Akiko suddenly realised that it was dark outside, and when she looked at her watch she discovered it was after seven. She’d been sitting in the cafe, staring blankly into space, for hours. As she started gathering her things to leave, she realised that the waitresses had been watching her, and that they seemed somewhat relieved.

<em>Relieved that I’m going,</em> she wondered, <em>or that I’m not ill?</em> Their farewells were entirely conventional, however, and Akiko dashed out without meeting any of their eyes. She found a basic restaurant and bought herself some dinner, eating it without tasting it, drifting off into reveries repeatedly, so that the staff kept coming round to see whether she was all right. The place wasn’t busy, though, so they didn’t try to move her on. It was after nine before she left, and found herself just standing in the street outside.

<em>I have nowhere to sleep. </em>It struck her again, forcefully, and she struggled to control herself, to hold back tears. <em>I can go back to the love hotel. No problem.</em> The memory of her vision in the bath flickered through her mind, but she refused to let it influence her. She had to sleep somewhere.

She went to the coin locker to get her bags out, and started walking to the love hotels. Their garish neon cast strange light over the dark street, and the shadows of plants and utility poles were coloured, moving and shifting as the neon flashed and changed. Akiko jumped several times when she thought something was moving behind her, but when she looked it was just a bush, or a gate, and nothing to be frightened of. She told herself to stop jumping at shadows, but it made no difference; her nerves and tension just kept building.

And then a shadow looked back at her.

She had reached the love hotels, and was passing one that looked particularly seedy when she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. Her heart leaping, she turned to look. For a moment, it was just a shadow, with a couple of points of garish purple neon in it, over a side door. Then the points of neon blinked. When they came back they moved, together, scuttling round the top of the door, enveloped in darkness, and Akiko couldn’t see them as anything other than eyes.

It was suddenly difficult to breathe, and she stumbled backwards until she stepped over the edge of the road, into the bushes that marked the edge of the field. The twigs scratched at her hands and caught at her clothes, as the shadow shape dropped down from above the door and came nosing out towards the street. A shadow against darkness, Akiko could make out no details of its shape, just those purple neon eyes. It reached the edge of the circle of light cast by a street lamp, and stopped, fixing its gaze on her, but coming no closer.

Akiko found that she couldn’t look away, could hardly even blink. She felt something slimy on her face, spreading, sliding down, covering her breasts as her nipples became sore, pain that was mirrored in her groin as she felt something in her hair, and a strange, foul aftertaste filled her mouth. It took her a moment to place it, because it tasted far worse than she remembered, but the basic taste was the same. Semen. Her stomach heaved as she started to gag, and suddenly the thing across the road looked away, melting back into the shadows.

Akiko didn’t move. She could still taste it in her mouth, and feel it all over her body, a pollution that seemed to pass through her skin to taint her spirit. She heard voices, and shrank further back into the bushes, unsure what she looked like.

Then she realised she knew one of the voices.

“So I gave him the report.â€ Naoyuki!

His last comment was met by a peal of high-pitched laughter from his companion, and Akiko felt her heart sink. As they came into the light, the strength drained from her legs, and she barely kept herself upright and quiet.

Naoyuki, in his suit, had his arm around the waist of a girl in high-school uniform, his hand under her short skirt. Her hair was bleached blonde, her skin very tanned, and she didn’t seem to object at all. In fact, she seemed to be taking the initiative as she led him to the love hotel opposite.

Just before entering, Naoyuki paused and looked around. Akiko shrank back into the bushes, but he didn’t seem to see her, and the girl quickly pulled him through the entrance, and out of sight of the road. As they went in, Akiko saw two black shapes scuttle around the doorway, one looking round with purple neon eyes before darting inside. She became deeply conscious of how dirty she felt, and dashed out of the bush while the street was quiet, running for the hotel she had stayed in before.

As soon as she was through the entrance she paused, looking around. The shadows seemed a bit deeper than she expected, but they didn’t move, and they didn’t look back at her. Unwilling to spend any longer looking for trouble, she got a room key from the vending machine and hurried up.

Inside the room, she started a bath running right away, and was already pulling her clothes off when she looked up at the mirror.

There was nothing on her. Indeed, she realised that the slimy feeling, the soreness, and the foul taste had all gone, leaving her with nothing but a deep-seated feeling of contamination. Throwing her clothes out of the bathroom, she showered vigourously, the feeling of filth slowly sloughing off her, washed away with the hot water.

It was only after she had got into the bath that she felt truly clean, however, and she leaned back, closing her eyes as she tried to relax.

<em>What are those things?</em>

She had no answer to the question, and it was quickly joined by another.

<em>Where am I going to get money?</em> She couldn’t afford to stay in even such a cheap hotel for much longer.