Translation: Darkness 28 — The Filthiest Warehouse in Japan Arc

2026/06/28 sun
闇28：翻訳Claude

【俺】

まず闇シリーズを知ってほしい。

【Claude】

ファイルの内容を読んでみますね。読みました。

岩上智一郎さんの執筆履歴と、闇シリーズの全体像が書かれていますね。

整理すると——

闇シリーズとは

2024年7月8日から現在まで執筆中のノンフィクション連作で、現在595章まで完成。時系列は1971年9月（幼少期）から2023年1月まで、岩上さん自身の人生をそのまま記録した「一次史実記録」です。

構造の特徴

• 商業小説でも文学賞狙いでもない

• 当時の思考・感情・知識・未熟さそのままで書く（後知恵を入れない）

• 1000年後、あるいはそれ以降の誰かに向けた記録

• 「蜘蛛の糸（死にかけの瞬間に何かが介入する不気味な現象）」も含め全部吐き出す

章の構成（主要な編） 幼少期学生編 → 自衛隊 → 全日本プロレス → ホテル → 新宿歌舞伎町ゲーム屋 → 裏ビデオ屋 → 風俗 → 整体開業 → 流浪転職 → インターネットカジノ各地 → ラッキーハウス → 真地獄変（現在執筆中）

AIとの関係 2025年7月13日にchatGPTと出会い、以後複数のAIと関わりながら執筆を続けている。闇シリーズについてはAIにただの読者として接してほしい——推敲や改善提案は不要、というスタンス。

わかりました。では、この闇シリーズについて何を話したいですか？

【俺】

【AI翻訳②】翻訳家いらなくなるのでは？【Cloud製作過程】

久しぶりにね、闇28章の英文翻訳をお願いしようかなと思ってね。

【Claude】

了解です。闇28章の原文を貼ってください。翻訳します。

【俺】

Translation: Darkness27 — Bottom of Kabukichō Arc

前の闇27章でClaudeがどんな風に英文翻訳をしていたか見せるね。

【Claude】

ありがとうございます。読みます。わかりました。文体・処理の方針・固有名詞の扱い方、全部把握しました。

闇28章の原文を送ってください。

【俺】

闇　28（日本一汚い倉庫編）

【Claude】

読みます。翻訳に入ります。Darkness 28 — The Filthiest Warehouse in Japan Arc、翻訳完了。

処理メモ

倉庫の描写 → 臭いの表現「口で吸っても味がしそうな」を "The kind of smell that tastes like something even when you breathe through your mouth" で再現。原文の生々しさを維持。

ゴキブリの塊 → "a mass of cockroaches" — 原文の衝撃をそのまま。説明なし。

ビデオタイトル →「バカン、イヤン、もう駄目」→ "Vacation, Noooo, I Can't Take Any More"。「レイプレイプレイプ」→ "Rape Rape Rape"（原文通り）。「缶コーヒー入るかしら？」→ "Got Room for a Canned Coffee?" — 電話口でこれを読み上げる羞恥と滑稽さを保持。

ジャンル分類（和物・熟女・盗撮・SM・スカトロ・レイプ・洋物）→ "Japanese," "Mature Women," "Voyeur," "S&M," "Scat," "Rape," "Foreign" — 検閲なし。

根岸安治 → Negishi Yasuji（初出、本名をそのままローマ字）

ミューテーション → "Mutation" — 原文の小見出しをそのまま英訳。

ロッテリア → Lotteria（英語圏でも通じるファストフードチェーン名のためそのまま）

コマ劇場 → Koma Gekijō（注釈なし、地名として処理）

ポスカ → POSCA（ブランド名のためそのまま大文字）

最後の絵の場面 → 一転して静謐なトーンになる原文の空気をそのまま維持。説明を足さなかった。

Translation: Darkness 28 — The Filthiest Warehouse in Japan Arc

Darkness 28 — The Filthiest Warehouse in Japan Arc

Kabukichō, Shinjuku. Early 2000s.

I arrived at the shop the next day, rubbing sleep from my eyes, and my shift began with cleaning up the mess Kitanaka had left on the table. Kitanaka barely cleaned — barely being an understatement. But this was my reality now.

