Night had already settled over the streets of Shibuya.
Shin Kitahara had just finished the promotional shoot for Midnight canned coffee and politely declined the brand executives’ invitation to celebrate over drinks in Ginza.
Right now, all he wanted was to go home and soak in a hot bath.
To match the shoot’s theme of a sophisticated urban professional, the stylist had dressed him in a dark gray Burberry trench coat.
Once the shoot ended, the brand manager had generously waved it off as a “small gift” and let Shin keep it.
In the extravagance of the bubble era, that single coat was worth nearly two months of an ordinary office worker’s salary.
The tailoring was superb.
Shin paused in front of a shop window and adjusted the collar.
The man reflected in the glass stood tall and straight.
Weeks of regular meals and better sleep had put some healthy color back into his face, and for the first time, he actually looked as though he belonged in clothes this expensive.
As he passed the entrance to TBS Television’s underground parking garage, a sudden burst of shouting caught his attention.
Dozens of reporters armed with cameras had surrounded a black van like sharks scenting blood.
Camera flashes exploded one after another, turning the dim parking entrance almost as bright as day.
“Nakamori-san!
Is it true Kanai-san secretly met another woman in Roppongi last night?”
“How do you respond to the rumors that Kanai-san misappropriated money from your agency?”
“Nakamori-san!
Over here!
Please give us a comment!”
At the center of the mob, a slender figure was being shoved from side to side.
Akina Nakamori kept her head lowered behind a pair of dark sunglasses, trying to force her way through with her manager and two security guards protecting her.
But there were simply too many reporters.
Microphones were practically being thrust into her face.
Her complexion was deathly pale, her lips pressed into a tight line.
The relentless harassment had clearly pushed her close to the breaking point.
The guards screamed for everyone to move aside, but their voices vanished beneath the barrage of questions.
The situation was descending into chaos.
If this continued, someone was going to get trampled.
Shin stopped.
He stood on the steps at the edge of the crowd, still carrying the briefcase that held his script.
Should he help her?
A month ago, he would have assumed there was nothing he could do.
But now…
That silver lighter she had casually given him had changed the course of his life.
Shin straightened the collar of his trench coat, took the Screenwriter’s Glasses from his pocket, and put them on.
He wasn’t expecting the glasses to magically solve the problem.
He simply wanted his thoughts to stay sharp.
He adjusted the frames.
His mind immediately became calmer.
After spending decades around film crews in his previous life, Shin had seen enough powerful people to know how they behaved.
He might never have been one of them, but he certainly knew how to imitate the manner of a man accustomed to giving orders and expecting them to be obeyed.
And tonight, the expensive trench coat on his back made the disguise even more convincing.
He strode down the steps and headed straight toward the security supervisor stationed at the edge of the crowd.
“Are you the person in charge of this shift?”
Shin didn’t raise his voice.
There was no anger in his tone either, only the precise amount of impatience expected from a senior employee whose carefully organized work had just been disrupted.
“This mess has been going on for five minutes.
Why hasn’t Passage B been cleared?” This story is hosted at g.com.
The security supervisor froze.
He stared at the man standing before him: expensive trench coat, glasses, cold expression, and the unmistakable air of someone who thought in terms of procedures and efficiency.
He looked exactly like one of those short-tempered senior producers who prowled the halls of a television network.
The guard instinctively straightened his back.
“I-I’m terribly sorry, sir!
There are too many reporters, and we—”
“I’m not interested in excuses.”
Shin frowned.
“If someone gets trampled here, is your security company prepared to take responsibility?”
The word responsibility struck exactly where it needed to.
Shin glanced at his watch, then pointed toward an opening on the left.
“Take three men and separate those two magazine crews on that side.
Tell the driver to stop sitting there and reverse the van closer to the exit.
You have two minutes.”
“Yes, sir!
Right away!”
The supervisor practically snapped to attention.
Then he spun around and shouted, “Tanaka!
Sato!
You two, with me!
Left side, now!”
Fear of being blamed accomplished what pleading had failed to do.
The guards suddenly moved with astonishing efficiency, tearing open a gap in what had been an impenetrable wall of reporters.
Shin didn’t stop.
He walked straight through the opening, maintaining the unmistakable air of a man who was working and expected everyone else to stay out of his way.
The reporters instinctively moved aside.
A man dressed like that, carrying himself with that much authority, had to be somebody important.
Several of them were already wondering which TBS executive they had somehow failed to recognize.
Shin reached Akina.
She had drawn her shoulders inward, looking almost like a frightened bird trapped in the middle of a storm.
“The van is coming to Exit Three.”
Shin didn’t look directly at her.
Instead, he spoke to her flustered manager in the same calm tone someone might use while discussing tomorrow’s schedule.
“Keep your head up.
Walk quickly.
And don’t let them photograph her crying.
That’ll only make them more aggressive.”
The manager seemed to wake from a daze.
“Right!
Yes!”
Akina suddenly lifted her head.
Behind the dark lenses of her sunglasses, she saw a familiar profile.
You…?
Tonight, Shin looked completely different.
His trench coat sat perfectly across his shoulders, and he had positioned himself between her and the heaviest concentration of camera flashes, blocking the most predatory lenses with the practiced ease of someone who had handled this sort of chaos a hundred times before.
“Over here!
The black van finally pulled closer.
The sliding door opened.
With her manager supporting her, Akina quickly climbed inside.
Just before the door closed, she removed her sunglasses.
Her eyes were swollen and red.
For one brief moment, she looked deeply at Shin standing outside the van.
Shin wasn’t looking back.
He was calmly adjusting his cuff, as though all he had done was deal with some trivial inconvenience on a film set.
Bang.
The door slammed shut.
The van sped away, leaving behind a crowd of reporters who had failed to capture the scandalous photographs they wanted.
“Who the hell was that?”
“Maybe some new producer at TBS?”
“Damn, that guy’s intimidating.
He looked at me once and I almost forgot to press the shutter.”
Shin ignored the murmurs around him.
He removed the glasses and slipped them back into his pocket.
The oppressive, executive-like coldness around him faded with the gesture, leaving behind the slightly tired young actor everyone normally knew.
He tightened his trench coat and headed toward the subway.
…
Nine o’clock that evening.
Shin sat at the low table in his apartment, flipping through a copy of Tokyo Real Estate Guide.
A cup of hot tea rested beside him while the heater hummed warmly near his feet.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
The black pager on the corner of the table suddenly came to life.
Shin had only bought it recently so the agency could contact him about work.
He had given the number to very few people—his manager Ota, the director, and a handful of others.
He picked it up and looked at the tiny display.
An unfamiliar number appeared on the screen, followed by a short message:
[THANK YOU — A]
A.
Akina.
Shin stared at the words and remembered the stubborn, humiliated look in her eyes back in the parking garage.
She had probably asked someone for his pager number.
For one of Japan’s biggest idols, a woman currently trapped in the center of a media storm, to go out of her way to send even that brief message was already unusual.
If Shin had truly been a twenty-year-old kid, he might have immediately rushed to a phone and called her back.
Or perhaps he would already be imagining the beginning of some dramatic, unforgettable romance.
But Shin only smiled.
He didn’t dwell on it.
Instead, he placed the pager back on the corner of the table and picked up his red pen.
On the magazine page in front of him was a photograph of an apartment with a loft.
Shin drew a neat red circle around it.
“A skylight isn’t bad.
Rainy nights would probably feel pretty nice up there.”