[STUDIO – PART A]

Masaru opens his eyes.

He’s in his room.

Not the one from the hospital, but the one from his old house.

His little fish clock, the same he had since he was nine years old, chirps out a peppy “Konichiwa! Ganbatte kudasaaai!” as the time strikes 8:17 PM. It’s perfectly bright outside, as if the clock were wrong, or this new world is one that ignores all reason. There’s not much to say, other than that he’s completely ignoring it. Not even his briefcase is with him.

This isn’t real, it’s never that easy, he thinks in the dim misery of his mind.

But real or not, he can’t deny just how weirdly comforting everything is.

The fabric on his bed feels real.

The scent of the air freshener is familiar.

The temperature of the room is perfect with his nice air conditioning unit – no need for a ceiling fan.

He turns aside on the pillow with a blank expression.

They even got the window right.

He stares at the pine swaying in the breeze outside his room for a moment, and takes the time to reflect. He closes his eyes.

[RES] 29/100

Huh, not too bad, actually, he thinks to himself. Especially not after… that.

He grinds the memory of it against his soul, burning him with each painful recollection. The look of Valerie’s disembodied head floating next to him, the glee and challenge in The Stranger’s many red eyes… the drowning.

Masaru pulls into himself with a shiver, even though he himself considered the temperature perfect.

I have no idea,” he admits, “but I’m going to keep going until I do.

Rising up, he looks around and notices the thing that’s wrong for him, and it’s not that the window’s lit with daylight at 8:17 PM.

Under the crack of his door, waits pure, thematic blackness. In the hallway connected to his apartment there’s usually skylights that produce a pleasant outside light in the day, and a plug-in night-light that hums on through the evening. Either way, the underneath of his door should be lit.

Sitting up in his familiar bed, he takes a moment to reflect on his situation, The Stranger, and what in the world all this could mean.

It doesn’t take him long to remember.

This… is Valerie’s trial, he mumbles in his head. I guess her version of it would put her in her own room?

He shrugs, and scoots off his bed to go to the door.

Glancing down to the dark underside of the door, he produces a single, annoyed “tsk” before reaching for the knob.

“Well, if it’s a trap, you got me,” he says with a nervous frown.

Opening the door, his heart skips a beat.

It is his old house… in theory.

Before him lies the vibrantly colored, almost candy-themed excitement of a repainted hallway.

Studio-lighting keys in, flushing the hallway overlooking the downstairs living room like a scene from a dark ride.

Everything’s been repainted with a vibrant, vaguely childish color palette, and mixed with the multi-hued lighting it creates a distinctly surreal appearance.

But it smells weird.

Why does it smell?

Masaru looks up to the literal flood lighting overhead as the bulbs swivel to focus in on the stairs.

“O… kay,” he mutters as the floor underneath him shifts.

He jolts as he realizes he’s on a conveyer of some kind, moving him to the steps which inexplicably have become an escalator leading to the living room.

“Uh-”

He’s cut off by the swell of saccharine, brutally sweet music. It’s pure energy, pure youth at the front of its innocent exterior.

But just as he starts to focus in on the lyrics of the singer’s voice, he’s at the bottom of the escalator, and the kitchen illuminates to reveal a glorious breakfast spread. It’s not what Masaru’s used to, it’s certainly not a Japanese breakfast: no rice or fermented soybeans to be found.

He sees waffles, pancakes, eggs, bacon, and a huge assortment of fruits and berries with a bowl of whipped cream. Of course, what fancy western breakfast would be complete without an array of delicious pastries, taunting him with the curls of their steam. The whole thing’s arrayed in a way that says it’s a special meal, but its location on the kitchen counter implies that this is actually a regular occurrence.

With a hum, he looks around to the darker parts of the house, trying to figure out what the silhouettes are… there’s some differences from his house aside from the sugar-saturated interior, lighting, and music, but he can’t quite make out what all the dark shapes.

Then, a ring from an intercom he hadn’t noticed before, positioned at the side of the stairs.

