Puzzle

Sanae slipped into the packed train carriage, as though drawn in by the warm, damp air that spilled out through the doors when they shook open. She slowly sank her body into the wall of passengers, pressured from behind by more office workers pushing their way on after her. She snuggled under a salaryman’s chin, and his damp breath tickled her forehead.

“Are you okay, Sanae?” asked her colleague Emiko, wedged in next to her.

Sanae crinkled her eyes in a smile. “I’m fine!”

As the train moved off, the passengers all raised their faces slightly, as if seeking oxygen.

Surrounded by lips facing upward, Sanae relaxed her body and leaned into the eddy of body heat. Submerged in air full of sighs released from numerous mouths, she closed her eyes and savored the dampness on her skin, floating in it, happy being smothered in the carbon dioxide spewed out by passengers. Long ago the term forest bathing had been popular, but Sanae preferred “people bathing” like this.

Even more people got on at the next stop, and enthralled by the mounting warm pressure, she opened her eyes a little and noticed the salaryman next to her cluck his tongue. She stared almost enviously at the black hole in his face, fancying that she could see through the thin, cracked lips to the red-black tongue bouncing against the inside of his mouth. Feeling her gaze on him, the

salaryman looked briefly puzzled, but when he saw her smiling slightly, he seemed to understand that her look was appreciative, and his expression changed to one of pride.

The train pulled into the station where Sanae had to transfer, and she reluctantly joined the flow of passengers getting off. Emiko was on the platform, smoothing down her tousled hair with a sigh.

“Emiko.”

“Oh, Sanae, am I glad to see you! I thought we’d lost each other.

Today’s rush hour is just the worst, isn’t it? I really can’t stand it!”

Emiko frowned grumpily, then noticed that Sanae was smiling and looked at her, puzzled. “You don’t look fazed at all, Sanae. You’re always like that. You never get irritable, do you?”

“You hate the rush hour, don’t you, Emiko?”

“Nobody likes it when it’s packed like that!”

“Really? Actually, I’ve never felt that way myself.”

Seeing Sanae gazing at the noisy wave of people, her expression still soft, Emiko shrugged. “You have an air about you, Sanae, as if you see life from above the clouds. I’ve never seen you get annoyed about anything. The younger girls were saying the same thing, that you’re always so kind and never, ever get angry.”

“Really?”

“Yes, especially Yuka. She’s always going on and on about how much she likes you. She wants to go out drinking with you again.”

“Yuka likes everyone, though!”

As they got on the escalator, chatting, the next train slid into the platform. Sanae turned in the direction of the sound and looked down on the eddy of living organisms flowing out through the doors, almost reaching out a hand toward them.

“Anything wrong, Sanae?”

“Oh, no, nothing.” Sanae shook her head lightly and turned back to face Emiko. Behind her, the noise coming from the heat and physical presence of the living organisms made the air tremble as it slowly came pressing up behind her.

Sanae lived in a trim little apartment building crammed into a small space in a major office district. As she walked in her high heels between the rows of buildings, she couldn’t shake the sensation that she, too, was one of these buildings.

Gazing at the gradations of gray concrete, she recalled the public housing project she’d lived in as a child. Ever since she could remember, she had felt that she was one of the blocks in that project.

She’d always been on the frail side and had often sat on a bench in the project’s park, watching the other children playing. When she handed back a ball that came rolling up to her feet, she had been surprised by the heat in another child’s hands. The sensation of living flesh was utterly unlike her own pale hands. They were living organisms, and the core of life was firmly embedded inside them, she’d thought at the time. Behind her back, the gray project buildings stood in rows, watching the children in the same way that she was.

When she left home and came to live alone in Tokyo, this office district had been recommended to her because it was so convenient for transport lines. The sight of it somehow made her feel that being here had to be her destiny. Ah, this is how the ugly duckling—the baby swan mistakenly raised by ducks—must have felt when it returned to its own flock , she thought. Yet, unlike in the picture book, Sanae wasn’t returning to a flock of swans, but to rows of inorganic buildings. Although the flock of humans she had mistakenly blended

with was far more beautiful, before she knew it, she was being pushed back by nature to where she belonged.

Through a gap in the curtains in her apartment she looked down on the heads and backs of people passing by below the streetlamps.

She never got tired of watching people moving around, no matter how long she spent doing it.

The core of life was embedded within people. How beautiful living organisms were! She diligently followed their skin and muscles with her eyes, as though looking at precious cells through a microscope.

