Hyakki Yagyou

Chapter Seven: Transparency, Delilah

I've learned that we're all entitled to have our secrets.

-        Nicholas Sparks

December 11th, 8:35 pm

Aoyama had nothing better to do that day.

It started as an ordinary, long, boring day; just like many before it and probably many more to come. When he woke up, the first thing he did was walk over, wearing only his boxers, to the window and open it wide.

A rush of cold, morning air hit him and he woke up completely in just a matter of moments. Once his eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness, he realized one thing, which made his neatly shaped eyebrows furrow – it was snowing.

It was snowing some week ago as well. Maybe a bit more than a week ago, but it was snowing. Then, rain came and melted it away and for days, the weather was just plain but today, it decided to change. He was not a big fan of snowing but he preferred his winter days meaningful. And by meaningful, he would expect some snow. It wasn't that usual for the city to have a lot of snow but a little bit was enough to make him think differently of his days.

He scratched the back of his head, stretched and rubbed his eyes – rubbing the remainder of the blurriness from his brown eyes. He took a deep breath and coughed, finally realizing that it was just a bit too cold for him to be showing off (to no one) almost naked, by an open window. And so, he closed it, leaving the curtains wide open. He liked it when his room was bright. It gave it a sense of purpose, probably.

There were two messages on his landline phone. One was from a customer, who wanted to buy more weed from him, and the other was from Ishihara. He listened to the first quickly, half-attentive, wrote something down and made a mental note to respond to this later today.

The second one was more urgent.

Just days ago, when he saw Ueno at the night club, he recalled that she owned him some money. Owned him big time, actually. He never gave that woman much thought but the fact that she owned him something… It bugged him. He would not die of starvation without that loot but a favour was a favour. He gave her some goods for free, until she earned enough money to pay it off.

And then she never called back. Who did she think she was anyways? And how fortunate it was that he always had an eye on her and her apartment. What a lovely thing he had made – that website. It was the most brilliant idea he had ever had, that was for sure. What made the whole thing even more fortunate was the fact that he was able to meet Ishihara.

Although all the members agreed that they would never meet in person, he as the admin was allowed to do whatever he wanted, right? After all, wasn't he exempted from the rules? Most of them anyways. Not that there are many.

After Asuka ran away that night as if she had seen a ghost, it occurred to Aoyama that he could definitely get her to pay. By that time, weeks and weeks after she had gone MIA (in person at least; he always knew where she was when she would log in), he had almost dropped the idea of making her return the money. He was earning enough via other customers so why bother with some insignificant little primary school teacher who was as good as gone soon anyway, with that lifestyle of hers.

But that night, when she ran away like the coward she was, something made him want to get the money. Or just play with her. It did not matter whether he got those ten thousands of yen back. Now, he was going to play. Ishihara was not just a photographer, he remembered. The male, who was one of the most confident and loyal people he met (if not the most), immediately agreed to what Aoyama had politely asked him to do, as a favour. Friend for a friend, something like that.