Kokoro walks into the bedroom holding a tray with a stack of pancakes and two mugs of coffee. As though sensing her presence, Aika stirs and opens her eyes, squinting at the morning light seeping through the curtains. Birds chirp in the trees outside her Tokyo apartment. Her temples throb with a dull pain. It’s only a slight hangover. It’s nothing coffee can’t fix.
Aika is no nun, but her rock-star lifestyle gradually gave way to a more quiet and domestic mode of existence when she met Kokoro. Much to her surprise, and everyone else’s, Aika fell in love.
“I hope you’re hungry,” Kokoro says with a smile.
“Oh, yeah.” With a lion-like growl, Aika throws back her mane of disheveled hair. “I’m starving.” She sits up and stretches her arms above her head with a yawn.
Kokoro sets down the tray and climbs into bed beside her. The buttery aroma of pancakes tickles Aika’s nose.
“You spoil me, Kokoro.” Aika leans forward and kisses Kokoro on the cheek. Her skin is warm against her lips, and Aika can smell cinnamon.
“I’m your bodyguard, remember? It’s my job to take care of you.” Kokoro wraps an arm around her, and Aika closes her eyes, breathing deep and slow.
“It was a great idea to mix business with pleasure,” Aika mumbles. “It almost feels like a dream.” She opens her eyes and smiles.
“I love you, Aika.” Kokoro tightens her hold, and Aika is grateful: she’s so happy, so buoyant, she’d probably float all the way to the ceiling without Kokoro’s embrace.
Trained to be modest and unassuming, Kokoro hardly attracts a second look. Even so, there’s something endearing about her dimpled chin and her heart-shaped face framed with short cropped hair.
Aika flips on the TV, and a young couple comes on the screen, a melodramatic tune swelling in the background. They race toward a toddler and embrace her. The camera slip-pans and rests on a shot of a bespectacled, gray-haired woman in a white lab coat. She smiles and introduces herself as Dr. Ishikawa. Bold-lettered captions appear in the middle of the screen: “Tokyo Center for Family Cloning. The World Leader in Cloning Your Loved Ones.”
“Cloning?” Kokoro straightens.
Aika frowns and rests her head on Kokoro’s shoulder. “Humans are not pets, you know.”
“I’m not sure.” She cards her fingers through Aika’s hair, stroking the side of her face, and Aika feels more like a tabby cat than a lion. She softly purrs, melting into the simple touch.
The sun caresses them, and when Aika glances up, Kokoro’s eyes sparkle. She feels like a sappy schoolgirl.
“I love you,” Aika says. “I’d still love you even if you were a clone.”
Kokoro’s sudden laugh catches her off guard, yet takes her breath away.
Opposites attract. Nothing could more perfectly describe them. Aika’s larger-than-life presence sucks the air out of the room. Kokoro, on the other hand, fades into the background like a chameleon.
On stage, Aika shines, sparkles, and bursts. Her sweat-drenched mane of bright red hair dances like a shishi-mai lion. As she gyrates, making love to her microphone stand, beads of sweat fly through the air. Her unofficial moniker, “Rock Goddess,” has stuck with her. Screeching mobs of teenagers often storm the venues. Flower bouquets and plush animals are hurled toward her. She dives into the seas of screaming fans. Her body floats across human waves in the darkness. Like sharp teeth, dozens of hands rip her T-shirt into pieces, and she emerges half naked. Her wink sends girls into a swoon. Afterward, the arenas smell like sex.
After breakfast, they take a cab to the office downtown. Sakurai, her manager-cum-agent, greets Aika, but ignores Kokoro as he strokes his salt-and-pepper goatee. When they sit around a horseshoe-shaped table, he hands Aika a bundle of fan mail. She shuffles the scented, handwritten letters in disinterest before tossing them on the table. She autographs her photos, and Kokoro puts them in envelopes.
“What is this?” Aika holds a piece of paper bearing cut-out letters. It reads: You’re dead. “Nice, huh?” Sakurai’s face screws up, but Aika waves off his concern. “No big deal. What else is new?”
“Every threat must be taken seriously.” Kokoro tightens her mouth, gently puts her hand on Aika’s arm, and gives it a soft squeeze.
***
Despite such a threat, the show must go on. A few weeks later, Aika opens for a large-draw U.S. rock band touring Japan.
When she croons a final lyric—the note floating in the air—Aika looks out into the crowd with a beatific grin. In the front row, nubile girls wearing T-shirts depicting her likeness sway as though in a trance. Drinks spill as they’re lifted to the sky. The crowd chants for an encore, and Aika smiles, looking over at her drummer. He twirls his sticks, and he nods to her, an infectious joy in his eyes.
Aika sets the microphone back in its stand, gesturing for her band to start again. She almost doesn’t notice the quick flash in her periphery. The young man climbs onto the stage and lifts his gun in a robotic manner.
“You’re dead,” he mumbles, his face an unreadable enigma. Time slows to a crawl. Screams erupt, but they’re all underwater. Muffled. Far away. Everything seems to be in slow motion. But of course, it isn’t. Kokoro flies toward Aika and tackles her. They tumble and collapse together.
A security guard tears into the young man. His gun slides across the stage floor and hits an amplifier. Two burly colleagues grab the young man and drag him off.
“Are you okay, Aika?” Sakurai’s hoarse voice booms from above.
“I’m okay.” Aika touches her chest. Something wet and sticky covers her fingers. A flickering light illuminates her upper body. It’s blood, but not hers. She’s still sore from the fall, but she isn’t hurt.
“Kokoro!” Aika cries as she struggles out from under Kokoro.
Aika cups Kokoro’s cheeks with bloody hands. The screams recede, the whole world recedes, and she tries to say, “I love you,” but her lips are cold.