Inside the body, squirming organs were densely crammed within a faintly transparent skin. Around them stretched the muscles, like roots, and blood was constantly circulating in the veins that stood out on the neck. Unconsciously, Sanae slipped her face through the gap in the curtain and pressed her forehead to the window to stare at them, but then someone looked at her, as if aware they were being watched. Hastily she left the window and took refuge inside the darkened room.

She saw her pale face reflected in a small hand mirror lying on the low table. She’d forgotten to turn it over that morning, she thought, reaching out a hand for it.

The surface of her face reflected in it was somewhat pasty, and it was impossible to see anything of the blood and flesh that must lie within. Her cheeks and forehead were such a uniform color that she began to wonder whether her insides were filled with the same materials as the surface. Only the eye shadow painted on her eyelid had a faint luster, which made it look all the more like white concrete painted over in one spot.

Recalling the lukewarm carbon dioxide from numerous mouths showering her in the train, Sanae breathed deeply as she gazed into the mirror. But the breeze coming out through the gap between her enamel-coated teeth was cold, as though she were simply blowing air, not breathing.

Sanae sighed, turned the mirror over, and placed it back on the table. She didn’t want to look at herself, as she barely resembled any kind of life-form, so she’d decided never to look in the mirror except when she was getting ready for work in the morning. There was no mirror in her tiny bathroom, and this one small hand mirror was the only one in her apartment. Feeling a little better now that she could no longer see her own appearance, she got up and started preparing her dinner.

It was in her nature to never feel very hungry. She always felt that she was just pouring food into the black hole in her face, as though she were merely a garbage bin for kitchen waste. That felt gross, so she tried taking only nutritional supplements, but then she’d fainted from anemia and since then had forced herself to chuck a certain amount of food into her face hole.

Steam smelling of dashi and miso wafted up as she reheated the soup she’d made that morning. Yet even inhaling that fragrance did not stimulate her appetite, and not knowing what to do, she kept stirring the soup with the silver ladle.

During her lunch break at work the next day, Sanae joined several colleagues in an empty meeting room. Normally they each brought packed lunches they’d either made themselves or bought in a convenience store, but today everyone had the same yellow plastic bags lined up on the table. That morning they’d all gone together to a

new bento shop opened nearby. The place sold unusual types of bento, such as taco rice and loco moco, and had a good reputation, so they’d decided to buy lunch there today.

Unwrapping her bento, Emiko pursed her lips. “I was really pissed at that guy in the store. He was so rude!”

“It’s true, he was. They should fire him—he’s only a casual worker.

Shall we phone in to make a complaint?”

Everyone seemed irritated by how curt the worker who had taken their orders had been.

One girl scooped up some taco rice in a plastic spoon and put it in her mouth, then grimaced and said, “Yuck, this is disgusting.”

“Right—it’s not just the attitude, the food tastes awful. It’s just the worst. I won’t be going back there again.”

“Yeah, we should have stuck with our normal lunches.”

The meat was dry, and the sauce too strong. It didn’t exactly taste like it was a high-quality product.

Sanae was smiling as she savored her food, and Emiko said to her, “Aren’t you annoyed about that bento place, Sanae?”

“Me? No, not really,” she replied with a smile, and another friend laughed.

“You’re so bighearted, Sanae. You hardly ever get angry.”

“I don’t think that’s really true, though,” Sanae said.

“Oh, it is. Just today Okajima was saying all kinds of things to you, but you didn’t even pull a face.”

Okajima, a woman in the same section as Sanae, was known for admonishing workers in a pretty severe tone and was generally disliked, but Sanae had never gotten annoyed with her even once.

“She probably has a point, but it’s the way she says it! It makes me not want to listen, really. It just gets right up my nose.”

“I hate Okajima too. I’m glad I’m not in the same section as her.”

“Well, nobody likes her! You poor thing, Sanae.”

“But, see, you don’t seem to have a problem with her, Sanae. I’ve never heard you bad-mouth her, and you don’t seem to be merely putting up with her either.”

“You really don’t hate anyone, do you, Sanae?”

“Not really.” Sanae shook her head and smiled. Toward life-forms, all she had was a yearning that left no room for hatred.

“You’re incredible, Sanae. The way you can say that without being sarcastic!”

“You think?”

“I really hate people who say they don’t hate anyone, ’cos they’re hypocrites, but not you, Sanae. I get the feeling that you mean it.”

Sanae picked up her bottle of mineral water from the table. “I’ve never felt particularly irritated by anyone, ever since I was little.”

“Really? I guess you have to be born that way. Myself, I’m annoyed all the time. My skin even gets dry from stress. How lucky you are.”

“No, I’m not lucky at all!” Sanae said, emotion in her voice. She was the one who always envied the other women!

