I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like Read online

  As it was, though, the room was filthy — the bed was never made; the three trash cans were rimmed with mold; wrappers and bottles covered the floor. But since no one but Tatsuya saw it anyway, what was the point of cleaning? At least everything was where he needed it.

  —I don’t think so, no. We’ll probably just look around, find something worth eating.

  Tatsuya had intended the last statement as a subtle barb, but if his mother registered it, it didn’t show. She dried her hands silently and stepped out of the bathroom.

  —Well, I’m going to work now. Don’t stay out too late.

  His mother had been saying this to him for as long as he could remember. But even if he had the inclination, where was there for him to go? Apart from occasionally spending the night at Masa’s, he rarely left the house. Most of his shopping was done online, and on the few occasions when he went out for some other reason, the noise and the crowds exhausted him. The last thing he wanted was to stay out all night.

  After finishing the lunchbox, Tatsuya began to revise the most recent section of The Book Against the Human Race. Of late he had been reading Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Representation, and his attempts to integrate Schopenhauer’s philosophy had left him feeling derivative. Worse, he felt as if he didn’t really understand what he was reading, and that Schopenhauer was not truly pessimistic in the way he had expected. Tatsuya realized there was no reason to worry about clarity, consistency, or originality when writing a book that no one but himself would read, but he found himself unable to move on unless each section was exactly as he wanted it. As usual this perfectionism left him feeling tired and uncreative, and after thirty minutes he pushed the notebook aside, poured himself a glass of milk, and sat back to wait for Masa. Remembering the phone call, his frustration with the manuscript gave way to a general sense of unease, and he realized he was less worried about Kago’s suspension than about Masa’s reaction to it. He knew Kago would be reinstated eventually, but if Masa intended to contact her or anyone else, he didn’t know what he would do.

  Tatsuya and Masa had met online, on a 2channel Hello! Project forum. Both of them were regular posters, and before long they found their interests converging. They had both come to prefer the younger Berryz Koubou unit over the more established Morning Musume, and this united them against a faction of MoMusu loyalists who considered them traitors. The two usually defended each other’s opinions, but recently Masa’s reputation had declined considerably, and even Tatsuya’s support seemed unlikely to revive it.

  It was all the fault of his reviews, of course. They’d started out as conventional descriptions of new albums, singles, concerts, and merchandise; and Masa had been lauded for his dedication and comprehensive knowledge of Hello! Project minutiae. But as the months went by, the reviews became increasingly personal. Tracklistings and scanned photos were replaced with detailed, clinical descriptions of Masa’s physiological responses to the members of Morning Musume. Instead of analyzing lyrics or predicting future lineups, he recorded his sweat, erections, and breathing changes; he went off on long tangents about Saki Shimizu’s eyebrows and Momoko Tsugunaga’s legs; and he posted stories in which meetings of the underage idols degenerated into orgies and gang rape. And in the post that initially got him banned, he recorded the precise quantity of semen he had expended over a recent Risako Sugaya photobook. Five pages alone were devoted to his procuring, unwrapping, and displaying the photobook, during which time he pre-ejaculated four times. After that he moved onto reviews of individual pages, the longest being the ones that had brought him to climax. Before long he was banned from most of the major idol forums, labelled a paedophile, sent death threats. Depending on the day, his reactions wavered between despondence and extreme self-confidence. Sometimes he sent Tatsuya messages in which he contemplated suicide; in other moods he was defiant, defending himself against what he considered a repressive and closed-minded fanbase.

  —They think I’m an asshole for masturbating to children so much. But you know what? Their opinion doesn’t count. I’m not hurting anyone, so what the hell do I have to feel bad about? Everyone I’ve ever loved has turned me down, so what do I care what anyone thinks? I don’t even want a girlfriend anymore, that’s too much for me, too much to worry about. All I can think about is children.

