It was the 24th, and Head of Security felt alone at their office. Most people who worked at Site-50 were in Chiyoda or Marunouchi, celebrating between themselves or with their respective special someone. Eating overpriced Kentucky-borne fried chicken, strawberry Christmas cakes, and cheap craft beer as they walked through the illuminated tree streets of Tokyo, speaking in corny lines and walking into love hotels and dingy Foundation-assigned apartment mansions. Arriving late on the 25th, reeking of alcohol and cigarettes.
Head of Security couldn’t really wrap their head around this kind of tradition, however. They weren’t much for romance, and Christmas was a time for lovers, so they didn’t feel at the right place during this time of the year. Yet, that was fine. He didn’t need to feel at home. He could remain a kuribocchi without much issue. There was work to be done, after all.
Head of Security reclined back onto their chair, sitting at their desk, right now being the only eyes cycling through all cameras on several sectors of the site, looking for any signs of trouble. There were none. There seemed to be something about the season which seemed to calm things down around the place.
Probably the lack of personnel. It was something they appreciated, although they couldn’t deny it would lead to large bouts of agonizing boredom. 'Just as well,' they thought, 'better that everyone out for Christmas doesn't come back to pure madness tomorrow.'
As soon as these thoughts passed through their mind, Head of Security spotted someone wobbling through the hallways, haphazardly leaning against the left wall, a comically large bottle of saké in their hands. Who was that? The head of security leaned up on their chair and changed cameras, realizing this silly drunkard was none other than Site Director Mamiya. Eyes narrowing, Head of Security sighed.
“Great.”
Head of Security grabbed their coat, then left the camera room.
“Sir, please put the bottle down.”
“Hm? Who the hell d’ya think you are?”
Head of Security was now standing in front of a man who was meant to inspire respect and represent the qualities of a great leader, yet only inspired pity and represented… They didn’t know what they were meant to represent and clearly the Director didn’t know either.
“I am the Head of Security here, sir. At your Site? You know where you are, correct?”
“Ah, you’re that piece of shit yōkai they forced me to hire… The fuck ya want?” The director’s words were a slur, like the contents of the bottle he was swinging around. He was a mess, and he looked like one too, his uniform covered in stains, his grayed out hair in disarray.
“I want you to put that bottle down and follow me back to your office, or perhaps your quarters, actually.”
“And why the hell would I do that?”
“Because you are drunk, sir.”
“Yeah… Yeah I am. What’s your point?” The director huffs, sending a breath of rot and evaporating liquor towards the Head of Security. It smelled like wet newspaper and that cedar incense they use in funeral parlors. What the hell has he been drinking?
“The point is, sir, that you’re gonna get hurt and I cannot allow that.”
“Oh, don’t pretend like you care, shitrat. Your ilk’s never cared. Bunch of tricksters and… And bastards…” The director mutters quietly, or at least attempts to, stumbling backwards for a moment, before catching himself.
Head of Security was torn: They could either correct the director, telling him that they weren’t a rat, but a raccoon dog, or they could sock him in the face. They end up doing neither. “Come on, sir. You will regret all this in the morning. Let go of the bottle and follow me to your quarters.”
“Don’t you dare put your dirty… Dirty, furry hands on me you… You mongrel.” The director takes a step back, and he trips over nothing, ready to fall. Head of Security is quick to grab the director by his left arm, pulling him towards him. The director’s right shoe flies off his foot and into the side of the corridor, and the bottle tips for a second, a splash of saké going into Head of Security.
Or at least, it should have.
“What the…”
“Let me go you piece of-”
The director is quick to take a step back again, face red in anger, embarrassment and, of course, intoxication, one of the sleeve buttons on his jacket falling off as he forcefully pulls his arm off Head of Security’s. But they are not paying attention to the drunkard. Instead, they are staring at the floating bubbles of milky spirit floating aimlessly in front of them.
“… What… What the hell have you been drinking?” The facade of respect drops for a moment, shock in Head of Security’s face. They weren’t a fan of alcohol, but they could tell for sure that this wasn’t anything they kept in inventory.
“Alcohol, whaddaya think, shitrat?” As if second nature, the director moves towards the floating puddles, and slurps it off the air, only a couple specks and bubbles remaining in stasis.