She could see the reflection of light on the saliva inside the girl’s mouth when she sighed. Life-forms were a spring from which all kinds of fluids gushed forth. Saliva was one, and urine and blood and other liquids, and around them hung the rank smell of air permeated with the stench of inner organs that erupted from the mouth. Each of those things was totally lifeless when emitted by Sanae, however.

Sanae gazed steadily at the girl, who now peered back into her eyes.

“What lovely eyes you have, Sanae. You can see in them how much you like people.”

“That’s true. Whenever you look at me, I feel good.”

Embarrassed to realize that she’d been staring at the girl, Sanae looked down.

She couldn’t help staring at the life-forms, to the extent that it might be considered rude, but somehow they didn’t dislike it. They all probably sensed that the gaze she fixed them with was tinged with envy. Sanae’s gaze was always received amicably.

She had finished her meal and was just about to clear it away and go back to work when Emiko spoke to her.

“Oh, I almost forgot. Sanae, I brought this for you.”

“You did?” She took the thin plastic bag. Inside was a plastic case.

“I’ve finished with it, so I thought I’d give it to you.”

“What is it? Music?”

“No. It’s an exercise DVD. You mentioned that your body felt cold, didn’t you? This is pretty strenuous exercise, so I thought it’d be effective for poor circulation.”

What she’d meant about her body being cold was a bit different from what Emiko had understood, but Sanae was glad that she cared, so she smiled.

“Thank you. I’ll give it a go.”

“No worries. In any case, it was lying around at home. Oh, I’ll just pop down to the bathroom before going back to work,” Emiko said, waving goodbye as she rushed down the corridor. Sanae quietly

gripped the plastic bag in her hand, thinking of all the excrement filling Emiko’s body.

As Sanae and Emiko were leaving their office building after work, a man standing next to the flower bed outside the main entrance looked up at them. He was wearing a long-sleeved black shirt, unsuited to the summer sun, with slim-fit pants of the same color, and upon catching Sanae’s and Emiko’s eyes, he hastily averted his face and began fiddling with the phone in his hand.

“Who’s that? He looks shady,” Emiko said, making a face.

The man kept his face downturned and repeatedly took his phone out of his pocket and put it back in, but at one point his hand must have slipped as he tried to squeeze the phone into his pants, and he dropped it.

The phone landed near Sanae’s feet, and she picked it up and went over to him.

“Here you are,” she said with a smile.

Surprise registered on his face as he looked at her, and he grabbed the phone from her and ran off.

“You should have just left it. You’re too nice sometimes, Sanae.”

Sanae was recalling the sweat oozing from the man’s forehead and the eyeballs moving around in the gaps in his skin. Looking down at her own skin, she saw that there was not even a hint of moisture oozing from its pale surface, even in this heat.

“Emiko, if I do those exercises on the DVD you gave me today, will I be able to sweat?”

“Oh, that! It does work, you know. I was soaked after doing it.”

“Really?”

A few drops of liquid had formed a stain on the asphalt where the man had been standing. It was probably some of his sweat. Sanae stroked her own still surface and visualized the wriggling flesh within the dripping liquid.

Sanae changed into a thin T-shirt and short pants and switched on the TV. She wanted to try the DVD Emiko had given her as soon as she got home, before even having dinner.

As she placed the DVD in the deck, a foreign woman instructor appeared on the screen. Seeing her body, with its well-defined muscles below the skin, Sanae imagined the muscles stretched within that body and the heart at its center. She almost got carried away, but then the music started and she hastily began moving her body.

After she’d been moving awhile, following the instructions, little by little she felt the contents of her skin undergoing a change. The water inside her body was beginning to ooze out. She even had the sensation that liquid was being forced out through the small pores in the surface of the skin on her forehead.

The sweat oozing from her face didn’t stick, however, but smoothly trickled down the surface. Seeing the transparent liquid dripping onto her arm, she was reminded of condensation on a window. It was just water oozing from her body, not a proper bodily fluid. Air was blowing with more force from her mouth, but this made her feel all the more that she was merely a machine that had a switch somewhere.

After continuing this heavy exercise for about an hour, the sensation that she was a receptacle only grew stronger. However

much her inner organs raged and moisture oozed heavily out, Sanae felt that she was simply their container.

Finally she finished exercising and switched off the screen with the remote control. All that was reflected on the darkened TV was a small gray building dripping liquid from the condensation on its surface.

Sanae stood there in a daze without wiping away the water that had oozed out from within her. Suddenly something occurred to her, and covering her shirt with her hand, she pressed on the location of her heart. It was beating wildly, but this just gave her the sensation that it wasn’t hers, more like a goldfish she’d swallowed that was flapping around inside.

