"Are you sure this is the place?" Maki asked again, still somewhat doubtful.
Jie Jian's voice came from her mouth, utterly certain.
"This is it! I remember it perfectly. Hiromi Higuruma is holed up in there."
Maki asked no further questions and reached out to push open the Theater's entrance.
The hinges gave a dull creak, as though the doors hadn't been opened in a long time.
Beyond them lay a short corridor. Several yellowed production photos hung on the walls on either side, their frames crooked and their glass coated in dust.
At the end of the corridor was a set of half-open double doors, with faint light seeping through the gap.
Maki's footsteps were light, making almost no sound.
She crossed the short corridor, reached the double doors, and pushed them open.
Beyond the doors was the Theater's main hall.
The space was much larger than she'd imagined. Neat rows of seats stretched ahead of her, all the way to the edge of the stage.
The seats' velvet upholstery had long since faded and split, exposing the yellowed foam inside.
Several old chandeliers hung from the ceiling, but only one was still lit. Its dim, yellowish light barely illuminated the center of the stage.
And there, on that stage, a man in a suit lay in a bathtub filled with water.
It was an old-fashioned tub, its white porcelain slightly yellowed, with a towel draped over the rim.
The water was so high it nearly overflowed.
The man's hands rested on either side of the tub, his legs stretched out. He was submerged except for his head and upper chest.
His dark gray suit, soaked through, clung tightly to his body. His tie floated on the surface like a dying fish.
Maki stopped.
She stood at the entrance