R relied on his stash of adult DVDs and a box of tissues to comfort himself whenever he felt lonely. He had never slept with anyone, but he liked to imagine that he’d chalked up a few notches on his bedpost. Delusions ravaged his mind until his neighbor, a stud in his early twenties, moved in next door.

  “Call me E,” the neighbor said the first time they met. They shook hands, his tight grip immediately made R picture all kinds of things. R soon became enamored with him.

  He found every opportunity to talk to E, to touch E. When he was alone in bed, he imagined E’s large hands under his clothes, scorching every inch of bare skin he touched. He no longer needed his DVDs. The real deal was next door.

  One night, when R couldn’t hold back his lust for E anymore, he knocked on his neighbor’s door, lying that the water heater had broken down while he was showering. It was winter. He stood at E’s doorstep, clothed only in a thin bathrobe that barely concealed his body, every inch strategically exposed to tantalize the stud he wanted inside him so badly.

  “Help me,” R pleaded, his voice quivering from the cold. “I need to finish washing off the soap.”

  E, being a complete gentleman, couldn’t turn away a neighbor in need. R didn’t know that E had been eyeing him for a while. With R walking into the lion’s lair wrapped up like a delicious gift, he could not let the opportunity slide. When R slipped off his robe to wash himself, E stepped between R and the door, blocking his entry to the bathroom. “You look tired. Let me help you.” E traced a finger along R’s clavicles, still slick with shower gel. “Your skin is so smooth,” E murmured. His finger traveled up R’s neck, lingering along his jawline and delighting in the older man’s soft moans before tracing upward to his lips, gently prying them apart, and he slipped it in⁠—

  Before Ran could finish reading the scandalous line, a figure loomed over him, casting a shadow on the paper. Right then, the bodily pressure of someone taller than him pushed against his back, forcing him toward the wall.

  A voice breathed in his ear. “Why did you stop? I put a lot of effort into this.”

  Shit!

  Who was behind him?

  “It’s getting good,” the voice murmured. “But this is better.”

  Who else but Kamada fucking Eizo? He knew his address.

  Of course, he knew.

  Because he was Little Fucker.

  Ran felt himself slowly spun around by Eizo. He hated that the younger man was taller than him. Much taller. His back was now against the wall, Eizo’s hands pinned on either side of him, cutting off his only escape route. There was no way he could maneuver out of this trap. But if he couldn’t, he would lose. Not just a battle, but the entire war. A stunning defeat hovered above his hands, and would soon become an unerring, invariable—shameful—fact forever etched in the annals of his life. He must do something. Now.

  The top of Ran’s head reached Eizo’s nose. If he concentrated hard enough, he could channel enough force to bash Eizo in the face. Once Eizo fell back from the impact, Ran would knock him out and reverse his loss into a win. Emphatically so, because mere inches between them was all Ran needed to raise his knee to the underside of Eizo’s jaw. He wanted to hear the resounding crunch as muscle met bone in the most fragile part of the human body, just like the cry of an insolent dick as his face planted firmly in the ground. Ran could hear it now, those sweet, delectable sounds of victory. He was ready to make a move.

  But Eizo was faster.

  In the blink of an eye, he had changed his stance, one arm resting against the wall, and the other falling by Ran’s side, sliding up to the square above his hipbone. Suddenly, his face was closer, way closer than ever. No one had been this close to Ran before. They were so close that he could count the number of light freckles peppering the arch of Eizo’s cheekbones. Ran could only gape in horror as the younger man continued to lean in, eyes half-lidded, his hair brushing Ran’s nose.

  Alarms blared in his head, refusing to shut off.

  This was the third time Kamada Eizo had breached his defences. Each time, his body gave up on him, every muscle in his body sputtering like a dying engine as Eizo placed his lips near his ear, hot breath torching the curve of his earlobe. He couldn’t hear what Eizo was saying. He didn’t want to listen to any of it. He must get away before it was too late.

