It was a wide room with a low ceiling, which made the space feel flat. Low tables were set up randomly, surrounded by sofas and chairs of different shapes and materials. The furniture was purplish and yellowish, although it was hard to say for sure because the space was dark and the lighting was tinted. Some of the seats were covered with shag. There were stools with pink reptile-skin covers, and big plastic things that weren’t quite sofas or benches but had curves that made them look warped. Almost all the seats were taken. Along the farthest wall was the stage, which was painted white and had mic stands and guitars and amps and chairs, and a tangle of cords snaking between them. Right in front of the stage was the only open spot, a low table and exactly six chairs, which Yasui saw and hurried to claim. The others followed. They dropped their stuff and made their way to the bar. They ordered individually and paid for their own drinks. They all got beer.
SuperDeluxe was supposed to have some kind of performance that night, but five of the six guys didn’t know that. They had just come as a drunken mass. They didn’t know what was supposed to happen, a performance or whatever, or even that the place they were in held performances. The only one who knew anything was Azuma. He had heard about the performance from a girl he’d met at the movies a couple of days before. She’d said she was nineteen. It was a small movie theatre in Shibuya, open only a few years, the upholstery on the seats still smelling like a clothing store.
*
She looked nineteen, for sure. On account of her skin. But her face was busted. It was like she knew better than anyone how busted her face was, and that made her extra-friendly, and you could see that in her face too, which only made it worse. It was all smushed and embarrassed-like, hard to look at. There were plenty of empty seats in the movie theatre, as always, but there I was, watching the movie with her sitting next to me, on my left. For the whole movie I tried to make my left side cold and unwelcoming. When it was over, the left half of my body was numb. That numbness went away, but it feels like it’s still there, waiting just under my skin. As soon as we got into SuperDeluxe, I started wondering if she was here. I looked around the room a bunch of times. The room, everything between the concrete walls and the floor, felt kind of soft, because of the pulse of all the people, the smell of everything, and the music and the lights. I prayed I wouldn’t spot her, but I kept looking for her.
How I met this girl: A couple of days ago I pre-bought two tickets to a movie, one was for this other girl I was seeing—I guess she was my girlfriend, whatever—but then she texted me that she couldn’t make it, and I was like that’s cool. I figured I could sell her ticket, no problem. Some days in March are warm and some are cold, and it was cold that day, but I waited outside the theatre to catch someone who was otherwise going to pay full price at the box office. A guy showed up first, so I didn’t offer. Next was another guy. Then several more guys, and guys with girls, so I just looked upwards. Near the top of a building, there was a square electronic billboard, like it was floating in the sky, playing through a loop of ads over and over and over. Then, finally, a girl came by. That was her. I might have been pickier, but I guess I was worried that she was my last chance. She was pretty chunky, like she snacked all the time or something, and the way she walked was like sad and apologetic. But I said hi anyway. She came over, and she bought the ticket, and we were standing there, and I started regretting the whole thing right then. We went down the stairs together, and she started asking questions: Do you go to the movies a lot? What kind of movies do you like? Why do you like that kind of movie? Do you go to a movie because who’s in it or who directed it? I was hoping to escape and went and took a seat in the middle of a row, but she hustled after me, fast for someone her size—I swear, I felt the air shake with her mass—and she dropped herself into the seat next to me. The questioning didn’t stop: So when you like a movie, they release the soundtrack, right, are you the type who buys the soundtrack? She would have kept going with the interrogation, but the lights began to dim. Commercials and trailers, one after the next after the next, taking forever like usual. Finally the movie started. It was a Canadian movie, about four teenage girls, and they each go through stereotypical teenage experiences. The plot didn’t make a big deal of itself, but there didn’t seem to be anything like structure either, everything just happened randomly. I got bored partway through and pretty much gave up on watching it. Instead I just sat there listening to the English that I didn’t understand and telling myself what a fool I was, waiting to sell my extra ticket to some girl and getting what I deserved. I played the whole scene over and over again in my
