There wasn’t much really to Hinata’s life. He would go to his part-time job in Akihabara, selling the same merchandise he himself loved to collect, come home to his small two-by-two tatami mat apartment, and venture into the waking hours of the morning on the paper wings of a manga or the flashing lights of a video game. He had a community online, but he only knew them by username, not by face, and had never truly known any of them before. He was clearly what Japanese society terms a N.E.E.T. That is, Not in Education, Employment, or Training. And he was fine with that.
Why bother to foster relationships, careers, hobbies that are just eaten up by time or expenses in the end? No, better to spend the time on things that, even if they let you down, still massage those basic nerves of pleasure, pumping blood from the heart that yearns for escape from reality. That was Hinata’s philosophy, in more artistic terms since he hadn’t a creative bone in his body. He was built to consume.
Another long day of peddling perverted paraphernalia had passed before he finally reached the part of his routine that brought him home. Home, to a little cupboard with a TV on the floor, a pile of blankets in front of it, and food garbage littered around it in an almost ritualistic circle. The majority of the box’s volume was taken up by shelves – a full display of various entertainment, from video games to anime to manga to, above all else as the residential idols, his beloved painted figurines.
These figurines weren’t your run-of-the-mill action figures. They were expensive, handcrafted works of art. They were also sexy, something that was absolutely required if Hinata could feel comfortable dropping 90,000 yen on just one statuette. He was turning thirty next week, which meant that he had accumulated one-hundred and twenty-two high-grade PVC and silicone anime girls over the 16 years he had been collecting. They were the wallpaper, from floor to ceiling, in their flowery dresses, stylish kimonos, tight or revealing clothing. Ninjas, Magical Girls, Mech Pilots, Demons, Space Assassins, Vampires, Bunny Girls, Angels, Knights, Militants, Beasts, Schoolgirls…He had one girl for every occupation, any occasion. The occasion being: what was the flavor of his pleasure today?
Today, Hinata had sold a figure he never thought he would sell. An otaku, a total loser and pervert, acknowledged as ugly in her own anime show, to some boy who had a very depressing look on his face. So depressing, that Hinata almost empathized with him. But he didn’t want to empathize; he would rather escape into a cheerful game with a cheerful girl by his side tonight. Perhaps a city simulator RPG of some kind? As for the girl, well, the selection was his favorite part.
After looking over his assortment of dolls, Hinata decided on one of the Magical Girls. She had brilliant pink hair that sparkled when the light hit it a certain way, and a detailed gold-dusted wand with intricate flourishes of clear plastic to imitate a magical effect. She was suspended in midair using the same plastic, which allowed her ruffled sleek pink dress to be crafted in a way that suggested she was performing some sort of impressive acrobatics. And, to top it all off: her smile. The perfect combination of painted eyes and mouth, making it appear like she was filled with wonder and excitement to be doing whatever it is magical girls do. He needed that kind of wonder in his jaded adult life. So he picked her up, delicately, careful not to snap any of her fragile accessories.
Not careful enough, however. One of the Magical Girl’s translucent flourishes hooked onto the curled tail of a Snow Leopard hybrid, pulling the Beast from its den and onto the floor where it promptly snapped in half.
“Shit,” said the Magical Girl.
Hinata’s eyes widened in disbelief. He would have dropped her from shock if she hadn’t set him back two months rent to acquire.
The Magical Girl figurine immediately tried to correct her mistake by stiffening up. But the damage was done, and the room was too small for Hinata to suspect an intruder. He poked her curiously in the cheek, which set her into a laughing fit.
Hinata tripped with surprise into his pile of blankets as the other one-hundred and twenty-two figures lining his shelves let out a collective groan.
“Well, that’s just great. Couldn’t keep the giggles to yourself, huh?”
“Stupid Magical Girls, always so pent up from being in storylines too serious for them.”
“Hey, don’t blame her breaking character on all of us! That’s a harmful stereotype!”
“All your magic rot your brain, huh? Baka!”
The Magical Girl figure blushed angrily. “W-w-well I can’t help it, you saw what this idiot did to poor Nugleatonga!”
“Mrooooooowr…”
“Oh, good, she’s all right at least.”
