Chapter 16

"Wake up, we're going to catch beetles."

"Huh!?"

I thought I was being woken up by that annoying girl, and sure enough, when I opened my eyes, the sky outside was still dim. The room was quiet except for the soft breathing of my mom and the others, who were still asleep.

It was my first summer vacation since entering elementary school, and we were staying at a mountain inn for a movie shoot. There wasn’t much to do around here—the TV only showed weird programs, Mom didn’t let me bring my game console since this wasn’t “for fun,” and the whole area was surrounded by nothing but forests and mountains. Boring.

I was happy when Mom celebrated me getting my first big role, but once the filming started, it wasn’t fun at all. The director kept yelling at me, forcing retake after retake. I thought I was doing fine, but apparently, something was wrong—and I had no idea what.

“Be more natural, like Nana-chan.”

“Put more emotion into it, like Nana-chan.”

“Try harder, like Nana-chan.”

“Like Nana-chan, like Nana-chan, like Nana-chan…”

I’d lost count of how many times I’d heard that. Mom had been saying the same thing before too: “Be a child actor like Nana-chan.” I was sick of it. It pissed me off.

“Remember I told you yesterday? We’re going beetle hunting. You were excited about it, weren’t you, Hiro?”

“But it’s still dark outside…”

“We have to go at dawn or it won’t work. Midnight would be even better, but we’d get in huge trouble sneaking out then. Come on, get ready.”

I was dragged along by the annoying girl, trying not to wake Mom and the others as I dug through my backpack. The four of us—my mom, the annoying girl, her manager, and me—were sharing one tatami room. I wanted a separate room, but they insisted co-stars should bond, so we were stuck together.

Feeling around in the dim light, I quietly changed clothes, but of course, the annoying girl had something to say.

“Hiro, are you seriously planning to go into the woods dressed like that? Didn’t you bring long sleeves?”

“Nope. It’s not cold, so this is fine.”

“No way. The mosquitoes will eat you alive, and you’ll get scratched up in the brush. Here, you can wear my spare clothes.”

“I’m not wearing something pink!”

“Hmm, then this white tracksuit should be fine, right?”

She handed me a white tracksuit, but the cuffs and ankles were lined with pink. Obviously for girls. I complained, saying there was no way a guy like me could wear it, but she forced me into it anyway, saying, “You’ll get used to it.”

When we stepped outside, it was still dim, the air heavy with humidity. Behind the inn, the forest was pitch-black and gave off an unsettling vibe. I hesitated at the edge of the trees.

“Scared? If you want, you can just wait here.”

“I-I’m not scared!”

I blurted it out without thinking, just because she said it like that.

Inside the forest, the undergrowth was thick, forcing us to push branches aside just to move forward. If I’d come in short sleeves and shorts, I’d have been covered in scratches by now. As much as I hated to admit it, wearing the tracksuit was the right call.

The annoying girl shined a flashlight ahead, swinging a stick she’d picked up somewhere to break spider webs as we went.

“Are you sure there are even beetles around here?”

“Probably. I smeared some tree sap last night, so they should’ve gathered by now. It’s not far… Look, over there.”

She pointed the flashlight at a tree where six or so glossy black insects were clustered.

“Hmm, no rhinoceros beetles, though. That one’s a Miyama stag beetle, and over there’s probably a giant stag beetle.”

“A giant stag beetle!? Seriously!?”

I looked closer, and sure enough, there was a giant stag beetle clinging to the trunk, bigger than anything I’d seen at department stores. Around it were a few other strange-shaped beetles about the same size.

“Awesome! The giant stag beetle looks cool, but that weird one’s cool too!”

“That’s the Miyama stag beetle.”

The chunky giant stag beetle and the jagged, alien-looking Miyama stag beetle… Both were awesome!

“For now, let’s just take the giant stag beetle and the Miyama stag beetle, okay? The rest are mostly females and scarab beetles.”

“You’re not gonna catch them all?”

“No need. If we take too many, they’ll just die for nothing. Besides, we only brought three cages. Once we find a rhinoceros beetle, we’ll head back.”

Saying that, she grabbed the giant stag beetle barehanded and dropped it into a cage.

“Here, grab that Miyama and put it in this one.”

She handed me an empty cage.

“You’re really okay touching these things? Don’t they pinch?”

“If you grab them from behind, around the body, the pincers can’t reach you.”

I nervously tried to pick it up, but it clung to the tree with surprising strength and wouldn’t budge.

“You have to peel it off quickly, like this. Just do it in one go.”

I followed her instructions, gave a firm tug, and—pop—it came right off. The Miyama beetle opened its pincers wide, waving its legs around like it was threatening me.

“So cool!”

“Right? Come on, I smeared sap on a few more trees. Let’s check them out.”

We moved a bit further, and sure enough, there were more insects gathered there. Among them—

“There’s a rhinoceros beetle! Awesome!”

"There's a male and female here. Let's take them as a pair. Here, the bug cage."

"…Uh, how do you even hold a rhinoceros beetle?"

"Grab the small horn. Never touch the long horn, okay? If you pull there, its head might come off. Absolutely don’t."

I pinched the small horn and pulled firmly, and pop—it came off the tree. That shiny black body, that magnificent horn… I’d seen them in department stores before, but Mom hated bugs, so she never bought me one. This one was way bigger than anything I’d ever seen for sale.

"Whoa, so cool!!"

The giant stag beetle was awesome too, but nothing beat the rhinoceros beetle. Just looking at it made me excited.

"This one’s the female. I’ll put her in the same cage for now, but we should probably get another one later and separate them."

"Is it bad to keep them together?"