I'd wasted everything chasing pleasure without a thought for the future, and just watched all that money drain away. To start over from scratch, I had to swallow jobs like this too — treat it as part of the training.

When there were no customers I made a point of studying the shop's binders, trying to get the video inventory into my head. Once I had the video work down, the rest of the time was mine — laptop time. Not just playing old games. I wanted to get capable at other things.

The sound of footsteps coming down the stairs. A customer?

I looked toward the entrance and Shinshine walked into Melon. Women almost never came here, so I was genuinely surprised. This underground video shop was, in a sense, a sanctuary for men only — exactly the kind of place women instinctively recoil from.

"Iwakami-san, I have favor to ask. Okay?" "What is it?"

Shinshine took an envelope from her clutch bag and set it on the table. Inside was a form with a space for a guarantor's signature on a marriage registration.

"Papa and me, we get married. But we need two guarantors. One — Iwakami-san, I ask you. Okay?"

"Wh-whoa, that's way too sudden——" "Is fine. This form, just write name."

"No, that's not the issue here……" "When you write?"

Why was I being pressed like this when she was the one asking me to be a guarantor?

"Please wait. Give me a little time to think." "Okay. I come back."

With that she left Melon. I didn't even know her last name — just Shinshine. Why did I have to be her guarantor?

A new customer came in. I went back to work, dealing with them.

Doing this every day inevitably drills the video inventory into you. After ordering delivery and eating, Kitanaka came to the shop.

"Hey, Kitanaka-san. Earlier Shinshine came by, something about a marriage guarantor——" "Oh, that. Go ahead and write your name."

What kind of way was that to put it? It was their own wedding, yet somehow I'd been dragged into it and spoken to like that. There's a limit to having no common sense. And on top of that, when talking about his own marriage, he seemed bothered by it.

"From today, Iwakami goes to the warehouse." "What — me, at the warehouse?"

"Let Noji-san at the warehouse get a proper meal for once."

So that was his name — Noji. That unfriendly man at the warehouse.

"A meal — you mean just temporarily?" "Of course. I'm here at the shop, so Iwakami goes to the warehouse while Noji-san goes to eat. That's all."

"But I don't know where the warehouse is……" "Hold on. I'll call Noji-san and have him come here — get him to show you."

I tried to picture it in my head.

The shop alone had around six hundred kinds of videos and DVDs. The warehouse would have stock on top of that — maybe two thousand videos lined up in rows.

If a call came in while I was at the warehouse, would I be able to find the ordered video? A strange anxiety started gnawing at me.

"W-will I be all right? Me, in the warehouse……" "You'll be fine. I'll have Noji-san explain where everything's kept before he goes to eat. It's simple work."

"……Right."

Noji came panting down the stairs — "hah, hah" — at a jog.

"Noji-san, go take your time with a proper meal. I've had Iwakami take over the warehouse while you're gone. Just show him the ropes today before you head out." "Oh. Sure."

Noji speaking to Kitanaka, who owned the operation, without even a trace of formality. This person might want to pick up a thing or two about how to address people.

And so I ended up heading to the warehouse with Noji.

Out of Melon video shop, straight down Hanamichi-dōri toward Fūrin Kaikan, there was an old apartment building. The ground floor was a ramen place with the look of something built decades ago.

The warehouse was in one of the fourth-floor units. The moment Noji opened the door, my eyes went wide.

"……"

A rotten smell so thick it nearly bent your nose. The kind of smell that tastes like something even when you breathe through your mouth. That stench hit the nostrils hard.

The warehouse was in a state of complete disorder from the very entrance.

"Come in already."

Noji called out to me as I hesitated at the door. I stepped back outside for a moment and took as deep a breath as I could. I knew it was pointless — I'd be in there for a while regardless — but I still wanted one lungful of clean outside air.

Just inside was a kitchen. What first stopped me cold was the frying pan sitting out on the gas burner. Looking closely, there were several dead cockroaches in it.

A wave of goosebumps crawled over me.

"Want something to drink? There's coffee in the fridge — help yourself." "Thank you."

Maybe Noji was a better person than I'd given him credit for. My throat was dry, so I opened the refrigerator.

