Chapter 30:

Can You See Me?

Black Company

It was impossible to know where to go or what to do. Warm Embraces was destroyed, and she couldn’t feel him anymore. But Sayane felt that she was meant to return to their apartment. Foolish as it was, she hoped that she’d walk through his door and he’d still be there. Even if he was still partially fading, at least he’d be there, and maybe they could rush to a temple or shrine or cathedral or hospital and try to find a way of stopping his disappearance.

Kilometers streaked by as swiftly as possible, but Sayane found herself becoming more afraid by the second.

Far away, Masaru had already returned to the place he had once lived.

When he reached the staircase of their apartment, he found himself unable to go any further. Imagining returning to his home, walking past her abandoned door, and settling into some manner of invisible isolation was not at all what he wanted.

He didn’t want to be there when they started removing her things. He didn’t want to be there when he saw the indentations slowly release from his worn-out couch. He didn’t want to see the dust gather.

To know grief was to know one’s former world be turned to vacancy.

Outside, the lights along the building exterior flickered in their old, familiar rhythms. Those cheap bulbs would outlast him.

Masaru stood there, unmoored and unrefined, allowing himself to mourn the two of them fully. They were both gone now, but there would be no one to grieve either of them. Wherever she was, he hoped that whatever came next for her was more merciful than this life had been. For him, he simply hoped he’d soon deteriorate forever.

He stood there, unmoored and silently crying white, blank tears as the small trees swayed along the median’s edge. Awareness of the ending’s arrival sat heavily on his shoulders and neck. Goodbye farewells to the life he and she could have had pulled themselves from his throat in a distant, echoing sound. Masaru accepted that they had both truly left, and the world, in its own steady and indifferent way, had agreed to let them both go. Tomorrow, when the sun rose, life would go on for everyone else, and they would barely be a memory.

His eyes flared. White and black simplifications of his old world gave him full clarity that those doors were not his or hers anymore, and he turned to leave.

Instead, he decided to head to the train station. There was one place he knew of that had given him and her a slight bit of joy. If he were to linger on for some time, Kamakura felt infinitely more desirable than Tokyo. He would haunt those curving shores for as long as he remained, letting the eternally lapping waves soundtrack his liminal existence.

She was close now. So close. Only two stops remained. Wetness had drenched her, and she felt the drops of rain sliding down her wrist and to her elbow as she stood in the car’s corner, trying not to get anyone else damp. Shakes of nerves moved through her hands as she clung to her can and to the support pole.

It was hard to explain, and maybe it was just hopeful misinformation from desperate chemicals, but Sayane swore she could sense Masaru again. Another stop passed, and she heard the doors open and close as passengers moved to new routes.

Masaru descended the stairs in a haze. The Eyes were beginning to hurt. While everything else had blended into a steady chorus of lamenting affliction, The Eyes were now pulsing out cutting, gnawing pains. Steps descended, and he reached the station as a train came to a stop behind him.

Sayane heard the doors open, and the announcer told her she had arrived. Other passengers shuffled out, and she pushed through the remaining crowd to reach the doors. Isolated drops struck her neck as she stepped onto the platform. Now her entire body was tingling. He was close. She was almost sure of it. Strange as it was, something told her to wait there.

Masaru was ten meters away, head down and eyes closed, trying to force The Eyes’ pain into submission. But the agony was getting worse.

The Eyes began to move within his skull, and he felt his insides pulling upwards as the foreign entities shifted to exit his sockets.

He didn’t scream; he merely groaned in depleted emptiness as the fiery spectres ripped themselves from his head.

Alerts pinged. A bullet train was passing soon, but it would not stop.

Sayane turned to try to listen over the rain. She was supposed to be here. For whatever reason, she needed to stay here.

A solitary whimper escaped Masaru’s lips as The Eyes tore themselves free with a final yank. He fell forward, hands on knees, as the world returned to its regular form. Now the suffering began to amplify, and every nerve ending on his body began to rage once again.

Pick.

He was close to the edge of the platform.

Pick at the scab.

Sayane could swear that the universe was telling her that he was going to be here soon.

Pick at the healing.

Never let it heal.

Nothing ever heals.

Strength left Masaru’s body as the totality of his pain finally registered with his mind, and it decided to shut down out of defense. He collapsed forward and fell over the barrier and off the edge of the platform.

Haunting musical notes began to play, and the pleasant voice of the announcer sounded out. The train was approaching.

Voices screamed in shock and cold horror stabbed at Sayane’s throat.

Beside her, some commotion was unfolding.

Masaru struck the ground and the track split his lip as several teeth chipped. This pain felt real. Gone were the hazes of unreality and in-between existence. Clarity formed in the acute burning that was pumping through his gums and ripped mouth. White spots exploded across his vision as the impact knocked his mind out of alignment.

“Please be aware, a train is passing soon. Please be aware, a train is passing soon.”

Shouts of horror pulled Sayane over to the edge and her fingers turned cold.

The train was moving too fast.

Scabs will never heal.

It couldn’t stop.

The wounds are too deep.

His legs didn’t want to work. Everything was swaying. Masaru registered that voices were shouting and screaming at him as he forced himself onto his knees. He turned and saw that the eyes were floating directly in front of him again.

Watching him.

Pressure began to shift.

People on the platform were screaming. Some looked away.

He realized they were watching him. Confusion and elation mixed into a shout.

“Can… Can you SEE ME?!” he blurted out in a half-insane, laughing shriek.

She heard his voice.

“MASARU?! MASARU!!!” Sayane screamed as she shoved her way to the edge.

He heard her voice.

Pressure shifted, and a horn blared over the music.

She appeared between three horrified onlookers, and he felt a rush of relief that immediately sank to horror. Her hand reached between their shoulders, but she was too far away. Pale, sickly fingers begged for touch.

“Sayane-” he whimpered as his hand weakly rose towards hers, but there was too much distance.

“MASARU!!!!!!” Sayane cried out.

“I-” he started.

But the train was upon them.

There was a thud and a wet crunch that was drowned out by gusting winds and horrified cries. Sayane felt a warm mist spray across her hand and open eyes as her face locked.

pick

pic

Minutes later, the bullet train stopped at another station. Crumpled metal along the nose told the story of another ‘personal injury’. Travelers murmured to themselves. Some annoyed. Some concerned. These things were becoming too common in Japan. But in the end, their main priority was simply to get on another train and continue their own journeys.

In the months that followed, the site where Warm Embraces once stood became wrapped in vinyl and metal, as a developer announced an upcoming midrise chain hotel. Construction costs exploded in the midst of global economic shifts, as tariffs and supply chain interruptions drove expenses to record highs. Loans for such assets became impossible to pencil, so the development stalled. Instead, the site stayed as it was- a half-demolished skeleton of a formerly horrifying place that few dared to enter. Even then, in the shadow of its former self, few dared to look at it when they passed.

Andrakin got a new manager. Some aspects improved. There was less direct abuse now. But the hours and indifference remained the same. Just like so many other office buildings across Tokyo, it stayed occupied and churned well into the darkness of the evening, long after those lucky enough to work at other places had gone home to families and independent lives. Within its sterile halls, workers began to whisper that if you were the last one to leave, you would occasionally see something flicker in the glass and even hear a whisper in your mind.