Free I Wonder What Human Flesh Tastes Like by Justin Isis

looked at my watch. My break was almost over. As we parted in front of the store, you said:
    — I’m going tanning in Shibuya later. But I don’t have any money. Can I borrow a thousand yen?
    — If you come and see me tomorrow.
    — Okay.
    I gave you the money, not expecting to see you again — but you came back the next day, and the day after. That fourth day you were in uniform, and there was a fresh bruise on the side of your face, the same color as the dark circles under your eyes. That day you showed me a small circular case containing a sparkling golden fluid.
    — What is it? I asked.
    — Gloss. The brand is Aube.
    You applied some to your eyes, and when you blinked a galaxy of shimmering motes settled across your lashes. I reached over to remove a stray one from your cheek, and my hand came away speckled with gold. I looked again at the bruise on your face. What kind of adventures did you have on the streets at night? I never asked, because it was more fun for me to imagine them. Or did the bruise come from your father? You never told me anything in detail, but it was more than I told you of myself. Is that why I’m writing this? Do I hope that, at last, you will understand me?
    Our lunch meetings continued for two weeks. We went to cafes and restaurants, each time moving further away from the bookstore. I gave you money when you asked, because I had nothing else to spend it on. You always brought something new to show me — usually cheap cosmetics, but sometimes a scarf or bracelet or necklace. Every object, no matter how tawdry or worthless, became an offering placed on the shrine to your future self. During these lunches we gave birth to the person you are now, imagining her in every detail. You wanted to look like Shiho Fujita, or a young Tsubasa Masuwaka: Tsubasa’s face, so perfectly inorganic in its assemblage of foundation and false eyelashes, white eyeliner and plastic contact lenses, embodied the mineral kind of beauty you could attain only after numerous trips to salons and the coffin-shaped tanning bed. You wanted to look like girls who attached reality to themselves and mercifully relieved those around them of their own existence.
    Would you believe that when I was younger I also tried to become a different person? I would dye my hair, buy new clothes and then look at old photos of myself, examining them with affected detachment. I imagine Makiko must have gone through a more rigorous version of this process as she made herself into the thing she is now. But for me the feeling of having shed my past never lasted longer than a day, and I lacked any definite ideal to move towards. My mind, my garden, was as bare as it is now. But while I never had any potential, I am convinced you were born with your present self inside you — it only needed to be excavated. In this world there are some who are born beautiful, and others who become beautiful only after great effort. You, like Makiko, are one of the latter; I, unfortunately, am neither. This is not to say that I am ugly — if only that were the case. Ugliness, you will learn, is only a negative form of beauty, and is often a comfort to those for whom conventional pleasures have grown too familiar. My father, for example, is quite remarkable in his ugliness: with his old, lined face, his dull eyes and patchy tan, I could stare at him all day. But I am perfectly average in everything, which is the only true ugliness.
    It was the end of the second week when you first invited me over: a Saturday. We were sitting in Royal Host sharing a salad — the only thing you would eat — and discussing nail art. After a while the conversation stalled. You have a habit of speaking your thoughts abruptly, and you are not, I am afraid, a great conversationalist. But I had come to appreciate your silences, the times when I could hold your gaze, studying the shape of your nose and the upturned corners of your smile. That smile — always practiced and deliberate,