She sighed, moved close to the dark screen, and looked at her face. Her eyes, nose, and mouth had dark holes in them, and she could catch glimpses of her tongue in her mouth. It was like a slug stuck to the window, and she couldn’t possibly think that it was flesh with her own nerves running through it.

The next day, there was a company get-together after work, and as Sanae was leaving the office with her friends, Emiko suddenly stopped.

“What’s wrong?”

Emiko looked at Sanae and, without saying anything, jerked her chin in the direction of the flower bed. The same man they’d seen the day before was there, gripping a woman by her wrists.

Sanae heard Emiko murmur, “He was lying in wait for Yuka,” and she looked again to see that it was her younger colleague Yuka that the man was holding. The girl next to her frowned.

“What is that? Is he Yuka’s boyfriend? That’s a really threatening vibe, though.”

“Should we help her?”

“But it looks like serious trouble. Maybe we should get a man to help?”

While they all looked on from a distance, Sanae didn’t miss a beat, walking straight over to the couple.

“What’s going on, Yuka?”

“Sanae,” Yuka said in a feeble voice.

“Hello,” Sanae said to the man. “Do you know this girl?”

The man, his shoulders shaking, noticed the friendly smile on Sanae’s face and let go of Yuka, as though his strength had drained out of him.

“Is anything wrong?” Sanae’s smile grew even friendlier, and the man took a step back, averted his eyes, and walked away, wiping the sweat from his downturned face with his black shirt.

As Sanae sadly watched his departing figure, Yuka gripped hold of her arm.

“Sanae, thank you!”

“You’re sweating heavily, Yuka. Are you okay?”

“Yes . . .”

Sanae gazed at the sweat on Yuka’s forehead and neck, and smiled.

“Sanae, are you okay?” she heard Emiko say behind her.

“Sure.”

“I’m glad you’re safe. Well, let’s get going then. Quickly!”

“Yes, let’s go, Yuka.”

Sanae put her arm around Yuka and realized that her back was wet too. Savoring the moisture seeping into her own dry arm, she pressed her arm against Yuka’s back.

About an hour after the party started, Sanae saw Yuka shakily stand up from where she was seated farther inside, her face pale. She was grasping her lower chest, as though in pain, and as Sanae rushed to follow her, she imagined the liquid that had probably risen up to that part of her.

As she’d thought, Yuka was crouched down, vomiting into the toilet bowl.

“Are you okay?”

“Sanae . . .”

Yuka weakly gave her an apologetic look, then immediately turned back to the toilet.

It was as though there’d been a lot of water hidden away somewhere in that small body, as multicolored vomit of solids mixed in with liquid flowed into the toilet bowl. Food that had been on the table until a while ago had been dissolved by her internal organs and was giving off a completely different stench.

Impressed, Sanae put her face close to the toilet bowl. It had been less than an hour since the food entered Yuka’s mouth, yet it had already dissolved this much! How powerful the internal organs of life-forms were!

Sanae slowly rubbed Yuka’s back, hoping she’d vomit some more water smelling of innards. Right on cue, more liquid came welling up out of her lips.

When Sanae unconsciously started rubbing Yuka’s back harder, there was a strangled cry, and she came to herself.

“I’m sorry, was I being too rough?” she asked, peering into Yuka’s face. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah . . . thanks, Sanae.”

It looked as though even more liquid would overflow from Yuka’s eyes, which were moist with tears from having vomited repeatedly.

Sanae gazed at these holes, entranced by the prospect of yet more liquid coming from them, but Yuka sighed, held her hand over her mouth, and looked down. Sanae took out a handkerchief and wiped away the small specks of vomit from Yuka’s chest.

“Oh, you really don’t need to do that for me.”

“It’s okay. When you throw up, it’s best to get it all out. Right?”

The smell of vomit and alcohol hung over the toilet bowl. Savoring being enveloped in the odor of bodily fluids permeated with the smell of viscera, Sanae gazed in enchantment at Yuka, who was its source.

“Yes, I’m feeling much better now . . .” Yuka said, and she stood up and flushed the toilet. The rich concoction of bits of battered chicken and fried noodles dissolved in gastric juice was sucked away, and the toilet bowl returned to its insipid state with just clear water. Yuka gargled with tap water and said hoarsely, “I’m sorry, but I’m going home now. I’ll pay my share later . . .”

“Okay, I’ll go get your things for you.” Sanae smiled at her, mesmerized by the faint smell of viscera that hung about Yuka’s lips every time she spoke.

She went to get the belongings and put her arm around Yuka’s shoulders as she led her outside. Yuka looked up at her with teary eyes.

“Sanae, how come you’re so kind to me?”