“What kind of alcohol, Sesshou.” They take a step forward, attempting to rationalize the situation. Was this from the Library’s food court? Taken from another Site? A special gift from a special occasion? No, no, he only had expensive booze in his office, nothing anomalous. An unregistered anomaly then? But if so, why wouldn’t he-
“Don’t you dare use my name lightly, mongrel.” The director growls, making Head of Security wonder who truly was the mongrel here. He takes another step back, moving to pick up his shoe.
“Come on, you-” Head of Security sighs. They had to be the sensible one here, whether they wanted to or not. “… Sir, please tell me where you acquired this bottle.”
“Delivered straight to my room a week or so ago. A pack of six, straight from Drunkness Street as a gift, for the holidays.” The director chuckles, before taking a long swig from the bottle. The smell of incense became stronger.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? Don’t you know how dangerous this is?!” Head of Security had had enough. This is the guy who signed their checks? The guy with enough clearance to go anywhere on this Site? What the hell…
“Calm down, shitrat. I know what it does, and the dangers it… It…” The director trails off, before taking another swig. “Besides, can’t an old man just get lost in his memories on one of the shittiest days of the year? Or is that illegal now?”
“Yes, yes it is! Goes against a third of the manual you made me sit through and learn to get this position! It goes against two of our three tenets! Are you fucking stupid, why did you do this?!”
“Another fucking word and I’ll have you terminated.” The director swung the bottle at Head of Security, missing by several feet, more floating liquid coming off the top. “You don’t get it… You don’t get fucking anything, you subhuman trash…”
“Alright, that’s enough. Gimme the fucking-”
“Get away from me!!”
Head of Security moves in in order to grab the bottle, which the director swings at them. He lets go of the bottle as he steps on his own loose shoe, which ends up flying upwards, missing Head of Security by mere inches. They move back in shock, both at the near hit, as well as the near miss that soon befalls the director as the bottle spins out of control, covering the two in the milky substance.
“… Fucking piece of…”
“Save your words for later, sir.” Head of Security stops the director, as tired as they were angered by the whole situation. They turned around for a moment to glare at the camera pointing directly at the two. If they played their cards right, maybe next year would be the year the director is allowed to calmly leave his post, dragged into the nearest retirement home for life.
“Sorry, but… I don’t think there’s time for later. Not this time.”
“… Yeah, yeah, just-”
“follow me so we can-”
Head of Security turns around, and they are confronted not by hallways B-17 of Site 50, but by a set of hundreds of stone steps built into a forest hill, several torii gates erected along the way, most broken down, the red paint having peeled off long ago. Yellowed talismans stuck to several of the torii, the words unable to be read.
“Wh-what the…”
Head of Security was shocked at the change; not only because they’d been translocated somewhere, but also because they recognized this place. They’d been here before.
“… Nostalgia, right.” Head of Security was fast to rationalize, and as they knew where the booze had come from, they could quickly guess where they were standing right now. This was the place where all memories mix together and stagnate until they disappear forever. They had been welcomed into the Drunkness Street.
They knew this place would trick them. They knew this place would show them things that they wanted to see, things that they missed dearly, things and places and people that aren’t there anymore — that had no right to be there anymore — and they would be enamored by it, enticed, and lose themselves amid the neon lights and absinthe dreams.
Head of Security knew all of this, of course, yet they took a step forward, then another. Keep calm, they muttered to themselves as they heard the hums of the sparrows, the songs they used to sing back in the days of eternal spring, and with each step, the cherry petals rose to the sky, forming enormous constructions that could only mean one thing: They were home. Head of Security was terrified.
After walking up one hundred and eight steps — he didn’t even need to count, he knew this by heart — he reached the summit, where past the last torii, the only one still intact, was a set of broken statues, too mangled to recognize what they once were, and a camphor tree, the only one here yet to flourish.
And around it, many just like them danced and cheered. Unlike them, however, these raccoon dogs had their ears out, and their tails were held upright and their paws left prints on the petal snow and they laughed rambunctiously and drank from big bottles of saké and…
“Big bottles… Fuck, right.” Head of Security finally comes back to their senses, but it might be too late. The scene in front of them has changed again. It was now night (Was it day before?) and all the raccoon dogs had disappeared, except for one. She was dressed in a simple green kimono and yellow obi, carrying only a paper lantern, an oil fire spreading embers into the night sky from within. The smell of camphor was overwhelming. Fireflies and moths flew around, some of them moving into the lantern’s embers, and being set alight, will-o-wisps adorning the scene, creating- No, recreating something Head of Security had long forgotten about.