  It was in one of the latter moods that he arrived at Tatsuya’s house an hour after his phone call. His hands were shaking from the cold, and the bottom of his shirt had been awkwardly tucked under his jacket. As he kicked off his shoes, Tatsuya noticed his frayed and mismatched socks, one longer and lighter than the other.

  —Take a look at this, he said, throwing a CD case down on the table. Tatsuya inspected the cover, immediately recognizing its bright pink lettering and flower-pattern design.

  —Yeah, the first MoMusu Best Of. What about it?

  —I saw it in the bargain-bin at HMV for seven hundred yen. I feel like I rescued it.

  Tatsuya stared at the pink flowers on the cover. To him the album seemed as timeless as a natural object, no different from a leaf or a stone. He couldn’t remember a time when it hadn’t been part of his consciousness. Over the years he had taped, burned, and ripped it to .mp3s more times than he could count. He supposed there were at least five copies of it in his room, some of them vinyl.

  —They were selling it for seven hundred? They should be shot for that.

  As he turned the case over and inspected the track listing, the block English capitals of the first track, ‘LOVE MACHINE’, set off a trigger in his mind. This was the single that had launched the group to national attention some seven years earlier, largely on the strength of its promotional video. Tatsuya was nineteen when it was released, and before watching it, he had looked on idol music with scorn. In high school he’d listened mostly to J-rock and foreign metal bands, considering popular music beneath his notice. Idols were for girls and little kids, and music was only worth listening to if people he hated didn’t know about it.

  But after ‘LOVE MACHINE’, something in him changed. He remembered sitting in front of the television as the song came on at the top of the nightly countdown. There was a brief intro in which a poster of the group was pasted onto a billboard in Tokyo, and then a low murmur began, a soft chanting of girls’ voices layered together like a choir. The screen resolved into the image of an enormous pink aeroplane, its hollow interior lined with glass windows. At the end of the fuselage was a circular platform held in place by struts, on which eight girls materialized and, as Tatsuya watched, began to dance. The music that soundtracked them did not conform to what he knew of as the insipid structure of the modern pop song — there seemed at first to be no consensus as to who was singing what. Lines were at first sung, then chanted, then interpolated in brief yelps; new sections and song-flashes erupted from the mix; the sudden refrains and interjections fought each other for space. Finally the chorus broke: a repetition of the title phrase counterpointed by a simple and insistent chant, the single syllable ‘wow’ repeated in an ascending harmony. Then the chant collapsed and the voices fractured again. Through it all the editing kept pace with the rhythm, as each cut outfitted the girls with a different costume — in the instants between beats they changed from police women to flight attendants, nurses to crossing guards; they donned black leather and wedding dresses, pink boots and velvet veils. They shook their fists. They broke formation fighting for center stage. They were variously animated, blown up to giant size, and projected into downtown Shibuya. Every one of them smiled in each frame; and reflecting off the neon pink of the walls, the harsh white light of the closeups gave them the look of angels.

  The video finished, but the image of the dancing girls stayed in Tatsuya’s mind. At first he was unsure how to respond — the music was commercial, but beyond that there was something anarchic about it, its finely filigreed production shot through with the gaggle of voices. It was like music made by hyper-intelligent children who had formed some perfect mathematical stru
cture and then unbalanced and destroyed it in a fit of exuberant boredom.

  He remembered buying the single in Shibuya the next day and unwrapping it on the train, looking around to see if anyone was watching. When he got home he lay back on his bed and listened to it for hours. It took him at least five listens before he truly grasped its structure; and then he relaxed and let his mind drift through the details of the production, its complex skeleton of sounds. He tried to tell the voices apart, and could not. He listened more closely, as if in a trance, and read the inset lyrics. The words meant nothing when taken out of context, but he could at least learn the members’ names; and as he listened again he repeated them to himself as if speaking an incantation. Over the next few weeks he would learn those names by heart.

  He was still thinking of the past when Masa spoke again.

