1.07: The Meaning of HumanityThat voice was not Reiko-chan’s. It couldn’t have been. It was too wrong. Too inhuman.

  No human throat could twist sound like that. If it was a person, they had to be using some kind of voice changer. But why would some hacker want to torment me out of the blue?

  The thought that someone might be pying with me… dangling Reiko-chan’s number like bait. It lit a fire in my chest. Anger burned through the numbness.

  I jabbed at the screen and called the number back.

  Halfway through the first ring, a new fear hit me.

  What if she actually answered?

  If Reiko-chan picked up and all she heard was me screaming incoherently, I’d just hurt her again. I gritted my teeth and tried to steady my breathing as it rang.

  And rang.

  And rang.

  Finally, a dead, mechanized voice cut in:

  This line is not in service.

  I called again.

  Same result.

  Again.

  And again.

  After a few attempts, the anger inside me guttered out like a candle put out by dirty water. There was no way to reach her. I was just smming my head into the same invisible wall, over and over, hoping it would magically break.

  My arm sagged. I almost threw my phone against the tiles.

  “I’ll be a yokai,” I whispered. “I have no pce to turn to. No pn. No future anyway.”

  My voice shook. There were no rescue routes left in my head.

  A sick thought crawled up from the back of my brain, one I didn’t want to look at directly.

  Maybe this really was punishment.

  Not divine, not cosmic… just the world finally reflecting back everything rotten and useless inside me.

  Sloth, fear, failure…

  …Maybe this form fits me better than the face I used to have. Where can I turn now, Reiko-chan?

  My thoughts drifted, unwilling, to the day I learned she was gone. I’d colpsed then too, just shut down. I’d quit eating, quit moving, even quit being a person.

  If Reiko-chan had reached this same cliff’s edge, if the weight had crushed her the same way… I understood her now in a way that made my chest ache.

  “If you gave up because you couldn’t fight anymore,” I whispered, “then maybe… maybe I will too.”

  I stared down at my phone. Hot tears… too big, too heavy… spttered onto the screen. They slid over the gss in warped, thick drops before sliding off onto my bare chest.

  Under the smeared water, the clock glowed.

  It was 11:40 a.m.

  Half the morning was wasted. Nothing different from usual. Before today, I’d done exactly the same thing. I wasted each day doing nothing but despair.

  A sound tore out of me. I tilted my noh-gaze toward the bathroom ceiling and screamed. The cry bounced off tile and porcein, doubling back on itself until it sounded like someone else was screaming with me next to me. My own voice warped and hollow.

  The noise coming out of my own throat chilled me.

  I stopped.

  The scream broke into ragged sobbing. I slumped back in the tub, clutching the phone, ransacking my mind for a solution, any solution. Nothing came.

  Ten minutes passed. Or was it ten hours?

  Then a familiar, stupid little sensation hit me.

  The feeling that I needed to blow my nose.

  I didn’t have a nose anymore. No nostrils. No bridge to pinch. Just that smooth, rounded surface.

  And yet, right in the center of my face, the familiar pressure built.

  I touched the spot out of reflex. My fingers traced nothing but soft, featureless flesh. Still, the urge swelled, just like every time I’d ugly-cried myself half to death before. My sinuses used to overreact in moments of stress; this felt exactly the same.

  Great. I’m going to die because my imaginary nose wants to explode. They’ll find me here with my head blown off from phantom congestion.

  I looked automatically toward the toilet paper holder. Empty.

  My gaze shifted to my towel.

  I hesitated.

  Blowing my no-nose into a towel meant for my body felt like crossing a moral event horizon. There was no going back.

  “So gross,” I muttered. “No. Absolutely not. I still have some standards…”

  And yet, the pressure kept building.

  I jogged in pce in the tub like an idiot, hoping the distraction would make the sensation go away. It didn’t.

  Then I remembered.

  “The tissues…!”

  I scrambled out of the bath, slipping and catching myself against the wall, and half-ran, half-skidded over to my suit pants crumpled on the floor. I dug into the pocket with shaking hands and pulled out the little pstic packet the tissue girl had given me outside my building.

  “Thank you,” I whispered to a stranger who wasn’t there.

  I unfolded the wrapper and pulled out a single precious tissue. Then I hesitated.

  “Okay. N-no idea how this is going to work,” I muttered. “But here goes…”

  I pressed the tissue to the center of my face and blew.

  SPLAT.

  I reeled backward.

  “Oh. Oh, Kami…”

  My hands were coated in mucus. Thick. Heavy. Too much!