Sanae tilted her head uncomprehendingly. “What?”

“I vomited such a lot and was in such a disgusting state, yet you kept rubbing my back . . .” Yuka said weakly.

“You’re not disgusting at all!” Sanae said with a smile.

“And earlier too, while everyone else was watching from a distance, you came to help me . . .” Yuka went on, tears in her eyes.

“That guy was my ex-boyfriend. I broke up with him, but he won’t take no for an answer, and he keeps hanging around. I’m actually scared of him.”

“Really?”

“Lately he’s been lying in wait for me at work, too.”

Sanae pictured the man. He’d been acting a bit weirdly, but that had made him look alive. She smiled, recalling his shoulders trembling under his black shirt.

“Well, he might be waiting outside your place, so shall I come with you?”

“I can’t possibly put you out any more than I already have. I’ll take a taxi to a friend’s place. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay.”

Sanae flagged down a taxi and got Yuka settled in the back seat.

Yuka bowed her head deeply, holding a handkerchief over her mouth.

“Thank you so much for everything, Sanae. Really.”

Sanae watched as the taxi departed, then went back into the restaurant. Emiko and the others came up to her, looking worried.

“How’s Yuka? Is she all right?”

“Yes. She seemed to be feeling much better. I just saw her off in a taxi.”

“She didn’t even last an hour. Maybe she hadn’t been feeling well to begin with.”

“She appeared to be drinking more than usual.”

“Mmmm. She did look as though she was drowning her sorrows, didn’t she? It looks like she’s caught up in some trouble with that weird man we saw earlier. Thanks for looking after her, Sanae. You always help everyone in trouble. It’s so good of you. Well, the night’s still young, how about we get back to the party?”

“Sorry, but I need to go to the bathroom first,” Sanae said, and headed for the toilet.

Approaching the toilet bowl where Yuka had been crouching, she could still sense the lingering smell of Yuka’s viscera. She pulled down her underwear and sat on the toilet, noticing that it was still warm from when Yuka had been clutching it.

Sanae gently took a deep breath and strained her lower abdomen. She wasn’t very good at eliminating waste. Even when she wanted to urinate or defecate, it seemed like someone else’s business, and she didn’t feel any urgency, so she couldn’t manage it without straining.

After a while, a warm liquid finally started streaming from her body. Having somehow managed to get it all out, she stood up and turned to look at the toilet bowl. Maybe she’d overdone it with the vitamin supplements, for the liquid was an abnormally vivid yellow, as though paint had been dissolved in it. There was absolutely no hint of a smell of animal body waste coming from it.

However hard she gazed at it, it simply looked like a bucket of yellow paint, and she couldn’t detect any trace of a life-form emanating from it.

Nor was there any sensation in her body of feeling refreshed after elimination. It just felt like some of the colored water flowing around her body had left it.

She sighed and flushed the toilet, and the lemon- colored water was sucked away.

She went back to her seat and started gathering her things.

“Sorry, but I’m going home too,” she told Emiko. “I’m not feeling very well.”

“Oh dear, are you drunk too, Sanae? But you hardly drank anything!”

“I feel a bit like I’ve got a cold coming on. I shouldn’t have pushed myself to come tonight.”

“Are you okay? Shall I see you home?”

“I’ve just got a bit of a temperature, I’ll be okay. Sorry, but here’s my and Yuka’s share of the bill. Thanks, Emiko.”

Having handed the money to Emiko, Sanae put her thin cardigan over her shoulders and left the restaurant. As she adjusted her bag on her shoulder, she recalled the sweat oozing from the man and the vomit that had spurted from Yuka’s mouth.

She took out her handkerchief, which smelled faintly of Yuka’s viscera. She stroked her own lips, but only cold air came out.

Irritated by the way it wasn’t even damp, she pushed her index finger into her mouth. But all that was there was a fluid like rainwater, devoid of any mucus.

She hung her head, eventually managing to take a deep breath and set off at a run through the streets of the nighttime entertainment district.

To begin with, she was just trotting along, but gradually she picked up speed. Water gushed out of her, and oxygen and carbon dioxide began furiously coming and going in her nose and mouth.

Holding her hand to her chest, she could feel her heart beating violently. However, just as the night before, this frenzied heart did not feel like it was her own, and she could only think of it as a separate creature living parasitically off her. The sensation that she was merely a concrete receptacle housing it grew even stronger.

This wasn’t going to work, she thought with a little sigh, and stopped running.

Without realizing it, she had been headed for the office district where her company was located, and when she wiped away the body fluid dripping from her face and looked up, she saw standing before her a pale gray office building.

Looking up at it, Sanae gulped despite herself. It was the very image of Sanae herself right now.

