“Ah, this rain. When will it stop?” A businesswoman complained to her friend beside her, both of them tucked beneath black umbrellas and waiting for the crossing light to turn green.

Who am I?

The rain soaked my body, dipping down from the sky and sending up shockwaves and blasts of biting coldness as they splashed against the pavement I stood on. I am surrounded by the hundred few that remain out, wearing the shadows of umbrellas instead of faces, shrouding themselves in drought.

What am I?

It's dark, nighttime long snuck in through the backdoor of this house we call Tokyo. It's been here for a few hours now, clouding the streets, stealing the sun, and blanketing the lights, their sole luminescence uplifting this illusion of life that clings to this world in perseverance.

Where am I?

My body is a traitor. Vile betrayer that refused my words, treasonous held-tongue useful only for disobeying direct orders. Run, you were told. Chase, you were instructed. Do not let her go, you were demanded.

And I failed, ghost that I am, drifting through the backstreets that connect the old to the new. But which am I? The old or the new? Neither is the truth, yet both is also true.

Does it matter? Where I am, what I am, and who I am?

No, I am me. Whatever that entails, I do not know. But it is me, this void inside, the feeling of her and all I am and will be and cannot be.

What is the difference between a void and a black hole?

“How long will this light takee~, I wanna go home where it's warmmm.” The businesswoman continued to her friend, a shiver running up her spine as she held her arms close to her body.

Nao felt responsible. I knew that, could see it in her motionless movement and read it from in between her lines. But it wasn’t her fault, it was always mine. Foolish void that I am, unable to be honest and forced to forever rely on a crutch.

I taught myself to smoke, I learnt on my own how to suffer, and I realised without aid what I am and what I deserve. She did nothing wrong- has never done anything wrong.

Liar.

She has done many things wrong.

After all, she left me. Why did she leave me alone, so wrapped up in this voidful mind of mine that up becomes down and down becomes up? Which way is the exit, there is no escape from this escape, run towards a new direction and what will I see?

Can you run from an escape? The door is still open, we can always return.

We never will, but we could. Maybe in death? Or maybe in life; another week then? We can wait, now- forever, more perhaps?

Kick the can down the road, life won’t stay in one place for too long, but there’ll always be tomorrow until even that is gone. But once tomorrow is gone, you will be gone too, so I suppose it doesn’t matter, does it?

Has it ever?

I wonder, a few years from now, will I dream of Nao as I did of Mei? Another shade of the past that I so desperately want to return to?

But Nao is not Mei, she never will be. Yet I am afraid of losing her all the same, why am I always afraid?

Why do they always disappear?

Why do I?

“Excuse me, Miss?” The light of the crossing turned green, but the businesswoman looked at me, a hand reached out, “Here, have this.” She smiled, handing me the black umbrella before turning around and rushing to huddle beneath her friend's umbrella.

Her friend turned to her and whispered, her tone much like an older sister’s, “Why did you do that? You’ll get wet now, you know I get off at a different station you fool.” She finished with a playful slap on the arm as the two intermingled with the mass of people crossing the road, all while I stayed unmoving, an umbrella in my hand.

“Maybe, but she looked like she needed it.” The businesswoman replied, the march of her voice suggesting that that was all the reason she needed.

The two blended in with the hundreds crossing the intersection that sat just before Shibuya Station as they faded in and out before finally disappearing into the orderly crowd hidden under black umbrellas, the heavy patter of rain stringing a euphonious melody upon those carried chords of fabric.

I remained in my spot, simply standing as I had for minutes now. An unmoving stone sat within a flowing river, the crowd parts around me each time the crossing turns green, but I persist immobile.

Shibuya Crossing; the busiest pedestrian intersection in the world.

Adverts, signs, lights and glows are all around me. Surrounding me and closing in as they cycle through different products, movies, people and more. I recognise a few, an image of Amii Kaiko captures one screen, blowing her body up to massive proportions as she looms over the crossing with her suffocating presence.