  —Okay, so. Getting down to business. We can’t let this scandal bullshit continue. The media is fucking with the idols and no one is doing anything about it. So we have to stand up for them, stand up for Aibon.

  —Yeah, how? No one is going to take us seriously.

  —So that’s how it is. You say you love Aibon, but when it comes down to it you’re not going to do anything to help her.

  —Masa... listen to what you’re saying. There’s nothing we can do about this. We don’t even live in the same world as Aibon.

  —Don’t we?

  Masa held out his hands.

  —I’ve touched Aibon.

  Tatsuya shook his head, dismissive.

  —Just cause you go to handshake events...

  —The point is it’s not okay for them to do this. It’s not okay for the media to fuck with people’s lives. For them it doesn’t matter who gets hurt as long as they can get a story, but even when they’ve forgotten about Aibon she’ll still be affected by this. They fucked up her career, and why? Just so they can have something to print? They need to understand that there are real people who get hurt by this.

  Tatsuya thought about it. In his own way he thought of Ai Kago as a younger sister, and he could imagine how the scandal would affect her and her family. Probably she felt scared and alone, unsure of what to do. But as he thought about it more it all seemed too distant, too impossibly distant.

  —Yeah, but, that can’t be helped, right? That’s how those magazines are. We’re not going to change that. I do think it’s stupid she got suspended, but she must have known it might happen. I don’t think it’s really our responsibility.

  Caught up in a current of thought, Masa was hardly listening. Tatsuya had pushed a chair out for him, but instead of sitting he circled the table and pulled at his jacket, looking up only intermittently.

  —I figured this would happen sooner or later, after Mari got taken out. So I took some precautions. Yeah, remember my cousin Daichi? The journalist? He’s got a friend on the Friday staff. As soon as I heard about Aibon I called him and got him to call his friend. So he managed to get the name of the photographer. It’s a common name. I looked online and in the phone book and called some other people. I got it down to two people, then I figured out which one it was. I managed to get it down to his address.

  He stopped and looked in the direction of the kitchen. Tatsuya looked at his face, unsure of how to respond.

  —Did you really do this?

  —Of course.

  —And it was that easy.

  Masa nodded.

  —Well, I don’t know what to say.

  —No one is going to see this coming. We’re going to go over there and take them by surprise.

  —And do what?

  —Get him to apologize to Aibon.

  Tatsuya flipped through his notebook, trying not to meet Masa’s gaze.

  —I think this is a really bad idea...

  Masa took a sheet of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. After smoothing it out, he placed it on the table.

  —That’s his address right there.

  —He lives in Kichijoji? He must be doing all right.

  —I’m sure he isn’t poor.

  The two of them stared down at the paper, saying nothing. After a while the overhead heater started up with a low rattle, and as the warm air suffused him Tatsuya felt a calmness settle over his mind. He remembered other times when Masa had thrown himself into a fit of violent excitement over some trifle, and it had always amounted to nothing.

  —So, we have to get going, Masa said at last. The train leaves in fifteen minutes.

  —Are you really serious about this, Tatsuya said.

  —Yeah. So, come on. Let’s get going.

  Before he could protest Masa zipped up his jacket and started for the door. Tatsuya hesitated for a moment, then got up and followed him. He was certain nothing would happen. Most likely they would spend the day window shopping in Kichijoji and return home in the evening. At that rate he could get back in time for dinner and continue work on the treatise.

  On the way to the station they were mostly silent. Underestimating the cold, Tatsuya had taken only a light jacket, and as he followed Masa across the thoroughfare he shivered and dug his hands into his pockets. It had rained the night before, and a dampness glazed the pavement. A few clouds lingered in the grey sky. As they paused in front of a traffic light, Tatsuya suggested a taxi, but Masa insisted on walking; he needed time to set his thoughts in order. Ten minutes later they reached the terminal and caught the Chuo Line rapid. As they passed Koenji the train emptied and they took seats by the door, next to a group of company men. The station names went past on the monitor, and the two of them looked around, not meeting each other’s eyes. In the well-heated kitchen Masa’s plan had been pleasantly abstract, something that could be discussed safely, from a distance. But as the rattle of the train sounded around them, they became increasingly nervous. To dispel the tension they began to talk as they usually did, their voices low and conspiratorial, mimicking, they imagined, the company men and their business jargon.

