The deeper one went into Namato, the harder it became to see the sky.

  It was not short of clouds, of course– but that velvet natural blue was so often completely obscured by smog, pollution and cloud cover that it had been derisively nicknamed ‘the city of fog’. Not only was Seizojima a stormy island, but it was situated off the colder coast of Hokkaido, and regularly a cold front would drench the city in an oppressive mist, that left glimmering pearls of water upon every exposed surface.

  Closer to the centre, in the Sakuhata district, the apartments and skyscrapers were crammed closely in as efficient an order as possible. Balconies would roof balconies, and the only sign of greenery was the odd weed growing through concrete cracks. The air held something oppressive in it, as if it had been recycled through the bowels of its inhabitants a thousand times over.

  He stirred. Not from the smell, or that stale air further stagnating within the unventilated apartment, which had lingered unshiftingly for months.

  The man? Shimeda Akahoshi. The cause of his movement–a harsh, rash-like pain, running down the underside of his thighs and in the small of his back.

  Akahoshi had not shifted from his position upon that old, worn-out sofa for at least two days straight. He had not eaten anything. Periodically, he would sip from the small diluted bottle of alcohol on the floor beside it, until that too had been emptied this morning. Now his dried-out tongue felt like it was coated with cat piss.

  “...”

  He got as far as lifting his head, dead muscles screaming as if being torn to shreds, before he settled for curling up on his side.

  The apartment bore more resemblance to a scene from a grim, dingy true crime show than the home of a living being. The floor was covered with old cans, bottles, beer and vodka and sake, some empty and some still holding stale dusty liquid that had long since turned to sludge. Pools of vomit, of urine and of spilled food collected mould, forming a blue-green carpet like a forest floor, like moss.

  He had long since gotten used to the odour, to the point where he avoided even leaving the living room for fear of needing to adjust to clean air, the rest of the flat long since turned to dusty, empty catacombs.

  For that reason. For no other particular one.

  His cellphone began to ring.

  He couldn’t see where it was from his position–it sounded somewhere near the bookshelf, perhaps underneath the countless old newspapers that were by now stuck together with mould, sodden from the leak in the ceiling he had never remembered to fix. The ringtone, obnoxious, bitcrushed, assaulted his ears like a siren.

  Wonder who.

  There were not very many people who would be willing to call him. He only had four names on his contact list, and two blocked numbers struck through with a pitiless line. It would surely be his landlord– or his dealer, both of whom he owed money.

  The cellphone continued to scream Answer me! We’ve been trying to reach you about your idiotic and shameful lack of motivation! and Akahoshi continued to lie there, immobile.

  I suppose I could say I’m sick. So sick, I couldn’t reach my phone. Yes, I left it on the highest shelf in my room, right out of sight and hearing too. And I’m so sick I can’t make any money either. No, they still won’t hire me. His lips moved as he practised his excuse.

  Then it abruptly stopped, leaving behind nothing but tinnitus.

  He was beginning to reconsider his unwillingness to move now.

  A powerful sense of exclusion anxiety grew and sought to stop his breathing in its tracks. Slowly, Akahoshi’s hand flexed open, and with a movement that seemed to sap every last drop of his energy, he settled one elbow beneath him and pushed himself upright.

  Ahh….

  His vision spun around a carousel and then distorted into iridescent black sludge. Perhaps claiming to be sick wasn’t a lie after all.

  As it turned out, his cellphone had slipped behind the bookshelf, and the corner of it was sitting square in a mystery puddle (likely rainwater) on the floor. He fished it out gingerly, and the 9 key had gotten stuck, but with difficulty Akahoshi dialled back the last caller and put the cold plastic to one ear.

  Inevitably, there came the anxiety. Mail had been dropped through Akahoshi’s door copiously in the past week. He hadn’t been able to summon the courage to open them, not even the thick white letters with official stamps emblazoned judgmentally in the corner. He really, really should have opened those ones first.

  Nerves crept up the man’s back, and the cold air didn’t help the development of tingling goosebumps across his skin. This had been a terrible idea. That brief moment of initiative had fled and was replaced by a crippling panic that almost made him fling the wretched cell across the room, but–

  It rang again. This time, Akahoshi picked up instantly.

  “Hello?”

  “Mmhmm-”

  His linguistics check failed; nothing resembling a real word came out of his mouth, but the man on the line bulldozed through anyway.