“Are you here to stay this time?” She asks, and there is a bitterness in her words. Head of Security looks at her, but they cannot find her; her face is an enigma, a series of garbled lines and ink blotches. Her outline fluctuated with the spring wind, turning into thorns, turning into leaves.
“N-no… I, I can’t.” They said for the second time. “I am not here for you, or me. I’m here to find the director.”
A gust of wind blew past the two, and suddenly, the cherries around the hill lost their flowers, their leaves, and a thick powdery snow began growing out the naked branches. The cold came from within their body, not from the weather, and that frightened them. Head of Security didn’t feel safe. Their head began pulsating uncomfortably, their throat carrying the taste of cheap cigarettes; when was the last time they’d been through a hangover?
“Of course you are. Always look forward, never look back, right?” She chuckled, but it didn’t feel right. There was something nauseating in that laugh, but it wasn’t a bad thing. It wasn’t a good thing either.
“… Look, I didn’t-”
“Save your excuses, █████.” She said, and a name that hadn’t been their own in a century came out her mouth, sticking to the palate like mochi. “You are arguing with a memory. I am naught but a portion of yourself, and you can tell you’ve chosen this path already. Go ahead.”
The camphor tree is set ablaze, just like back then, and the trees around begin morphing into buildings, morphing into woodhouses and public baths and communal kitchens. The petals and flowers are replaced by single-page newspapers and yellow pamphlets.
The woman in front of Head of Security is also set ablaze, her green kimono being the only item not catching fire. She stands still as the world around them changes, as night turns to day, as hill turns to town, as tragedy turns to progress. Head of Security is left paralyzed, unable to say a word. Their other self speaks in their stead.
“Merry Christmas.” She said, and a gust of wind carries her into the past. Head of Security sobers up.
As the bits of ash and soot are carried towards the old Nagano, and Head of Security rushes to pick up a green kimono which has been left at the center of a fish market, a bicycle bell rings in the distance.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck-”
Sesshou Mamiya wasn’t a good driver, he had come to realize. People often said you never forget how to ride a bicycle, but most people didn’t have the childhood he did, which involved having no father who cared enough to teach him anything worthwhile, or having no mother at all. There was a sister, of course, but she was even less likely to pick up a bicycle to impress a girl than he was, and such words carried a lot of weight around these parts.
Either way, Sesshou realized he sucked at this, and now he was at the bottom of the thankfully shallow river, a bike broken in three parts in his now bleeding hands. Well, least one part was in his hands, the rest calmly resting under the aforementioned river.
“My God, Sesshou, are you ok?!” She quickly made her way down the riverbank, rushing down the path of crushed grass the body of the failed biker had left behind. She trips once, then twice, dropping the newest Mishima Yukio book she was carrying, as well as her school bag. In any other circumstance, she would regret getting a book covered in mud like this, but not now.
“Of course I’m ok.” Sesshou laughs sheepishly, hoping the hot feel on his face and chest meant something better than just a by-product of the cuts on his hands. In his heart though, he knew it did: It was the first time she’d called him by his first name.
It wouldn’t be the last.
Sesshou would end up buying her another copy of the book, and she would in turn let him use her brother’s bicycle, which he didn’t have a need for: He’d lost a leg in Borneo back when books were burnt and little children had to eat their parents to survive. He didn’t know that life, of course: His father worked for the men who caused the wars and the famines, and such men don’t have to deal with it at all.
This time he wouldn’t break it. This time he would go to one of those classes, those that were meant to civilize the herb mixers and the dung peddlers and all the rabble coming from the field regions, the one still devastated by the fire and the pest, the ones that would rather work jobs at the Western-controlled factories, and smoke cigars and read of Engels, and pretend like any option they could make mattered.
“You don’t need to put on airs when you talk to me, you know? I already know you’re smart. Save your manifestos for Waseda.” She told him as he rambled on and on about his hatred for those on the other side of the Sea of Japan. Or the Pacific, really. Both sides were terrible, he would say.