She glimpsed flashes of dark red and pale white figures inside its rows of windows. These were the building’s innards. She was mesmerized by the wriggling flesh in the windows.

Breathing and pulsing life-forms were moving around inside the rectangular concrete block. It was itself a quiet animal. It wasn’t a receptacle in which the creatures lived, but one single large life-form.

Sanae touched her chest. Inside it, her heart was beating, its vibrations reaching her skin.

Concrete and people were not opposites. All the people crawling around in the world were the shared inner organs of all the gray buildings like herself. This was what Sanae was thinking as she unsteadily approached the building.

As she touched the pale gray surface, the cold of the concrete seeped into her. The backs of Sanae’s pale, pasty hands looked as though they were blending into the concrete. Yet she no longer felt that they were inorganic matter. Whether it was due to the vibrations of her viscera or from cars passing outside, the surface of the building was quivering slightly. Feeling affection for this building-animal, she kept stroking the concrete with her white hands, slowly savoring its vibrations.

“Are you okay, Sanae?” Hearing Emiko’s voice, Sanae came back to herself. “You look really out of it!”

Out of it? Maybe she was, Sanae thought as she returned Emiko’s smile.

She was having lunch with her colleagues in the same place as usual—something that had been totally familiar to her until yesterday, but now she felt that she was in a completely different place.

Her friends, who until yesterday had been human, were sitting there right in front of her possessed of an entirely different aspect.

They were now a single mass of flesh and blood enclosed in a thin membrane, squirming and pulsing, emitting sounds and giving off heat.

Sanae looked slowly around the room. Within the building’s inner walls, she was of one flesh. She looked down at her arms, which seemed somewhat inorganic and incongruous with her surroundings, as if she were a fragment of plastic or an artificial organ that had mistakenly been swallowed up and become part of the building’s internal organs. But she didn’t feel the sort of alienation she’d felt until yesterday. “I am a small building, so the internal organs before

me now are my organs too,” she murmured to herself. Whether external walls or internal organs, they were all one single form, one large creature.

“Um, Sanae, has something good happened?” asked one girl, peering into Sanae’s pale face. “Did you get a boyfriend maybe?”

“I was thinking the same! It’s like gentleness is overflowing from your eyes even more than usual.”

“What are you talking about?” Emiko asked, laughing. “But I kind of get what you mean,” she added, peering into Sanae’s eyes.

“Oh, no. Nothing in particular has happened,” Sanae said. “Maybe it’s the effect of that DVD you gave me, Emiko.”

“Oh that! Did you like it?”

“It was amazing.”

“What DVD? A movie?” one girl asked, leaning forward, so Emiko began telling her about the exercises.

In her trance, Sanae watched these two lumps of flesh draw close to each other. Their quivering pale crimson flesh, visible through thin membranes, was so close they might blend into one. With every breath, they faintly expanded and contracted, evidence that they were alive. Yet it wasn’t merely evidence of their life, but also of the heartbeat of the large building around them.

Sanae stroked her own dry surface. She could feel the flesh within it, where organs the color of blood were pulsing just like the organs before her eyes. The very thought gave her a rush of affection for her own insides, which until now she’d been convinced were parasitic.

“Oh look, Sanae’s smiling again! No way it’s that DVD. It’s got to be a new boyfriend!”

“Right? Come on, Sanae, you’ve got to tell us!”

The membrane-covered fleshes all leaned toward her. Sanae laughed out loud in spite of herself. This triggered the internal organs, which also started to give off sounds, their flesh trembling.

The sounds they made reverberated around the room, echoing throughout the building.

Leaving work, Sanae was being slowly spewed out of the office building when she noticed the man in the black shirt standing outside. She gave him a friendly smile as she went up to say hello.

The man was taken aback, and his shoulders shook as he looked at her.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead toward his eyeballs, which were darting here and there, trying to escape from her curious gaze. Sanae took out her handkerchief to wipe away the sweat.

The man hastily averted his face.

“You’re getting sweat in your eyes,” Sanae told him gently.

He opened his mouth, but then he heard people’s voices coming out of the building, and abruptly he ran off.

Sanae was left standing there, clutching the handkerchief in her hand.

Realizing that her cell phone was vibrating inside her bag, she took it out and opened the screen. An email had come from Yuka.

Hi, Sanae. Thank you so much for yesterday. If you’re free tomorrow evening, would you mind meeting up somewhere? There’s something I’d like to tell you.

Sanae replied that she was free, glanced in the direction where the man had run off, and set off toward the station.

During lunch break the next day, Sanae skipped lunch and instead went to the bathroom, put the lid down on the toilet bowl, and sat on top of it.