  The tissue had disintegrated instantly, shredded into wet confetti. A colossal glob of snot had unched past my fingers and hit the bathroom wall hard enough to stick, sliding down in slow-motion horror. Bits of tissue clung to it like paper shrapnel. The drywall had a little crack radiating through it.

  “How?!” I yelped. “From where?!”

  It wasn’t even the amount that broke my brain… though there was way, way too much. It was the logic problem.

  I didn’t have a nose.I didn’t have sinuses.I didn’t have anything to expel that snot!

  And yet here I was, apparently capable of firing ballistic mucus at enough velocity to damage property.

  I stared at the mess, stunned.

  “So much for avoiding making a mess,” I croaked. “Goodbye, deposit…”

  My thoughts spun in circles.

  It felt like one of those paradox riddles: This statement is false.

  Only this one went: This mucus does not exist.

  My gaze drifted down to the crumpled pstic wrapper in my hand.

  SSDS, TokyoGot a yokai? I’m your guy!

  I swallowed. Without thinking, I licked my noh-lips… a nervous habit. A noh-tongue with nothing left to nd on. Feeling a tongue move where no mouth existed was truly gut-wrenching.

  I read the stupid pun again.

  This time, this time reading the pun, I wasn’t able to ugh.

  “This is the guy I need,” I whispered. “H-he even specializes in yokai.”

  If he knew enough to joke about yokai like this, maybe he’d actually seen them. Maybe he’d dealt with them.

  “Maybe he knows where Noh-face is. How to deal with it,” I said, clenching the wrapper.

  “Maybe… maybe he can fix me.”

  A big, obvious problem reared its head.

  There was no phone number on the packet.

  No URL.No email.Not even a QR code.

  Just a name.Just a city.… And a terrible slogan.

  “How am I supposed to contact someone who doesn’t leave any information?” I groaned. “If he’s this stupid about basic business, how am I supposed to trust him with my entire future?”

  Silence.

  Then I had another thought.

  You have nothing to lose.

  “If I don’t take some kind of action,” I muttered, “I really will be a yokai for the rest of my life.”

  I’d always been slow to act. Always froze until the st possible second, hoping things would fix themselves. That was the kind of nonsense shonen protagonists got away with… miracle counters and te awakenings.

  I was not a shonen protagonist.

  But I could at least pretend.

  “I’ll fight like one,” I said, balling my fist. I turned toward the mirror above the sink on reflex, even though it showed nothing useful anymore.

  “YAAAAAAAAAAIIIII!!!”

  I screamed with everything I had, smming both fists down onto the countertop. The sound shook the cabinet. If I’d still had a face, I’d have been scowling fiercely. As it was, my expressionless dome stared back at me, smooth as an egg.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I muttered. “Laugh it up.”

  Enough whimpering.

  I bolted out of the bathroom, down the short hall through my kitchenette, and dropped to my knees beside my desk. My briefcase y where I’d flung it earlier. I dragged it up, smmed it onto the tabletop, and snapped the csps open with more force than was strictly necessary.

  My ptop waited inside.

  “My precious…” I crooned automatically, cradling it like a wounded animal.

  I turned it over, checking for cracks, dents, anything. It looked okay. Despite all the thrashing and throwing during my escape, the padding had done its job.

  “Good girl,” I murmured, setting it carefully on the desk. “Sorry about all the abuse today.”

  I flipped it open.

  The Windows logo hung in the dark for longer than it ever had before.

  “Don’t do this to me,” I whispered. “Not you too. Please.”

  My fingers twitched toward my hair, tempted to yank it out. Thankfully, there was still plenty to yank on.

  The login screen finally appeared.

  “Ahhhhhh—!”

  I fumbled my PIN in three times before getting it right, then almost vibrated out of my chair while the desktop loaded. The icons finally snapped into pce. I opened Chrome, hands shaking.

  While it booted, I gnced down at the empty tissue wrapper again, just in case I’d missed something.

  Nope. Of course that hadn’t changed.

  “This is a world of information,” I told myself. “If it exists, it’s online. If it’s not online, it’s a scam. Or a ghost. Or both.”

  I clicked the search bar and typed:

  Tokyo SSDS yokai

  The results loaded.

  Right at the top:

  SSDS: Shinohara Spiritual Detective Services, Tokyo Got a yokai? I’m your guy!

  I clicked on that one and looked over the guy's website.

  Underneath, an obnoxious block of text on the frontpage:

  You were curious about my brilliant business model, right? Perfect!Step right up, poor victim. I’ve got your butt!Click this hot little link and step right up!Make sure you bring plenty of money!!! <3

  My jaw dropped.