  “It took you long enough to pick up! I’ve been calling since the sun rose! Do you understand how disrespectful the way you’re treating me is, or are you so drunk and lazy, the thought didn’t even enter your head? Are you drunk right now? Are you able to comprehend the words I’m trying to say to you?”

  “No,” he said weakly. “Look….look, man…is this about the rent?”

  “You’re damn right it’s about the rent! You’re a real genius, you know that? Two entire days there’s been a noticeable lack of transfers to my bank account. The only reason I haven’t already posted an eviction notice for you is because I know that you wouldn’t have opened that letter either!”

  “...”

  He hated a lot of things about that sentence.

  The fact that his landlord has such a perception of what kind of man he was. The fact that he was no more and no less that exact kind of man. The fact he was about to be evicted, too.

  “I read the letters.” Starting off with a blatant lie–the only use his letter-opener got these days was prying stubborn lids off beer bottles. “Seriously…I’ve just gotten out of jail.”

  “Since when?”

  “Last week-”

  “Never mind! Plenty of time to get a job!” Once again, Akahoshi’s landlord cut right through his words. “Now that I’ve gotten a hold of you, my patience has run out. There’s only two things I want. Either your rent, or for you to walk out of my apartment building and find a new room to be behind on payments for.”

  Akahoshi’s throat closed up. He didn’t even know where to begin explaining himself.

  There had been a brief guidance session the day before his release. The chair there was so uncomfortable, he’d spent more time rearranging its sad grey pillow than paying proper attention to the woman sitting on the other side of the desk.

  She’d told him he’d qualify for job-seeking assistance up to a month after re-entering civilised society. 13,000 yen entry fee. Papers rustled noisily as she shuffled through them; if he was struggling to maintain a ‘healthy work-life balance’, addiction counselling was a viable option. 18,000 yen per meeting. Once he renewed his NRC license, he could apply for benefits while he sought employment. 25,000 yen late-renewal fee. The prison system could even direct him to training courses to help him build up social skills and trades. Akahoshi stopped counting the price after that.

  Seems like I need a job to afford help getting a job, he’d said. The woman only shrugged, spread her hands. That’s just what the guidelines say. She hadn’t been trained to offer comfort.

  He hadn’t looked through any of the leaflets they sent him off with.

  “If you just let me get myself out there, I’ll do my best. Please? M’not trying to duck you here.”

  “Say whatever you want, Akahoshi. Just put the money in my damn bank. One more week, yeah?”

  With a derisive sigh the line went dead and Akahoshi’s ears were blasted by the following high-pitched tone, making him flinch away from the phone.

  One more week….

  Saying that he felt absolutely pathetic would be an understatement. He didn’t even feel much at all about the prospect of homelessness. It was tempting to abandon this landfill of an apartment right now and leave the burden of cleanup on his landlord, run out of the door and onto the open road where he’d either travel to somewhere that was miraculously desperate enough to hire unskilled alcoholics with a criminal record; or he’d be run over by a truck.

  That was also an idea to think about. Akahoshi shuffled back to the sofa, dug around underneath it and put his hand into something mouldy until he came out with an unopened bottle of sake and untwisted the cap with weak wrists that wouldn’t stop shaking.

  I need a job by next week, but if things go as badly as I expect, I can always just kill myself.

  Even if he survived being hit by a truck, the emergency services wouldn’t treat him without a renewed NRC card, so he’d be dead eventually either way.

  That makes things a bit easier, I guess.

  Tongue now coated in a film of cheap alcohol, Akahoshi faceplanted onto the worn sofa cushions and stayed there.

  Akahoshi didn’t notice he had fallen back asleep, not until he was reawoken hours later. It was the middle of the night now, an oddly clear night for Namato, judging by the bright white streak of moonlight falling through his glass balcony doors. The dust in the air glowed like miniature diamonds in the light.

  His neck had almost melted into the cushions. He stirred a little, and it creaked when he tried to look up.

  But it didn’t break. A pity.

  Akahoshi rolled off the sofa ungracefully and the filthy boards met the full weight of his withered body with great eagerness. The shock stunned him; he lay still a moment trying to breathe with lungs that felt like they’d been reversed over by a truck.

  Uhhgh….uh…god…I feel so awful. Unsurprisingly given his malnourished state, Akahoshi struggled at first to support his weight with both hands, and he trembled terribly as he lifted himself, gripping onto the furniture’s arm, knees hitting one another with little clicks.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Speaking of small noises, he realised he had been woken by a small noise. It was a strange tapping and scratching as if a small creature, or perhaps an owl, had found purchase on the balcony and was trying to get in.