"If you want to breed them, it’s fine. But if you want them to live longer, it’s better to keep them apart."

"Huh… You sure know a lot about this stuff."

"It’s Nana. Not ‘you.’"

"Huh?"

"I told you yesterday, remember? If we’re gonna be friends, call me by my name. I’m Hanasaki Nana."

Now that she mentioned it, yeah, she did say something like that yesterday when I was crying after the director yelled at me.

"I never said I wanted to be friends with you."

"Then just pretend, at least. For the sake of our roles, okay? Let’s act like we get along."

She smiled as she handed me the cage with the beetle inside.

"You’re giving this to me?"

"I’m not that interested, so yeah, you can have all of them."

"All of them!? Wow, you’re actually a pretty nice—"

"Name."

"Fine, fine. I’ll be your friend… Nana!"

And just like that, I became friends with the weird girl—Nana.

After that, whenever there was downtime between filming, she’d make me practice acting. When we didn’t have any scenes, we’d sneak off to the river and catch fish with our bare hands, or climb trees to build secret hideouts. She taught me all kinds of games and tricks I’d never known before.

Unlike other girls, Nana didn’t keep talking about stuff I wasn’t interested in, and she didn’t cry if I ignored her. Hanging out with her felt like hanging out with another guy—it was fun, and she was easy to talk to.

And somehow, when I did what Nana told me, things actually worked out better. The director stopped yelling at me, and sometimes even praised me instead.

Later, we ended up co-starring in a few more films together, and every time, Nana would make me practice different stuff “for the sake of the roles.”

When we played lovers, we tried going on a pretend date according to the script—but it was so boring that she dragged me off to an arcade halfway through instead. It was my first time going to one, and despite what adults said, it wasn’t scary at all. There were tons of games I’d never seen before, and it was actually a lot of fun.

When we played twin assassins, though, she made me rehearse this weird scene where we had to hug half-naked, and even made me call her “sister.”

"Listen, we’re the children of Ceausescu’s legacy. Sold off to the mafia in human trafficking, forced into violence and murder until we broke completely. We’re shattered twins."

"Cheau… what?"

"Ceausescu. Some important foreign guy from a long time ago. In the story, you and I are orphaned twins, Hiro. We’ve got no one else we can trust, so we depend only on each other. We’ve been broken and broken and broken again, until we’ve fused together so much that we can’t even tell where one of us ends and the other begins."

"…I don’t get it."

"Then until filming starts, let's try living as our characters. Got it?"

"Yeah, I got it, Nana."

"Wrong. Call me sister."

"…Sister."

"Good boy, brother."

Nana—or rather, sister—smiled strangely and pulled me into her arms.

After that, we started living as our broken twin characters, and little by little, the line between acting and reality began to blur. I started to really believe we were twins, that in this world there was no one but the two of us, and that no one else could be trusted but sister. Everyone else was just lifeless dolls, and by taking their lives, we could add to our own. So—

"Hiro, filming’s already over, you know?"

"Huh? Sister…?"

"How long are you planning to keep doing that? Snap out of it."

Suddenly, my cheek stung. Nana must’ve slapped me.

"You kept laughing all creepy, so I thought maybe you’d taken something weird."

"Huh? Wait, what about filming?"

"I told you, it’s all done. Today’s free time, so let’s go sightseeing somewhere."

I blinked and finally noticed my surroundings. I was sitting on a hotel bed, staring out at an unfamiliar view. Outside the window, lush tropical plants crowded around white buildings, and everyone walking down the street had tanned skin. I remembered we were filming overseas, so this probably wasn’t Japan.

But my memories of the past few months were hazy, like they’d been erased. I asked Nana about it.

"You were acting just fine, Hiro. The director even praised you, remember?"

"…I don’t remember."

"Hmm. Whatever. Anyway, Shinozaki-san and your mom are waiting in the lobby, so hurry up."

After we went sightseeing, we flew back to Japan, and later I got to watch the edited footage. Slowly, pieces of my memory from filming came back—but even then, it all felt blurred, like I was watching someone else’s movie rather than my own life. On TV, I saw myself wielding an axe, laughing like a madman… a performance I didn’t even know I was capable of.

Nana was right—when I listened to her, everything went well.

So, naturally, I thought we’d keep acting together. But suddenly, that stopped.

Because I became an idol.

Mom told me, “If you want to be a masked rider, becoming an idol will give you better chances,” and without thinking too much, I nodded along. I used to dream about being a masked rider back when I was in kindergarten, but now that I was in elementary school and practically an adult, I wasn’t that interested anymore.

By the time I realized it, it was too late. I told them I wanted to quit being an idol and go back to acting, but my agency had already changed, and they said quitting now wasn’t possible.

And then Nana said to me:

"What? You became an idol just to be a masked rider? I think there aren’t many masked riders who started as idols, though. Plus, the pay’s lower and the contracts are way longer, so actually, becoming famous first makes it harder. Also, how many times do I have to tell you not to talk to me at school?"

Hearing that made me hate it even more.

I didn’t even want to be a masked rider that badly… so why had I become an idol at all? At school, more and more girls kept crowding around me, talking endlessly about things I didn’t care about.

I wanted to ignore them, but Nana told me over and over that I had to take good care of fans. Especially female fans. And especially married women—she warned me never to make enemies out of them.

But I’d reached my limit.

"I… I wanna quit being an idol."

"If you wanna quit, then just quit."

Nana’s reply was so casual, so effortless, that it caught me off guard.

I’d called her out to the old school building to complain, since it’d been so long since we’d talked. And instead of lecturing me, she just… agreed.

Huh? So… it’s okay if I quit?