Jiro watched the girl with blonde highlights return to her friends. It was her turn to serve. She did it like a pro, with a dash and a jump. Her muscular body arched in the air and then snapped, like an archer releasing a bow. The ball hit sand and spun off at an awkward angle, rolling in Jiro’s direction. It bounced several times before stopping just short of Jiro’s foot.

The girl in the red bikini ran over to Jiro, kicking up sand with her strong, tan legs. Then she squatted down right by his foot, giving Jiro a generous flash of her bikini line. He looked away.

“Hi,” she said.

Jiro cleared his throat. “Hi.”

“I haven’t seen you around here.”

He turned to face her.

“I’m, um … New here. Three days.”

“You’re a half? You don’t look fully Japanese. And you speak with a bit of an accent.”

He nodded. “Canadian.”

The girl shifted slightly. Then she slipped a finger into her bikini bottoms, where her muscular legs met her pelvis. She tugged at the fabric, straightening it out with a snap.

Jiro cleared his throat again.

“If you’re looking for a tan line,” she said. “You won’t find one.”

“What?” He looked up. She was staring straight into his eyes, with a little smiling playing at the edge of her mouth. “I didn’t quite catch that …”

“Oh nothing.” The girl grabbed the volleyball and stood up. “How are you enjoying the view?”

“Huh? Oh, yes. It’s very nice. The waves. The beach. Wonderful weather we’re having to—”

“You know what I mean.”

“Huh?”

Not one time had her eyes left his. “I caught you peeking,” she said. “And I just wanted to let you know.”

And with that, she ran off, back to the volleyball net, as if she had not spoken to Jiro at all.

Jiro watched her go. Was it ok for a woman to be that confident? That challenging? She must be an athlete of some sort. Only athletes could be that confident. Athletes, or sociopaths. He put a hand on his stomach. He would have to do some sit-ups. The girl had abs stolen straight out of a magazine.

He pushed the thought away. He was here to think about money, not abs or panty lines. Where could they get the funds to fix the bathhouse? He had none—the plane ticket to Japan had cost him everything he had. And the other staff members didn’t look rich either. They’d also probably rather cut their own bellies than do Jiro any favors.

Lost in his thoughts, it took Jiro some time to notice the woman swimming in the water, heading toward the volleyball players. He blinked. Where had she come from? There was nothing in that direction but a sheer rock cliff. And the way this woman swam was strange: she was not moving her arms or kicking her legs. It was like someone, or something, was propelling her under the surface.

When the woman reached the shore, she stepped out slowly, as if climbing a staircase. She was wearing some kind of glossy blue fabric that rippled in the sunlight. Spandex, perhaps? Or sequins of some kind? What a strange swimsuit, thought Jiro. From far away, it almost looked like it was made of scales … The woman had approached the girl in the red bikini and seemed to be saying something. Were they friends? Relatives? Either way, it was none of his business.

Jiro slid down onto the sand, rest his back against the warm rock, and closed his eyes. The only option was to take out a loan. That was what adults did, wasn’t it? Take out loans? But who would give them money? With finances this bad, no respectable bank would risk a single yen. Some sort of illegal funding then? Some yakuza group? For once, Jiro wished he had cared more about Japanese culture growing up. Other than the language, which he had been forced to speak at home, he knew next to nothing about the country or its curious ways.

He rolled over in the sand onto his side and closed his eyes. This was ridiculous. Why use so much brain power for a bathhouse that wasn’t even his? For people he didn’t care about? The real solution to this problem wasn’t money. It was to run away.

That was how Jiro had always solved his problems. Some people said running away meant loose ends. That it only made life harder in the future. Jiro didn’t think so. It was just a matter of how far you ran. You had to outrun the complications. He sighed. That was why he had come to Japan, no? This was as far from the complications as he could get.

