Ink Black Eye

Created by Freepik

Sumire showed up for work with a black eye. I spotted it when I went to her desk to deliver a memory card containing the models she had to embellish. In other words, to digitally remove wrinkles, pimples, and other natural enemies of beauty.

Being a photographer, it wasn’t my duty to give Sumire these photos personally, but she still didn’t know her coworkers yet. Nor did they know her. Not a surprise: she was self-conscious and low-key, soft-spoken and plain-featured. You could easily lose her in a crowd.

“Thanks.” Sumire tilted her head. Her chin-length hair — like a pulled curtain — slid off her face to reveal a bruise the color of eggplant with a slight smear of mustard.

“Does it hurt?” I indicated the swelling with my hand. It matched her purple blouse.

“Only when I blink,” she replied.

“How did it happen?”

“I tried to take a photo from a high angle, but my phone fell from my selfie stick and hit me in the eye. Silly, huh?” She stifled a giggle.

Regretting my intrusion, I lowered my head. “Sorry, I should mind my own business.”

“Minding people’s business sometimes means caring.” She flashed a row of pearly teeth.

I smiled back. Great, I’d solved the enigma of Sumire’s black eye.

That was what I thought.

“Again?” I blurted two weeks later, when I handed Sumire another memory card.

She looked away from the nose she was resizing and pointed to the ink splotch under her right eye. “Another selfie. From a slightly different angle.” A chuckle slipped through her skinny lips. “I should leave photography to professionals like you.”

“Sure it was a selfie?” I asked. “Not a couple’s photo?”

She blinked a few times. “You mean, ‘couple’ as in ‘lovers’?”

“Please forget it.” My perception had been distorted by paranoia after all.

Or perhaps not.

“Still taking selfies?” I asked Sumire after another two weeks.

She averted her eyes from the freckles she was erasing and rubbed her purple cheek powder. “I told my niece to give me a kiss — she did it with her head.”

This dreadful episode repeated again.

Sumire extended her hand to her red eyeshadow. “Never stare at an apple from its bottom — especially if it’s on a tree.”

And again.

“Remind me to never stand behind a horse again.” She caressed the brown cattle brand on her left arm.

And again.

“Or a pony.” The brand had moved to her left leg.

I stitched together a pattern: Sumire had an accident every two weeks. Why exactly two weeks? I didn’t know what to think, only that I had to act.

“Uh, Sumire.” I ignored her lower lip, puffy like a sausage. “Have you tried the yakiniku restaurant across the street? It has the best grilled lambs in the neighborhood. I wonder if — ”

“Sure, let’s go,” she said.

Sumire must have been starving.

We walked to the restaurant after work. I suggested we sit at the back — if Sumire had a jealous boyfriend, my eye would end up the same color as her blouse this time.

With the barbecue stove between us, we ordered pork belly, beef liver, and lamb slices — a tongue-melting and stomach-warming selection. We extinguished that blaze with frosty beers.

But it wasn’t time to chill; I had to save someone from a fire.

“Seems like you’re on a hunger strike.” I pointed to the ashy mountain of meat on Sumire’s plate.

She covered her mouth with her hands. “Excuse me. I haven’t eaten in a yakiniku restaurant in a while.”

“Because there’s no one to accompany you?”

“I don’t have many friends.”

“How about a boyfriend?”

With her chopsticks, she lifted a piece of sizzling liver. She winced when it touched her swollen lips. “A boyfriend? I — ”

Rattled by a sound or shake that only Sumire seemed to have detected, she picked up her phone. She gave me a timid bow and left the table, but without heading outside or to another room. I caught snippets of her conversation. “I’m with a co-worker … yes, we can still meet … goodbye.”

“Sorry, a friend,” Sumire explained when she returned.

“Time to retreat?” I asked.

She lowered her head. “Sorry, I forgot I had to meet him — I mean, her.”

I escorted Sumire silently to the subway. All the way down the escalator, she waved me goodbye, flinching every time her inflamed lip curled up. I didn’t smile. A stubborn thought bothered me.