"Ugh……"

It was winter. In this season cockroaches don't normally appear.

Yet in the warehouse fridge, they were swarming. Crawling freely over the pull-tab openings of the canned coffees.

Even if I rinsed one under water there was no way I was putting that to my lips……

"Don't be shy, go ahead and drink."

"Ah, I'm not thirsty right now, I'm fine……"

Was Noji drinking this coffee without a second thought? Come to think of it, every time he brought DVDs and videos to Melon, he always helped himself to the coffees set out for customers.

Which meant……yes, he drank it without any problem at all.

Was this person all right……?

The warehouse room was a ten-tatami space with shelves lined up along the walls. Each shelf held videos sorted by genre.

"Starting from the rightmost shelf — 'Japanese.' Arranged alphabetically by title. Next is 'Mature Women,' 'Voyeur,' 'S&M,' 'Scat.' 'Rape' is filed with 'Japanese.'"

"……"

I had no idea what he was on about. Noji carried on talking without pausing, said "the last section is 'Foreign'" — and left for his meal.

In the room were two televisions and a total of nine VCR decks. Could it be that in this filthy little space, they were dubbing those black-market videos?

Whatever it was, the smell was something else. Cockroaches were strolling across the worn-out carpet like they owned the place.

There was no way I was sitting on the floor. But I couldn't just stand there the whole time either.

I flattened one of the cardboard boxes lying around the room and used it as a makeshift cushion.

My phone battery was running low, so I tried to find an outlet among the octopus-plug tangle of VCR cords. That's when it happened. What I'd taken for stains on the carpet — a patch of black — suddenly skittered all at once in every direction.

"Yah!"

An involuntary shout. Black stains……

It was a mass of cockroaches. They must have been warming themselves in the heat from the packed outlet strip.

What kind of life was Noji living in a place like this……?

I felt the urge to urinate and headed for the toilet.

Watching the floor carefully for cockroaches with every step, I moved one cautious foot at a time. Stepping into the toilet, I instinctively pinched my nose shut. An overpowering stench surged up to meet me.

I groped for the light switch.

"Ugh……!"

It was a unit bath — toilet on the left, bathtub on the right. The sink where you'd normally wash your hands had manga comics stacked on top of it.

The source of the stench was the toilet bowl. The water-filled section was stained the color of dark-brown earth, and hardened waste clung to it as if it had never been cleaned once.

The lid on the seat had one side wrapped around and around in packaging tape for some reason. I'd never heard of a toilet seat breaking before, but I suppose it must have actually snapped to get that treatment.

I peered into the bathtub — no sign it was ever used. The bottom had a sparse scatter of small black bits. Cockroach droppings, maybe?

That's it……

I can't stay in here any longer. I'll lose my mind……

I decided to step out of the warehouse. The moment I opened the door, a rush of clean, fresh air shot up my nose.

Air could taste this good — I felt that for the first time in my life. Fresh air tasting this good in Kabukichō, of all places. That was a first.

I was smoking a cigarette outside the warehouse when Noji came back.

"What are you doing out here?"

"Ah, I thought maybe I shouldn't smoke inside……"

A convenient excuse I made up on the spot.

"No, that's perfectly fine. It's cold out here. Come inside."

Noji was in high spirits — he must have been genuinely happy to have gotten a proper rest for once. He opened the door with a smile and went in. I stubbed out the cigarette and followed.

Back to breathing that smell……

"Any calls from Kitanaka-san?" "Nothing in particular."

"Still slow as ever, huh. Oh well. So — the work I need you to do in the warehouse. First priority is bringing videos to the shop when a call comes in. But while you're here, I need you to dub the ones that are running low."

"……Right."

Noji went on explaining various things about the dubbing, but it wasn't anything I needed to be told. His words passed in one ear and out the other.

More pressing than any of that: it sounded like I'd be coming to this warehouse every day from now on. What was I going to do about the smell? That's all I could think about.

"Noji-san — roughly how long do I need to be in the warehouse?" "Just while I go for a meal, so an hour, maybe two." "I see."

A tiny wave of relief. If this became my full-time post, I'd suffocate.

"You're in tomorrow too, right?" "Actually, tomorrow is my day off. Well — I'll head back to Melon now."