Jiro yawned again. He had hardly slept from the jet lag. He could hear the girls squealing over their game of volleyball (the men he conveniently ignored). So nice, to hear girls playing and laughing. But the way these girls laughed was a bit strange, Jiro thought, already half asleep. It almost sounded like they were screaming …

He was back in Canada. And there she was, leaning over his school desk, dark curls pooling on the wood surface. Misha the terrible. Misha the cruel. Misha who loved to make promises but loved breaking them even more. She was leaning low, like she always had, to give him a peek of her bra underneath her school uniform. But today, she wore no bra.

“Jiro,” she whispered, leaning so close that her lips nearly touched his. “Jiro. Jiro. Jiro.” He could feel her wet breath on his lips. While she spoke, she ran her fingers over his desk, stroking it, caressing it, as if the desk were not made of wood but of Jiro’s own flesh.

Jiro sucked in his breath. “Misha, what …”

“Shh..”

She put a finger to his lips. Almost touching him, but not quite. Not quite close enough to sneeze. He tried to lean away from her. But his body would not move.

“We’ll always be together, right Jiro?” Misha whispered. “Always together, whatever happens.”

Jiro tried to say something, but no sounds came out of his mouth.

“Why don’t you answer me, Jiro? Didn’t you promise? Jiro, Jiro, Jiro …” Misha was reaching out toward him now. With her hands. Piano hands, almost, but for the long fingernails. Fingernails she loved to paint. But there was something weird about the nails. They were too long. And the fingers were crooked somehow, like the branches of an old tree. The skin was gnarled and wrinkled. Like claws.

Suddenly, hands seized his throat. Squeezing. Crushing. Nails digging into flesh. “Jiro! Jiro!” Misha shouted. He tried desperately to pry off the claws, to gasp for air, but there was no air to breathe. He was dying!

“Arggh!” Jiro woke with a scream, clawing at his neck, trying to get the murderous claws off him. But there were no claws or hands. He had been sleeping face down in the sand.  He sat up. A little crab was crawling over Jiro’s chin as if he just were another rock in the sand.

He pried the crab’s pincers off his neck and looked at it. “Thanks for waking me,” he said. “This really isn’t the time to be sleeping.” Then he whirled the creature over his head and pitched it towards the sea. It landed near one of the volleyball posts, skirted around a ball in the sand, and went on as if nothing had happened.

Jiro blinked. Strange … the players were gone. He couldn’t have slept long. They had been just there, speaking to the strange woman in the blue sparkling swimsuit. And if they had gone home, then why was the volleyball there?

Suddenly curious, he stood up, stretched, and made his way toward the net. Beyond the net, hidden in a little hill of sand, he found a drawstring bag made of Japanese fabric. He looked around. No sight of anyone, except a few cars passing on the main road above. Had one of the players forgotten the bag? And the ball?

He loosened the drawstring and looked inside. A pair of sunglasses, assorted knick-knacks, a thing of lipstick, a handkerchief and … a wallet. Checking again to make sure nobody was watching him, Jiro unzipped the wallet and examined its contents. A few bills, a supermarket point card, a used condom wrapper. And an ID card. The photograph he immediately recognized. The tan muscular girl with the blonde highlights. Miss red bikini.

Jiro struggled to read the kanji characters on the card. Her name was … Aya. Tanimoto Aya. Twenty years old. In the photo she had her tongue out and one eye closed in a wink. That wink again. And people said it was impossible to look good on an ID photo. She sure proved that wrong.

Jiro looked at the wallet. She hadn’t seemed like the type of girl to forget her wallet. Too confident for that. Something fishy was going on.

It took him just a few moments to find it. Nearby, behind some grasses, a pair of footprints led down the beach in the direction of the rocky cliffs. Next to the prints, running along both sides, were several thin trails in the sand.

What could those be? It was as if a team of cyclists had passed by on mountain bikes, following the owner of the footsteps. Or, Jiro thought with a sudden chill, as if someone, or something, had kidnapped poor Tanimoto Aya and her friends and forcefully dragged their bodies away through the sand …