  He remembered how, at Sinfonietta, he had pushed through the inertia and given Eizo one of the best kicks of his life. Ran could do that again. It was easier to kick someone’s crotch standing than seated. He tried to move his leg, but it felt as heavy as stone. Not just his leg, as he soon realized with growing disbelief, but his entire lower body. All he could feel was the heat from Eizo’s palm on his hipbone, fingers bunching up the fabric of his pants, locking him in place. Cool concrete pressed into his back. There was nowhere to run.

  The soft murmurs continued, wafting into his ear like overheated currents before they hissed into a sharp intake of air.

  A snicker.

  Kamada Eizo was snickering. He stood back, removed his hand from Ran’s waist. “Admit it, Miyamoto Ran. You lost.”

  Mustering his last ounce of energy, Ran shoved Eizo off him and dashed back inside his house. His pulse raced with a rage that made him see red. When the crimson webs in his vision faded, he saw he was still clutching the sheath of papers. With a disgusted snarl, he threw them down on the ground, loose sheets fluttering around him mockingly before landing at his feet. The heat from Eizo’s hand stayed on his hip, threatening to flood the rest of his body. And then he heard the click of the door next to his.

  The owner of Unit 526 had finally arrived.

  17

  Murphy’s Law dictated that anything that could go wrong would go wrong.

  In Ran’s case, it was consistently running into Kamada Eizo everywhere in Kichijoji. If in the weeks prior he was a ghost that roamed the inhuman hours of the day, he now gained corporeal form to become the bane of Ran’s existence, appearing wherever he went. On some days, his accursed form appeared at the bakery by the station selling salted buns. On other days, it hung over the grocery store in the shopping arcade, which offered discounted fruits and chicken wings on Wednesday and Thursday nights. He swore he had never seen Eizo in these places until now. Just as he pretended not to see Eizo, the younger man did the same, relishing in his silent haunting that pervaded every inch of Ran’s senses.

  Ran knew it was a matter of time before Eizo invaded his favorite place in Kichijoji. A hole-in-the-wall gyudon eatery with only six seats at the counter, it was one of the few places that stayed open until ten p.m. daily, except on Mondays.

  Owned by a couple in their late fifties, the Tamuras served a hearty bowl of marinated beef slices atop steaming rice for just 500 yen. Ran often ate there when he didn’t want to cook. His usual order was a medium gyudon with a large topping of green onions and grated yam, and a soft-boiled egg on the side so he could break the yolk on the beef and mix it into the rice. The gravy was flavorful, with the ideal ratio of soy sauce, sugar and ginger. He had yet to try another gyudon that tasted as good at this price.

  But good times didn’t last forever, not when Kamada Eizo haunted your neighborhood.

  That night, the writer showed up at the gyudon eatery, sitting at Ran’s favored spot by the door, tucking into his large bowl merrily. It was almost ten, and they were closing for the day. Since Ran was a regular patron, Mrs. Tamura took his order and gestured for him to sit anywhere.

  Eizo didn’t look up from his food when Ran shuffled past him. Instead, he turned to Mrs. Tamura and requested for an extra helping of green onions and grated yam, since he still had some sauce left in his rice and didn’t want to waste it.

  Mrs. Tamura later approached Ran with an apologetic smile. “We’re out of grated yam. I gave it to this nice young man here. He’s such a darling, I can’t possibly say no.”

  Eizo beamed in return. Ran felt his blood pressure skyrocket.

  “Consuming excessive amounts of grated yam can lead to erectile dysfunction,” Ran announced. Loud enough for Eizo, who sat three seats away, to hear.

  “Middle-aged men shouldn’t be eating this much at night,” Eizo shot back. “Your metabolism isn’t what it once was.”

  “Don’t be so cocky when you can’t even get it up,” Ran fired over. “Oh—I forgot you don’t even have balls to begin with.”

  Eizo placed his chopsticks down and stood up immediately, an unnerving smile in place as his body crouched forward, fists balled by his side and ready for battle.

  “My dears, is this a lovers’ quarrel?” Mrs. Tamura’s laughter filled the eatery.

  “No—” Eizo began, only to be cut off by Ran’s violent retort.

  “Old woman, you are out of your fucking mind!”