  Well. Akahoshi wasn’t a coward when it came to wildlife, but he existed somewhere on the lower end of the scale between ‘Steve Irwin’ and ‘please come and kill this spider for me!’. He didn’t think he was up to fighting off some rabid bird if it had smelled the stale food from outside and intended to duel him for it.

  The odd noise changed, and he frowned. It was louder now. A soft, almost imperceptible hum.

  It sounded more like a generator than an animal. Maybe someone’s window had just been opened, or a car far down below was revving its engine. But no–it was too even and close for that, unless something in his apartment had turned itself on somehow. That too was impossible–Akahoshi hadn’t paid the electric bill since he’d been released. He hadn’t done very much at all.

  He took a hesitant step forward, dressed in nothing but his worn boxers, trying to pick his way across the mess on the floor. Across from him the frosted doors of his balcony flickered, the moonlight coming and going erratically as clouds chased the stars for a place in the sky. The hairs on the back of Akahoshi’s sallow neck began to stand up.

  There was something strange in the air of the apartment. Akahoshi had spent more than enough time rotting there to get used to the usual atmosphere–and something had just changed, seconds ago. A strange, warm feeling in his stomach, a curious haze in the air.

  Was he dying? He vaguely recalled hearing stories of how heart attack victims reported feeling senses of impending doom right before their arteries seized up. It would be a long overdue occurrence for his heart to give out now after years of party drugs and drinking himself into the inside of an alleyway dumpster.

  Akahoshi clutched at his side, fingers scrabbling over the hills and valleys of his prominent ribs as he gripped the wall for stability.

  “Ah…oh, am I gonna die?” he croaked out loud, trying to breathe steadily. But despite the looming threat of his own mortality Akahoshi still felt oddly calm, like the rising panic was contained in a brain somewhere removed from his own.

  It seemed like he wasn’t dying after all. His heart pounded, strong and rapid.

  Slowly removing his hand from his skin, Akahoshi slowly began to feel across the wall, making his cautious way to the balcony doors. It was really a ridiculous amount of drama for an unexplained electrical hum. Only, that bizarre mix of calmness and anxiety he couldn’t place was starting to give Akahoshi a stomach-ache.

  He investigated the toaster with suspicion. The appliance had been tossed aside a week or so ago when he was caught up in a drunken rage, and it had already gained a heavy coating of dust.

  Akahoshi placed his hand upon it. The dust puffed up, making a miniature cloud in the perfectly still air, and he could feel the metal humming.

  Oh. His body sagged with relief. It was just the toaster, somehow turning itself on, maybe from a power surge (he knew nothing of electronics). That was all. He could do with a calming cigarette after this, to make up for the unexpected scare.

  He fumbled to the outlet, which was also so grimy it was almost invisible on the stained wallpaper, and felt about to the switch, flipping it with his thumb.

  The toaster powered on.

  “What the fuck?” he exclaimed reflexively, jerking his hand back and shakily reaching to turn the light on. That turned on too. The hum hadn’t changed at all, still right at the very back of his mind.

  Akahoshi was beginning to feel weird with fear. None of this should have been happening from the beginning; his apartment shouldn’t have had any electricity, and the noise didn’t abate, even when he quickly turned everything off once more.

  Plunged back into darkness, his eyes took a moment to readjust, vision bleeding back in chunks.

  Did I take something laced? No, no way. No…I haven’t left home in three days. He’d had worse hallucinations than this, after all. Hallucinations. I’m going crazy ‘cause I haven’t eaten. That’s why.

  He cast a wary glance all around the room, trying to see if anything looked blatantly like a figment of his imagination. But no, it was all normal. Only his feelings, his primal instinct, were bucking and rearing, and Akahoshi didn’t believe in things like premonition. He was hardly a high enough ability rank to dream of those kinds of skills.

  When he flicked his eyes to the balcony once more, he realised something was casting a shadow through the clouded glass.

  He couldn’t tell what it was, only that something was perched on the railings, and it was large and dark.

  Akahoshi began shuffling forward faster, no longer caring about the detritus under his soft soles, tiny chips of class cutting into the skin and the damp rug a sudden cold chill to his senses. That chill shot right up his spine and nestled in the back of his skull, like a block of ice held to his head, dripping freezing sweat back down his neck in rivulets.

