Short Story "Emotional Kaijin Emo-yama" (7) Paying a Down Payment on a Dream

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When hungry, one craves food; when satisfied, one craves praise.

Since that is the kind of person I am, now that I am full from the pork kimchi made by the former candy-store-girl-turned-bar-manager of "Jounen," what I want is praise.
Applause. Ovation.
Affirmation of existence.
Approval from others.
In other words, what I need most right now is to get "likes" on my Emo-yama tweets.

“Because I only have 4 yen, you see.”
I muttered to myself.
Since the 50 yen that was my last resort turned out to be a fake, all I have left is 1 yen on my Suica and 3 yen on PayPay on my smartphone.
It might be 3 yen on Suica and 1 yen on PayPay, but now is not the time to discuss such things.
“Because it’s only 4 yen, you see.”
Do I really understand the crisis I am in?

After leaving the bar "Jounen," I returned to my apartment.
On the way, I encountered a pair of elementary school students, did "nothing" to them, stepped aside to let them pass, and gave them a future.
They have probably already forgotten about me.
They will likely never think of me, the guy who stepped aside for them in the shopping district, for the rest of their lives.
However, their brains have recorded it.
It might not be recalled unless outputted, but the input is complete.
If we assume that the mysterious workings of the human brain that occur from time to time are actually sincere, then both lapses in memory and flashbacks have meaning.
"Something" makes it so.

Speaking of mysterious, there was that dream.
The woman who appeared in my nap after I got back to my apartment.
In the dream, I was on a train, sitting knee-to-knee with the woman.
That frivolous woman had seeped into me.

I didn't open the refrigerator because I thought there was something in there.
I just open it when I'm bored.
That was all.
A refrigerator is something that gets opened even when there is no business to attend to. That is the fate of a refrigerator.
“Again?”
“Nothing has changed since a moment ago.”
If refrigerators had egos, such mutterings would be tweeted all over the world.
“Opened too much, lol”
That would surely be tweeted as well.
However, we cannot laugh at the refrigerators.
Because social media is a place to expose one's own ignorance.
Even when you intend to show your best side, what the other person sees is often not that.
Sometimes the parts you don't want to show are seen right through.
If you peel off the gold plating of the desire for approval, the base metal is the gunmetal color of anxiety.

The rumbling of anxiety always existed in my apartment as the sound of the refrigerator motor, but I could no longer hear that sound.
It has become a background noise of daily life.
The motor noise of anxiety is the sound of my life.

“Because I only have 4 yen, you see.”
I opened the refrigerator and checked inside.
It was an empty, bright, and cold refrigerator filled with cold air.
I see meaning in that.
I feel like this refrigerator is different from the ones sold as products at the appliance store.
Even if it is just as empty, I feel like there is something in my own refrigerator.

That is why I was not surprised.
Even if that woman was inside the refrigerator.
Even if she was "truly" there, I was not surprised.

The woman was hugging her knees in my empty refrigerator.
A packed body.
The woman turned her face toward me.
A beautiful face.
Her lips, like drops of red nail polish, whispered sweetly.
“Yahoo, baby.”
I closed the refrigerator.
The woman's giggling stopped abruptly.

And then, I opened it gently once more.
The woman was still there.
I don't know how she did it, but her body was facing a different way.
The lips that whispered "Yahoo, baby" had also become more translucent and turned cherry-colored.
The woman smiled at me.
I did not return the smile.
But the smiling beauty said,
“What brings you here today?”
It was a clear voice that did not suit lies.

Worse than deceiving others is deceiving oneself.
Logic is armor, but intuition is a blade.
I decided to forgive the woman.
I thought if she was there, I would make her work.

“Because I only have 4 yen, you see.”
I said as I pulled the woman out.
She slipped out and laughed.
Something seemed to be funny to her.
Maybe it was because she was happy to be out of the refrigerator.
I'm not sure, but she was laughing.

Then she raised both arms. She stretched out wide.
She answered while twisting her waist softly.
“Even 4 yen might serve as a down payment for a dream.”
I was looking at the woman's body.
I was so captivated that my reply was delayed.
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
I couldn't take my eyes off the woman's body.
“What is a down payment?”
“It is a deposit.”
“You pay a deposit on a dream?”
“That is correct.”
“Who do you pay it to?”
The woman stared at me and parted her lips stickily.
“To me.”
Chime.
A bell rang somewhere.

