"Huff… huff…"
A cold, summer midnight noise always makes one think of those sounds: when the city falls silent, the chill wind and rain invade the once noisy streets.
Kume Chinatsu ran stumblingly, mascara and makeup smeared by fearful tears and the biting rain into a blurred halo — she looked utterly disheveled.
By day she was the campus star, a small-time idol with a devoted crowd always around her. Because of that, she'd never lacked a sense of security; living like a favored celebrity had made her careless.
She shouldn't still be out so late…
Regret chased through her mind, but it did nothing to help her present predicament. The alley that seemed so familiar in daylight now exuded only a menacing dread.
Is this still Tokyo? Is this still the world I knew?
Her shouts and cries for help cut through the rain but faded with no reply. There were apartment blocks everywhere — so why was not a single person awake?
Only the sound of collision came from behind her!
The crazed man's face was contorted; he swung a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire wildly at anything in his path. The clash of metal was so harsh it scraped at the nerve, stirring a primordial fear that crept into Kume's eardrums and made her heart hang in her throat.
"Help! Help! Is anyone awake? Anyone!"
Panicked and directionless, Kume Chinatsu darted into a narrow alley lit by a single lamp. Dim streetlights flickered intermittently; izakaya signs on both sides gave off soft light into the deep, rainy night.
She saw — clearly — a tall man bending to turn off a sign. His proper features were swallowed by shadow.
A person! A person! "Help! Help!"
"Bang!"
"Ah!!"
She barely dodged the madman's swing. Her backpack snagged on the barbed wire, tore open; makeup and textbooks spilled all over the ground. She dropped the bag and ran into the darkness.
He hadn't responded. He hadn't said anything. But he had to be human! Anyone would do — please, just save me!
Then the sign suddenly lit again.
Kume froze.
What had appeared in the alley was not human at all.
A towering, cherry-pink sheen. A hulking figure with a round, rotund body… nearly two meters tall, a ridiculous, terrifying creature stepped into the alley. Its black, featureless eyes — if they could be called eyes — stared fixedly at Kume Chinatsu.
Its limbs were laughably cylindrical. Its rolling arms and legs might've looked cute in another setting, but here they only amplified the uncanny.
Was it an… egg? No. A capsule? No. It was a… ridiculous, horrifying, sugar-bean-like monster. Kume held her breath.
A pink, nearly two-meter-tall burly Sugar Bean Man blocked the alley.
Behind him was the madman with the barbed-wire bat; ahead of him stood an entity beyond human comprehension. This thing's shape could not be replicated by someone stuffing themselves into a mascot suit — it looked like it had stepped straight out of some grotesque urban legend or a horror game. This was a real monster.
As Kume stared in shock, the tall, pink Sugar Bean Man in the depths of the alley moved. "Thud! Thud!"
His comically cylindrical feet stomped the ground with heavy tremors; the earth itself quivered as he charged like a walking nightmare.
Kume's fragile courage shattered. The surreal tableau pulverized every stale belief she'd held for fifteen years.
A murder scene caught! Chased by a madman! A city where nobody seems awake! And — a Sugar Bean Man charging at her!
He's coming ahhhhhh!!!
With no time or will to resist, Kume finally closed her eyes in resignation. Help!!
A soft, round hand gently shoved her aside. She fell with a thud, and heavy footsteps passed by and receded.
The madman screamed, "Die!" Then the whoosh of the bat.
But another sound — more sudden, faster, weightier — blasted through. Kume forced her eyes open.
The terrifying Sugar Bean Man had swung his ridiculous fist. In that instant, his rotund arm ballooned into a bulging, muscular limb — still a tender pink — and met the bat with raw force.
"Clang!!!"
The clash of metal and flesh was deafening; the impact made teeth ache. Kume clapped her hands over her ears. The bat bent into an impossible curve under inhuman power.
The killer froze for a moment — then the Sugar Bean Man raised both arms, both now brimming with muscle, forming fists and bringing them down on the madman.
Kume squeezed her eyes shut again. "Huff— crack!"
As one might expect, gore exploded outward; the sound of viscera spraying filled the ear like a B-movie special-effects soundtrack.
Kume opened her eyes to a grisly sight.
The cherry-red Sugar Bean Man still had his arm extended in a punching pose, standing motionless. The madman before him had no head; the neck bulged, gray bone protruding, spotted with dark red and black — scalp, perhaps?
He — had he punched the madman's head… into his chest?
A violent nausea almost made her vomit. The Sugar Bean Man seemed to be performing some strange ritual. A thin, black vapor seeped from the madman's body and flowed into the Sugar Bean Man's face — Kume couldn't see it clearly from her angle, but she felt the substance entering his eyes.
The black vapor was slowly absorbed. A terrible foreboding flooded her chest.
The Sugar Bean Man's arms returned to their rolling, rounded shape. He straightened, chest smeared in blood, and slowly turned his head.
Those empty, indifferent eyes — like those of a lamb about to be slaughtered — fixed on Kume Chinatsu.
The predatory gaze seemed to lick over her entire body, measuring whether she was worth saving.
"Ah, ahhhhh!"
A fierce will to live surged and she bolted deeper into the alley, flinging the horror behind her and toward the human world.
The Sugar Bean Man stopped, watching her vanish into darkness — toward human reality. After a long moment he scratched his head with his ridiculous arm.
"Huh, what's up with kids these days — not even a 'thank you'?"
The cherry-pink exterior faded. A plain-looking man stood in the alley where the sugar-bean form had been. He bent, picked up a student ID card scattered on the ground.
"Yo, same school. Not bad."