‘Is It Wrong To Live’ takes up another billboard to my left that curves around a building. The face of Akari Umi holding centre stage as the now defunct release date settles beneath her; some workers already beginning the process to replace the advertisement with another.

A coffee shop is behind me, tucked up inside another building whose face is covered with an elephantine billboard. And in front of me is Shibuya Station, the Shibuya Scramble Square atop it, a large 230-metre tall mall that stands equal with the other skyscrapers nestled atop the skyline.

Just before the entrance that leads into the underground train station, there is the bronze statue of the loyal dog Hachiko, and on the opposite side of the square, laid a police box that sat on the end of one of the long rows of Shibuya Station that seemed content with watching the world go past quietly.

Another screen holds position over Shibuya Station, flanked by a set of billboards. It's running through the advertisement of an autobiography movie for a retired director I’m familiar with, the name Kenichi Takamura runs across the screen, though the actor that plays him looks nothing alike, far too young and inspired to match the reminiscing old man that I know.

The light returned to red. The people stopped and waited as the cars began again, gently starting off down the corners and straights of the intersection.

Nao had hit me.

I deserved it.

I used work mode on someone other than a client. It wasn’t the first time I’ve done it, and I doubt it will be the last. Maybe it should be? Perhaps Seina is not meant for real people, those I want to be close with, or those I wish to transform from strangers to friends.

An actress on a stage, yes. A hostess in a club, of course. But a person, a friend, someone others can speak to on a daily basis? No, that is not Seina.

And I am not her.

So why do I let her speak for me?

She’s become too large, expansive, overrunning the borders of what makes me, me.

I’m becoming too reliant on her. However, it's so easy, just forget your worries, push them to one side, all issues you have lay to rest as Seina will resolve them, any lies you have told will be glossed over as she speaks, and concerns reassured in an instant as her silky and consuming voice devours them all.

Do not worry, for she can solve everything.

Solve them all until she can’t. Until you are knocked out of her, left silent and stunned as another person leaves you behind in the dust and rubbish of a tucked-away car park hidden between buildings of neon.

So again, I ask.

Who am I?

A crash. Two cars collided, an old red hatchback rammed straight into a small white van.

The intersection paused for a moment, cars came to a halt, and the umbrellas around me startled.

The door of the small white van opened and out hopped a dishevelled man clutching his head, the shock already taking over as he waddled towards the pavement closest to me and sat down, ignoring the concerned voices of those who ran up to him.

No movement came from the old red hatchback, its airbags had failed to deploy. The car was too unmaintained for the most basic of functions, a person lay inside the driver's seat, the smoke slowly rising from the engine block as the car spat a shiny fluid onto the ground that mixed in with the rainwater.

A man took a step towards the old red hatchback, the police box just moments away, yet far too sleepy to notice even the stars above.

“Ma’am,” He called out, a few strides away from the old red hatchback. “Can you unlock the door?” He followed up, the woman behind the wheel drowsy and half-conscious.

His hand reached out, bold and powerful was he, surely nothing could stop him from saving the woman.

He reached out to the car door, but a moment before he could grab it, a spark ignited. A flame was borne from the shiny fluid leaking from the old red hatchback that mixed in with the rainwater, and he leapt back as the fire started, rapidly spreading through the engine block and beginning its consumption of the tires.

The fire was slow in its advance onto the car, taking its time building up on the body of the old red hatchback. But by contrast, the man was fast, abandoning his heroic persona as the scales of Anubis judged his heart heavier than her feather of a life.

The woman picked this time to wake up, the rising flames outside serving as the alarm clock to her unconscious sleep. She began hitting the glass and shouting, the robbing glow of the fire masked her appearance, but even so you could feel the fear.

No one moved. Everyone simply watched as the blaze gradually took over the old red hatchback.

I didn’t blame them, fear is paralysing. It takes over and clamps your feet to one spot. And to overcome that for a stranger? It is no wonder people are content to watch and shiver, silently hoping that someone else will take up the challenge.