Hinata’s head was spinning. At first, the scenario was frightful, as any scenario involving living dolls usually was. But he quickly realized that they were all rooted to the spot, fastened securely on their stands, only able to move their heads and change their expressions. They may be alive, but they couldn’t go anywhere. He owned them. They were his, to talk to and find comfort in, to bring him the pleasures that friends usually offer. He wouldn’t have to be alone ever again, or be alone with people who he thought weren’t worth being around. He now had a captive audience, to enjoy his company as he enjoyed the typical pleasures of his passing days.
Almost as if they read his mind, all heads turned in unison to face Hinata directly. An entire cage lined with painted eyes from every side, judging his silence.
“Do you know why,” sneered a Mech Pilot, reclining on a model of the cockpit belonging to her giant robot (parts not included), “we have never talked to you before? It is because, while you are at work or engaged in frivolous play, we have our own way of finding entertainment.”
“Every figure based off of a popular brand – say, a popular hero from an anime show – is consciously tied to that property” explained a Smutty Teacher, bent provocatively over a desk with her thin metal pointer poised under indecipherable text scribbled on a chalkboard. “So, while we may seem inanimate, we are actually tied directly to our counterpart’s experiences in their primary medium. Whatever plots she experiences in her story on the screen or the page, we are able to experience it constantly, as if for the first time. And let us assure you, it never gets boring.”
“You, on the other hand,” scoffed a Schoolgirl, her skirt blown up like a tease, arms crossed and cheeks delicately colored pink with scribbles over her nose to show embarrassment though her voice relayed nothing but disgust, “are soooooo boring! Gawd! Every night you do the same damn thing…come home, fall down in that heap of greasy rags, hammer your thumbs on the control or your hand on your dick, and pass out. It’s just…It’s freaking pathetic.”
Hinata colored in anger and humiliation. These figures of plastic and paint had seen him do all sorts of embarrassing activities, watch shameful entertainment, mope and sulk in his loneliness, and now they could criticize him for all of it! He wouldn’t stand for it. He would break each and every one of them, take off their clothes, bring them to such a position of lowness that they wouldn’t dare speak to him like some homeless addict in his own apartment.
“Whatever you’re thinking, perv,” muttered a Demon Girl with built-in stone horns and a velvet tail wrapped around thighs bigger than the rest, “Don’t think we haven’t seen it before. You’re upset for us judging you, but don’t seriously act like that doesn’t describe you to a T! You take a dead-end job that pays you just enough for terrible food and a crap place, so you can blow all your cash on stuff that gets your rocks off. No savings for a better life, no energy to try harder, no time to build relationships. You don’t play video games for a release, you do it to get off on the girl avatars. Don’t lie, we see you, creep! You’re not a fictional hero, or some intelligent creative soul who deserves better and is just misunderstood, or a skilled professional in anything at all. A loser. Just a damn loser is what you are.”
Hinata seethed, but his confidence in being a superior human among inferior plastics was starting to waver. He did not back down! He insisted upon his philosophy, his hedonism, his attachment to the pleasures of buying material things that give you exactly what you expect. Why would he change, when this life was predictably pleasurable?
The little cupboard apartment was filled with the loud derisive laughter of every single figurine. The cackling broke Hinata’s spirit: this was the exact kind of noise he desired to escape, that he never wanted to hear from real people and so retreated to the imaginary.
“You moron,” spat a Bunny Girl, tastelessly showing the backside of her tights while holding a champagne tray, glasses filled with a hardened gel substance, “Don’t you know the only thing you’re relying on are all those horny, good feelings that come from being young? What happens when you get past thirty, then past forty, and you can’t get it up and you get all tired, fat, and old? Then, when you can’t even realistically escape to where you want in this little sanctuary you’ve built, cause you can’t even keep up with your fantasies, you won’t get nowhere out there in the real world, neither! Alone, broke, too tired to get your buzz on…Shit, you might as well just die now, dumbass!”
There was a murmur of agreement from all of the figures. An Angel in the back started the chant. The rest of the girls slowly joined in with sadistic glee.
“Die. Die. Die. Die. Die! Die! Die! DIE! DIE! DIE!”
The command was so loud, so violent, that the whole room was rumbling under the vibrations of their demonic timbre. The paint depicting their eyes, no matter the color, glowed red. Over a hundred cutesy anime eyes, shining all around him with the dim glow of an emergency exit sign that would open up straight into a deep pit of absolute darkness. Hinata desperately wanted to dash for the door, or at least flip the lights on, but he could no longer see which way it was – even if illumination was only at arms’ length. But his arms were too preoccupied, pressing his hands like suctions against his ears, and his skin was too thin to keep out that chorus of demeaning voices as they added more insults to the sad heap cowering in the center of the room.
