[STUDIO – PART B]

“Nice! Now towards the camera!” The Manager says as one of the amorphous figures gets just a breath away with its shimmering lens.

Masaru has no clue what’s come over him. It’s not horrible, in fact it’s a little bit fun.

With a confident grin and bear-ears hair band on, he poses forward to give a cute, playful twist on his usually serious, conservative appearance.

The thing with the camera snaps a picture, and it instantly appears on the huge social media feed screen elevated for all in the room to see.

A photoshopped version of Masaru’s grinning face appears and immediately begins generating likes, comments, subscriptions, tips, money. The comments feed on a separate screen flush with emoji, hearts, and eggplants for some reason as they praise every movement he makes.

“Now that’s the kind of wildlife ID like to see!”

“AMAZING XOXOXO TOTAL BAD BOY MATERIAL!!1”

“:O my one and onlyyyyyyyy”

“MASARU OH MY GOD THE ABSOLUTE MADMAN”

“Corner me, you scary animal!! xDDD”

And then ten more, and then fifty more, and then five hundred more comments of endless, gratifying praise.

Masaru, a smirk playing on the side of his face, watches as the “improved” version of his photo continues to garner huge reactions.

“Sweetie!” Masaru’s mother chimes in. “We just paid for twenty percent of the Yakuza debt. We’re going to make it!”

“Very nice, very nice!” The Manager exclaims as one of the shifting black creatures of Masaru’s size and build steps up onto the pedestal. “Now for some group poses. We brought in Jean to help out.”

Masaru leaps right over the obvious weirdness of the situation and instead flashes a competitive grin, which of course triggers more shutter flashes from his enamored audience. “Yeah? I hope you’re ready to be outshone!” he says.

Jean makes no acknowledgment but rather gets right to posing.

“Alright, lean into Jean’s abs for me!” The Manager directs.

Masaru throws caution to the wind and pushes his face against the defined, shining abdomen of the thing as a flurry of shutter flashes erupt from all around them.

It’s annoying. It itches when he touches Jean, but Masaru refuses to be outdone, not when his family’s on the line.

He sees the stream of likes and subscriptions, and then something comes into his mind that makes him chuckle.

Going further, he kisses the thing’s stomach, even drawing his tongue along it slowly as the crowd gasps at the incredible bravery of the act.

It itches even more.

The place begins buzzing, literally. Masaru can’t place the source of it, but it’s starting to weird him out, more than the already stupendously weird situation.

“WOW!” The Manager shouts from her intercom. “Have you lost your mind?!”

Masaru turns to the screen to see the utter explosion of social media reactions on his new pictures. “What, scared?” he asks with a wry grin before quickly changing into the next produced outfit: this one even skimpier than the previous.

“Not at all! You’re just the kind of boy the agency’s been looking for! You’re going to make millions!”

They go on to take more pictures. Bent over, lying down, one on top of the other. With every position, they become less and less playful, and more and more explicit in their implications.

Every time he touches Jean in some way, it itches, not simply in a way that’s irritating, but in a weirdly painful, draining sort of way.

Masaru’s simply not afraid, is what he realizes as he gets oiled up with Jean for a new set of poses. It’s all a game to him, despite how weirdly stressful it’s becoming. Why does he feel so… cold?

“We’ve paid off half the debt, Masaru!” his mother’s voice chimes in, but it’s getting to a point where he doesn’t really care about keeping up appearances.

“Huh, neat,” is all he scoffs back with as he humors another pose, this one rated by his millions of viewers as “a bit bored and sadistic” which, naturally, they love no matter what.

“Alright, Masaru,” The Manager starts as the cutesy, childish music fades out to produce something more befitting of a club at midnight. “Let’s get that little thing off, leave the ears. It’s time to make some real art,” she adds as the lighting flushes into a hot, sensual red.

Masaru’s eye twitches as he looks to the screens. The chat’s moving so fast he can’t even read it.

Pursing his lips, he reaches for his little swimsuit piece, leaving very little to the imagination, but he stops when he sees an approaching bin, containing all manner of questionable-looking male lingerie. “Uh, actually, I don’t think this is going to work out.” He chuckles. “You’re all fake, anyway.”

