CHAPTER 1
”ALWAYS RETURNING”

1.0

The slight outline of a new moon hung high over Suginami Ward.

Another loud BANG echoed through the night air. Keshi lay awake in bed in a cold sweat, staring at his front door through the darkness of his room.

“Yo! You awake?”

Hearing the voice, Keshi exhaled a sigh of relief.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

Keshi cracked the door just enough to see his neighbor, Eiji, grinning on the other side. 

Eiji stood a head taller than Keshi, with a long, boyish face. His short, messy hair was dyed a brownish-orange color, with emerging roots that gave it the appearance of a custard pudding. A half-smoked cigarette was tucked behind his left ear.

He flashed an envelope that was stuffed full of paper yen notes.

“Happy Birthday!”

Keshi knew Eiji would try to come inside if he opened the door any wider, so he spoke through the narrow opening, hiding in the shadows.

“Eiji… I can’t.”

Eiji stared at Keshi for a long moment, then disappeared from view. Keshi could hear him let out a loud, dramatic sigh in the hallway.

“I knew you’d pussy out!”

Late one night, a few weeks after he first moved in, Keshi came back to the apartment to find someone sitting out on the curb, smoking cigarettes inside a ring of peanut shells and empty beer cans. He introduced himself as the noisy guy across the hall. Keshi didn’t even know he had a neighbor.

After a bare minimum “nice to meet you,” Keshi made his way up the stairs, only to hear footsteps coming up behind him—it was Eiji, still talking.

Once he made it to the fourth floor, Keshi cut him off with another “well, it was nice meeting you” then quickly retreated into his apartment. To his horror, the door didn’t shut behind him.

What happened next was a total blur, but somehow, Eiji ended up in Keshi’s bedroom, reclined across his futon, where he spent the next several hours eating snacks, spilling beer on his sheets, and talking his ear off about—Keshi couldn’t remember what about—he couldn’t believe what was happening.

Once the initial shock had passed, Keshi just sort of let it happen. He’d never had to kick anyone out before, and didn’t know how someone like Eiji would react. 

To his relief, he didn’t have to talk much. Every now and then, though, Eiji would interrupt himself to ask Keshi an invasive personal question. Each time, Keshi lied. As if he was going to tell this total stranger about his life.

By the time Eiji got up to leave, the sun was up. On his way out, he remarked that he was glad to finally have a friend in the apartment his own age. Keshi would later learn that Eiji was 28 years old—11 years his senior.

Ever since that night, Eiji had latched onto him, and made a habit of showing up at odd hours. Mostly, he’d just let Eiji talk—about their 60-year-old apartment manager’s sex life, the girl on the train he thought was a mind reader, how much better he’d look with a gold chain, or—most often—his original manga. Eiji had been working on it for 15 years, and it seemed to be about something different each time he brought it up.

Keshi decided he didn’t mind too much. He had insomnia anyway, and was often up.

Lately, however, all Eiji could talk about was one thing.

Eiji suddenly reappeared in the doorway—full of passion.

“You know what I had to do to get this?!  Bad - boy - shit!”

He slapped Keshi on the forehead three times with the wad of cash—punctuating each word—then shoved the door open with his shoulder, forcing his way inside. In his hand was a large bag of snacks and drinks from the convenience store. He wore bell bottom jeans and a faded pink t-shirt with the English word: “THAT’S” written in bright red lettering. 

“I told you man, these guys are the real deal! You’re really gonna wait till you’re 20?!”

Keshi yawned, rubbing his left eye groggily.

“I can go another two years without an Ichor. I’ve made it this far.”

Three months earlier, Eiji had gotten an Ichor implant. Keshi was surprised. He’d only ever heard Eiji shit talk them—and the people who had them—which, these days, was pretty much anyone over 20. In fact, Eiji seemed to have an almost pathological aversion to anything new, even though the Ichor had been out for almost a decade at that point. 

Keshi, who had grown up around elderly people, was used to this kind of attitude, but thought it felt a little forced coming from someone like him. 

Once Eiji actually got one, though, his tune changed completely. “Before I had an Ichor” had become a standard sentence opener. It was annoying. Hanging out with him had become a pain, since he was always multitasking or distracted by something. This meant he’d become less talkative, forcing Keshi to be the one to steer conversation, leading to long stretches of silence. 