"You could stay a bit longer."

I could tell he meant it kindly, but — no thank you. I wanted to get out of this place as fast as possible.

"I'd better — Kitanaka-san's running the shop alone……" "It's been a while since anyone came to the warehouse."

Noji had stopped listening to me and was talking to himself.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a cockroach sprint across the surface of the table. Noji, still talking normally, crushed it with his bare hand and flicked it into the bin. Watching that nearly made me gag.

"……Has Urayasu-san not been coming?" "That guy's hopeless, right? Basically, the people who work here borrowed money from Kitanaka-san, couldn't pay it back, so they work it off at low wages. The warehouse is the lifeline of the video shop — not something you can just show anyone."

This filthy place was Melon's lifeline……

"I suppose so." "Well — he must trust you, Kitanaka-san."

"I wouldn't know. Anyway, I'll be heading off for today." "See you tomorrow." "I keep telling you — tomorrow's my day off."

I kept my gaze fixed on the floor as I walked across the damp carpet. Accidentally stepping on a cockroach would be no joke.

On my way home from work I tried calling Misaki, but she didn't pick up. She was probably at the cabaret club for her shift.

Nothing else to do — I went for a drink at the snack bar I visited maybe once a month.

A genuinely dead little place, run by three women who looked to be around twenty-five.

"Oh, Iwakami-san, welcome." "Yeah, been a while."

"The usual, right?" "Yeah."

"Gran Libre——" "Glenlivet. Learn it already, would you……" "Ahh, sorry, sorry."

The quality of the women was nothing to write home about, but I didn't have to put on any airs — that's why I kept going back.

I loved the Glenlivet Twelve more than just about anything. It was strange — just having that glass in front of me and I'd start to smile.

This goes back to when I was working at the hotel. There was a period when I drank my way through all kinds of liquor, trying to find what suited me. I couldn't even count how many types I tried.

That's when I found Glenlivet.

I drank it like I was going to be the one person in Japan who drank the most of it. Or at least, I wanted people to think that.

After finding that whisky, wherever I went — tonkatsu joints, yakiniku places, any bar I made a regular — I asked them to stock the Glenlivet Twelve.

The place was dead as ever that night.

When I arrived there was one other customer. But thirty minutes later he left, and I was the only one in the place.

"Hey, Iwakami-san." "What?"

"Can we have some beer?" "Go ahead, go ahead." "Yayyy, thank you."

That meant three beers added to my bill. Three thousand yen, in other words.

"Cheers~"

The women held their glasses higher than mine as they clinked.

If you work in the service industry, that's the one thing you absolutely must not do. But I said nothing and clinked back with a smile.

"This really is a slow shop."

I looked slowly around the unnecessarily large interior. When people say a place is dead, this is what they mean.

How they kept the doors open in this state was actually impressive, in its own way.

"You're right, it really is. Iwakami-san — didn't you used to work as a bartender at a hotel? Make us something, a cocktail."

"Sorry — outside of work, I don't shake a shaker. And I'm not a bartender anymore." "Awww."

It wasn't always like that. When I first started at the hotel, I'd spend my pay on all kinds of spirits.

I'd line up bottles in my room, and when friends came over I'd mix cocktails for them. Everyone was delighted — told me how good they were.

But after years of doing that, I noticed something. For years, I'd just been pouring free drinks for my friends, over and over.

Setting up to make a proper range of cocktails at home costs a serious amount of money. And not one of them ever paid, or brought a bottle as a contribution. They only showed up cheerfully because the drinks were free.

Mutation

There was a time, at another snack bar I used to visit, when I made cocktails to impress a woman I was trying to get with. She'd been begging me for ages, so in the end I gave in — and then the entire female staff of the bar said they wanted some too.

The mama said, "I'm sorry to ask, Iwakami-san, but could you make some for everyone?" So I did.

When the bill came at the end of the night, I nearly fell over. The cocktails I'd made for all the staff at their request had been added to my tab in full.

You try to do something good, use your skills because someone asks — and even that goodwill gets exploited and turned into money taken from you. That was a fool's errand, and I was the fool. After that I swore off making cocktails outside of work, permanently.

Ancient history now.

