I rent out a coin locker in the gym facility. I make a conscious decision here to pick out a locker in the farthest corner of the area out of sight, with the number 149. There's no real reason to pick this number but I do so anyway. Out of the other numbers this one seemed most appropriate. Inside the locker I place my backpack and suit jacket. I strip down and take the towel provided to the shower room.

There's no one around this time of the day. I shower as efficiently as I can. I shampoo my hair, thoroughly wash each of my arms and under my arms and my chest and back and between my legs and behind my legs and my feet, and I scrub every toe, and then soak in the warm water for a good minute afterwards. It feels good, like shedding an old shell that had wrinkled and had been rotting away slowly. It grew taut and restricting, holding my muscles hostage in heightened tension. I feel my body gradually relax, and I stretch out each muscle carefully. I've never been athletic but I know how to stretch and warm up the body. Each tendon eventually unravels. The kind of feeling when you change strings on a guitar, unwinding each until they hang slack for the first time in a long while, every moment apprehensive of them snapping.

I am startled out of my skin when someone speaks up beside me. I can't tell if it's a woman's voice or a man's voice but there he is beside me, water streaming down his naked body. He is slim, has hips that sort of curve like an adolescent girl, but his chest doesn't look to have any sort of breasts. Perhaps, undeveloped still. That's all I can conclude from a quick glance. I have no desire to inspect another person's body in a public shower.

He says: "You have the look of a guy who hasn't showered in years."

His voice has a raspy texture to it, high enough to sound like a woman trying to sound more masculine. He is looking at me quite intently. I wonder why he had to choose the shower next to mine.

"I apologize for looking," he says.

I let the water stream over my eyes.

"You just have that impression, and you looked familiar. So I checked to make sure."

"Familiar?"

"Like I've seen you somewhere," he speaks through the water rushing down his face. "The feeling that you've seen someone maybe once, or twice, but had never met. But I'm usually very, very good with faces. If I see someone on campus, I think I'll remember them the second time I see them."

"I see." He might have seen Shizuka and I on TV. Or on one of the social media platforms. Maybe on a blog or two. But he must not be able tell for sure from the profile of my face. I never had courage to scour the internet to see what had become of the picture. Every time I would be caught in between my desire to remember the moment and the need to forget.

I feel a sudden sharp pang thinking about Shizuka, like a knife in my rib.

"The more I look at you, the more I am convinced I've seen you somewhere."

"The water's nice." Realizing he isn't about to stop talking, I change the subject. "Do you prefer hot or cold showers?"

He doesn't skip a beat. "Both have their use really. Whichever is appropriate. Sometimes people just need a cold shower to wake up and jolt them out of their senses, sharpen the mind, that kind of thing, and a hot shower to relax, sweat it out, calm down, meditate and expand pores and stuff like that."

"Which do you need now?"

"A cold one, I guess. I can feel the hot water from yours mixing into mine."

I don't reply to that. Weird way to put it.

"Are you stressed out or something? School's out, it's the winter break, what's the big deal?"

"Nothing really, just tense from something, maybe to do with my girlfriend." I say.

"Girl problems." He shakes his head. "Women are trouble."

"Sometimes."

"A lot of the times. I would know." But he doesn't elaborate.

There is a break in the conversation. The sound of splashing water and the gurgling drainage replaces our voices and fills the air.

"Need a massage?" he says suddenly as if the idea had just struck him.

"No, I'm good, the shower's all I needed. Look, I'm about done, I need to get out of here."

"Yeah well, sometimes everyone needs a massage. You know, the body is put under all sorts of stresses and things, no matter how healthy someone is. Even if they train, exercise, stretch, eat healthy, try to refrain from bad habits, just gravity itself, from sitting, standing, sleeping, and no doubt using a smartphone or computer keyboard, it's almost right away that the body begins to change and distort. It's almost like humans were never designed to sustain life on earth. We might be the aliens. Or there are greater forces acting on us than we know. Tendons and nerves and tissue and fibre and bones and all sorts of things crisscross and get out of place, out of alignment. Like a car that needs maintenance, people really ought to have regular set ups. Fix the spine, correct bones, release the knots, toxins and build up in places. Little things like that most of the time don't really cause tremendous pain until it really is too late. But everyone has imperfect bodies. Someone who thinks they're healthy will realize they're not when someone gives them a repair job. I don't really study kinesiology or biology or physiotherapy or whatever the hell there is but, I know enough about it because my mother would give tremendously helpful massages. It's awfully painful but it wakes up the soul and lets the body's energy flow freely."

"I see." I twist off the water and wrap a towel around me. The spray of his shower is cold. "So you're saying even when someone is unaware there's something wrong with them, it doesn't mean it's not there."

"Exactly. Most people remain unaware of things going on around them or within them. You only really feel the adverse effects of things when it really hits home. Like the news recently, they were smashing up some shops in Omotesando, expensive shops, no one thought the Cause would do something like that. They thought it was quiet protesting. In the beginning they thought it was some new youth non-profit organization. The police thought so too, so they never show up. Maybe like liver damage, only begins to really get bad way late in the process. You don't feel it when you overwork, when you stay up late, and so on. Maybe a little tired, but you think you get used to it."