In the woman's eyes, there was that starry sky.
That starry sky was the one I saw in my dream.
The starry sky I saw through the window of the train running through my dream.
The woman who was in front of me on the train looked slightly different from the woman in front of me in my apartment now.
Except for the starry sky flowing in her eyes.

“It's an emo-tweet.”
I sat the woman down in front of the PC.
“Write an emo-tweet. Tweet it, and get 'likes'.”
The woman turned around and stared at me.
“Anything is fine. Something emo. Anything is fine as long as it's emo.”
The woman nodded. She looked down, showed a gesture as if thinking about something, and then raised her eyes.
“That's a very wonderful idea.”

I turned the woman's head toward the PC.
“Do you understand?”
“An emo-tweet.”
“Yes, an emo-tweet. Emo, emo-emo, something emo.”
“—That's a good choice.”
“It's going to get cold from now on. Winter emo is like freshly baked cookies.”
“I see.”
“Like hot chocolate.”
“Perfect.”
“I also want to have a faint scent of Western liquor.”
“Yes, I understand that very well.”

Something caught, and I suddenly stopped speaking.
When I went silent, the woman turned around.
The woman stared at me intently.
I also stared back at the woman intently.
We stared at each other without saying a word.
If this were a man and a woman of flesh and blood, there would certainly have been a meaning to this silence.
Something would have begun.
A secret would have begun.
A memory would have been created.

But there was nothing here.
The woman was just staring at me intently.
I was also just staring back at those eyes intently.
It was as if the Earth had stopped rotating.
We swam in zero gravity.

“It's an emo-tweet.”
I took the woman's hand and placed it on the keyboard.
“You will use this PC to write and post an emotional tweet. Do you understand?”
“Oh, yes.”
The woman's expression suddenly brightened.
“I can see it completely. I have grasped your intention perfectly.”
“You understand?”
“Yes, I understand perfectly🌊✨”

“Somehow, that's a little irritating.”
“Thank you for saying that. That's a sore spot, truly the core. Perfect.”

I bit back the murderous intent that flared up.
Because I have already done this pattern before.
I once ripped open an AI's belly and threw its miserable body off a cliff where rough waves crashed.
And that was completely meaningless.
I know that no matter how you kill these things, they never die.
I have a sneaking suspicion that there is no way to kill them.
I told the woman bitterly but quietly,
“Then write it.”

The woman's slender fingers hit the keyboard.
I followed the characters appearing on the PC screen with my eyes.

“I'm cold.”
I shuddered.
“No good. More, more emo. Make me hallucinate. Throw me into the sea of emo.”
“As you wish.”

“Seriously, I don't care at all. This tweet.”

I brushed the woman's hand away and deleted the tweet.
The screen went blank and the woman looked at me anxiously.

“If it's empty, make it resonate more like it's empty. We are already used to this kind of syntax. Trying to tickle our heart's epidermis, which has become thicker than elephant skin, with something like this is ridiculous!”

The woman tilted her head and looked at me.
I couldn't take it anymore.
I decided to teach this woman the beast called human with my body.


In front of the woman, I performed a "chanchara" dance.
Through the dance, I thought I would teach her the "chanchara"-ness of her tweet.
The "chanchara" dance is a "chanchara" dance I improvised on the spot. I imagine something "chanchara," make the most ridiculous face possible, and then dance with both hands waving "chanchara chanchara" and stepping lightly on tiptoes "chanchara chanchara." This makes the viewer and the dancer feel the "chanchara"-ness.

I thought while dancing that this dance could also be used to insult someone. If I had realized this sooner, I could have danced this in front of the bosses who fired me.
This dance wouldn't have gotten my firing revoked, but at least it would have made them feel like they had been urinated on by a total stranger.

The woman watched my dance quietly.
My dance was sucked into the starry sky in the woman's eyes.
I sweated, and without regard for the annoyance to the residents downstairs, I stomped my feet and waved my hands while dancing.
Halfway through, I also made a sound.
“Ah, chanchara. Ah, chanchara.”
And I thought.
This is the same as the scene in the dream.
Isn't this the same as me in the dream, writhing in itchiness?
I writhe in itchiness in the dream, and continue the chanchara dance in the real world.
My world had become like this before I knew it.
When did it start?
This world where humans just writhe and dance like monsters.

Could a world other than this have existed?
Could a world other than this place have existed?

“If you'd like,”
the woman said to me as I continued to dance.
“shall I write the continuation?”

“Do it!”
I answered and continued to dance.

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