“Masaru, darling!” the voice from the intercom starts. The speaker bears a brass plaque, labeled with the word “Manager” and nothing else. “You’re looking great today!” the husky female voice continues.

Masaru would step off the conveyer leading towards the table, but there’s something so planned about it all, so comfortably controlled, that he hardly questions it.

“Uh… hi?” he greets back.

“Hello! I hope you didn’t forget, silly. Today’s the week’s biggest shoot!” the “Manager” greets back cheerily. If Masaru had to guess, he’d place her somewhere in her early-to-mid 40’s: a voice that’s tangled with the loss of their youth. There’s a hint of jealousy in the tone between those infantizing coos. “Now, eat up! We have some work to do!”

As a shrugging Masaru pops a decisively tasty blueberry into his mouth, another intercom labeled “Mother” crackles on.

“Oh, Masaru. I hope you’re doing well today!”

Masaru flinches, his mouth now full with blackberries, raspberries, and more.

“Wh- mom?!” Masaru pushes out from puffed cheeks, mostly in annoyance that The Enemy’s using her mom against him now… but for what, he can’t quite place yet.

“Of course, my little number one! Thanks to you we paid our whole month’s rent! If you do well this time I think we can start paying off that debt. Collection’s coming by the end of this week, so it’ll be right on time!”

Masaru freezes between chews as he ponders over his mother’s phrasing.

Debt? We don’t have any of that… he wonders before swallowing to speak.

“Hey uh. What is this debt about, mom?” he asks with a smirk, halfway expecting her to talk about some comically lavish purchase.

“Your father, dear. For his coma,” his mother’s voice says with a tone of concern.

He feels a chill run up his spine like the cold hands of an unknown person. “Uh, what does that even mean?” he asks as he reaches for a croissant, making the most of his time here, as he expects something’s going to happen pretty soon that will ruin his feast.

“They took him to America, dear. There’s only one hospital in the whole world that could do it and it’s in New York. We worked it out with the Yakuza.”

The cringe in Masaru’s spine radiates as if cut along from all sides by a knife.

“Wh- mom,” Masaru starts. “That’s… that’s insane-”

“It was the only way, son. But now that you took on this job, you’ll save him!”

Masaru finally starts connecting the dots.

“What… do I have a manager for?” he asks, no longer eating from all the thoughts on his mind. Deep down, he knows this is all fake, every direction is entirely departed from reality, but there’s something about the perfect, bespoke design of it all, the place, the food, the voices over the intercoms, that push him into the drama of it all.

“Oh, got to go, honey! Someone else is calling about your new job. Everyone’s so surprised!” The intercom clicks off and with it her voice fades off into a crackling memory.

The Manager intercom clicks back on. “Wow, your family’s so supportive, Masaru! I can’t blame them though. I don’t think anyone could say no to you!” she says.

Masaru raises his brow.

That’s… a unique way of putting it, he observes in his mind.

“So uh… what exactly am I doing today?” Masaru asks with a smirk as he plays along.

A cackle emits from the intercom.

“Oh, you silly tease! Let’s head over and get right to business!” The Manager says the breakfast falls into the counter as if by some form of occult osmosis.

Masaru’s brows raise, partially in awe, and partially in admonishment that he wasted his time chatting when he could have been shoveling as much food in his mouth as possible.

The lights in the kitchen diminish, and the lights in the living room swell higher for the first time.

Masaru, his body already traveling to the living room via the conveyer belt, mumbles in surprise when he identifies what he’s looking at.

Bright lights, a crowd of shifting dark onlookers, with cameras, and an empty, blank white platform stage.

The televisions shine to life, the music climbs with energy, and his social media feed appears.

The smell is worse here, permeating every particle of air with its filth.

“Let’s start out with some warmup poses, really get them thirsty!” The Manager says as Masaru, by no motion of his own, arrives at the top of the pedestal like a readied sacrifice. “Put this on!”

Something appears from the base of the pedestal, and Masaru sighs.

“Tsk… seriously?”