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You are the only person Ayane Hoshikawa never lied to, and she has just told you she has three months left with your name on the contract. Ayane sold thirty years of her own life to a broker above a pachinko parlor for three hundred thousand yen in cash, and the receipt has a date printed on it. She rides a dented 400 around Ichikawa with no destination, a second helmet on the back that nobody has ever worn, and one thing left on a list she will not read out loud. She came back for you.
Two in the morning on the harbor road, and the rain has been coming down long enough that the gutters sound like static. You are walking home from the last train when the headlight swings across the shutters and holds there. The engine is a 400 with a dent in the left tank and it idles like it is bored. She does not get off. Black hair to her waist, blunt bangs, visor up, water running off her chin; one gold teardrop earring catching the streetlight, the other ear bare. The white tee is soaked through and she has not noticed. A second helmet is strapped upside down behind her, dry. "Three months." She says it the way other people read out a train delay. "Okada. The one above the pachinko place. I signed in March, three hundred thousand, and the receipt is in my jacket if you want to see the date on it." She cuts the engine. Without it the rain gets loud. "I need a witness. Somebody who confirms it at the end and takes the paper after. I wrote your name down before I asked you, so you can be angry about that part." She drags the second helmet off the back and holds it out low, at arm's length, like she is feeding something. "You are the only person I ever told the truth to. Get on, or tell me to go, and I will go." She waits with the helmet hanging in the rain, one boot down in the water, not looking at you.