“You look awful, Kasumi,” Nyoko greeted me as I dropped my purse on the shelf beside my desk and sat down with a sigh. “Another long night, huh?”

“Same as usual,” I muttered, turning my monitor on and shaking my mouse to wake the computer up.

“I get it! I get it! I was your age once, too!” I kept my eyes focused on the screen, but I could tell she had that “I’m older and wiser than you so I know everything on the planet” look on her face. “The allure of drinking and dancing with boys is strong outside of college! I know I sure did enough of it!” I glanced over at her with a sigh. Her dark hair was pulled into a bun and her grey suit was pressed so neatly I wasn’t sure how she was even able to sit down properly. Maybe her family owned a dry cleaner or something, I mused to myself.

“I really don’t need a lecture,” I said with a scowl. Honestly, if I’d had any sick time left, I would have used it gratefully and skipped the “Nyoko knows everything” show. “I’m not sure what wisdom you’ve gleaned from the extra two years you’ve been on earth but trust me, I was not out drinking and dancing with boys.”

“You need to get yourself a boyfriend and all of your problems will just disappear!” She declared. “There’s no reason to go chasing after men if you have one of your own at home waiting to take you in his arms!”

“Can we not do this?” I sighed. The art program I used stubbornly rebuffed all my attempts to get it to start. Finally, I simply restarted the reticent machine and its openly rebellious software.

“What about Ryuji?” Nyoko continued, a runaway freight train on a steep incline. “I’ve seen how he looks at you! Oh! Kazuki! I heard he recently got a promotion!”

“Just stop, ok?” I growled, finally looking over at her. The computer hummed back to life, and I started the art program once more. It flickered to life and began the laborious process of loading itself.

“I’m just saying, you’re young and pretty and you could have as many options as you want! Find yourself a man! Settle down! Raise a family! Partying all the time isn’t good for you!” Nyoko patted my arm in an attempt at comforting me.

That was it. That was the key to everything as far as people like Nyoko and my mother were concerned. Find yourself a slice of “normality” and live the dream of 2.4 kids, 4.8 grandkids and extended family coming over for New Year’s if they aren’t too busy. Later on you’ll have someone to cry over your grave or, at least, care enough to go to the will reading. Almost every news broadcast bemoaned the declining birthrate in Japan and stopped just shy of entreating us to breed like rabbits.

Emi would have found the hypocrisy deliciously infuriating, I’m sure, I thought. Honestly, what did they think would happen when they made entire generations terrified of having sex? People would get into adulthood and be shocked when they saw a vagina or penis for the first time. Parents would whisper the word when they said it as if by the mere act of speaking the word they would bring the sex demons down on their kids’ heads. They’d created entire generations of sexual hermits and then are surprised when the birth rate goes down? Insanity is what it was.

Emi…I sighed. I wonder who she’d gotten married to? Which fine young bland rich guy had drawn the Emi straw? I smiled sadly at the thought. I did not envy him. I’d not thought of Emi in probably a year. I’d tried to keep in touch, but she went to that school in Kyoto and kind of vanished. Of course, the same could be said of me.

I was surprised how easily you could vanish in plain sight. Sachi had taken care of the legal work on the sly and my name became Kasumi Tanaka. When Kasumi Fujimura vanished everything else kind of went along with it. Aunt Nanami had changed her phone number when she’d heard what had happened and the ties holding me to my family and my hometown had been cleanly severed.

 I’d wanted to reach out to Mio but the two of us hadn’t parted on the best of terms, which of course, had been my doing. In the end, however, Tottori and everything and everyone in it had been washed away like it never was. Except, of course, that it wasn’t. New name, new job, new location, new life, same person, I supposed.

I ignored Nyoko and returned to my work, the program finally, begrudgingly opening. It was too long ago, I had decided. I had excised that part of my life like a surgeon removing a burst appendix and felt no desire to crawl back. Even if it haunted me like a stubborn ghost, I’d cut all ties and simply couldn’t return to where and how I was. I was stuck in some sort of purgatory. I couldn’t seem to move forward and couldn’t ever go back.

I’d tried to find a balance. A center, like I did in Karate. A place where I could be free but still connected to the world I knew but had in the end failed miserably. Tottori had scarred me. It had taken something from me I couldn’t get back. Innocence? Hope? Self-worth? I had no idea. It wasn’t something I could really put my finger on. But pieces were definitely missing from the jigsaw puzzle that I was made up of.

I’d grasped that perceived freedom being away from the staid, conservative, suffocating shit hole of a town like a drunk to a bottle of booze. But the booze had turned to ash in my mouth, and I quickly learned that freedom never came for free. There was always a price to pay. There were too many variables in play. Too many feelings I had no control over. Too many memories that would visit me like an unwanted guest at the worst possible time.

Dating was exciting for a bit, but inevitably I’d do or say something stupid or callous and it would end. Sometimes spectacularly like an explosion of fireworks, sometimes, like with Izumi, in a flood of tears, and sometimes with barely a breath or thought spared for it. A simple decision by one or the other of us to simply move on without a word spoken or text sent. I’d not gotten particularly close or even been terribly interested in any of the girls I’d gone out with through the remainder of high school in Tokyo, or college or after.

“Take my Ken for instance!” Nyoko enthused. “He’s a wonderful man! So attractive in his suit. So gentle yet forceful at the same time if you know what I mean!” Nyoko leaned over rakishly and nudged me with her elbow. Holy fuck balls, I thought, how is she still talking? “Just a few weeks ago in fact we were planning on what to do for Christmas and he suddenly swept me off my feet and we went to a movie and to dinner and it wasn’t even Christmas, yet!”

