The cheap vodka burned a path down Akane Suzuki’s throat. She coughed after swallowing the last drop of alcohol and set the glass down on the tatami-mat floor. Akane raised the bottle to eye level. Focusing on the label was difficult—it seemed to be intentionally moving.
Taunting her.
“Baka da yo,” she grumbled, then lifted the glass to refill it. Setting the bottle’s lip on the edge of the glass, her hand shook as the liquid poured in, splashing on her wrist.
Akane put the bottle on the tatami and took another long drink from the glass. Standing from the futon spread out on the tatami floor, Akane walked over to the stereo and hit the play button.
Bouncy, upbeat pop music blared through the speakers. Akane nearly stumbled as she crossed the short distance from the stereo back to the futon. She plopped down on the bedding, more vodka spilling over her hand as she did.
Akane swayed to the beat, tears forming in her eyes as she did. At first, she only lip-synced the words. But after a few more sips, she started singing them herself. Her voice matched one of the five singers perfectly.
“‘We were both exciting when I first saw you…You write a letter and the flashback starts…’”
Akane started crying as she tried to sing along to the lyrics. She finished the drink and poured herself another. After taking a fresh sip, she cringed and held the bottle up to examine it once again.
The same cheap, off-brand vodka she usually bought. Only a few hundred yen. But why did it taste funny? Did it go bad? Could vodka go bad?
Forget it, just keep drinking. She took a bigger sip—more a gulp—and continued singing.
What happened to her? To her life? Akane rose from the futon, stumbling to the stereo and looking at the pictures pinned to her wall. It was lined with purikura pictures, special photo booths frequented by many girls in Japan. Some of them were photos of her and her friends from high school. Others featured her with a young, handsome man whose hair was dyed a golden color.
Many featured her with her former bandmates. The same girls who graced the cover of the CD lying atop the stereo. Akane picked up the CD case and looked at herself. Dressed in a school uniform, back-to-back with her headlining colleague. The other three girls flanking the two of them. The word ‘Koibito’ written across the top in colorful, rounded katakana characters.
Aka and Aya they were called. Even when things were tough, despite the times they were at each other’s throats, Akane always felt like she could trust Ayano.
That smile Akane wore on the CD cover. Akane couldn’t remember the last time she’d smiled an actual smile, let alone one that large. Before it all went downhill. Before she threw away her career for what she thought was love.
Akane screamed and threw the CD case across the room. It hit the balcony doors and the two halves split at the hinge. She ejected the CD, shouting and cursing at it as she snapped it in half.
The glass was empty again. Akane stumbled to the futon and fell right onto it. She felt weak, like the bottle had somehow gotten heavier. Still, she managed to refill the glass, but it slipped from her hand and landed on its side. The alcohol seeped from the glass, spreading out along the tatami.
Who needs a glass anyway? Her lips wrapped around the bottle and she tipped her head back. It burned going down. When the bottle was finished, Akane let it fall to the floor.
Why was it so hot in here? She crawled across her futon, moving towards the balcony. Akane raised her hand up, trying to grab the latch and using it to pull herself up. She flipped open the latch and tugged at the door.
It felt so heavy.
The room was spinning. But she just needed some fresh air. Akane pushed the door open and stumbled out onto the balcony, striking the railing. The night lights of Osaka’s Shinsekai neighborhood blurred and she blinked, trying in vain to bring them into focus.
A pain stabbed through her stomach. Like that time she had food poisoning after eating some bad sushi she bought from the convenience store. Vodka was a bad idea, she realized, feeling it surge its way back up her throat. Akane bent over the railing and threw up. She had barely eaten anything, so it was mostly just vodka and stomach acid that flew from her mouth and down the eight stories towards the street below.
Her heart pounded against her chest. Akane looked at her hand and noticed it was shaking, moving in and out of focus. She pushed herself away from the railing, her back slamming against the wall. The pain was great and she screamed.
She could hear a pounding noise—thump, thump. Thump, thump. Her creepy neighbor. Akane shouted right back at him. “Go to hell, you old bastard!”
The pounding continued and Akane fell to her knees, covering her ears and squeezing her eyes shut. Why was it so hot today? Wasn’t it supposed to be fall? She breathed heavily, finding each successive breath even harder to take in than the one before.
It was a few moments of sitting like that, the entire world spinning around her, before Akane realized that the pounding wasn’t coming from next door. No, it was her own heart. Thump, thump. She opened her eyes, but the vertigo had gotten even worse. All she wanted to do was sleep.
Akane rose to her feet and stumbled, grabbing the rail. She looked over the edge and down to the street below and laughed. That would have been bad, tripping and falling over the railing.
But would it have been such a bad thing? To just jump? To finally put an end to everything? No more struggle, no more doing things she hated for money. Just finally being at peace.
She held onto the railing and stared over the edge. There were bicycles chained to a rack in the small alley, but they kept moving from side to side. Akane squinted, trying to bring them into focus. Leaning further over, using her shaking hands to grip the railing.
Then, she felt free. Like she was flying. Akane laughed for a moment.
After that moment, there was nothing.