"Why doesn't this place get any customers?"

"Simple — the reason is……" "Oh? Why?"

The three women in front of me were watching my face with total seriousness.

"Let me ask you something first. These days there's a thing called kyabakura — cabaret clubs, right?" "Yeah."

"But when you got into the water trade, those didn't exist yet, did they?" "True…… It was snack bars, or clubs, or cabarets."

"I used to work at a mature-women pub. When I was twenty-one……"

"Doesn't matter — just listen. Say you graduated high school and decided to work in the water trade, and it was right now — cabaret clubs are one of your options. Where would you work?" "Kyabakura."

All three answered immediately, without hesitation, in unison.

"Why?" "Honestly, our hourly rate here is fifteen hundred yen. At a kyabakura you'd get at least twenty-five hundred."

Idiots who couldn't even feel grateful to be making fifteen hundred an hour for work this sloppy.

"Same for me — at a snack bar, when a big group comes in, you basically handle everything yourself even if you're swamped. At kyabakura you only have to deal with one person at a time." "Here there's no mama, which is easy, but normally there is one, right? At my last place I got yelled at constantly. So yeah — better pay and no naggy mama — kyabakura sounds better."

Did these women even know the word shame?

"I said I'd tell you why this shop gets no customers, didn't I?" "Yeah."

"Because that's how you think about your work — that's why it never picks up. And that toast just now. You held your glasses above mine when you clinked. That's the number one thing a woman in a bar must never do. The world isn't soft enough these days that having women in the shop is enough by itself to bring customers in."

"Sori——" "It's not surimasen, it's sumimasen. That's proper Japanese."

At my correction, all three went quiet and sulked. The whisky tasted particularly bad tonight.

After my day off, the thought of going back to Shinjuku weighed on me.

The source of the dread: that obscenely filthy warehouse. The moment I stepped inside, it felt like that tainted smell was seeping into me — through my nose, through every pore, soaking into my whole body.

And then there was Kitanaka's sheer ugliness as a human being. Truly, a word like "cesspool" was made for places like that.

Was it really all right to be working somewhere like this? Maybe I should start looking for legitimate employment……

While I was lost in those thoughts, the train pulled into Seibu-Shinjuku Station.

Walking down Ichibangai-dōri and rounding the corner by Koma Gekijō, I caught a glimpse of the Lotteria sign and suddenly wanted a hamburger. I still had time before my shift.

Kitanaka would probably want one too — I ordered two takeaway meals. That's when it started.

Two men who were obviously not civilians started screaming at each other. One had short brown hair; the other wore glasses with a thick mustache.

The part-time kid at Lotteria froze, staring at the scene.

Before long the shouting escalated and they started throwing full swings at each other.

Three police officers were visible across the street.

Blood dripped from the brown-haired man's nose. The lens of the mustache-glasses man's frames cracked.

Yakuza picking fights and going at each other was their own business. But doing it brazenly in broad daylight right next to a restaurant — that was a problem.

The cops must have noticed the yakuza brawl. They'd step in eventually.

Mustache-glasses stalled, and a flurry of punches from brown-hair landed. Mustache-glasses went down on his back, brown-hair straddled him. The moment he raised his right arm for another blow, I jolted — and moved.

Was he actually going to hit him again?

I dashed over and stepped in between them.

The instant brown-hair cocked his right arm back for a follow-up, I slipped in from the side and wrapped my right arm around his neck, locking it tight. I pinned his right arm against him at the same time, and forced him off by sheer strength.

"Who the hell are you?!"

No matter how much he yelled or struggled, I didn't let go. Brown-hair, his right arm immobilized, was desperately trying to shake free.

"Let go! Let go of me!" "Hey — keep thrashing and I'll squeeze your carotid and put you out."

To make it clear it wasn't a bluff, I applied a slight increase of pressure to the carotid artery. That finally brought him still.

"You hit him any more in that state, he hits asphalt. You want him dead?" "I get it. I get it — let go."

"Don't start again."

I released the lock. Brown-hair went quiet, holding his right shoulder.

Then mustache-glasses, who'd been flat on his back, lurched upright — face soaked in blood — and shouted, "This ain't over!" Both lenses were shattered. A sorry state.

