April 15, 1989.
Tokyo’s cherry blossom season was drawing to an end.
Pink-and-white petals had gathered in the roadside gutters, soaked gray by the rain until they resembled a layer of soggy mud.
Thanks to his performance in Kasuga no Tsubone, Shin Kitahara’s salary had finally risen to 100,000 yen per episode.
It was still nowhere near what a top-tier star could command, but it was more than enough for him to rent a better apartment in Nakano and finally furnish it with a few decent appliances.
Eleven o’clock at night.
Shin was testing the new Pioneer stereo system he had recently bought.
The two-hundred-thousand-yen setup was playing a Koji Tamaki vinyl record, his deep voice flowing through the apartment and blending into the quiet rhythm of the rainy night.
Shin poured himself a glass of whisky and settled onto the sofa.
His work on the Taiga drama had recently wrapped, while negotiations for his next project were still underway.
For once, he had a rare stretch of free time.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep—
The pager on the table suddenly came to life.
In the stillness of the late night, its monotonous electronic chirping sounded unusually harsh.
Shin set down his glass and picked it up.
The display showed the same familiar public telephone number with no name attached.
This wasn’t the first time.
Ever since Akina had given him the silver Zippo she’d left behind at the vending machine, the two of them had maintained this strange, unspoken connection.
To a woman treated as a money-making machine by her family and a commodity by her agency, Shin—an outsider who wanted neither her fame nor anything from the filthy games of the entertainment industry—had somehow become one of the only places where she could breathe.
But something about tonight felt wrong.
Shin glanced at the calendar.
Over the past few weeks, Shukan Bunshun and FOCUS had been hounding Kanai like rabid dogs.
Photographs supposedly showing him secretly meeting another famous female star in New York were everywhere.
And as his so-called official girlfriend, Akina was probably trapped at home right now, surrounded by reporters and camera crews, afraid to so much as open her curtains.
Shin reached for the telephone and dialed the number on the pager.
…
“Hello…”
Akina Nakamori’s voice came through the receiver.
It was barely above a whisper.
In the background, Shin could hear the rush of wind.
She sounded as though she were somewhere high above the ground.
“It’s me.” Shin switched off the stereo.
“It’s late.
You still haven’t gone to bed?”
“Kitahara-kun.”
Akina ignored his question.
“Tokyo is so noisy.”
Shin’s expression changed.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s already the middle of the night, so why is it still so loud?”
Her voice remained eerily calm.
The television won’t stop talking about that woman’s name…
It’s so noisy my head hurts.”
She fell silent for a moment.
Then she continued.
“I was standing on the balcony just now, looking down…”
Her voice drifted through the receiver with the wind.
“And I started wondering…
if everything could just become quiet…
if I could become something quiet too…
would I finally stop hearing all of it?”
Shin’s hand tightened violently around the receiver.
He understood exactly what she meant.
She was thinking about jumping.
As an actor, Shin had spent years learning to recognize the smallest changes in emotion.
If she had been sobbing, shouting, or cursing, at least she would still be releasing some of the pain.
But this…
This empty, emotionless calm was far more frightening.
It was the silence of someone who had already been pushed beyond the point of exhaustion.
Public ridicule.
A boyfriend’s betrayal.
An agency responding with cold indifference.
Together, they had driven a woman not yet twenty-five years old to the edge of a cliff.
Shin knew he couldn’t waste time saying something meaningless.
Not now.
Any empty reassurance like “don’t think about it too much” or “get some sleep and you’ll feel better” could make things worse.
“I know a place.”
Shin’s voice became calm and firm, cutting cleanly through the lifeless silence on the other end of the line.
“There’s a stretch of undeveloped beach along Kujukuri in Chiba.
No tourists.
No reporters.
Just seagulls and the sound of the waves.”
Silence.
Several seconds passed.
Then, for the first time, the faintest trace of emotion returned to Akina’s voice.
“Really?”
“Really.”
Shin looked out at the darkness beyond his window.
He didn’t hesitate.
“Where are you?
I’ll come get you right now.”
“I’m…”
“I’m on the rooftop of my building.
I’m scared to go downstairs.
There are reporters everywhere.”
“Find a back entrance or an emergency stairwell where no one’s watching.
Forty minutes from now, I’ll be waiting at the convenience store two blocks away.”
Shin hung up.
He moved immediately.
He grabbed his dark gray trench coat and pulled a business card from one of the desk drawers.
It belonged to the owner of a car-rental shop he’d met some time ago.
Ten minutes later, Shin was knocking on the man’s front door.
He paid twice the normal rate to rent an inconspicuous Toyota Crown for the night.
…
Traffic was sparse on Tokyo’s elevated expressways.
Shin gripped the steering wheel, his eyes sharp and focused on the rain-slicked road ahead.
He wasn’t some selfless saint who went around trying to save everyone.
But he couldn’t stand by and watch someone so extraordinarily talented be crushed to death by the entertainment industry’s filth.
That silver Zippo had changed his life.
If accepting it meant he owed Akina a favor, then tonight he would repay that debt.
…
Forty minutes later.
Meguro.
Outside a secluded convenience store, a lone figure stood beneath the shadows.
She wore a thin trench coat, a hat pulled low over her head, and a mask covering most of her face.
A cup of coffee, long since gone cold, was cradled between her hands.
Her body trembled faintly.
She looked even thinner than she had two months ago.
So fragile that a strong gust of wind seemed capable of knocking her over.
A dark Toyota Crown pulled up in front of her.
Shin leaned across the passenger seat and pushed the door open.
“Get in.”
Akina slowly raised her head.
Her eyes were dull and unfocused as they settled on him.
It was the look of someone drowning who had suddenly found a piece of driftwood within reach.
She said nothing.
She simply climbed into the passenger seat.
“Put your seat belt on.”
Shin didn’t ask about the news.
He didn’t mention Kanai.
He didn’t offer her hollow words of comfort.
He simply turned on the heater, raised the temperature by two degrees, waited until she had fastened her seat belt, and pressed down on the accelerator.
The Toyota slipped into the endless darkness of the Tokyo night.
Heading east.
Toward the sea.
And away from the enormous, deafening noise that Tokyo had become.