But me? I wasn’t scared, I was mesmerised by the blaze. The way it danced and shook back and forth, gently caressing the thin steel like a flower in the wind, swinging side-to-side, its petals bushing against the steadily heating metal of the old red hatchback’s body.

Stolen novel; please report.

The fire was a painting being drawn in real-time right before me, the leisurely strokes of a paintbrush of burning fuel creating a vivid scene of life, and of death. To take is to give, and as the flame grows brighter, it also concedes itself to die. For a fire can only burn for as long as it has something to burn, and once the wick of the candle has melted back into ash, the flame will soon follow.

It must be cruel to be a fire, to know that the more you shine, the quicker you will extinguish.

How must it feel to die? Your life stolen by the flames. She is not moving now, but the fire hasn’t broken into that old red hatchback just yet, they’re getting there, their brightness illuminating the interior of the car. She is alive, but unconscious, the soft tickle of the fire finally reaching high enough to light up her face, revealing her appearance like the opening curtains of a stage.

She was young, perhaps the same age as me. Her hair shared my colour too, that bright shade of blonde we both wore, I couldn’t see her eyes, but I knew they too had the exact same tone of blue that I did. Without a doubt, she was beautiful, enough so that she’d steal all vision in any room she entered, and her face, perfectly Japanese and perfectly perfect.

It was Seina.

Seina was inside the burning old red hatchback, unconscious and suffocating.

But it was also me, and I was afraid.

So why was I running towards the fire?

The flame had surrounded the car, climbing up over it touching the roof and engulfing the door. I pushed through the heat, and a scream sounded out behind me, someone else shouted at me to get back, but I couldn’t feel the fire, I couldn’t feel anything.

I threw my coat onto the ground and wrapped it around my hand. I reached out and latched onto the car door handle and pulled with all my might, it refused to yield, standing there immobile and tauntingly.

So I tried again, and again the flames dancing around me as they spread ever closer. One spark leapt up from the ground and spun around before landing on my coat and setting it alight. But it did not phase me, and I pulled once more, then another time, and then I tugged until the muscles in my arm were shrieking at me in pain.

But I felt no pain, and so I heaved again, and then that was it.

The door gave way, finally flying open with a lurch as I stumbled backwards, landing in a bed of flame that seemed to shrink away from me. I pushed myself back to my feet, quickly and with haste, discarding my rapidly igniting coat into the fire, grabbing my unconscious body and tugging myself out of the old red hatchback.

I carried myself, half dragging my body across the road to the bend on the pavement where I, at last, set myself down, the adrenaline wearing off and the aching wails of my exhausted muscles coming in now the distraction had worn off

The flame quickly took over the wreck of the old red hatchback, devouring it greedily and eagerly.

A man spoke to me, I didn’t hear his words, perhaps it was concern? A congratulation or reminder? All I could see out of the corner of my eye was his shocked gaze on me as I continued to focus on the consuming fire. It's radiating light taking centre stage in this still Shibuya Crossing.

My eyes peered down at myself on the ground, and I watched as I melted into someone unrecognisable. My blonde converted itself into brown, and her face metamorphosed back into her own, plain and soft over Seina’s beauty and perfection. And while I couldn’t see her eyes, I knew they were no longer matching with my blue.

It was never Seina or me inside that car, but this woman laying peacefully asleep on the floor.

I hadn’t saved myself. I had saved a stranger.

What’s the difference?

Another person tried to speak up to me, but I couldn’t hear them. I didn’t want to hear them, instead, my legs started moving, and I ran.

I ran away from the burning husk of an old red hatchback.

I ran away from the picturesque and iconic streets of Shibuya Crossing.

And I ran away from myself.

Why couldn’t I have saved myself? Then maybe Nao would have forgiven me, and I could stop lying, and start living, and stop dying, and start smiling, and stop running from my past, and start running towards my future.