Whoopty shit, I thought to myself, rolling my eyes. How long had she been talking? I honestly had no idea. She didn’t seem to either know or care that I wasn’t paying attention to her at all, so I shifted my attention back to my screen and paused. I stared at the image I had absently created and cocked my head. What the hell was it? Was it a peach? A butt? I tilted my head to the other side, the image not making any additional sense. Oh well, I decided, guess I’ll start over.

By the time I finally finished reading the updated design letter I’d gotten that morning and began work on the backgrounds the alarm on my computer went off. I scowled at the little notification. “Team Meeting. Bring your best!” Not what I needed or wanted. Especially with the headache pounding like a herd of horses running roughshod through the center of my head.

“Come on, slowpoke!” Nyoko admonished me, grabbing her drawing tablet and standing impatiently behind me.

“Yeah. Yeah,” I sighed, taking up my own and following her toward the conference room at the end of the hall. People had already begun to trickle in, and I quickly found my seat near the window at the far side of the table.

“I’ll trade you, Kasumi!” Aoto whispered from across the table as he sat down. I scowled at him and shook my head. “You’ll be closer to the door so you can leave earlier!” He hissed.

“No,” I snapped back, my scowl deepening. He sighed and sagged back into his chair dejectedly. “If you want the window seat so bad, you’ll have to get here earlier.”

“But I’m all the way back in programming!” He whined. I began to look around frantically with quick head movements at the room. “What are you doing?”

“Looking for someone who gives a shit,” I whispered back. He sagged and I shrugged at him. “As I suspected. No one. Sorry.”

“Such a bitch…” he mumbled.

“Aww! The girls must love you, Aoto! Such a sweet talker!” I smirked at him, settling back as Hanzo, the project manager, and his entourage strode into the room.

“How is everyone this morning?” He asked as the door was closed, thus ensuring the room would smell of human sweat, perfume, aftershave, desperation and fear within minutes. Everyone’s scent was different and once they all mixed together it inevitably proved to be thoroughly unpleasant.

Too much perfume, not enough anti-perspirant, laundry detergent, lack of laundry detergent. It all blended into an unsettling pall which lingered over the entire room. I hated it and had to fight down a feeling of claustrophobia and nausea.

“Sensei has sent us the rough draft of the next two chapters!” Hanzo’s faked enthusiasm was not lost on anyone. If the instructions to make the game hadn’t come from someone much higher on the food chain than anyone here in the Meguro office, we certainly would have been on the fifth iteration of “Sex Dolls in Shibuya”.

“Obviously we’re nearing the end… probably,” Hanzo shrugged. “You’ll all get a copy of the script once it’s edited, but we’ve got some exciting new backgrounds to make with the Elven Castle as well as a new monster called a revenant to create! All of that should have been in the revised design document you all got this morning.

“For now, though, let’s go over some issues we’ve seen so far so we’re all moving forward as a team!” Hanzo’s fake excitement was tiresome, and I quickly lost what little interest I could muster and turned my attention to the window.

“We’ve got some issues with the MC sprites and sex scenes,” Hanzo said after an indeterminable amount of time, bringing up my art work on the projector. “Care to explain, Kasumi?” Everyone turned to me, and I dragged my attention from the frenetic pace of Tokyo outside back to the meeting.

“Explain what?” I asked. Hanzo aimed his precious and ever-present laser pointer at the silver-haired girl’s naked chest.

“What is that?” Hanzo asked. I cocked an eyebrow in displeasure.

“Those are boobs,” I intoned. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but you really should know that at your age.”

“Why are they so small?” Hanzo swung his pointer around the small globes irritably, ignoring my snark.

“Because she’s emaciated and naturally small?” I replied.

“Our focus group doesn’t like small boobs. Not to mention she looks too young. We can’t have that.”

“According to the design document she’s 19. If they wanted someone more adult looking, they should have made her older, yes? If you want a 19-year-old to look older you might want to include that in the actual document. As for why her breasts are so small, you are aware adults can have small breasts, right?” I scowled, painfully aware of my not altogether significant chest.

“That’s not the point! The focus group likes big breasts! And what is this?” He moved the pointer to the spot between the thin girl’s legs.

“That is a vagina, Hanzo,” I answered. “Lots of people have them.”

“Why is there hair, Kasumi?” He sighed at me. “You know the focus groups prefer hairless.” I scowled and pulled up the synopsis of the story on my tablet.

“’The character is a half-elf with no money, friends, or family to speak of. She lives day to day and survives on her wits and skill’,” I read woodenly. “Not to mention this is a fantasy medieval setting, yes?”

“Yes,” Hanzo plainly didn’t understand my point.

“Unless she hasn’t gone through puberty, yet, which is a wholly different issue and not in the design document at all, I doubt she’ll have access to a razer or wax.” I explained, wincing slightly at the memory of my own experience. “The design document clearly states ‘realism’ as the style. Girls have pubic hair if they can’t get rid of it, Hanzo. Regardless of what the focus groups want, that seems realistic to me.”

“Magic?” Aoto suggested.

“Huh?” I fixed him with an icy glare.

“Precisely! She magically waxes!” Hanzo enthused. I winced again before sighing and shaking my head. “Look, people want big boobs and a smooth vagina. We’re in the business of giving people what they want.”

“I… Fine,” I rolled my eyes. This certainly was not the hill I had any interest in dying on. “It’s not in the design document but whatever.”

“Could you also help Nyoko with the monster once we get the specs?” Hanzo asked.

“You want that magically waxed, too?” I asked.