“It’s my job to protect you.” Kokoro’s faint smile fades away.
As the light goes out in Kokoro’s eyes, Aika kisses her bloody lips as though to revive her. The paramedics yank her off, and her own wails fill her ears. Her vision goes dark. A few hours later, she wakes in a hospital bed to the sound of feet shuffling in the hallway.
***
Shortly after Kokoro’s funeral, a pandemic hits Tokyo. Aika’s life, like everyone else’s, grinds to a halt.
The lockdown forces Aika to go acoustic. Now in her living room, she sings with a guitar during her weekly virtual concerts. When she closes her eyes, she can still picture the howling crowds. When she opens her eyes, she’s still trapped in her apartment. Alone. Sometimes she feels like a defanged lion.
Almost every night, Aika cries herself to sleep. She still sleeps on her side of the bed. Kokoro is so vivid in her dreams Aika can almost touch her. Yet when morning comes, she’s alone again. By the wall-to-wall windows of Aika’s apartment, a potted dracaena stretches itself as tall as possible, soaking up the abundant sunlight. The coffee pot bubbles to a boil, and the aroma of coffee fills the crisp morning air. On the windowsill, Kokoro smiles next to Aika in a framed photo. Kokoro rarely smiled even when they were alone. Dressed in grayish black, Kokoro looked nondescript. Even plain. Aika is visually aflame. A flowing red mane frames her face, and her attire is an elaborate snapshot of her whole being. Aika begged Kokoro to smile as she held up her phone and took a selfie. Kokoro refused to kiss her, even a chaste peck, on camera. Tears threaten to burst forth again, clouding her vision.
“I can’t believe you’re gone, sweetie.” Aika forces a smile.
Aika gets up and puts on a DVD of her concert in Osaka.
A bird’s eye shot of the arena triggers the memory of their meet-cute. That night, as Aika headed backstage, she saw a girl in a security uniform. That struck Aika as odd. Last time she had performed at the same venue, all of the security guards were burly men. Aika gestured for her to follow. She’d often pluck a fan out of the crowd, mess around with her, and unceremoniously dump her. I’m a star, damn it. I always get what I want. A snap of my fingers. That’s all it takes.
“Crazy, isn’t it?” Aika said as they stepped inside her dressing room.
“Is it always like this?”
“Yeah. It never gets boring, though.”
“Furukawa-san—”
“Don’t call me that.” Aika frowned. “Call me Aika. Everybody does.”
“Okay then. Aika. Is that your real name?”
“Sure. The kanji my parents gave me means ‘love song.’ They dabbled in music back in the day. They met in college and played in a band for a while. But they had to quit and get regular jobs when they got pregnant with me. You know how it goes.” Aika glanced at the girl’s name tag pinned to her chest.
“So, Kokoro. You don’t talk much, do you?”
Kokoro remained silent.
“What got you into this line of work?”
“The family business. I come from a long line of ninjas.”
“You’re a ninja, too? No kidding. I had no idea you were still around.”
“We keep a low profile. We don’t go telling people what we do.”
“I see.” Frivolity was abundant among Aika’s groupies. Yet she, at least a part of her, longed for something else.
Impatient knocks pounded on the door. “Come in. It’s open.”
Sakurai stepped in, looking pale. “A bomb threat this time.” He threw up his hands in despair. “Aika, this is no joke. We’ve gotta bump up our security.”
“Then hire her.” Aika pointed her chin toward Kokoro. “She’s a ninja. Don’t we all need one?” Her voice exuded a regal authority. She wouldn’t take no for an answer.
***
Amid the long procession of indistinguishable days, Aika bats away her torment. Moral questions? Screw them. Money can’t buy happiness, they say. If that’s so, she’ll settle for its approximation. She’s worked her ass off. Her erstwhile ability to pack concert halls and arenas can attest to that. Surely, she’s earned the right to indulge her needs.
As Aika steps out of a black sedan, bright white flashes assail her. Sakurai glares at the masked paparazzi and ushers her into a nondescript building. Triggered by the bright lights, Kokoro’s death floods back into Aika’s mind, making her stagger. Her vision goes crimson, and the sour taste of blood fills her mouth. Sakurai places his hand on her shoulder to steady her. Aika wishes it were Kokoro’s hand. No one can replace her Kokoro.
Inside an immaculate, antiseptic office, the round clock on the wall ticks off seconds. Aika fidgets in her chair as Dr. Ishikawa leans over her uncluttered desk and hands her a folder. She flips open the folder and pulls out several documents.
“Why clone?” Dr. Ishikawa pauses and pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose.
“I miss her.” Tears choke Aika’s voice. In a sense, the pandemic has been a blessing in disguise. Away from media scrutiny, she’s mourned in isolation.
“I’m sure you do.” Dr. Ishikawa hands Aika a Kleenex. Aika dabs her eyes and nose. “As far as we’re concerned, that’s a valid enough reason.” Dr. Ishikawa nods to herself. “But we’re required by law to run a comprehensive psychological evaluation on our prospective clients.”
“Sure. Let’s do this.” Aika sniffles and blows her nose. “Where do I sign?”
***
In an incubator connected to humming and blinking devices looming overhead, Kokoro’s clone sleeps. In a few decades, she’ll grow into Aika’s Kokoro, or her approximation.
When this Kokoro opens her eyes, she’ll have no idea who Aika is. She’ll surely think of Aika as her mother.
But that doesn’t faze Aika. Confined to her apartment, she has plenty of free time. Aika hums a tune that’s been brewing inside her head. When she takes the baby home, she’ll write a new love song, perhaps a lullaby, and sing it to her audience of one. It’s time to start all over again.
Toshiya Kamei is a genderqueer writer who uses they/them pronouns. They write short fiction inspired by mythology, folklore, and fairy tales.