The person who called Sumire — was she really a girlfriend?

Hoping to uncover the truth, I darted down the escalator and plunged into the tide of people. On the subway platform, I joined the line next to Sumire’s. She had her phone glued to her ear. Should I step nearer? No, what would I say if she caught sight of me? I forgot I had to take the train too. Same line and direction? What a coincidence!

Instead, I tried to read Sumire’s lips. This turned out to be unnecessary.

“I told you, he’s a coworker,” she whispered and glanced in my direction for a few fleeting seconds. Luckily, as if I’d been made of transparent glass, she turned away. “And please don’t shout at me.”

On the train, I stood four people away from Sumire, then got off with her four stations later. Back above ground, I followed her across a park sprinkled with cherry blossom trees. I hid behind one of them when she stopped forging ahead to clamber up an L-shaped staircase, which led to the deck of a two-story building. The floor had five doors. Sumire entered the middle one.

I stayed behind the cherry blossom tree until the sky turned from blue to maroon, and maroon to purple. No one came in or out.

Which meant Sumire wasn’t meeting a friend. But a boyfriend, who must already be in the apartment.

I sprinted in that direction, only to stop midway.

Sumire didn’t need my help.

The next day, since two weeks hadn’t passed yet, Sumire arrived to work neither with a new bruise nor with a bulkier lip. Still, I wanted to make sure she didn’t have psychological injuries.

“I’m fine.” Sumire flicked her eyes from her monitor to me. “Why do you ask?”

I gulped dry air. “Well … you left fast yesterday.”

“Sorry. I had to meet the friend I told you about.”

“Sure it was a friend?”

Sumire shifted her eyes from me to her desk. “To be honest, I haven’t been a good friend to you. The truth is — no, never mind.”

“Listen,” I began. “I have no idea what problems you have. I just know I wanna help you.”

“Thank you. But I don’t need help.”

“There’s nothing more dangerous than not knowing you need help.”

“I’m not in danger.” To punctuate her words, she gave me a nod.

I sighed internally. How could I help Sumire if she rejected my help?

Perhaps by helping anyway.

Instead of going to work on Wednesday, the day before Sumire’s next injury, I called in sick with the flu and took the train to her apartment.

I hid behind the same cherry blossom tree as last time — with a six-pack of dark beer. I needed to kill my nervousness. And kill time, since I’d come early to catch Sumire’s boyfriend before he reached the ambush location. I’d tap him on the shoulder and tell him that if he raised his hand against her again, I would — get on my knees and beg him to stop doing it.

A decent plan, except six hours and six beers went away, and Mr. Boyfriend hadn’t shown up yet. Only random people. A housewife, a schoolgirl, a salaryman. Like billiard balls, they rolled into their designated holes. Leaving Sumire’s untouched.

Just when I was considering buying another six-pack, my phone vibrated. When I pulled it out of my pocket, I trembled. It was Sumire.

Perhaps she knew I was surveilling her apartment? My heart drumming, I tapped open her message.

I heard you’re sick. Feeling better?

I let out a phew that ended with a smile. So Sumire didn’t suspect anything; even better, she worried about me. The thought warmed my heart. Made it tickle.

Much better, I texted back. Thanks for caring.

I don’t deserve your gratitude.

I gawked at the luminous screen of my phone. Why?

Hey, wanna eat at the yakiniku today? Sumire typed, ignoring my question.

I could meet her and interrogate her about her boyfriend — except she could keep him hidden in the dark. And worse, she might not let me follow her home and put the breaks on his cyclical abuse. Sorry, I need to do something today.

Go to the doctor?

Help someone with injuries.

Oh, what happened?

I’ll let you know when everything is over. Or rather, as soon as everything started.

After saying goodbye to each other, I tucked my phone into my pocket and continued surveilling the apartment.

Finally. There.

A man in his late twenties walked across the park. Crew cut, leather jacket, jeans so tight his crotch should be begging for mercy. Because of his drunken daze, it took him almost a minute to drag himself up the L-shaped staircase, where he leaned on the door in the middle.

Too late to stop him.