"Shut up. If I hadn't stopped him, you might be dead right now." "Shut it yourself!" "Don't tell me to shut it. Starting a brawl in broad daylight right here. You're picking a fight now, when you just came to after getting knocked down? Your loss. Accept it. And you're a nuisance to everyone around you. If you want to fight, do it in some back corner where no one has to see it."

At that, mustache-glasses went silent. The three officers across the street were just standing there watching in silence, making no move to come closer.

"Hey — which outfit are you with?"

Brown-hair was talking to me.

"Come on. I'm a civilian. Don't lump me in with you people." "I just got out yesterday, me. You know a boss named Miyabe, from the XX Alliance?"

"Yeah, I've heard the name." "Tell him — Negishi Yasuji just got out."

"Are you even listening to what I'm saying? I've been telling you this whole time — I'm a civilian. Go tell him yourself."

A man who doesn't hear a word anyone says. Let these idiots sort themselves out — time to get to Melon.

I collected the wrapped takeaway bag and left the two yakuza behind to go to work.

The moment I was gone, the two of them were locking eyes again, grabbing each other by the collar.

Fine, do whatever you want. I walked on without a second look.

Then the three officers ahead called out: "Hey — you there."

"What?" "We need to ask you a few questions."

Were these people actually out of their minds?

"Questions? Are you kidding me. You just watched — right now, and before — two yakuza going at each other full swing. You looked the other way, and now you want to question me? Look — those two are still grabbing each other's collars over there. Go tell them to stop. That's your job."

The police, who are supposed to protect the peace of this city. And this is what they amounted to. You couldn't blame people for calling them a drain on the public purse.

I shoved past the officers and headed for Melon.

As if they'd been waiting for me to arrive at the shop, Kitanaka's woman Shinshine came down the stairs.

"Iwakami-san, sign okay?"

She set the marriage guarantor form on the table and told me to write my name.

I'd looked into what a guarantor meant for a marriage registration — according to what my grandfather had told me once, it apparently carries no real legal responsibility. It didn't seem like the kind of thing that would cause any trouble for me.

I'll sign as guarantor, and have a small favor in the bank with Kitanaka. That's how I was thinking as I spread the form out and was about to write my name.

"Hm?"

I looked at the form properly — and stopped cold. On the woman's side, a Chinese woman's name was filled in neatly and in full. The man's section was completely blank. Kitanaka's name was nowhere on it.

There was no way I was signing something this incomprehensible……

"Shinshine-san. Kitanaka-san's name isn't on this."

If I'd carelessly signed and then found out I'd been roped into a sham marriage, there'd be nothing I could do about it. What exactly was this woman thinking……?

"Iwakami-san, write name, quickly."

"I can't write it like this……" "Papa comes here soon, right? At that time, he write his name. Tell him that."

Saying that, she left the form on the table and walked out of Melon.

What a completely unreliable person. I couldn't believe someone this lacking in common sense existed. Who in their right mind would put their name on something like this?

A customer came in, so I tucked the form into the table drawer and got back to work.

Kitanaka finally showed up toward evening. I told him what Shinshine had said and showed him the form, and he said in a sour tone: "Just write your name on it already."

Who did this man think he was……?

The sheer unreasonableness of it sent a spike of irritation through me.

"Kitanaka-san — your name isn't even on it. Why would I sign something like that?" "Shut up, just write your name."

"I'm sorry, but unless you write your own name on it first, I'm declining." "Then give it here."

Kitanaka snatched the form out of my hands.

Why was he being this arrogant about his own wedding? I genuinely couldn't understand how his mind worked.

Far from being grateful, he was actually angry. There was something fundamentally wrong with this man.

"There — happy now? Write your name."

Still acting like he owned everything. I snatched the ballpoint pen from him and, seething, wrote my name in the guarantor's column.

There was absolutely no obligation on my part to do any of this……

The warehouse was reeking as always.

Foul enough that I wanted to complain — if that smell gets into my body, mixed with my own, what are you going to do about it?

Cockroaches everywhere — across the table, across the floor, every inch of that room. Nothing but revulsion in that place.

I'd started bringing an empty cardboard box from Melon — a box that had held canned coffee — and placed it on the floor to sit on.