“Waseda doesn’t deserve me. No one does.” Sesshou would say, and he would continue to pedal the old bike. It was her brother’s anymore; he had bought a better one, with his first salary, and this was their first ride.
“Are you sure no one does?” The question arose, and the streets began melting into molasses, stone turning to driftwood, mortar and dirt into putty. The memories fluctuated wildly, as the director struggled between truth and ideation. What had he answered back then? What would he answer right now?
“I’m always open to be challenged.” Sesshou laughed as he picked up the speed, rushing down a short slope, towards the Natsukawa bookshop, where the fervent Japanese youths would buy books on the advances of the world outside the Isle of Japan, of the newest Quaint apparels, on European realpolitiks, and what that even meant.
“Oh? Now that’s news. Should we tell Takai about it?” She laughed, and her laugh sprouted daisies and peonies, and the wysterias danced to the tune of a woman who would have been adored as a goddess, had she been born in the Kofun era.
“Yeah, so he can write about how I should gut myself for holding an opinion. Screw that asshole.” The director laughed, mocking the paperboy from the student council who would become a prominent figure in political extremism in the coming years, until his untimely demise at the hands of a different political extremist. Such was life back then… Back then, 12 years in the future?
“Come on, you don’t have to be so-”
The director stops the bike, almost tipping it over down the slope. He puts his right foot down to counterbalance the weight, using his right hand to make sure she didn’t fall over. No Mishima Yukio books fall onto the ground this time.
“Everything ok? Why did you stop so suddenly?” She asks, looking ahead. Only the bookshop down the street was visible. No cars, no kids playing ball on the street, no student marches or drunk policemen to interfere.
“Something doesn’t feel right.” The director comments, and looks ahead, towards the bookshop, then to the post office next to it, then to the residential buildings. What was that odd feeling, that of being observed?
“You’ve been biking towards the bottom of the slope for a while, yet it hasn’t gotten any closer. That’s where the odd feeling comes from.”
The director looks to his left, and coming down a hill with stone steps and rotting torii gates was someone whose face he knew, but couldn’t recognize, a green kimono in their hands.
“Pardon? What’s- What’s that supposed to mean?” The director asks, as impatient as he was afraid. Something about the person in front of him scared him.
“You’re not moving, sir.” The person said, and the director could now see past the mental mist. He saw the raccoon tail, the two sets of ears, the yellowed eyes. The grief reflecting back onto him. “You need to move.”
“Who are you? Where the hell am I?!” He yelled, and finally, he saw that past the slope, past the hill, past the old camphor tree, there was only emptiness. And behind him, there was three, maybe four buildings before the world melted into nothing. He was in a bubble. “Where the hell am I?…”
The bike’s bell rings once more as she walks away from it, towards the director. Her eyes looked different somehow. More defined, yet there was a distance reflecting through them. Despite walking towards him, she was not getting any closer.
“We’re in our way to the bookshop, just past Omotesando, that place with the fancy neon lights and the fancier people who you despised for pretending like their lives held any meaning, and once we get to the bookshop, old man Natsukawa, who was the third generation Natsukawa, you always liked to tell me, will tell you he received a call: Your father had passed away. Stabbed in his sleep.” She says, and the words cut like knife through tissue. The marks of a new era. “You would become the new Director, but not before we got into a fight. About the new world order, about your new place in the world. Away from the colleges, and towards making a true change, not like the shit the politicians spoke, and I told you you were talking just like those you mocked and-”
“Alright, enough!” The director yelled, and he felt like slapping the woman in front of him. And then she would go away, and he would forget her name, because she meant nothing to him anymore, and she would forget twelve years of her life, as it was standard procedure. “This… This is not what I wanted when I took the drink. I didn't want to relive this crap.”
“What did you want, then?” She asks, and the smell of camphor incense hits the director, that same acrid smell present in his father’s wake.
“I wanted to get drunk out of my mind, first and foremost, but I…” What did he even want from this? What did he accomplish, other than getting lost in his own memories? “… Oh, fuck it, I just wanted what everyone was having, alright?! What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with trying to remember how being loved was? I didn’t hurt anyone.”
