Recluse
She didn't even know when she'd decided to ignore people, but in 21st century Japan, this was surprisingly easy. Even in a city as lively as Tokyo, a recluse could hide in plain sight. She ordered her food in, submitted her work via email and clouds, had a gym in what could have been a second bedroom, and had the phone set to mute.
It was weird. She'd always been bubbly. Loved volleyball, tons of friends, but it seemed that there was a fork in the road when she became a teenager, and just like that, she decided that neither left nor right were all that appealing.
So perhaps she did know when she decided to ignore people. It was around the same time she began to ignore cats. She had a dog for a while (absent parents will allow their children everything), but dogs require walking, and walking means outside, and outside means people, so she gave it away.
Being alone was better.
Safer.
She'd made herself a nice strong cup of coffee. She liked mocha lattes, and pumpkin spice lattes, and all the other chic kinds of Lattes the hip people who hung around in coffee shops drank while pretending to do paid work on their expensive but shockingly unused MacBooks, but unfortunately, she had yet to find a coffee shop that would deliver beverages to her house. Well, her flat. In her skyscraper. All the way up the top. All spread out on the entire floor. It reduced the amount of neighbours she had to interact with.
Business had always gone well for her. She wrote novels that sold like hot cakes. While there were fantasy stories and fairy tales milling in her mind, she never put them on the page. Early on, she'd started with crime novels and stuck with them.
Far less unsettling than princesses and love stories.
Her doorbell rang and Minako's head whipped up. She was not expecting any orders today. Food had been delivered yesterday, she only read e-books anyway, and as far as she could recall, there were no clothes she's ordered. All people wanting to speak to her had to go the doorman first. The only bell one could ring was right in front of her door, and the only way to get to it was to be admitted by the doorman, who cross-checked a list of potential deliveries she sent him every Monday at 12. If you weren't on the list, you weren't going to be let up here. Pushing her desk chair back, she slowly got up, her heart hammering in her chest.
Once, her mother had asked her whether she suffered from anxiety, panic attacks, melancholia. Minako had frowned. She did not. She was just careful.
Careful was good.
She'd stopped talking to her mother soon after that, but it wasn't as if either the parent or the child had ever really cared about one another. Weird, Minako knew, feeling like you and your parents were simply unrelated footnotes, placed in the same document by accident. She'd briefly thought about who was in the wrong document then, but the thought had set her heart racing, a warning sign, so she had buried it deep.
Making her way to the door, all silent thanks to marble floors (wood creaked, and you never knew what it would give away), she breathed in, and out, and in, and out. Her stomach muscles were still tense from yesterday's pilates, and each deep intake of breath let her know that calm must be paid, safety came at a price, and isolation was key.
She looked at the little screen next to the door. The camera on the outside had caught nothing but the empty hallway. Lush white carpet, simple beige walls, and an elevator all the way at the end. It's doors were closed, and the yellow numbers above it told her that it was currently heading down from the 5th floor. 4, 3, 2, 1, ground floor. Ding. Nobody up here but her.
She frowned and opened the door.
There was a pumpkin spice latte on her doormat.
She loved living up the 33rd floor in one of the tallest buildings in all of Tokyo. It was expensive, but she felt that it allowed her to spot whoever was coming to find her. Not that anyone had found her. (Not that she was hiding. She wasn't hiding. What would she be hiding from?)
Double locking her door behind her, she fought the urge to move one of the couches or the armchair from the living room in front of the door and returned to her desk, the pumpkin spice latte in her hand. No name had been written on the paper cup, but someone had drawn a pumpkin with a face. It looked uneven.
If the elevator was going down from the fifth floor, then it couldn't have started all the way up here. It wasn't as fast, and she hadn't taken that long to get to the door. The emergency fire escape was behind a heavy metal door in her pantry. She'd never ever unlocked it, and it did not lead back to her doorbell. It lead directly down to the 30th floor.
Eyeing the drink with suspicion, she sat back down again. Her new novel was due a week from today, and she had to finish the editing. She did not have time for this. She did not have for mysteries.
Turning the cup in her hand, she examined the scribbled drawing. Depending on the angle, the pumpkin either leered or laughed.
She took a sip.
It was hot.
A quick google search told her that the nearest Starbucks was at least ten minutes from her place. You couldn't get a coffee there and it would still be hot when left at her doorstep. That simply wouldn't work. Physics, right?
Right?
Whenever Minako felt that there was a fork in the road (and there were many forks in the road, all the time, like last year, when that young doctor had been found drowned in her parents' pool), she tried to concern herself with nothing but her writing. This practice made her prolific and her editors happy.
Feeling a road untaken lurking somewhere in the not too distant future, she doubled down, the drink emptied in the drain, the cup thrown in her recycling bin, the drawing almost forgotten. She had a manuscript to finish.
She had to.
Sometime after midnight, she got ready for bed. She washed her face, cleansed her face, moisturised her face, and brushed her hair. Routines were good. She kept her hair short, a simple bob just touching down her shoulders. Once you got the hang of it, cutting it yourself was surprisingly easy. She learned to do a lot of things for herself. And really, there were video tutorials for everything. And she didn't like long hair. It snaked around you, coiling around your neck. It called for things like big bows to tie it back, and she'd always hated bows.
Her mother had bought her one once, shortly before her thirteenth birthday. It was an unusual choice; her mother had always said that fall colours weren't for Minako, she looked better in pastels, but then she'd brought her the bow, a navy pleated skirt and an orange jumper. Minako had hidden them in the cellar.
