“You called him instead of me?” I posed the question in a slightly offended tone.

Had I not been doing my part of common chores this morning and gazed out of the window just as I washed clean the last part of the floor at the end of the corridor, I wouldn’t have seen a familiar figure fleeting across the gravel road below my building. I wouldn’t have taken the appearance of that figure with such suspicion either, had it not been for the images of the veiled woman, which persisted in my head since I’d woken up and couldn’t be dispelled even by the intense electronic music reverberating at full volume through my earphones.

Various speculations, prompted by these coinciding occurrences, continued to tickle my mind long after I had signed off the chore on the common schedule list and returned to my room. An uneasy sense of boredom and loneliness crept over me as I was lying around on the bed, bolstered by the fact that I was alone in the building on Sunday noon and that whole compound looked like a ghost village. Amidst such thoughts and feelings, I had decided to go to K and, my suspicions proven right, I found the two of them in the hallway, in front of the very apartment in question.

K, who had her ear placed to the door, straightened up upon hearing my voice, while Shin who was squatting next to her gave me a brief look and then resumed his work on the lock.

“Yes,” she answered without any trace of guilt in her voice.

I approached them. “What if it was Fujiwara walking in here instead of me?”

Her eyes, which, I noted, were reddish and tired, rolled up. “We checked. Nobody’s here.”

“Well…” I folded my arms in front of me; “at least you could have notified me.”

“Why?”

“Because it was I that told you about all this.”

She shrugged and pressed her ear to the door again.

A click came from the lock that Shin was poking with a small metallic tool. He nodded towards K and pressed on the doorknob.

“Wait, wait!” I stopped them, placing my hand on the door. Their eyes riveted upon me. “Perhaps, we shouldn’t do that.”

“Huh, Nik san…Yesterday you were all hyped about it.”

“Yes, I know. But if Fujiwara finds out…”

She looked up at me from under her eyebrows and shrugged. “You can…leave.” At that, they both giggled and sneaked in leaving me behind with blatant disregard.

My lips pressed tight I followed them inside.

The apartment resembled that of K in size and layout, but it was emptier, and seemed intact as if nobody lived in it.

“I’m surprised you dare to go against your boss like this,” I whispered to K over her shoulder.

“I live here, so if I got a new neighbour I’d like to know about it,” she replied, tilting her head sideways towards me. I smelled alcohol in her breath. The so-called meeting with coaches must have lasted well into the night.

“By breaking in?...Are you drunk or what?”

My question was met with a frown and would probably get some juicy reply if it wasn’t for a sudden noise that came from a small hallway on the right side of the living room. K and Shin raced towards it, pushing each other and snickering like small kids.

Maybe they’re both drunk.

“Hey, shouldn’t somebody stay at the door?” I called after them in a loud whisper, feeling odd in the role of the responsible person in the group.

Fuck it!

I joined them in the hallway just as Shin opened a door, this time without the help of his tools.

We were met with an unusual sight. The entrance to the room was blocked by a barred door with a thin mesh, like those against the mosquitoes, between the bars. The whole setting, bars and mesh, looked like they were made of gold. The room that extended behind it was simple, with only basic furniture. By the window opposite of the door stood a woman in a blue dress, with long, silvery hair, spread over her back. At our intrusion she didn’t turn or acknowledge us, instead, she kept staring out of the window in an unperturbed, almost stubborn way.

“That’s the woman I saw yesterday!” I spoke my thoughts out loud. The same dress, the same colour of the hair.

Hearing my words, the woman abruptly turned and rushed towards us, stopping at some distance from the door. My mouth dropped open, so surprised I was by her looks. Her round face with pronounced cheekbones looked pinkish against the platinum colour of her hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes. For the first time in my life, I was seeing an albino.

She stared back at us with baffled eyes, which I deemed Asian, but not necessarily Japanese, for they were more round than slanted. The colour of their irises was like the azure blue sea in one of those commercials for some exotic islands, crystal clear and inviting. Just like I was pulled in by K’s eyes when I’d first met her, hers too were mesmerizing in a similar way, only they felt much more invasive, to the point I was glad that there was a golden mesh between us.

She spoke first, in Japanese, her, now pleading stare moving between the three of us.

“What did she say?” I asked, intrigued as hell.

The albino turned to me, repeating her words in Japanese.

“She’s asking to take her out of here,” K said calmly.

“Well… ask her, who is she…why is she here?”

A hiccup escaped K’s mouth, followed by a simpering smile. I clicked my tongue at her and addressed the albino myself, pronouncing my words slowly and clearly: “Who--are-- you?”

She placed her hand on her chest and uttered: “Kagami. Kagami desu.”

I looked at K for translation. Her face scrunched up thought.

“So?” I pressed.

“She said…umm…”

“Kagami,” the albino interjected, tapping her chest. She smiled and nodded her head as if saying this word again would somehow clear things up.

“Kagami, is that your name?” I struggled.

“Mirror...kagami is mirror,” K said, narrowing her eyes on the woman.

“A mirror?” I frowned. “What do you mean?

Our conversation was cut short by voices in the living room. Panic in the azure eyes of the albino, a laudable sigh of resignation by K, and me cursing were all part of the realization that we got caught. A second later the narrow hallway was crowded with three more men in neat suits. I shot K an accusatory glare, which she, her stare pinned somewhere over my head, hardly noticed. If only she and Shin had listened….I looked behind me. Where the fuck was Shin?