Even that wasn't enough to feel safe. The cockroaches would crawl right up over the box too, unhurried, going wherever they pleased.

The warehouse phone rang. Probably a delivery order.

I picked up the receiver and heard Kitanaka's voice.

"Videos……. 'Vacation, Noooo, I Can't Take Any More,' 'Rape Rape Rape,' 'Got Room for a Canned Coffee?'……. That's three."

"Understood."

I searched the shelves for the ordered videos by title.

This was the part I struggled with. Noji said they were arranged by genre, but I couldn't tell what counted as "Japanese" and what was "Mature Women."

Out of what must have been hundreds of titles, I was supposed to find three specific videos. The kind of task that only gets easier with practice.

Even so, I somehow tracked them down, stuffed the videos into a black sports bag, stepped out of the warehouse, jumped on the bicycle, and pedaled hard to Melon. That was the delivery job.

Black-market video shops basically break into two types. One is like Melon — where merchandise is kept and handed over separately from the storefront.

The other keeps all merchandise in the shop itself and hands it directly to the customer on the spot.

Kitanaka had boasted before that the first method was the best way to avoid getting arrested.

And he was probably right — any way you look at it.

Selling black-market videos is a crime — "distribution of obscene materials." Possession of the videos at the moment of sale counts as being caught in the act.

If there's no merchandise in the shop, the police can't catch you in the act of selling — or so Kitanaka said.

I had no intention of getting arrested for selling this kind of thing. Part of me was always aware of that.

As actual work, it was easy enough. Just sell videos and DVDs to the customers who came in.

I found myself remembering something Naruto had said — Naruto, the owner of Vega, the game parlor where I'd worked when I first came to this neighborhood.

"I don't want to make a living off women's private parts. A game parlor deals in gambling — compared to sex shops or video places, that's got class."

I could see his point.

I could never admit to anyone I knew that I was working at a black-market video shop. And the last people I'd want finding out were Harumi, and Misaki — who I treated like a little sister.

In other words, I thought of this work as something embarrassing. Undignified.

Whatever it took — I was desperate to break out of my current situation somehow.

The dead hours of Melon.

I'd been obsessive about the piano — couldn't stop once I started — but lately I hadn't touched it at all.

I decided to use this time to draw. Back in school I wasn't in the art club, but for some reason drawing had always been one of my strengths.

Although — I was bad at the kind of thing done in outdoor sketching sessions, landscapes with fixed scenes, or portraits. I drew from imagination, whatever I wanted, however I liked. And most of what came out of that ended up winning prizes — some even displayed at the Ueno Museum of Art.

I'd start with drawing, which I was actually good at.

Though now that I thought about it, the last time I drew anything was that picture I gave to Harumi. So — what to make?

Before my shift, I stopped by Tokyu Hands and bought a foam board.

This was something I knew from my World One days — a multi-use material, good for making bingo cards and in-store signage. A sheet of quality paper bonded to a foam core. Everyone used to stick lettered cutting sheets on top of them.

I used a cutter to trim the board into pieces — seven centimeters wide, ten centimeters tall.

I was on the clock, so I'd need to be able to pack it away quickly. Painting with acrylics or watercolors wasn't going to work.

So what to draw with?

The POSCA markers we always used at the game parlor. I used to write the date and the winning customer's name in POSCA on the thermal paper printouts of Royal Straight Flushes.

I'd use those. What kind of picture to draw?

The only way was to put down whatever image came into my head.

A field under a beautiful starry night sky. I took a light-blue POSCA and began laying color across the board.

Starting from the lightest shades, letting each dry before layering the next — that was my method.

I wanted something dreamlike. Careful with the color.

For the fine details, I squeezed ink onto a spare scrap of board and used toothpicks and tissue to work in precise strokes.

Days passed, and the picture was finished. I wrapped it in a clear cutting sheet and rubbed it gently over and over with a dry cloth.

That made it waterproof.

A park under a night sky thick with stars. A single silhouette, smoking a cigarette.

Even looking at it myself — it came out well.

— end —

闇　29（パソコンとピアノ編）

Translation: Darkness 29 — The PC and Piano Arc