Eiji now had that same twitchy, glazed-over look in his eyes that everyone else had—where you could tell their attention was split between you, and a dozen other things happening far away, in a world you yourself had no access to.

“The Ichor stare” had become common parlance, and was mocked by an ever-decreasing minority. It was easy to make fun of, and frustrating when you were trying to get someone’s full attention. But when Keshi called him out on it, Eiji got defensive and said it was no different from Keshi always being on his phone.

The truth was, Keshi was jealous. The Ichor was a tool—the most incredible tool ever created, and Eiji was just using it to watch porn and play video games.

Keshi had his own ideas for how he’d use one, but being underage, he put those thoughts out of his mind.

Until recently.

A few weeks earlier, Eiji had met someone on the Neural Net who claimed he could do the procedure for a cash fee, and he’d been trying to convince Keshi to do it ever since. 

Of course, Keshi had heard of people getting implants before they were legal, but it still seemed too risky. He’d finally scraped together something of a life for himself in Tokyo. 

Their building manager, a man named Sano, had bent a few rules so that Keshi could stay there rent-free—a secret he kept to himself.

It was a better deal than he could have hoped for—an old danchi-style apartment, built in the 1980s. Two side-by-side bedrooms—though he kept the other one closed off to conserve heat—connected by a narrow hallway with a kitchen and bath on either end. 

A bit run down, but more space than he knew what to do with, and Keshi didn’t mind the cold. He’d borrowed an old kerosene heater from Eiji—who kept his own place at an impossibly high temperature—but only ran it at night. He thought the gas might help put him to sleep.

In any case, if he were arrested, not only would it put Mr. Sano at risk, it would blow up his whole living situation—and he wasn’t about to go back to sleeping on the street.

For the first time in a long time, he had something to lose.

After weeks of harassment, though—mostly just to shut him up—Keshi finally said yes, knowing Eiji didn’t have the cash, nor was he likely to find any.

“Come on, dude. We can play games together, it’ll be so sick, like… ugh!”

Eiji shook his hands excitedly. He kicked off his flip flops and headed straight for Keshi’s room. Keshi sighed and locked the door behind him. 

Light spilled out into the entranceway as Eiji hit the switch. Like the rest of his apartment, Keshi’s bedroom was stark, lacking any real furniture or decorations.

“Man, I haven’t seen this much cash since I was a kid…”

“You really want me to risk jail time—just to play Dreadzone with you?”

“Bro, no one's going to jail. People do this shit all the time, alright? My contact said they get hundreds of clients every winter. You think anyone’s passing their entrance exams without an Ichor? Dude, half those mouth-breathers at Tokyo U cheated.”

“Yeah? Well, what if they screw it up? That’s my brain, Eiji.”

Keshi knew it wasn’t a strong argument. The Ichor’s whole thing was that it didn’t actually touch the brain.

Eiji plopped down onto Keshi’s futon.

“Alright. What’s really going on, huh? I never see you anymore, and suddenly you’re all—”

As Keshi stepped into the light, Eiji let out an involuntary shout.

“Jesus! Look in the mirror lately?”

Keshi turned his head toward the bathroom—where a gaunt, pale stranger with sunken eyes stared back at him.

After a moment, the reflection furrowed its brow and ran its fingers through its hair self-consciously.

Maybe he had started to neglect himself a little. Sure, he hadn’t been eating much, and he could probably use a bath. 

He couldn’t remember when exactly he’d last done either.

“Yo, what kind of psycho doesn’t lock their phone, anyway?”

Keshi whipped back around.

“Hey!!”

As he lunged toward Eiji, Keshi found himself staring into a black screen—after scanning his face, the phone unlocked. Realizing he’d been tricked, he tried to wrestle it from Eiji’s hands—Eiji fended him off with his feet while scrolling.

“Fine, if I have to force it out of you, I will!”

“Give it back!”

“Would it kill you to open up just once?! We’re supposed to be friends—ever think maybe I could help?”

“That’s not—”

All of a sudden, he stopped struggling. Keshi went slack in confusion as Eiji let out a tired groan. 

“Not Frog Girl, dude…”

Keshi watched his phone slide across the tatami. An old photo of him and Runa building a snowman filled the screen—in it, Keshi wore an orange frog hat that matched Runa’s green one. 