  It earned him a lightning-quick smack on the head.

  “You deserve it, potty-mouthed young man,” Mrs. Tamura huffed. “I warned you before.”

  At the unexpected sight of Ran being berated, Eizo’s eyes widened to an unbelievable size, and soon his nose twitched and the ends of his mouth curved up into an expression that was probably the first genuine smile Ran had seen on him. Then he realized Eizo wasn’t just smiling—he was laughing, a real, booming guffaw that broke out in fits and spurts, bouncing off the walls of the narrow space. He was laughing at Ran, and he made sure Ran heard every vowel of his mockery.

  “Ei-chan, do you know Ran owes me a thousand yen every time he swears in front of me?” Mrs. Tamura asked.

  Eizo shook his head in mock dismay. “We cannot allow such unbecoming behavior in a fine establishment such as yours.”

  “We cannot have that,” Mrs. Tamura echoed.

  “Do you charge by the word?” Eizo continued.

  The shop owner nodded.

  “He used nine words,” the writer drawled sweetly as he counted with his fingers. “Every single word he spoke was rude to you, Obachan.”

  Mrs. Tamura beamed back and demanded that Ran hand over 9,000 yen at once.

  “This is daylight robbery,” Ran grumbled. “I’m never coming back here again.”

  He fished for bills in his wallet and slapped 10,000 yen on the counter just as Eizo doled out two thousand-yen notes to Mrs. Tamura. “I’ll pay for us both, since Ran is broke.”

  “Spare me the bullshit,” Ran spat. “Keep the change, old woman. I won’t be back.”

  Mrs. Tamura frowned. “That’s another 2,000, but since our darling Ei-chan offered to pay half of it, I’ll see you next week, same time, same order.”

  When the owner turned around to wash the dishes, Ran suddenly noticed Eizo behind him, his head resting near the crook of Ran’s neck, their bodies separated by a hair’s width.

  “Can you smell the yam in my breath?” Eizo murmured, his voice wavering low and quiet. He exhaled warm air, tickling Ran’s ear, sending shivers down his spine. It was a taunt, a resounding puff of victory over their month-long battle.

  Once again, Ran found himself locked in place, unable to believe this was happening to him for the fourth time. Kamada Eizo had no business being this close to him. Had absolutely no business touching him; his hand, his chin, his hip, or any part of his body. The hairs on his arms stood in sheer indignation at what Eizo dared impose on him, an outrage that would haunt him for life. He must not take this lying down. Yet in the very moment when he had the perfect opportunity to send Eizo flying to his demise, he couldn’t do a thing.

  Eizo eased off and stepped away, sending Mrs. Tamura a friendly wave as he left the eatery. His smile was calm and casual, as if nothing bothered him and what he’d just done to Ran was a mere stroll in the park. Something he didn’t care about. Something he wielded freely on anyone at his whim.

  * * *

  The first thing Ran did when he reached home was to take the cursed package to the recycling center on the ground floor.

  After checking that Eizo was nowhere in sight, he made his move. Carrying the heavy box in his arms left him susceptible to attacks from behind, and the last thing he needed was yet another ambush from the crazy asswipe.

  Yes, he couldn’t move because Eizo’s actions had caught him by surprise. No other reason. No one had dared to touch him that way before, and then, in a matter of days, the audacious idiot had done it four fucking times.

  The thought of it sent his blood pressure soaring to peaks he had never imagined. How best to torment Eizo to appease his rage? He set the package on the floor. One solution to the problem presented itself: quit freezing whenever Eizo touched him.

  He stopped himself before he could slide further down the rabbit hole. Two wrongs didn’t make a right.

  Turning his attention back to the task at hand, Ran opened the parcel and took out the books to place them in the bin. He could have left the box there and let the trash collectors handle it, but he wasn’t the type to make people pick up after him. Ran always did things the proper way—if trash needed to be sorted before disposal, he’d do it. If materials such as books and bottles needed to be placed into their respective bins before recycling, he’d do it, even cleaning them beforehand.