  —MoMusu is pretty much dead, Masa said. Does anyone really think Takitty can be leader? Everyone that’s still holding on is just deluding themselves. They’re nowhere near as exciting as Berryz.

  Tatsuya nodded.

  —Yeah, I don’t like Gocchin’s image recently. And that Melon Kinenbi video was going too far.

  —What, “Nikutai wa Shoujiki na Eros”?

  —Yeah. They didn’t need to be slutted out like that. It’s just a gimmick to sell more copies.

  —Yeah, well, they need the money, right? If they don’t sell more copies they’re not going to be able to make more music.

  This was a fairly simplistic analysis, Tatsuya thought, but in his way Masa was right. In a few days the seventh Morning Musume album, Rainbow 7, would be released, but the group’s profile was lower than ever. The sales of their recent singles had declined, and they were no longer taken seriously as a public presence. It all seemed very different from ten years ago, when Tatsuya had first heard of them. But he wasn’t worried; he thought of the slump as a necessary tribulation, and he promised himself that no matter how unpopular they became, he would always support them. Morning Musume were only being tested, and before long they would rise again. There would be new members, new campaigns, new music. There was no reason for the faithful to worry.

  —I still don’t like that Aibon was smoking, Tatsuya said. It feels really fake for her. She was probably just hanging out with the wrong people.

  Masa didn’t seem to be listening.

  —Huh? If she wants to smoke, it’s fine with me.

  Tatsuya was a little surprised at his own depth of feeling. He couldn’t say exactly why the idea of Kago smoking upset him, but he felt as troubled by it as he was by the suspension itself. He felt as if, apart from breaking the rules of her contract, Kago had committed a more intangible offense. As he turned it over in his mind, a curious thought came to him: a group of nuns cloistered somewhere, locked away from the world. He knew that nuns were mostly old women, but now as he thought of Kago on Hello! Mornin
g, he imagined a convent of young nuns playing with each other and laughing, without troubles or sorrow. Like them, the idols existed outside of the world, and in the terms of the world they couldn’t really love. Or maybe it was better to think of it as a special kind of love, one without possession, without touching. Their love was directed at no one in particular, and so it became purified, free from attachment. All they had was pure feeling, an invisible force like a radio signal. He imagined this was the signal he picked up when he listened to their music. But now he felt as if Kago had, with a single cigarette, reached out for the world. Tatsuya told himself there was nothing wrong with this, but he couldn’t help thinking of it as a betrayal.

  —Okay, that’s us, Masa said.

  Tatsuya looked up as the characters for Kichijoji appeared on the monitor; and in a few moments he heard the gliding sound of the rails as the train pulled into the station. The platform was crowded; although it was past midday, lines had formed in front of the doors, and as Tatsuya and Masa stepped out they had to push their way past businessmen, office ladies, and students. They followed the crowd to the ticket gate, found the central exit and emerged onto the street, across from the entrance to Sun Road.

  —Let’s go eat somewhere, Tatsuya said.

  —Didn’t you just eat before we left?

  —Yeah, that was an hour ago. I’m hungry.

  Masa stopped.

  —Just get something from 7-11.

  He waited while Tatsuya went and bought a little parcel of pork buns.

  —Okay, his apartment is up this way, near Musashino-shi.

  The two of them crossed the street again and turned left at the light. They walked for a while in silence, stopping to check the street signs, stepping off the narrow path to let a bicycle pass. After a while they found a koban police box and rechecked their position, then walked north again. Eventually they sighted a tall housing block, and Masa took the folded paper from his jacket.