Why did I see myself in the car? Am I dying, is there fire all around me and consuming my soul? Am I Seina, is Seina me? Or are we both dead, or both split into two parts in the same body?

My legs carried me up north and through the streets that sat below the overhead railway line. I ran until my lungs screamed, and then I slowed to a jog before even that froze my bones and I was forced to walk, the rain falling all around me, but not reaching me beneath the train tracks.

Yoyogi Station was the second closest train station to Shibuya at just under 3 kilometres away, but only if you ignore Harajuku Station, which I missed in my sprint, too focused on the act of running rather than the destination.

It was an older station, a grey-white building tucked up against the overhead rail track that slid by. I slipped under the overhanging building and went past the store inside and through the ticket barriers and up the stairs.

The platform was raised above the street and open-topped, with only a slight overhang of a beige roof providing cover to the platforms on both sides of the train tracks. The floor was black concrete, with a thick yellow line before the small safety barriers that had been erected years ago to prevent people from falling on the track.

I stood by the line and leaned over the barrier, peering down below at the copper-coloured tracks that were wrapped with black wires and brown rats.

The rats spoke to me.

“Jump down into the tracks and join us. We’re free here, sleep and dine in this palace of steel and wire, and as the train rides on over us, it feels like a warm blanket being pulled over us by a loving mother.”

But I am too large to join you, I would be crushed by the train.

Why am I speaking to rats? Not with words, but in my head, how does this make sense, yet it does make sense. Perfect and total sense.

“Then shrink your mind, worry not of your body. For it shall be renovated as the cutting metal of the train wheels casts on overhead. You will be free and happy, and you shall live forever and love to live, is that not the desire of all humankind? It is ours.”

But I am afraid. I would not live forever or love my life if I were to join you. I would die.

And is that so bad? To die yet live forever and happy? How many people beg for that type of release, and how many people go through with it? Too many, and yet a few weeks ago I would have agreed with them, but now… I do not know.

“Then what will you do? Go home and continue this half-filled existence of yours? A tragedy indeed. To be so afraid of life that you live in illusion. Tell me Seina, child lost inside delusions of the mind, who are you?”

I am a void.

“Liar.”

That is not a lie, it is the truth, Seina Kanemoto died four years ago, I burnt her away to escape, traded her beauty and purity and smile and laugh all so I could live outside of a shadow.

“Tell me Seina, child fearful of freedom yet craving it evermore, what are you?”

The remains of Seina, the rot and decay that seeped from her discarded corpse and gave birth to me.

“Liar”

That is not a lie, it is the truth. I am merely her remnant, a broken reflection of what she once was- So scarred by her life that she could not carry on and handed me the will to what remained of her rotting carcass.

“Tell me Seina, child disconnected from the world but watching closer than all, where are you?”

I am in Tokyo, the capital city of Japan.

“Liar”

That is not a lie, it is the truth. I was born here, I have lived here all my life. This is my home, this city over-encumbered with the issues of humankind and the broken cords of a society forgetting how to love.

“Who are you lying to? Is it me, or yourself?”

I’m not lying-

“It matters little, the answer is the same regardless. Now will you join us on the tracks? Come and slide under, bask in its fiery heat, and bathe in its electric glow.”

But I do not want to die.

And it was truth. I wish to be free, I desire to bask in the heat of a fiery love, though I lack understanding of what that is, and still I would want nothing more than to bathe in an electric glow of companionship, and this I do understand, no tainted examples to wrap my viewpoint of it.

“Then why did you save the girl? You risked your life, a single spark in the wrong place and the fuel tank would have exploded, and you would be no more. Your body is wounded as it is, but you have not noticed the burns yet, minor as they are, the pain still stings, but you ignore it, and push it onto us.”

I thought she was me, I thought she was Seina.

“But she was. And she still is, you’re inside that wreck now as it burns. Trapped beneath the flames, unable to escape without a hand reaching out for you, but you cannot be saved by another just as you saved that woman. You must rip yourself out.”

