Praise From The Right Quarters Chapter 2

There was a constant tremor in my ears, a sound like the flapping of insect wings. I was trembling all over, as if wrapped in a membrane.

I was wondering when I found myself lying straight on the ground. I couldn't figure out which direction my body was facing, so I didn't realize that there was a floor in front of me. I was just at a loss, and kept shouting, "Huh, huh?"

I felt a hand touching my body.

"Hmph, what are you doing? Why..."

It was a man's voice. The man who was supposed to be in the next room was next to me. I was going to get beaten! Fear spread through me.

What about him? What about me who was being beaten by this man until just now?

I want to change to another place.

I remembered what I was just talking about.

I switched with him!

As I was thinking, the man reached out to grab my slippery body. He couldn't catch me smoothly. At this time, I stood up. I was still wearing my shorts, and I was grabbed by the man. I panicked and thought that it was okay. I pulled hard and managed to break free. I ran to the next room and found another me in it. He stared at me, shirtless and covered in oil, with a puzzled look on his face.

"Run!" I don't know if it was me who shouted this or another me who shouted it.

I didn't care what I looked like and went straight to the entrance.

The man roared behind me. He caught up with me, and we both ran out the door without even putting on our shoes, rushing towards the stairs of this two-story tenement building.

Behind us, the man stumbled and made an animal-like noise.

David and I sat across from each other at a table in a popular restaurant a little way from downtown Sendai. I had arrived about ten minutes ago, went to the bathroom, and when I came out I looked around the restaurant and walked over to the table where David was sitting. Then he said to me, "Thank you for coming to see me today. Hey, I just thought I had to talk to you."

I waved my hand gently to wipe away the water droplets on my clothes: "I ran too much water when I was washing my hands in the bathroom just now." It was not raining in Sendai. It had been sunny since morning, so my casual explanation seemed a bit redundant.

David's expression didn't change. Maybe because he was wearing black-framed glasses and had an intellectual look, he looked like he could see through everything. But I felt terrified, as if I would be manipulated by him without realizing it.

"Mr. David used to live in Sendai?" He mentioned this to me in an email. "So, what exactly did you want to talk to me about? In the email, you said that you had a magical video and wanted to hear my opinion."

"Because you're in the video, Tokiwa."

"Why is it..."

"How should I tell you this?" Gao Shan stroked his hair. "I'm currently working on a new show and looking for some new and interesting videos. My staff sent me this video."

"Your subordinates sent it to you? Is the content about me?"

"Forget about that for now. Just take a look first, okay?"

He pulled a laptop from his bag, turned it on, and started typing on the keyboard.

"Is the video interesting?"

The laptop was placed between him and me, and a video started playing on the screen.

I stared at the screen blankly and found that it was a small space, a toilet.

"This is?"

"I heard it's a toilet on the second floor of a fast food restaurant on the commercial street, the kind that is shared by both men and women. I'm going in."

There were different men and women sitting on the toilet. I looked away. I was afraid that if I saw that, I would be treated as a criminal and punished. The main thing was that even if I saw a woman sitting on the toilet, I wouldn't be happy at all. I would just feel uncomfortable. I couldn't get excited watching people pooping.

"What's so novel about this video? It's just a candid video," I said, hoping to fully express my disgust.

"I didn't take the photo. Didn't I tell you that someone else sent it to me?" David seemed to dislike being questioned. I saw that his entire forehead was shaking slightly.

"The video provider said---"

"Provider---" I noticed this slightly exaggerated word and repeated it inadvertently, "Is it a man?"

David did not answer the question directly: "I happened to be in Sendai on a business trip. While eating and working at a fast food restaurant, I saw two men go into the bathroom together."

"Two people, entered the same toilet cubicle?"

Gao Shan nodded: "And he hasn't come out for a long time, which is very suspicious. At first, I thought he was sharing the loot or dealing drugs, but when he walked out of the store, I realized that he might be installing a hidden camera."

"Because the toilet is shared by both men and women." So even if a man goes in to do something, the act itself will not be suspected.

"The man was worried, so he went to the store again the next day. When he entered the restroom, he saw that he had guessed right. The camera was installed where the spare toilet paper was placed. It was the kind of camera that could save the footage on a micro memory card."

"If you were really worried, couldn't you have gone back and checked it at that time? And then the camera was taken back to Tokyo by that person?" I couldn't help but say it. It can be speculated that the person actually wanted to see the secretly filmed content and was just waiting for the video data to accumulate. "Did you send it to the police?"

David still didn't answer this question. "Oh, it's here." He pointed at the screen.

My eyes returned to the screen.

"This is you, Tokiwa," he said firmly.

The picture shows me sitting on the toilet. The camera is taken from the bottom up, diagonally in front of me.

"Isn't this an invasion of privacy?"

"Strangely, you don't look like you're using the toilet." Gao Shan must have meant that I sat on the toilet without taking off my jeans. I sat there blankly, my back hunched, but I didn't look like I was suffering from abdominal pain.

"I just like to relax in the bathroom. Just sit there like that and let go of the tension."