  “I hate him already,” I muttered.

  Of course he’d charge. A guy this smug about his “brilliant business model” probably charged extra just for breathing in his office.

  Still…

  If he could fix this… I’d work off the debt. I’d be his mascot. His errand boy. His human punching bag. Anything.

  I clicked the link.

  The rest of the site was… worse than I’d imagined.

  The spsh page was truly uninspired. But the main site was… ugh.

  No banner. No logo. No color. Just bck text on a white background in what looked like the default system font. It was as if someone had opened Notepad, smashed their forehead on the keyboard, and uploaded the result.

  There was no greeting. No “Welcome to SSDS!” No FAQ. No contact form.

  Just a single line with an address.

  That was it.

  I stared.

  “My noh-eyes are bleeding,” I whispered.

  This person was a total idiot. An amateur idiot. A spiritual detective with less web presence than my uncle’s fishing blog.

  I snapped the ptop shut harder than I meant to.

  The sound echoed like a gunshot in my tiny apartment.

  “Ah—sorry, sorry…” I flinched and stroked the lid. “You’ll be fine. Probably. I hope.”

  Enough moping.

  It was time for action.

  “Channel your inner shonen energy, Susumu,” I muttered, standing and taking a martial-arts ready stance, clenching my fists. Reiko had been sure to teach me a few things. She’d drilled a few simple moves into me ages ago… half self-defense, half py-fighting.

  I never imagined I’d actually need them.

  I spun away from the desk and stormed over to my closet. I ripped the doors open and dove in, turning its contents into a tornado. Shirts flew. Pants tumbled. A belt tried to strangle me.

  If anyone saw my real noh-face outside, they’d freak out. I knew that from personal experience. Then they’d call the police. Then the police would definitely try to dismantle me in a b somewhere.

  I needed a disguise.

  Something tight enough to hide my… ck of features. Something that wouldn’t look too suspicious on Halloween.

  My hands nded on smooth, synthetic fabric.

  I pulled it out.

  A sentai armor costume.

  “How very appropriate!” I stared at it. Then, despite everything, a dry little chuckle escaped me.

  “At least now, if people scream,” I muttered, “it’ll be because I look like an otaku loser, not a monster.”

  I remembered wearing it before.

  Company party. Costume mandatory. The crazier, the better. Management had called it “a team-building event.” I was pretty sure it had just been an excuse for the executives to drink in silly outfits.

  I’d shown up as a bargain-bin hero, posing awkwardly while coworkers took pictures and ughed. Not my best memory.

  I chewed my noh-lip. At least, I felt like I chewed it. In reality, I just pressed phantom teeth against phantom skin.

  “Maybe just the helmet?” I murmured. “It’s Halloween. People will think I’m just going home from some event or going to one.”

  No.

  Breaking the costume like that felt wrong. Somewhere, nameless sentai fans would sense the disrespect and appear to beat me up.

  I looked back at the jeans and T-shirt I’d dragged out earlier. They were clean enough. Normal. Safe.

  Normal and safe were dead concepts now.

  The sentai costume, by comparison, was spotless. Intact.

  I sighed.

  “Fine,” I told it. “You win. Let’s be bat shit crazy together.”

  I pulled it on piece by piece, the fabric snug but not suffocating. The helmet settled over my smooth head with a soft click. The world dimmed slightly through the tinted visor, but I could still see… everywhere.

  Front. Sides. Behind. Above.

  The suit was surprisingly sealed. They’d have to rip the helmet off to see what I really was.

  Which made this option disturbingly appealing.

  A tiny voice in my head pointed out that if I did this, I’d be trapped in a full-body costume until I got home again. All day long. It would be hot, awkward, hard to breathe in. Like working as a mascot again.

  But being seen without it would be worse.

  In the closet mirror, a red-and-silver hero stared back at me. I struck a pose I’d practiced for that dumb party… my legs spread, fist on hip, other hand sshing the air.

  “Ahaha…”

  The ugh came out dry and brittle.

  I held the pose for a heartbeat longer, then dropped it.

  “Nope,” I muttered. “Crazy otaku. Walking publicity stunt. They’re going to assume I’m trying to go viral.”

  I hesitated.

  But…

  I thought about the leaps I’d managed in the station. The way my body had twisted to dive through the closing doors. The way I’d climbed the kiosk gate.

  The way my vision wrapped around me, now very much like a panoramic camera.

  “With the crazy acrobatics I pulled off already…” I murmured, flexing my fingers inside the gloves.

  “Maybe I can pull it off.”

  Relwing