Who am I saving? Myself or Seina?

“Yourself.”

But what about Seina? I need her to survive, to be perfect, to act and to deal with clients. I cannot feel without her, or live when she is apart, I am a void, empty unless she fills me. Why should I save myself when she is worth more than I could ever be?

Is it not true that Seina is everything? Every boon that I am, every positive emotion I have felt, it is all her. I am the negative, the pain, the sadness and the void. Why would I choose myself over Seina?

“Have you not lived the same way for too long already? Are you not bored? Does change not call for you over the horizon? It has already summoned you, small blows of the horn that echo in your ears, have you not noticed the signs?”

The signs?

“Yes, the signs of change. Slowly, yet happening all the same. Have you forgotten? Would you like me to remind you? Of course, you would. Remember the first lie, the one you told Adachi, of your age, the first time you lied for your own purpose, not for the needs of a client. Now remember the dream, the one of Mei, the first you have had in four years. So remember the smile, the one that rose with a bad joke from Emiko. And remember the goal, the sole one you have ever possessed, not Seina, or me, but you. A goal of acting that you chose for yourself.”

That is not change, I lied to support Seina, I dreamt because I had to remind myself of Seina’s childhood, I smiled because Seina smiled, and I decided to become an actress because it would allow me to become Seina even more.

And I lied there, every word just now said, a lie. But it was a safe lie, one that hurts no more than a paper cut, but the cut is on my heart, within my soul, and through my eye.

“There are more examples too, small times when your desires prompted you to ask for things, the trickle of selfishness, of your selfishness, not Seina’s but- you already knew that, didn’t you? Seina, do you not think that it is time to step out of the fire?”

But- but I am afraid.

My curiosity- not of things that Seina desired to know, but what I wanted to know. My knowledge about Hatsuko, what drives and motivates her; her past and her pains and her loves. There is also acting, the newfound joy I found as I strived to discover and learn all about it, immersing myself within the art. And we should not forget Nao and Emiko, the woman I betrayed, and hurt, and the first one to be my friend. The one I’ve spent hours acting and learning with, I want to know more about them both. It is my selfishness to live, to interact with others not as Seina, but as myself.

“I know, but what is better; to progress afraid, or stay forever immobile yet emotionless. We know the answer, it is time to rescue yourself, you do not need her, nor me to continue down this path. You never have.”

I’m not sure I can do this without Seina. What if I forget how to act, what if I’m unable to please others, what if I tell lies that are uncovered, what if I am abandoned, or unloved, or discarded? Seina prevents all of those things, I will get hurt if she leaves…

“Two pieces of steel can be made into one if the forge is hot enough. Is the forge not hot enough, Seina? Yes, it is. One last fire to burn it all away.”

Okay…

It is time to be remade into one, after all this time apart.

“Who are you?”

I am Seina.

And it was truth, without doubt, this time.

“What are you?”

A person.

And again, it was truth, no second guessing myself.

“Where are you?”

Here, on this train station platform, trying to live.

For the third time, it was truth, full of life and living.

“Well done, the forge has been lit, the flames rising more and more by the minute. Do not fear it, let it all wash away.”

Who are you?

“I thought that was obvious. But alas, I am you. Another product of your dissociation, but now that you have discovered the disconnect, you may put it back together. One last fire to burn it all away.”

I’m ready.

“The train is coming, Seina. It's time to return home, and I hope we do not meet again.”

Why?

“Because for you to at last succeed, I cannot exist.”

The train is here…

“Yes, and now we must scuttle and hide beneath the gravel and mud of this palace.”

I think I will miss you.

“You may miss who you were, but that cannot stop you from becoming who you will be. Change is scary, but it is necessary for life, it is time to embrace it.”

I will.

“Seina, you've already saved one life today…”

The brown rat looked up at me, its two eyes like twin galaxies as they shattered against each other. The train was here now, pulling in front of me and breaking our stare, the safety doors gently opening along with the carriage.

“Why don’t you make it two?”