He sprang up and snatched the phone, quickly closing out of the photo.

At some point, he’d let it slip that he was looking for someone. Aside from a name and a few photos, though, he hadn’t said much else. Eiji seemed to think she was just a school crush or something. 

Even so, he soon started tagging along as Keshi did his walks around the city. Eiji didn’t have a job, living comfortably off of his UBI and government assistance payouts, which left him free to come and go as he pleased. 

At first, Keshi had a list of places. Sometimes they’d look together, and other times they’d split up and regroup later. When the list ran out, Keshi didn’t know where else to go, so he just wandered aimlessly, asking people on the street if they’d seen her. 

No one had.

At a certain point, it was clear Eiji’s heart wasn’t in it. He’d try to pull Keshi away—to get Korean BBQ, or go bowling—or check out some old movie Keshi had never heard of. Usually, he’d give in, but it always felt like such a waste of time.

Once Eiji got an Ichor, though, he started making excuses, and lately he’d stopped coming altogether.

Keshi didn’t care. He hadn’t come to Tokyo to make friends, or to hang out. 

He was there on a mission.

Eiji rummaged through his convenience store haul, pulling out a pack of Jagariko potato sticks and a box of chocolate almonds.

“Maaan, we looked literally everywhere… I don’t even need GPS anymore thanks to your punk ass.”

He tossed Keshi the chocolates without glancing up. Keshi caught it and frowned.

“Forget it. I’ll do it alone.”

“I’m just saying… you’re trying to find a missing person in a city of missing people.”

“You want me to just give up?”

“Nah, man. Never! But I know a guy stuck in a rut when I see one.”

Eiji cracked open a can of beer and took a swig, then let out a refreshed sigh.

“You love her. Kinda gay, but whatever. I get it. All I’m saying is… this?”

He gestured loosely at Keshi, spilling beer on his bed.

“Isn’t working. Time to wake up to reality.”

Keshi furrowed his brow. For the past several weeks, he’d been cooped up in his room avoiding just that. 

Months of fruitless searching had taken their toll. He’d become paralyzed, spending his days and nights scrolling through old photos and chats, re-reading years of unread messages.

His once powerful motivation had begun to warp into something else—a gnawing desperation that was starting to eat away at him from the inside.

He could feel himself disappearing by the day.

At times like these, he could hear Runa’s voice in his head.

“You are so embarrassing.” 

A joke, when she’d say it.

Suddenly, as if sparked by something beyond his senses, an image flashed across Keshi’s mind—only for a moment. 

Had he been dreaming before? 

It had been so long since he’d dreamt of anything at all… 

The image vanished.

Eiji popped a few potato sticks in his mouth, chewing loudly.

“I’m not saying an Ichor’ll fixsh all your problemsh…”

He paused, thinking as he swallowed.

“Even though it pretty much solved all mine.”

“Then maybe your problems weren’t real to begin with…”

Keshi stared at the floor, suddenly ashamed.

“You could be right—she could still be in Tokyo. Or, her parents grabbed her and got the hell out. She could be stuck on a strawberry farm in Bumfuck, Tochigi for all we know.”

Eiji crunched down on another Jagariko

“Hey, she’s half, right? They might’ve left the country. I would, if I had that kind of money.”

That first night Eiji came over, Keshi had said he was from Minato Ward. A convenient lie. But ever since, Eiji had it in his head that he’d gone to a rich school and came from a well-to-do family.

“Point is, you’re not gonna find her wandering around the city like a stray puppy. And you’re definitely not gonna find her on that phone. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the Internet’s a ghost town.”

Keshi glanced down at Runa’s profile. Next to her photo it said: 

Last online: 4 years ago.

“Listen. I know I talked mad shit before, but this thing—it’ll turn your whole world around. And I’m not telling you to stop searching. I’m telling you there’s one place you still haven’t looked…”

Eiji pointed to his own head.

“Here.”

He shrugged.

“Who knows, maybe she’s out there on the Neural Net, searching for you too.”

Keshi turned to stare out his apartment window. 

“Either way, you gotta stop this, or you’ll wake up ten years from now with nothing, and realize you can never go back. Take it from me…” 

Keshi watched the lights outside pulse and swirl inside his dark reflection in the glass.

“Nothing’s gonna change until you do.”