She took out a compact mirror and looked in it to see her face there, grayish as ever. It had a number of holes here and there, the inner corners of her eyes, her nostrils and mouth. Peering closely at the corners of her eyes or mouth, she could see within them flesh the color of blood. She had never thought of these things as her own, but now they felt like charming creatures that had slipped inside her.

Did hermit crab shells also think so fondly of the life-forms that crept inside them? She left the toilet cubicle and was on her way back to her desk when she suddenly stopped in the corridor and looked out the window at the building’s entrance below. Little by little, internal organs were spilling out of it. She felt as though she and the building were connected, and that it was her own feet they were leaving through. Maybe the internal organs squirming inside her would similarly flow out and be sucked into other buildings. At night, all the flesh would leave and it would become simply a concrete box standing motionless, waiting for the internal organs to come again the next day.

She could have watched those internal organs outside all day, but suddenly she felt a tap on her back.

“So here you are, Sanae! I was looking for you. I called your phone too.”

She turned to see Emiko looking at her with concern.

“I’ve already had lunch. What have you been doing?”

“I’m sorry, I was just spacing out.”

“Sanae, are you okay? The day before yesterday you had a cold, didn’t you? If you’re not feeling well, you should go home.”

“I’m fine! In fact, I’m feeling even better than usual.”

Emiko tilted her head slightly and looked at her questioningly.

“Sanae, there’s something even more gentle about you lately—I thought so yesterday too. Are you sure you haven’t got a boyfriend?”

“No, no, nothing like that.”

“Really? Well, never mind. It’s just that when you didn’t turn up to lunch, everyone was saying that you must be on the phone with your new boyfriend. And that you’re such a good person, they sometimes feel a kind of distance from you, but somehow since yesterday it feels like that wall’s come down.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, definitely! Well, be sure to give us any good news, okay? Oh look, it’s getting late. We don’t have time to be chatting here like this.

You haven’t had lunch yet, have you, Sanae? You’d better hurry up before the lunch break finishes.”

“It’s okay. I’m not feeling hungry anyway.”

“Well, if you’re sure. But if you’re not feeling well, you mustn’t push yourself, okay?” Emiko said to make sure, then added, “I’m going to brush my teeth,” gave a little wave, and rushed off to the powder room.

Sanae watched her go, then looked at her own eyes reflected in the window.

Everyone, all the internal organs, took comfort in being showered in tenderness by these eyes. Taking this as proof that they were all one creature, happiness welled up in Sanae. She lightly stroked the

wall of the corridor. It felt warmer than usual, as though out of fondness for the internal organs coming and going within it.

Sanae finished work right on time and went into the changing room to find that Yuka had already changed her clothes and was there waiting for her.

“I’m sorry, did I keep you waiting?” Sanae said.

“No problem.”

Sanae smiled at Yuka as she took off her uniform. “Where shall we go? Depending on what you want to talk about, maybe it’s better not to stay too close to the office.”

“Well, it doesn’t really matter if anyone overhears us,” Yuka said,

“but . . . it’ll be better if we can relax and talk, so why don’t you come to my place?”

“Your place?”

“Yes. Oh, right—I’m registered at work as living with my parents, but actually I’ve got a place on my own not far from here.”

“Oh, I see. Well, let’s go there, then.”

Yuka glanced around the street as they left the office. Having made sure that the man wasn’t there, she gave a small sigh and murmured, “I feel safe when I’m with you, Sanae.”

Sanae nodded, and the two of them set off to the JR station some distance away.

Sanae proceeded slowly in her utterly altered world.

She saw large white waves spreading out before her into the distance. The waves were hard and connected at the base, standing completely still, as if time had stopped. Square protrusions formed individual cocoons, and she could see organs squirming inside them.

This alone was proof that this world was alive. What she’d thought of as a city until not long ago was also one large creature.

If she could never go back to the other world, it wouldn’t be a problem. Far from it, everything seemed to be going much better than before.

Spellbound by the somehow nostalgic landscape of this parallel world, Sanae heard a low murmur beside her.

“Sanae, I feel you’re even more affectionate than usual today.”

“You do? I guess you’re right . . . I feel so serene.”

“I’m so glad I decided to consult you, Sanae. I feel so relaxed just being with you.”

Hearing this, Sanae shifted her gaze to Yuka. The human being Yuka was no longer there. She was now a small stomach moving over the waves. And that, too, was her correct form.

The stomach moving over the surface of the creature eventually stopped before a small cocoon.

“This is my apartment. It’s run-down, but still.”

“It’s wonderful.”

As if knowing this was where it belonged, the stomach was sucked into the white cocoon. Sanae stood watching, entranced at the sight.

