape he cut against the sky, she realized how different he was from when she’d seen him the first time, over ten years ago, surrounded by the other members of his group. He’d been small back then, with bleached blond hair, and in the decade following his own accident, he’d grown into himself and left his gangliness behind. He was sharper now, harder. And there was only ever one room that Shunsuke visited at the Aidoru, only ever one person.
“Do you ever talk to him?” she said at last. “When you go to see him?”
Shunsuke passed her another cigarette. There was still synthetic blood on his sleeve, a dark, thin stain running toward his wrist. “What would we have to talk about?” he said.
*
Cutting right to the heart of the problem, Shunsuke had said. As if it were that easy. But he’d opened his suitcase and pressed a bright switchblade into her hand before she left, folding her fingers over its polished wooden handle. Trust me. It’ll feel better afterward.
People came to the Aidoru Hotel for answers. Therapy, excess, an outlet for stress. To sate obsessions. If the Aidoru could help someone as fucked up as Shunsuke, Ruriko reasoned, then surely it could help someone like her.
The overwhelming roar of pop music threatened to crush her down into the plush, ugly black-and-white hallway carpet. Upstairs and downstairs, people were already fucking TV personalities and musicians long dead, and somewhere else in the hotel, Shunsuke was about to take his bright knife to his younger self’s skin. But Ruriko stood alone outside a room she’d paid for, Shunsuke’s borrowed switchblade in her pocket, too afraid to touch the door.
You already spent your money, said a voice in her head. It sounded like hers, but off, the way recordings of her own voice always sounded. A room here is expensive. Don’t waste it.
It’ll make you feel better, said Shunsuke’s voice. Trust me.
The only person you think about is yourself, whispered Yume. Fix that, and then we’ll talk.
No one in their right mind came to the Aidoru Hotel, thought Ruriko, and she gripped her key card tight and reached for the lock.
The door slid open on its own, and Ruriko’s hand leaped back. A dark-haired girl peered at her from inside the room, one hand up to shield her eyes from the bright cacophony of pop music. She was the same height, the same build as Ruriko, if ten years slimmer and younger.
“Are you going to come in?” said Rina Tanaka. “Or are you going to stand in the hall all night?”
After a moment, Ruriko tucked her key card back in her jacket pocket and followed her inside. Rina’s room was all dusty violet, the color of her childhood room. The lights were dim, and Rina slid the switches up, making the room brighter. The wallpaper glinted with silver interlocked triangles, and they winked viciously at her as she passed.
“I was wondering when you’d stop by. I’ve been waiting for you.”
Ruriko studied her, hiding her nervousness behind her mask. Rina looked about seventeen and had the same angled haircut that Ruriko remembered getting in September, right before the show in Shibuya with the powder-blue uniforms. “How did you know I was coming?”
“Your friend told me. He’s been visiting me for a while. Paid for memory retention services and everything.” This was Rina minus her stage persona, rougher than the other girls in IRIS, always a little too honest. In her voice, Ruriko heard the hints of Kabukicho that she’d spent her life trying to erase. “He said a woman with a red face mask would come by because she wanted to talk to me about something, but he didn’t tell me what it was. And you’re the only woman with a red face mask I’ve seen so far.”
Shunsuke had set this up for her. Ruriko’s hands shook; she kept them tucked in her pockets. The knife burned in her pocket. He’d probably meant it as a gift.
“Hey, you’re from Kabukicho too, aren’t you?” said Rina. She smiled. Ruriko had had that smile once too. “So who are you? What did you want to tell me?”
“You’re going to let her die,” said Ruriko, the words tumbling out past her clenched teeth. “At the Astro Hall.” She had Rina’s full attention now. And in that face, Ruriko read what she’d known was there—the anger, the fear, that she remembered having before they set out for Harajuku. “The lighting grid is faulty, it fell, and it crushed everyone. Yume—”
“Stop it,” Rina said tightly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But her eyes were overbright, her voice too high.
Ruriko grabbed her by the shoulders. “She died. You killed her, because you were a selfish little shit, you showed up late because you were sulking and wanted to make them miss you, there wasn’t enough time to run a tech rehearsal, they would have caught it—”
“I know!” Rina pushed at Ruriko, but Ruriko held on. Tears brimmed in Rina’s eyes. “Fuck! I know! I remember. Did you think I’d forget?”
Ruriko’s grip was so tight that her fingers were starting to hurt. “What?”
“I was an idiot. I thought—I was so mad. I was so upset at her. I thought she’d dump me for sure after that.” Rina’s tears splattered onto Ruriko’s arms. She wasn’t pushing her away anymore; she gripped Ruriko’s shirt. “I wanted to make her hate me. I wanted to make her pay.”
She had wanted that. And Yume had paid. But Ruriko’s head was reeling, and she shook Rina. “What day is it?” she demanded. “What’s the last day you remember?”
“October twenty-fifth,” whispered Rina. “I woke up in the hospital. The people from the talent agency were there. They said they’d scanned me while I was out. They told me I’d never dance again. Everyone else in IRIS was dead, and if I knew what was good for me, I’d pretend I was too.”
She’d forgotten. Ruriko let go of Rina. She’d forgotten about that last scan; those days were a blur of grief, horror, regret, and it hadn’t seemed important in the wake of her loss. Yume was gone.
“I could have saved her,” said Ruriko. She felt numb. She’d been so stupid. “She was right. How could I have been so selfish?”
“You?” A look of terrible revelation crossed Rina’s face. “What’s under this mask? Who are you?” She reached out toward Ruriko’s mask.
Ruriko shoved her away as hard as she could. Rina stumbled back into the small wooden vanity parked against the wall. “Don’t touch me,” Ruriko said hoarsely. All their collective secrets were spilling into open air.
“Please,” said Rina, but Ruriko backed away. Her awful synthetic body with its awful synthetic skin and awful synthetic youth, its face twisted with regret but still whole, made Ruriko sick.
She turned and fled the room. She was in the elevator and through the lobby and out into the street, fifteen minutes into her two-hour time slot. She didn’t ask for a refund.
*
It took a long time for Ruriko to come back to the Aidoru. But when she did, there was only one door she gravitated to.