Fortunately, or miraculously, he lurched to his left and tumbled into his apartment — which was at the end of the deck.

To add to my relief, an hour later, Sumire ambled up the staircase and pushed her way into her apartment. She was wearing her purple blouse — and carrying a plastic bag. Takeout for her to eat at home? Or for someone else?

A disturbing theory struck me: her boyfriend, jobless, and after having drowned himself in alcohol last night, had stayed in Sumire’s apartment (or his) the whole day.

I made my way out of the park and up to the door of Sumire’s apartment. Should I call the police? That was the smartest move, but also the slowest one. What else could I do? Knock? Kick down the door? No, throwing coal on the fire would make Sumire’s escape more difficult.

With no other plan, I glued my ear to the surface of the door and listened. Inside was as silent as a morgue. Just when I thought there might be a corpse inside, a sharp sound pierced my ears. A wail.

I banged on the door, yelling, “Stop!” I did that until my fist became inflamed. Until my sweat turned my tee into a second coat of skin. Until the door swung open.

My fist stopped right in front of Sumire’s forehead. I dropped it to my side rapidly. Horrified. She already had a wound. A red ring. On her left eye.

I barged into Sumire’s apartment, apologizing for intruding and setting my shoes inside the door. You gotta have manners even in critical situations.

The room consisted of a single neatly made bed, a corner desk with a laptop, a curtained window from which a beam of crimson slanted in.

That was everything in the room.

Sumire stepped toward me, slowly, as if she were afraid to break the floor. She accidentally kicked a panda yo-yo. The toy had been lying next to a plastic bag with a toy package inside.

My gaze alternated between the innocent yo-yo, Sumire’s injured eye, and her boyfriendless room — my mind clouded with a thick, sticky murkiness. At last, with a deep sigh, I drove that obscurity away. What came to light was equally terrifying.

“Why did you do it?” I asked.

“Can you please pretend you didn’t see anything?”

“I don’t think I can do that.”

Sumire erupted into tears, her hands screening her good and bad eyes. “Because no one ever notices me. Or cares about me.” She sniffed back snot. “It makes me feel so lonely, like I don’t exist at all. I know, I was being selfish. Pathetic. But I couldn’t keep the pain in my chest anymore. I had to let it out.”

I wanted to pat Sumire on the shoulder. I didn’t dare. She looked like a clay statue that would crumble with the subtlest touch.

“I understand,” I said. “But don’t you think what you did was a bit … desperate?”

“I was desperate,” she whimpered.

“Which drove you to hurt yourself …”

Sumire nodded, her face still resting in her palms.

“But why every two weeks?”

“It was short enough to catch someone’s eye. And long enough to let the old bruises heal. But I think doing that made my scheme look fake.”

“Now that you mention it, it was a bit systematic.”

Sumire gave another shameful nod. “So, to make everything more credible, I tricked you into thinking I had a boyfriend, one that I wanted to pose as a friend.”

“That means that you don’t have a boyfriend.”

“Or a friend.”

“You don’t have either?”

Sumire shook her head slowly. “I dunno why. Maybe because of my dark personality, I can’t light up anyone’s heart.”

“That’s not true.”

“You’re right — it must be because I lie. Like I lied to you.”

I dropped my head. “I lied to you too. No. Worse. I spied on you.”

“You were just worried about me.”

My head rose. “You knew what I was up to from the start?”

“I saw you in the subway.”

“That’s why you’re not surprised to see me here,” I said, my conclusion confirmed by Sumire’s silence. “I finally understand everything.”

“I’m glad. There’s just one more thing.” Sumire uncovered her eyes, now both red. “Thank you. For paying attention. For caring for me. And sorry — for manipulating you. It was too disgusting. I deserve to be slapped.”

As though preparing herself for the firing squad, she closed her eyes, revealing a thin cut on her eyelid. Reaching over the desk, I snatched a tissue and wiped away the blood.

Should I feel pity? Guilt? A pinch of anger? I had no idea. All I knew was that I would keep wiping. Until I erased all of Sumire’s wounds.