There’s a silence in the studio as The Manager clicks on. “But… but darling! You’re doing so well! You’re going to become a legend!”

Masaru shakes off Jean’s embrace as he wobbles up to his feet. “No thanks. It was fun for a little bit, but I’m not really into all this.”

His mother’s intercom comes in with a sob. “Masaru! Wait! Please keep going! There’s no telling what the Yakuza will do to me!”

“You’re not real,” Masaru says, jerking away from Jean again as he attempts to slow Masaru. Jean’s touch itches, it’s painful, but it’s not strong. Masaru pulls away once more, and finally inspects the spot where Jean has gripped him.

…It’s covered in bumps.

“Wait… what the hel-”

“Masaru, darling,” The Manager starts again, “Your mother needs this money. And all you need to do is be a good little boy and pose for the camera. You’re getting your family out of a really tight place here!”

“Yes, sweetie, please!” his mom cries. “I know it’s a lot, but we’re so close! You’ll be saving his life… my life!”

Masaru, still focused on the bumps on his hand, ignores the pleas from the intercoms as he abruptly swings his open palm at Jean.

He closes in around something squirming, annoying, tickling. Masaru opens his hand to reveal a host of mosquitos, flickering about his hand like evil vampiric sparks.

“What… the hell is this!?” Masaru gets up from the pedestal and steps into the dark, but the itching is there too.

“Just get back to the stage, Masaru,” The Manager says with a calm tone. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

He looks around. He’s amazing he couldn’t see it sooner: The cameramen are all made of mosquitos. The haze around him isn’t just darkness, it’s tightly packed formations of these flying pests— millions and millions of mosquitos surrounding the only mammal in the entire place.

His disgust with his situation only goes so far, because with every passing second he begins to understand Valerie more and more.

“I… How do I get out of here?!” Masaru snaps as if it were obvious all this time.

“Boy,” another voice over his mother’s intercom clicks in. “I’m an officer for the local organization. We have your mom.”

Masaru searches for the door, swatting at the surrounding bugs and keeping himself from bites with frequent sweeps across his body.

“…She said you’re trying to get the money…”

Masaru smashes a blocking camera-thing into the wall, crushing thousands of mosquitos as he fights to find the door.

“You know it would be in your best interest to finish that u-”

“And let these little bastards suck out all my blood?!” Masaru, dazed, pale, but focused, shouts as he locates the shining brushed steel of a door handle packed into a wall of mosquitos.

“Some sacrifices are worth it for your family,” says the Yakuza Officer.

“Bullshit. I didn’t make that decision, and you can’t act like I’m responsible for it,” he says.

“It’s what a good son would do, Masaru,” The Manager says.

“Please, sweetie! Please!” Masaru’s mom shrieks. “He has a knife!”

Masaru piles into the door with all his strength as the buzzing plague surrounds him from all sides. He breaks through, and trips forward into pure blackness.

“You don’t own me, and you definitely don’t own my body!” The practically naked Masaru shouts as he stumbles up to his feet and gains distance from the house-shaped prison.

The voices shout, raising the stakes more and more:

The Manager reminding Masaru of all the money he’ll make, the fame he’ll receive, and a promise that Jean will take “a time out.”

His mother screaming in tears about how he’s going to get his parents killed, and that posing in front of the cameras is the only way he can make his father proud.

The criminal officer laughing maniacally as cutting sounds overwhelm the screaming pleas of his mother.

Masaru ignores it all. He just runs.

It’s cold out here, and the breeze moves fast.

They couldn’t follow me out here, he muses with a smirk as he trips again.

Turning back, he finds his briefcase, telling by the thin silhouette of its form.

Slinging the briefcase over his shoulder, he continues on to the one point of light available, another building of a completely different, Westerner style.

This one isn’t as nice as his childhood home. It’s an apartment complex, also painted up with those deceptively juvenile colors, as if to bring down one’s guard before revealing the true intent of its design.

Stepping up to the house, he can already hear the weak, panting breath.

Valerie, he identifies.