Akari Hirai

Background

Akari was born and raised in Morioh when it was still a quiet, rural town dominated by rice paddies and fields. She held no interest in the town's history or its old samurai villas. Instead, she felt a deep sense of embarrassment regarding her countryside roots. Seeing her mother's hands being cracked and roughened by farm work, Akari feared she would suffer the same fate if she remained.↗↗

Determined to escape this future, she left Morioh after high school to attend a junior college in the city. However, she was unable to secure employment there and was forced to return to her hometown. Upon her return, she was surprised to find Morioh rapidly modernizing due to an economic boom. Refusing to return to her parents' farmhouse, she rented a one-room apartment near the train station and secured a job as an office clerk for a housing sales company around 1980 to 1981.↗↗

At work, she met an architect named Teruhiko Ogami. While he appeared socially withdrawn and quiet during company gatherings, often staying in the corner, Akari discovered he possessed a gentle demeanor and a sense of humor that only she knew about. They began dating and eventually traveled to Europe together. During this trip, while watching a sunset over an old town and listening to church bells, Ogami lied about his desire to build a town that future children could be proud of.↗↗↗

Confronting Ogami

In late July 1981 when Akari is 21 years old, she receives a phone call from Hanae Orikasa, one of Ogami's former lovers. Hanae warns her about Ogami's secret business of selling defective houses and cutting corners on construction materials. Investigating his apartment, Akari finds a bag containing approximately 50 million yen in the ceiling.↗↗

She calls Ogami to tell him about the phone call, and he tells her to meet him on the company's roof at 6:00 PM so they could talk in person. Akari attempts to throw the bag onto the roof of the neighboring building to hide it, but her hand slips due to the rain. The bag hits the fence and falls into the narrow gap between their building and the neighboring bank. During the confrontation, Ogami strangles her and pushes her off the roof.↗↗

Living in the Gap

Akari regains consciousness in the narrow, muddy gap between the buildings, a space approximately one meter wide with smooth, unclimbable walls. On the first night of her confinement, Ogami appears on the roof and drops a box of donuts. Suspecting they are poisoned, Akari refuses to eat them and lies that she hid his money, warning him that if she died, the location of the money would be lost forever. Thus, Ogami has to keep her alive to retrieve it.↗↗

The following evening, Ogami returns with a shopping bag containing supplies, including bottled water. Desperate for hydration, Akari drinks from a bottle, only to discover it was a trap. The water was laced with a chemical agent that reacted with saliva to generate intense heat, searing her throat and destroying her vocal cords. Ogami reveals he had calculated the dosage to silence her screams without killing her, ensuring his secret remains safe while he waits for her to break.↗↗

Over the following months, Akari survives on the supplies Ogami dropped nightly. To maintain her sanity, she scratches lines into the concrete wall to count the days and obsessively uses a mirror he provided to tidy her appearance, reminding herself she is still human. As winter approaches, Ogami provides a cassette stove and kettle, allowing her to boil water to wash the mud from her skin. During this time, she realizes she is pregnant.↗↗

Shortly after Christmas 1981, Akari attempts to send a letter for help via a cat standing near her by attaching it to the cat's collar. At dawn in early January 1982, a woman appears on the roof with a rope ladder, having received the letter. Desperate, Akari began to climb but realizes it is a trap when she sees Ogami waiting with the woman, his accomplice Hanae Orikasa.↗↗

By June 1982, Akari goes into labor alone in the filth of the gap. Through sheer will, she gives birth to a healthy baby boy, using a shard of the broken mirror to cut the umbilical cord. She signals Ogami, who lowers a basket on a rope. Akari places her son inside, allowing Ogami to hoist him to the roof. She refuses to speak until Ogami drops a photograph proving the baby had been safely abandoned at a temple.↗↗↗

Profile details

Status Status based on their final appearance in the part(s) they are featured in: Deceased (The Book)↗

Date of Death: 1982↗

Cause of Death: Weakness and starvation↗