"People need someone to fix them up every now and then."

"Someone, something, whatever."

"Well, I'll let you know if I need something. Enjoy your shower."

"Might be too late then, but it's all up to you." He shrugs. "All up to you."

Once I'm done drying myself and putting on a new set of clothes - one down, four shirts and five boxers to go – I manage to evade the man or woman I had conversed with. I'm dressed in a t-shirt with a plaid button up, jeans and the zip-up hoodie. My dirty dress shirt and pants are now in a plastic bag deep in my backpack. I don't even have my parka with me.

I drop by the cafeteria on the bottom floor and when I've made sure no one is looking, pick up the receiver on one of the public pay phones. I dial the number I had saved from one of the mysterious text messages. It's a mobile number.

It rings ten times before it puts me on an automated message saying the number couldn't be reached. I had been expecting something like this. Either the call wouldn't go through at all or they wouldn't pick up. At least the number exists. If I had the resources to do so, it could probably be tracked and located. But where a number is tracked, the System would also undoubtedly know.

I give it another call. The same thing happens, ten rings and the woman's voice tells me the owner isn't available to take the call. I decide it's fine for now and I could always give it another go later. For now, I would need to decide on where I am staying tonight, well out of sight.

A classmate passes by and I try to look nonchalant and nod a hello. My body tenses in anticipation; would he too would recognize me from the circulated picture? I don't remember his name. He's generally talkative and we've shared a drink or two before so it isn't entirely unusual when he asks me if something's wrong with my cell phone. I seem to have been meeting many talkative people in the past few days. I say it's out of batteries. My body tenses in anticipation, I am worried that he too would recognize me from the circulated picture.

"I thought you had disappeared or something."

"Looks like I'm still here."

"I thought you took some sort of scholarship to study abroad?"

"Nah, not right now."

He shrugs, seeming to be uninterested in my scholarships or studies. "They were looking for you."

"Who was?"

"Someone named Morikawa or something."

"Who's that? What did he look like?"

"I think he's from one of the professors from the Department of Psychology. Tall guy, thin and lanky, messy shaggy hair. Kinda like a mad scientist, not at all a psychologist looking guy. Might pass as a psycho analyst for the police or a doctor working at a mentally ill facility or maybe one of the patients or something, you know."

"What did he want?"

"He just was asking around if we knew a Maeda Naoki. Most of us said no, like no one remembered. I remembered but I said no too. Figured I should just blend with the crowd."

I give him a long look. He doesn't seem like an Anomaly, just clueless.

"Anyway, I bet it's nothing of the good news sort. Might as well keep your head low. He looks sketchy. There's that blank look in his eyes. Say, did you hear about the Cause making a racket again?"

"Everyone seems to be aware of the Cause nowadays."

"It's hard to not notice their movements becoming more and more aggressive and extreme. Yet the police aren't stepping in or anything, isn't that strange?"

"I think it's strange."

"But you know, it seems like what the police would do: absolutely nothing."

"What were they doing this time?"

"They were smashing up storefronts right in the middle of the day in Harajuku! Takeshita Street! The daring they have."

I feign a frown. "That's crazy."

"Most of those shops suffered tremendous damage, glass and doors broken, merchandise ripped, but no one is saying anything. Isn't that strange?" he repeats again, then he seems to look apologetic. "I've said too much. It's none of my business really. But the things they say are kinda crazier and crazier. They're making it seem like individual fashion is an offense to the government or something and is discrimination to people with different sexual orientations. Stuff like why can't they have more sizes and cater to cross dressers, and why they are portraying such stereotypical images of women in lace and miniskirts. That all stores should sell only gender-neutral outfits as a solution for everyone. Like the crazy things they wear. Black suits for all or something? Why doesn't the government make a statement about this?"

I don't reply. Because the government is the System. Or rather, the government is a part of the System.

"Maybe because this is none of their business I guess."

I nod placidly.

"Just like how it isn't any of ours. Best keep noses out of things. Just hope it doesn't hit us in the face. We only really care about ourselves."

"Yeah," I agree.

"I guess better just let it be."

"Someone will deal with it," I say, not meaning it one bit.

"I guess so." He nods. "You're right. Just let it be." He starts humming "Let It Be" and thinks better of it. "Catch you later, I've got a paper to hand in." He rolls his eyes. "Holiday assignments, what can you say?" he laughs. "Good luck with your study abroad."

I tell him I'm not going but he doesn't seem to understand. I watch as he leaves and just then I catch a glimpse of two men in immaculate black suits walk in through the door, heads swiveling. I turn the other way, heading for the stairs. I can make it to the second floor and backtrack down to the first floor entrance.

But they aren't looking for me. They march in the opposite direction, towards the guy I had just spoken to. I get the feeling I wouldn't see him again. But we only really care about ourselves. Best keep my nose out of things.