  He wasn’t sure if he really wanted to open the doors, but something pulled him along regardless.

  Akahoshi struggled, for a moment, almost too weak to even turn the handle, but after a moment it groaned and more dust spilled from the rusted, aching hinges.

  He was entirely unaware of the new trajectory his fate would go once he pushed the old doors open, letting a sudden gust of cold air into the flat.

  A boy.

  “..?.”

  A boy.

  “...!”

  A BOY.

  There was a boy perching on his balcony.

  Akahoshi’s tongue went dry. He lived twelve stories up from the ground, and there wasn’t a thing to climb for at least five of them; no drains, no ladders, no interconnecting rails or easy footholds; and this person was perfectly balancing on the rails that were barely big enough to support the arches of his feet as if it was nothing.

  He didn’t speak, just stared.

  Then he opened his mouth and croaked, “Who the fuck are you?”

  The boy only smiled.

  He was almost naked; that was the first feature that Akahoshi truly processed. He wore nothing more than a small grey loincloth, like he had just tied the nearest scrap of fabric over himself. His bared skin was…a little difficult to describe, if Akahoshi were to be honest. Something about it, whiter than smoothly-carved marble, seemed to shimmer in the moonlight, as if he were coated in metallic glitter dust.

  The rays flared out from behind his long white hair like a halo, obscuring the details of his face–but Akahoshi could clearly make out two piercing pale-blue eyes, like the dying flicker of a lighter.

  Oh, what the hell? He’s beautiful.

  That sense of peace and love pounded in Akahoshi’s chest again.

  His nose filled with the smell of magnetism and metal as he inhaled a deep breath.

  “I said who are you?” he repeated, quieter, all the posturing and energy leaking from his tone.

  “If you…if you’re a, a, a fuckin’ NCO, anyone, if I owe you something–” He was grasping at straws now, choosing all of the least likely options. “–take whatever you want, I don’t care anymore.” Sagging against the wall he whispered, “Don’t care about it. Just…”

  The boy parted his rich, full lips, stopping Akahoshi in his tracks.

  “Do you want a job, Shimeda Akahoshi?”

  His voice…Akahoshi’s hands tingled and a rush of sudden unknown emotion overtook him at his voice. It was so soft, alluring, kindly, understanding; it was the kind of voice that therapists wished they could have. It was a dangerous voice to hear next to you in bed, rolling over to press your face into the pillow as you steeled yourself to keep your mouth closed and your heart tightly shut.

  The balcony invader tilted his head to the side until his dead-straight white hair fell down, strands catching haphazardly on his facial features and bare slender shoulders. They almost looked like pieces of filament.

  “Wait, a- a job?”

  The actual meaning packaged in the boy’s siren song suddenly settled in. And then–

  “How’d you know? And– How the hell do you know my name?”

  That almost settled the debate whether this was all a hallucination, in Akahoshi’s mind. The only situation where he would be visited by someone supernaturally beautiful like this was in the last throes of a high. Maybe this gruelling week had all been a dream, a stupor from which he would soon awake from, back in his prison bunker.

  That would be nice, he reflected.

  “It’s okay,” murmured the boy, snapping Akahoshi back from his reverie. Slowly, with the grace and elegance of a ballet dancer, he began to slide onto the balcony floor, making only the slightest noise. It was as if he were completely weightless.

  Akahoshi noted that he cast a shadow beneath himself. Nothing he’d ever stared at on the ceiling while tripping had ever done that, though there was always a first time for everything.

  “There are a lot of things you don’t need to worry about,” he continued gently, and reached out a pale, slender arm that shone with the pallor of a statue in the washed-out moonlight. When he made contact with Akahoshi’s arm, he was struck by the boy’s intense, almost corpselike chill.

  There it was again. That low-pitched, deep, hum that Akahoshi felt more in his bones than he did in his conscious hearing. It was stronger now, and yet he couldn’t really bring himself to react to it. These were too many bizarre things at once to comprehend with his starved, exhausted brain.

  “I know your name because I’ve been called to help you,” the boy whispered. “My name is Yugi. I’m an angel.”

  An angel.

  Yugi’s icy fingertip was stealing away all of Akahoshi’s rational thought. He almost felt like he could fall asleep right here, swaying on his feet.

  “Was that you, turnin’ on my electricity?” he rasped. Stupid question–who else could it be? He supposed that if angels existed, and furthermore were able to bypass his utility bills, that was a good enough miracle for him.