He turns around for a moment, pointing at a face who he was just remembering, and the memories associated weren’t particularly kind. “Maybe I hurt you, but you didn’t need to be there. I didn’t need any help, you fucking-”
“Mongrel? Come on, Sesshou, get your act together.” She says, and finally, she reaches him, putting a hand to his face. “You come here just to act like you’ve always have? The bike rests, immobile, and there’s reason for it.”
“And what would that reason be?” He asks, but she remains silent. The world around them continues to shrink. The post office disappears, then the residential buildings. The izakaya, the gyudon shop, the sun and the clouds and the stars.
“This place is a mixture of all your memories, sir. You know the answer.” Head of Security replied. “Or at least, you know the answer you believe is the answer.”
He sighs. “Always with the riddles, always the fucking…” The director stops, and closes his eyes, before turning around once more. He takes the girl’s hand, and pulls her close to him.
“I fucked up back then. I always do, and it’s way easier to allow fuck ups to become your life than to confront them. I guess I wanted to, uh, just have a nice Christmas for once, and I fucked up, and I am confronting that now. Uh… Fuck, how do people do this…”
“You want to have a nice Christmas? Is that it?” She asks, and finally, she smiles, and that does something to Sesshou, something that he hadn’t felt in so long, something he hadn’t felt even when he played pretend with his own memories, acting like he was back in the 50s, and life was good: He felt at ease.
“Y-yeah, that’s… That’s what I would want.” He smiles back, and he feels young again. The world changes again: The bookshop is dissolved, and with it the telephone, and the old man, and the smell of camphor, and the acrid taste in your mouth, and suddenly, the stone steps have been swept, and the gates have been repaired, and at the top of the hill is what Head of Security wants, but only the director is meant to get.
“Let’s go then, Sesshou.”
“Yeah, let’s… Let’s go, Sachiko.”
Director Sesshou finally sobers up.
Head of Security groggily opens their eyes, and finds themselves inside of their dormitory room. The air is heavy, partially because they didn’t leave the ventilation system open last night, the musty smell of a closed-up room they don’t use often striking their nostrils, sticking to their clothes.
They stand up a bit too quickly, and are hit with the sudden realization that they had drunk a bit too much the previous night, that pressure to the left of their head as strong as the revolting taste of bile in the back of their throat.
“A hangover?” They muttered, putting a hand to their head. Their species isn’t meant to get hangovers, so how…
Their train of thought stops as soon as they see the folded green kimono at the end of their bed. They jolt back into motion, almost falling off the bed as they try to get up, the kimono effortlessly rolling off into the carpeted floor. They reach to pick it up, and bringing it to their face, they take a whiff. Camphor oil. The memories of the drunken dream come to them like a flood.
They look around frantically, trying to make sense of how the dream ended with them in their bed, kimono in hand, but instead of answers, there’s only a middle sized box with a note next to it. Head of Security picks it up.
I am not going to say this changed me in any meaningful way. You are not a delectable company, and I disagree with the position you hold, and its importance. However, I am willing to admit I was in the wrong back then, and I needed help, which you provided.
So thanks for the help, and I am sorry for dragging you into my mess. There you have it.
I left the rest of the bottles in your room. You can put them in inventory, or throw them away, or keep them, I don’t care. I am not gonna need them. I already had a good Christmas day for once. I won’t make the mistake of asking for more.
Also, you tell anyone of what you saw back there, and I will make your life even worse than I already do.
- 間宮雪樵
The lovely writing of the psychopath they had for a boss would never cease to amaze them. He wasn’t a good person, not by a long mile, yet the predictability of his actions really made him a bit of a charmer. Maybe Sachiko did see something in that pseudo-fascist pig they themselves couldn’t see.
Head of Security puts the small card away, before checking the box, five bottles of saké staring back at them. They pull one off, looking at the cloudy liquid inside, before putting the bottle back where it belonged.
A good Christmas day, huh?… They would have to think about that one. It was enticing, they weren’t gonna lie, but it wouldn’t solve anything; they had realized that last night.
Folding the kimono, Head of Security placed it on top of their bed before changing into their working clothes, and continuing on with their life. The answer might have been loving memories for some, but for them, the answer was not in a memory, or at the bottom of a bottle of saké. Their answer was still out there, and they needed to find it.