Nowadays, all she wore was black, white, and grey.
Plenty of colour for a lifetime.
In the dark quiet of the night, the doorbell rang and Minako woke up.
Beige walls, lush carpet, not footsteps visible in the thick soft carpet, the elevator's light showing 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 - ground floor.
Not a person in sight.
She opened the door.
There was a red bow on the mat.
Eyes not leaving the bow, she stepped back into her apartment.
She did not take it in with her.
The morning came only slowly while Minako willed the sunlight to rise and cover the city. The living room looked empty now that she'd shoved one of the big grey armchairs in front of the door to her apartment, but she didn't mind.
Not really.
Not this.
Not now.
"You've got mail," her phone told her, Siri's pleasant voice a welcome reminder of things that were normal. Sitting down at her computer, she opened her mail programme. Typing replies to her editor, her agent, a fan or two, she ignored the thoughts niggling in the back of her mind, the unease spreading in her bones. The manuscript was almost finished, and she could slowly allow herself to think of the next volume.
She lived a normal life, and this was a normal day.
Her desk face the big windows, allowing her to take in the city. She'd always liked that, being able to see everything in front of her. She'd never realised that it would leave her back to the wall.
She cast a slow glance over her shoulder. The armchair stood unmoved, blocking the door.
After lunch, she changed the batteries in her fire alarms. They should be good for a couple of months, but better be safe than sorry. Not that there were any real candles in her flat anyway, she only had LED ones.
A few years ago, a temple in the city had caught fire, killing the miko who was tending to it. Her elderly grandfather had died too. Minako had walked past that temple once. She hadn't seen the temple itself, but the long flight of stairs leading up to it. She'd been tempted to go pray, tempted for just a moment, but then things happened, and she'd hurried home.
She didn't much care for candles after that.
Inhaling deeply, she stretched and rose up, her pilates roll-up smooth, elegant and perfect. She'd already been on the treadmill for an hour and was now finishing her workout, her body sweaty, and her mind almost at ease. The armchair was still in front of the door.
As the sun set over Tokyo, basking the city in orange light, Minako began to make herself some dinner. When she was younger, she'd loved to eat, but hated to cook. These days, she was a decent enough cook. She didn't want someone dropping of fast food or hot dishes at her door every evening. Too many people. Too much fuss.
Not too much interaction though, no matter how often she ordered something. She made sure to pay online (tip included), so when the delivery people came up, they just had to deposit the order in front of her door, and leave again. Leave again quickly. She changed delivery services every few months, glad that she lived in a metropolis where new businesses sprang up more quickly than old ones folded.
She'd read about a cupcake shop a while ago, having been sorely tempted to try it out, but the owner apparently went missing two weeks in. She was later found in the woods, dangling from a tree. Minako hadn't had a cupcake since.
Sugar was bad for you anyway, she told herself.
She had just finished her pad thai when the doorbell rang.
Somehow, she already knew what she would find.
Setting her plate in the sink, she walked to the door and climbed on the armchair. This time, she ignored the camera and slowly pressed her ear against the door. She could hear nothing. She drew back and moved up a little. There was a peephole she seldom used (technology was more convenient, and you didn't smudge your make-up). Inching closer, she peered through it.
There was something sitting on the floor in the middle of the long hallway. It was small and pink. Minako's heart hammered as she got up, shoved the chair back, collected herself, took a deep breath, turned the key, undid the safety bolt, and opened the door.
The elevator's light told her that it was going down from 5,4,3 -
she stepped outside, key in hand, and made her way down the hall. Bending down, she picked the pink cupcake up. There was a candle on it, burning brightly. She blew it out and looked at it for a moment.
Then she looked up.
The elevator was no longer going down.
It was going up.
2,3,4,5 -
she fled back inside, never noticing that the bow was gone.
She threw the cupcake into the garbage disposal and listened to it churn. It almost drowned out the sound of her own hammering heart.
Then she made herself a drink, vodka, no ice, downed it in one go, and hid under her desk, a big knife clutched in her shaking hands.
She knew when it had started.
When she had decided not to be a people person.
When she had decided to go where people would not see her.
Where people would not find her.
It was when this blonde school girl had been run over by school bus near that temple.
Ten years ago.
She stayed under the desk for a long time, but eventually, crawled out. Her legs were cramped, but her eyes were dry. She wasn't going to start crying now. Not after all this time. Her eyes used to the darkness, she decided not to switch any lights on now. It might give her an advantage. It might keep her safe.
There was a sound coming from behind the safety door in her pantry, a soft sound, easy on the ears.
Someone was laughing.
When they finally came for her, really came for her, they did not ring the bell. They knocked.
Well.
He knocked.
He'd always been old school.
The doorman, after not having received an approved delivery list for two weeks, went up to Ms Aino's apartment on a Tuesday, his hands sweaty. She did not reply to his ringing, knocking, or shouting, so he did what she had once told him to if such a moment should come. It still set his teeth on edge.
Call the police, break down the door, and don't, whatever you do, tell anyone else about it. Even if everything looks tidy, if all the furniture is where it belongs, look for me. I'll be in my bed, I'm 99% sure of that. Don't touch the bow. But please cover me up.
The living room was as tidy as ever. The grey armchair stood facing the window, and there was an empty tumblr on a coaster on the small side table.
On the computer screen, her mail programme blinked, and a new message popped up.
"Found you."
The End.