  Yugi nodded. “Do you see now?” he asked. “Do you believe my words?”

  Slowly, Yugi began to trace a circle into Akahoshi’s arm, punctuating his words as he leaned in a little closer.

  “And, I know how much it all hurts. You are lonely… you are depressed… you have no savings, no friends, no job, and no will. All alone, hardly able to even answer the phone. And only twenty-six. What a tragedy, a spark so quickly put out.”

  So he’s been watching me, Akahoshi realised uncomfortably, choosing to ignore how the angel’s words all sounded like one big insult. Knows my age, knows my name...

  “I can change all of that for you. What if you had a purpose? Companions, stability, a better home? Protection?” Yugi paused there, finger stilling for emphasis. Then, lingering delicately over the two-syllable word, he added:

  “Money?”

  That, of all the aforementioned perks, was what made Akahoshi look up, his dry eyes focusing on Yugi once more.

  “Money,” he repeated, and the smile that didn’t reach his eyes spread across Yugi’s face.

  “How…much?”

  “One million yen a month.”

  Akahoshi felt the breath once more knocked out of him, though this time not by falling out of bed.

  By itself, one million yen wasn’t the highest payment he’d ever been offered. It wasn’t freakishly rich, nor was it the kind of money he’d usually accept for a mysterious job offer out of the blue. But per month? Twelve million yen a year?

  With that kind of salary, he wouldn’t even need to pay back his landlord. He could run away, just like he’d planned earlier–but instead of standing still in front of a truck, he could buy a whole new place, all for himself, clean and luxurious.

  He suddenly saw a vivid image in front of his eyes; of him lounging on a freshly cleaned couch, women with large breasts and scanty new-age fashion clinging to his arm, an unlimited supply of every vice and substance and whim he’d ever dreamed of– no more chasing old dreams of starring on the screen, like when he was a fresh-faced young man just eighteen years old, scraping together coins.

  And...it sounded just realistic enough to be true.

  But maybe, if Yugi really was an angel, he’d disavow things like sex and drugs and drink. Hazily he tried to recall something, anything concrete about western biblical scriptures, but he couldn’t think of anything specific he would be waiving.

  “Is there…a rule?” Akahoshi asked faintly. “On… what I can spend it on..?”

  The knowing eyebrow-twitch that passed over Yugi’s face gave Akahoshi the distinct and uncomfortable feeling that he knew what the other man had been daydreaming of.

  “How you spend your time is of no consequence to me,” he answered. “Only that you act under God’s eye with total devotion and obedience.”

  It was all beginning to sound like something Akahoshi should have been considering with a clear head and a meal in his stomach, not now at almost four in the morning. But that shining offer was stuck at the tip of his tongue, filtering all his further words.

  “Yeah?...Then, uh, what do you want me to do…?”

  It was almost completely sealed. All that was missing was an audible, verbal yes.

  But it’s so uncomfortable…it’s like he already knows what I’m gonna say. Like he can see my thoughts. Do I even need to ask him anything out loud?

  For the first time, the immobile skin around Yugi’s doe eyes softened.

  “You’ll see. Nothing will happen with me that you won’t have the strength to overcome.”

  That wasn’t a functional answer at all.

  When he finally pulled away, Akahoshi shuddered. The sudden loss of that reassuring, gentle touch made him wobble.

  “Y….ye….yeah,” he finally rasped out.

  “I do want it. I don’t care wh-what I gotta do. I need- money. So bad. You have no idea,” he said, even though Yugi probably did.

  “I’ll do anything.”

  Yugi began slowly to climb back upon the balcony railing. He moved with perfect, mathematically beautiful precision. If someone were to calculate the vectors of his movements, it felt like every result would be an even round number.

  “If you remain willing by tomorrow morning…” the pale angel crooned.

  Akahoshi opened his mouth to warn him, but felt it snap uselessly shut a moment later. Yugi seemed perfectly at ease a few hundred feet above the ground, and it almost felt idiotic to even breathe a word against it.

  “Then give me a call.”

  And with that, he disappeared. Briefly he looked like a glass copy of himself, semi-transparent, with the suddenly blinding moonlight washing over Akahoshi’s face and flashing his eyesight into oblivion–and then he slipped down from the balcony, and was gone.

  He left behind a strong smell of hot metal, and a fluttering piece of paper, upon which was a neatly written cell number.