  Likewise, adults should act their age. He was thirty-two. He shouldn’t be holding to heart the childish antics of an immature man fresh and coddled from college, unlearned in the ways of the world.

  More importantly, there was Ido. He had a far greater goal to achieve than to risk it by lowering himself to the likes of Kamada Eizo. Appearances were deceptive, especially in the form of a young man who looked like the classic Shonan beach boy—tanned, sinewy limbs with long, sea-bleached brown hair knotted into a low bun, relaxed posture that screamed I’m so carefree, armed with an easy smile that baited people to befriend him and spill their secrets. If he really were that easygoing, he wouldn’t have done something as disgusting as writing soft-core porn between him and the person he disliked.

  Simply put, Eizo’s personality was trash. Absolute trash. The lowest of the lowest, the foulest among all that walked the earth. No, he—in and out of himself—was trash. You must never recycle his kind, as the toxins would leach into future items produced from the filthiest of scraps. Trash like that must be buried deep down in the ground and forgotten until the end of time.

  He exhaled. Alright, enough. He should finish things up here and rest soon. His schedule for tomorrow was packed with meetings all day, including an important call on the National Publishers Association to pitch Suigetsu’s titles for the year’s award nominations.

  Ran held up the cram school books one by one, shaking them free of any unknown items that might wedge between the pages. He had a habit of doing that as a child, when his mother used dollar bills as bookmarks, absentmindedly tucking them into books that she hoarded into towering stacks at home. When she didn’t return home for a while—sometimes days, the longest being two weeks, he would resort to shaking out books and magazines littered around the house for money to buy food. An unnecessary habit now that he had a job and money to stay afloat. He vowed that one day he would get rid of it. Once he got hold of Onodera Shiho’s unpublished manuscript, he would eliminate these behaviors.

  There were twenty-four books in total. If Ran didn’t hurry, he’d spend all night with Eizo’s belongings. An utterly revolting thought.

  He moved faster, shaking out the textbooks and then placing them in front of the recycling bins. At the fifth book, snippets of paper fell out. Scattered on the ground were doodles and scribblings of a wizard and a baseball bat, penned on the back of lined sheets. He scooped them into a pile and picked out each piece for a closer look.

  Wizard wakes up with a bat. Bat is from the human world.

  * * *

  How did it end up there?

  * * *

  I like Ichiro’s batting style. He’s my hero! Make the Wizard bat like him.

  * * *

  Journey to the tower. In the East. Meets sleepy dragon.

  * * *

  Wizard’s hairstyle. He doesn’t look like one, so long hair is out. Average looking. Craggy skin. Unassuming. Easy to influence?

  If these belonged to Eizo, then, based on the cover of the school texts for Years One and Two, he had been fourteen or fifteen when the idea for Wizard formed.

  There must be more of these. Intrigued by the unexpected discovery, Ran squatted down and searched the package. He held each book by the spine facing down so the notes coming loose dropped inside the box. He shook out more of the same—scraps of letter pads, torn into halves and quarters to wedge themselves snugly in the pages, concealed from view if the book stayed closed. Where the notes were tucked didn’t seem guided by any particular sequence. Rather, it felt like a random placement of paper slips between two people playing hide-and-seek with what they had written and what they wanted to be read.

  Ran gathered the notes together and flipped through them. Some were in better condition than the rest. Others looked crumpled or torn. Some were so damaged, they looked like lacerations inflicted on paper, tearing through the heart of the words written on them.

  His sense of discomfort grew as he rummaged through the pile, careful to avoid the jagged edges. Someone had ripped them out of a book, or several books, somewhere. In a state of panic, or anger, or hopelessness, perhaps. Despite the reckless treatment of the notes, they were written with care, the handwriting so neat it resembled print. Each letter was precisely drafted, with consistent spacing and the weight of effort evenly distributed across each stroke. A student’s handwriting.

  He could imagine the type of student who wrote them. Straight posture, face earnest, hand raised and ready to answer questions when no one in class knew what to say. Had Ran not inspected the words, he would have regarded them as any other student’s notes, copied religiously in class, scribing the teacher’s instructions word for word.