“Come on in, Sanae,” a voice came from within the cocoon.

Coming to a halt inside, the stomach started talking in a hoarse voice.

“About my ex-boyfriend—it’s not just that he’s persistent, he’s abnormal. He himself says that he’s being weird, but he still doesn’t stop. And I’m sick to death of all the emails and him lying in wait for me . . .”

As Sanae tenderly watched the trembling stomach, little by little gastric juice began to ooze from it, and drops began to flow over its surface.

“When I’m with you, Sanae, I really do feel safe and relaxed . . .

I’ve been so scared all this time, worrying about it all . . .”

“I’m always looking out for you. After all—”

After all, you’re my stomach, she’d been about to say, but then stopped. She’d felt a vibration outside.

“Sanae . . . I feel you’re somehow wrapped around me.”

“You do? You can cling to me as much as you like, you know.”

“Thank you—really, I mean it . . . Oh! I’ve just been talking about myself without even offering you some tea or anything. I’m so sorry!

Which do you prefer, tea or coffee?”

“Either is fine.”

“Well then, I’ll make some tea. Please wait a moment.”

As Sanae watched the stomach moving around the small cocoon, she stroked her own pale surface. The heart that had been within her until yesterday must have slipped out without her noticing, and now it seemed there was nothing inside.

Just then, she again felt something feverish vibrating outside.

She knew it was her own heart arriving.

“Welcome home,” she murmured, sticking her face outside the cocoon. The heart had been excreted, but had now come back. She had the feeling that she’d been waiting for this day for a long time.

Sanae could hear the heart beating quietly outside, along with the sound of air being sucked in. The moment it saw Sanae, it began trembling. She couldn’t help feeling happy at how alive her own heart was, and she reached out to pull it to her.

“D-don’t touch me!” the heart screamed, recoiling from her.

“What’s wrong?”

“Sanae, are you okay?” she heard her stomach shout behind her.

“Makoto, how many times do I have to tell you? Don’t come here anymore!”

“Yuka, t-this woman is weird. She’s wrong in the head!”

“You’re the weird one!”

“E-even when I’ve been loitering for hours, she doesn’t get suspicious and comes up to me smiling, as if it’s the most normal thing to do. What the hell’s wrong with her!”

Sanae couldn’t understand why her heart would say something like that. True, she was probably living in a parallel world, but her world and the world in which they were not internal organs but human beings were two sides of the same coin and could coexist in perfect harmony. Like pieces of a puzzle fitting perfectly together, residents of the two worlds could surely live together.

“What the hell are you talking about, you bastard! You’ve been sending me hundreds of emails every single day, you lie in wait for me, and I’ve had enough! I’m going to report you to the police. Get out of here right now!”

“Yuka . . .”

The heart started trembling violently. A transparent liquid began oozing out of it and dripping down.

“Look at me! This is how much I love you!”

The stomach screamed, and Sanae saw that blood was flowing from the heart. So it really was her heart, she thought happily.

“Stop it! Stay away from me!”

“Why do you keep saying that? I can’t control myself, that’s all.”

Sanae took a step toward her heart. “It’s okay, just come to me.

You’ll feel so peaceful.”

“Sanae, you shouldn’t be so nice to this kind of guy. I’m going to call the police right now!” the stomach said in a low voice, and blood flowed even more fiercely from the heart.

“Just come to my world, okay? When you do, nobody will ever think of you as foreign matter again.”

“What the fuck . . .”

“Whatever parallel worlds we’re living in, as long as the pieces of the puzzle fit perfectly together, we can all live together forever.”

Sanae enclosed the heart within her gray arms.

“Sanae, even a guy like this . . .” she heard the stomach murmur, as though impressed.

Sanae became engrossed in the beating of the heart that was struggling inside her. Unlike the organs that she’d felt to be somehow distant from her until now, this heart was now one with her. By coming to this world, she could finally become one with her own organ. She savored the heartbeat as she squeezed it with all her might, and in response the heart struggled even harder.

Sanae’s flesh began responding to its vigorous movements, as if to prove that she and the heart were now one. Sweat welled up out of her skin, and she could feel her temperature rising. She almost laughed out loud. Yes, we are just one creature! Her flesh was beginning to stir with life, in sync with the heart. The sweat that oozed from Sanae now was a slimy body fluid, quite different from the water she’d had inside until now. She could tell that her own body was being activated more and more each moment. The stench

of her internal organs erupted from her mouth, and sticky sweat flowed from her whole body.

She squeezed the heart even tighter, as if applauding it, and the heart beat harder in response to her voice, setting her flesh trembling.