“Idiot!”
“Loner!”
“Pathetic!”
“Virgin!”
“Antisocial Coward!”
“Introverted Weakling!”
“Broke-Ass Little Bitch!”
“Selfish Asshole!”
“Addicted Weeb!”
“Pervert!”
“Pedo Freak!”
“Creep!”
“Gamer Trash!”
“Loser!”
The voices wouldn’t stop. Curled in a ball, bawling, begging them to leave him alone, Hinata finally started screaming at the top of his lungs to drown them out. But the dolls were louder, their pulsating red eyes surrounding him oppressive, and he couldn’t look away from their voyeuristic delight at beholding such a pathetic piece of human waste shriveling up under the heat of their humiliation. That was the sort of thing from which they derived their greatest pleasure. It was about time they got some from their “owner” for a change. At least he could be somewhat useful for once in his worthless life.
♋ ♋ ♋
When the police burst into Hinata’s room, they were shocked by what they saw.
The Leasing Office had called them, firstly concerned with receiving the past month’s rent, which was never delivered, but secondly with concern for the tenant’s safety. Other neighbors had reported strange noises as they passed by the door every day – morning or night, it made no difference. The noise never stopped, a weak dry-heaving on perpetual loop, accompanied by the background vocals of a hundred whispers.
Breaking down the door after he refused to open it, the police discovered Hinata lying curled up on the ground in the middle of his room. His hands were still clasped tight over his ears, milky eyes staring up at the ceiling but seeing nothing, skin stretched taut against his wiry frame that looked like it hadn’t been nourished once for an entire month. His chapped lips quivered fearfully, repeating nothing in particular but simply reminding himself he still existed, by virtue of having a voice. The police tried to remove his hands from his ears, but they wouldn’t budge; his joints and muscles were so tensed up from fear and time working against him, that they had locked in place.
It would take four months before Hinata recovered from dehydration, starvation, lack of sunlight, muscle spasticity, and psychological trauma. During therapy, he refused to say what happened to make him feel like that…other than his home had been “invaded” and that he had been forced to “look inside himself and make changes in his second shot at life.” Hinata may have missed his thirtieth birthday, but whatever ordeal he underwent in that dark cupboard of a room ensured that his future birthdays would extend much longer. And have much more meaning.
Filed away in the police report, as well as the Leasing Agent complaint, was the status of Hinata’s apartment at the time of the rescue. Everyone knew about it, but the landlord decided, upon a personal visit to the scene, that he wanted no part in whatever the Hell was going on there, and took the room completely off the books for good.
What the police had walked in on was a peculiarly minimalist room, but nothing they hadn’t seen before from a dead-end N.E.E.T. like this one. What made it peculiar were the statuettes lining the shelves, hundreds of them. They could tell they were once figures of cute anime girls, very expensive, expertly crafted and clearly coveted by collectors.
Once.
Now, they were repulsive, sickly monstrosities. Their limbs, bodies, and necks had stretched towards where Hinata’s limp body had been retrieved, as if hungry to claim his soul. Paint had melted, smeared, swirled across their bodies in indecipherable symbols and streaked their faces into bleeding nightmares. Their clawed fingers, pointing at him with accusations – painted mouths split to become smiling fanged jaws – their eyes, hollowed out into empty pits – their clothes, torn and blended in with their bodies to create leathery, mutated forms with multicolored appendages stretching out towards, again, the spot where Hinata was recovered. Hinata refused to mention the figures, grew pale as a sheet whenever they were, and the therapist tasked with his recovery eventually shut down the topic altogether.
The police chalked Hinata up as a mental case and left it alone. The Leasing Agent, however, needed to resell the apartment, and continued to receive complaints of threatening whispers coming from within. He also heard that a lot of the previous tenant’s abandoned belongings would fetch a high price, which was as a good incentive as any for action. So, one day, he decided enough was enough and opened the door to clear the place out.
It must have been a trick of the dark, but…The Leasing Agent could have sworn that, as soon as the light entered that stuffy cell, every single head of every single figurine swiveled in unison. Staring, directly at him – judging, and eager to see the natural sentence carried out, so they had a good reason laugh forever and ever.
The Leasing Agent locked the door behind him and never looked back.
Morning's Early Dark 