October 1988, Tokyo.
The rain outside showed no sign of stopping.
It hammered against the glass curtain wall, smearing the city’s bright, hollow neon into soft, bleeding smears of color.
2:15 a.m.
Kawada-machi, Shinjuku — the old Fuji TV building.
Even at this hour the massive white structure still felt like a restless beast, breathing in and out the highest-grade ambition and desire in Japan.
Every so often an assistant director sprinted down the corridor with an armful of videotapes, or a producer with a shiny face and bloodshot eyes stumbled out of an all-night meeting.
The air carried that particular late-night smell: expensive perfume, cheap cigarettes, and too much coffee.
Shin Kitahara sat on the bench at the far end of the hallway, fingers wrapped around a can of black coffee still warm from the vending machine.
The metal was hot against his palm, but he didn’t let go.
In this cold, dead hour it was the only heat he had.
“Still a little stiff.” He stared at his own reflection in the glass and ran the scene again in his head.
The face looking back was twenty-two, clean-featured, even handsome in a conventional way.
The kind of face that belonged to the upright extra who dies in episode three, or the female lead’s boring ex who only ever says “drink more hot water.” No one knew that behind those regular features lived an old soul that had already lived a whole lifetime on film sets.
In his previous life he had crawled through Hengdian for decades — corpses, eunuchs, stunt doubles, bit parts.
People called him a veteran.
His craft was carved into his bones, but the face had been too plain.
He never once played a lead.
This time the heavens had given him decent looks and dropped him into an era where money was practically lying on the ground.
Reality, however, stayed hard.
“Too stagey,” “no hook,” “technically clean but you don’t want to watch him twice” — that had been the verdict from a famous casting director last week.
Tonight he had played a waiter in a cop drama who gets dropped by a stray bullet the moment he appears.
To sell the sudden death he had thrown himself onto the floor five times.
His knees still throbbed.
“Still gotta keep going.” Shin tipped his head back, took a bitter swallow, and decided he would just sleep on this bench until the first train ran, then head back to his cheap apartment in Nerima.
A rapid, slightly unsteady click of high heels cut through the silence at the end of the corridor.
Shin straightened automatically — an old set instinct.
Never let the important people catch you slouching.
A woman came down the hallway fast, like something was chasing her.
Under the vending machine’s weak light Shin saw her clearly.
She wore a black stage outfit that was almost too loud, the full skirt heavy with sequins that caught the glow and threw it back in sharp little flashes.
Over it she had thrown on a man’s oversized suit jacket, probably grabbed from some crew member to fight the cold.
The combination looked ridiculous and somehow perfect at the same time.
Her face was small, makeup perfect, but the dark circles under her eyes were impossible to hide.
Akina Nakamori.
Everyone in Japan knew that face.
She was the era’s symbol, the original songstress who lived in every man’s dreams, and the fragile girl who kept crying on the covers of gossip magazines because of another worthless boyfriend.
Right now she was none of those things.
She was just exhausted, and trying to get away from everyone.
She didn’t notice him in the shadows.
She walked straight to the vending machine, dug a crushed pack of Seven Stars from the suit jacket pocket, and pulled out a cigarette with shaking fingers.
She put it between her lips and flicked open an expensive silver Zippo.
Click.
The sound was loud in the empty corridor.
No flame.
Only a few weak sparks.
Click.
Click.
Still nothing.
Akina froze, shoulders hunched over the lighter like she was protecting it from the world.
For a second she just stood there, trembling on the edge.
Three days of nonstop work with maybe four hours of sleep.
The host on tonight’s show deliberately dragging up some bullshit romance rumor.
Her manager in her ear the whole time about the next schedule.
She had swallowed all of it.
And now even the damn lighter was refusing to work.
She slammed the silver Zippo against the vending machine’s metal side with a dull thud.
“Tch.” The sound that came out of her was small and raw — not anger, just pure, tired frustration.
She was about to throw the useless thing into the trash when a soft plastic click sounded right beside her.
A small, steady orange flame appeared in front of her face.
Akina startled and took a half-step back.
A clean, slender hand held out a cheap plastic 100-yen lighter with some karaoke joint’s logo on it.
Following the hand up, she saw a young man sitting on the bench.
He wasn’t looking at her.
His eyes stayed on the unlit cigarette at her lips.
His face was calm, almost blank — no starstruck panic, no creepy hunger.
He was simply offering a light, nothing more.
Something tight in her chest loosened a little.
She leaned forward and touched the tip of her cigarette to the flame.
The tobacco caught.
She drew in smoke, let it burn her lungs, then tipped her head back and exhaled a long, slow stream like she was breathing out everything she had been holding in.
“Something that costs tens of thousands of yen,” she said, voice hoarse, staring at the cold silver lighter in her hand, “and when it actually matters it’s worse than a piece of hundred-yen plastic.” Shin took his own lighter back and wrapped his fingers around the coffee can again.
His answer was flat, practical.
“Just out of fuel.
Put some in and it’ll work again.” No flirtation.
No angle.
Just a statement.
Akina turned and looked at him properly for the first time.
In this industry where everyone tried to peel a layer of gold off her skin, his calm felt almost foreign.
He sat in the shadows like a tree that had no interest in moving.
“Akina-chan!
Akina-chan, where are you?” Her manager’s voice came from the other end of the corridor, sharp with panic, footsteps hurrying closer.
The name flipped a switch.
The tired, raw woman disappeared.
Akina crushed the cigarette out on the vending machine, dropped it in the trash, straightened the suit jacket, and pulled her spine straight.
Even if it was only armor, she would wear the dignity of the songstress until she was alone again.
Before she walked away she placed the silver Zippo gently on top of the vending machine.
“No fuel means it’s just scrap.
I’m not fixing it.” She didn’t look back.
High heels clicking, she headed toward the voice calling her name, leaving only one last, light sentence floating in the air behind her.
“If you don’t mind, you can keep it.” The corridor went quiet again.
Only the faint trace of expensive perfume proved she had really been there.
Shin finished the last of the coffee and stood.
His eyes went to the top of the vending machine.
The engraved silver Zippo lay there by itself, abandoned.
He picked it up.
The metal still held a trace of warmth from her hand.
The moment his fingers closed around it, a familiar pale-blue interface bloomed across his vision.
[System Activated.] [Equippable Item Discovered (Rare)] [Item Name: The Songstress’s Abandoned Silver Zippo (Purple)] [Original Owner: Akina Nakamori] [Slot: Hand / Accessory] [Status: Fuel Depleted] [Base Attribute: Charm +15% (Trait: Fragile Allure)] [Special Entry: Confession Behind the Mask (Passive)] Note: In front of the world she is the untouchable queen.
Alone, she is simply a girl who wants to be loved.
This lighter has watched her swallow her pain in silence more times than anyone will ever know.
[Effect: Once equipped, your eyes carry a natural sense of depth.
When you stay silent, people around you feel 50% more compelled to figure you out, and unconsciously sense that you are someone carrying secrets and real emotion.] Shin’s fingers tightened around the lighter.
He looked at his reflection in the glass and slowly rubbed his thumb over the cold metal.
“Depth…” For an actor, that was worth more than gold.
He slipped the empty Zippo into the pocket over his heart, pushed open the glass door, and stepped out into the long, rainy night.