Yuzuki Hayashi had always believed the world spoke in metaphors. Tonight it whispered in metrics: seventy-five beats per minute from the pulse in her ear, thirty-seven floors between her penthouse and the neon gutter, and one padded envelope waiting at the security desk with no return address.
She found it at 11:11 p.m., the numbers on the lobby clock glowing like superstitions. The night guard bowed, sliding the parcel across the marble counter.
"Courier said it was 'time-sensitive,' Hayashi-san."
No signature, just a black-wax seal stamped with an abacus glyph—ten beads, one missing.
The elevator ride up felt longer than usual. Every groan of the cables reminded her of deadlines, lawsuits, and the anonymous forum thread claiming her newest novel was plagiarized from an AI ghostwriter she'd never heard of. But tonight, even that scandal seemed faint compared to the envelope's weight.
In her apartment's hush, she sliced the seal with a letter opener shaped like a fountain pen nib.
Inside lay three things:
1. A Polaroid—ten middle-schoolers at a snow-lined playground. They smiled wide, cheeks pink from cold, mittens raised in a group salute. Someone had scratched out the face of a girl standing in the back row.
2. A handwritten note in crimson ink:
We owe what we chose to forget.
¥500,000,000 divided by ten.
Come to Kurokami Retreat — 36°16'42"N 137°37'13"E — on July 7th.
Settle the collective debt or watch your life become collateral.
—The Accruer
3. A one-way train ticket dated three days from now.
Yuzuki stared at the Polaroid until the scratched face seemed to breathe static. She recognized everyone else: Kaito in his oversized baseball jacket; Aiko with her whale-print earmuffs; Haruka wielding the disposable camera; even herself— bangs crooked, grin enormous, grief nonexistent.
The scene was 6 June 2011. The field trip. The day her diary never described because she'd never managed to write it down.
Her doorbell rang.
Three slow chimes. Then silence.
Through the peephole she saw no one, just the quiet hallway and a small, glossy business envelope taped to the wall. Her name, again, in crimson ink. No apartment number—whoever left it knew exactly where she lived.
Inside: a single share certificate for Hayashi Holdings stamped CANCELED and a line of typewritten text.
First installment: ¥2,400,000 deducted at market open.
The share value matched tomorrow's pre-market rumor: her publisher had hinted at terminating her contract if the plagiarism claims caught traction. Panic pressed her lungs flat.
A beep sounded—email notification on her phone.
SUBJECT: Investor Livestream—Room 1024
MESSAGE: Your opening act begins in 8 hours, Muse. Don't oversleep.
She backed away, nearly stumbling over a stack of boxed author copies. The city beyond her floor-to-ceiling windows looked unfazed, but she swore she could see numbers sliding down skyscraper faces like melted ticker tape.
⸻
Two Days Later – Hida Mountains, Gifu Prefecture
Snow in July was either a miracle or a mistake. The taxi's wipers fought sleet as Yuzuki stepped out onto gravel, boots crunching. An iron gate loomed—its archway carved with kanji so weathered only fragments remained: 黒…宿 (Kuro… yado—Black-something Lodge).
Nine other figures huddled beneath the gate's paper lanterns, each lantern flickering between amber and a sickly market-green. One by one, Yuzuki recognized them, older versions of childhood faces:
• Daichi Sato, tailored coat, eyes darting like stock cursors.
• Aiko Watanabe, one earbud in, the other hand pressed to her temple.
• Kaito Fujimoto, jaw tight, duffel bag sporting the Dragons logo.
• Haruka Mori, foundation perfect despite the mountain wind—livestream ring-light clutched like a talisman.
• Jun Nakamura, surgeon's posture, latex gloves protruding from his pocket like blooming lilies.
• Riku Yamamoto, hoodie stitched with cyber-security conference badges.
• Mai Takeda, black turtleneck embroidered with silver constellations.
• Shiori Tsurugi, immaculate white coat, blueprint tube slung over shoulder.
• Tomo Ishikawa, wind-chapped, tapping drumsticks against his thigh in 4/4 to soothe an unseen tremor.
No one spoke "hello." Their silence felt rehearsed, as if they'd already auditioned for terror in separate rooms.
The iron gate groaned open by itself.
Beyond lay a cobblestone path lined with dormant pine. At its end, the lodge: a sprawling Meiji-era timber structure, windows boarded save for one on the top floor glowing crimson—like a live REC dot.
They entered the atrium together. The door slammed shut behind them with pneumatic finality. Lights hissed on, revealing a vaulted ceiling and an antique abacus suspended horizontally like a chandelier. Its jet-black beads clicked on invisible rails, rearranging digits until they formed a stark readout:
¥500,000,000
A mechanical child's voice crackled through hidden speakers—high pitch smeared by static yet undercut by a stock-floor baritone.
"Welcome back, friends. Twelve years, one month, and one day: that is how long you have been in arrears. The ledger opens now."
The abacus beads shifted again. A new digit appeared: –¥2,400,000.
Every head turned toward Yuzuki.
"First deduction acknowledged: patent plagiarism rumor seeded, contract nullified."
Yuzuki's knees buckled. She felt a hand steady her—Aiko's. The sound designer's palm trembled.
"Rule One," the voice intoned. "Debt is settled by friendship games. For each yen earned, an equal yen of damage is inflicted upon a chosen peer's real-world assets, freedom, or relationships."
"Rule Two: The damage is purchased live by our Investors. They watch, they bid, they consume. Their capital fuels the ledger's descent."
Aiko swallowed hard. "Who are the Investors?" she whispered.
"You will come to know them as well as you know yourselves."
On the far wall, a mural-sized LCD screen flickered to life. A livestream appeared: a bustling Tokyo newsroom. The chyron scrolled breaking news of Hayashi Holdings stock plummeting 18 percent pre-market. A headshot of Yuzuki filled the frame, sub-captioned "Plagiarism Scandal Deepens."
Haruka let out a strangled laugh. "It's real… they're already watching."
Tomo's drumming stopped.
"Rule Three," the voice purred. "Refusal to play results in unilateral liquidation—no credit to the pool, no mercy to your life."
The abacus chimed—a sonorous, hollow resonance that seemed to vibrate the marrow in their bones. One final bead on the far right shimmered, translucent, as though forged from ice instead of wood. Its kanji engraved in frost:
記憶 — Memory
At its appearance, Yuzuki tasted metal and felt the sudden absence of something trivial yet intimate: the smell of her grandmother's lilac perfume. It had ghosted from her mind, like a bookmark pulled from a beloved novel.
Kaito clenched his fists. "Enough theater. Who's behind this?"
Lights dimmed, redirecting their gaze to a grand staircase. At its top sat an 11th Polaroid mounted on a mahogany easel. The photo's edges were charred; the image within unburned—but the face was pure static.
A chill passed through the atrium, stirring dust motes that glinted like glitching pixels.
"Game One begins at midnight," the voice said. "Hide-and-Seek with Memories. Prize pool: ¥10,000,000. Penalty: your truest secret sold to the highest bidder."
Daichi checked his Rolex. 11:44 p.m.
Sixteen minutes to choose survival over conscience.
Yuzuki found herself staring at the static-blurred face in the photo. For a heartbeat, the snow in the image seemed to swirl. A childish giggle echoed somewhere behind the walls—brighter than the speaker, too quick to trace. The scent of lilac flickered, then died.
She opened her mouth to speak, but the abacus tolled again, beads clacking in a descending scale that felt like teeth closing on bone. One word reverberated through the speakers—and, impossibly, inside her skull.
"PAY."