Fuminori Nakamura - Last Winter We Parted

February 28

I had no choice but to sleep with him. It’s probably my fault. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I was frightened. Most of all, I didn’t want him to hit me. It hurt really bad. It’s probably my fault. I’m the one who’s to blame. I’m so mad at myself. Help me. Help me, help me .

February 29

Help me

March 1

Help me Help me Help me

March 2

Help me I can’t stand it. I can’t stand it. I can’t stand it .

March 5

I don’t want to die in a place like this. I don’t want to die in a place like this. What are photos about anyway? What do you think life is about? What do you think it is to be a woman? I don’t want to die in a place like this. I don’t want to die in a place like this. I want to see my friends. I want to go places. I want to live. I want to live. I want to live. However this turns out, I want to live. Toshiyuki, you probably never want to see me again, but I want to live. Toshiyuki, I love you .

March 6

My body feels heavy. It hurts. It hurts. Help me .

March 7

(Handwriting illegible)

March 9

(Handwriting illegible)

Folded note (found with diary)

March 18

If you’re reading this, please notify the police. My name is Yuriko Kobayashi, and I’m being held captive in this house. My captor is a photographer named Yudai Kiharazaka. Please help me. He’s going to kill me soon .

Folded note (found with diary)

March 29

If you’re reading this, please notify the police .

My name is Yuriko Kobayashi, and I live in apartment 408 of the Alude Mansion, my address is 2-2-19 Kamogawa-cho, Nerima-ku. I’m being held captive by a photographer named Yudai Kiharazaka. My legs are tied to a pillar and I can’t move. I haven’t eaten anything for days .

I’m in a small blue building like a shed. If you happened to find this note somewhere away from where I am, you may not see this building anywhere nearby. He drives a blue car. His name is Yudai Kiharazaka. He’s thin, he has long hair, and a mole on his cheek .

Please help me. Please notify the police. I’m enclosing a button from my clothing and a lock of my hair. The button is from a favorite shirt, and one of my friends will recognize it. As for my hair, most of it has been burned, and I hardly have any left. He’s going to kill me soon. But I want to live. I want to live. Please help me. Please help me. Please help me .

(Her death occurred the day after this last note was dated. Twelve notes like this were found beneath the window. Some were wet, others were burned.)

Yuriko Kobayashi is sitting on a diagonal sofa .

She is in Yudai Kiharazaka’s studio. With a frightened look, Kobayashi touches the hem of her skirt. There is a camera in front of her, a stationary camera mounted on a stand. Behind her there is a huge light reflector. On screen, she and the camera she is facing are seen from the right .

Looking even more frightened, she starts to touch the ends of her hair. She isn’t wearing any makeup, even though in a corner of the room there is a makeup vanity for her. It is gothic in style, likely expensive, and looks to be quite old. Kobayashi stands up, then, seeming at her wit’s end, she sits back down on the sofa. She looks at what is around her. Her eyes still look frightened .

Suddenly, the door behind the camera in front of her opens. A man enters. He is dragging a trunk. Seeing him with the trunk, her face contorts with even more fear. The man stands in front of the stationary camera, peering through the viewfinder as if he is checking the composition. He smiles cruelly. She says something, over and over again. Her mouth grows wider as she speaks, as if she is raising her voice. She looks like she is venting her anger. There is no sound on this picture .

The man crouches down and opens the trunk. It is massive. There is a woman inside. It is Kiharazaka’s sister .

When Yuriko Kobayashi sees her, she starts to say something to the man. She looks relieved. She and the man take Akari out of the trunk. Akari seems to be in a very deep sleep .

Yuriko Kobayashi takes off her clothes, removing even her underwear, and then she dresses the naked Akari in her underwear and clothes. She takes another set of clothes from the man and puts them on. Kobayashi puts her own ring on Akari’s finger. The diagonal sofa is long enough for someone to sleep on. The two of them cover Akari’s face with a towel and lay her down on the sofa, placing a cloth over her body. They leave only her arms hanging limply outside of the cloth. They douse her with kerosene, much more than one would have thought necessary, and with some other kind of chemical. They also douse the sofa, as well as the rug under the sofa .

Yuriko Kobayashi looks like she isn’t entirely over her fear. Both she and the man turn toward the door at the same time. Using the chair beside her, Yuriko Kobayashi exits the room by climbing through a window that opens easily. The man strikes a match and tosses it in Akari’s direction. The cloth laid on top of Akari catches fire, little by little by little. The man stands there for a moment, then steps up onto the chair and climbs through the window. As he goes, he kicks over the chair, then hurriedly closes the window from the outside. Akari is left alone in the room, slowly burning, her right arm hanging limply off the sofa .

The door opens. A different man enters. Stunned, he looks at the fire burning before him. The flames grow steadily more intense. The man keeps standing there. He begins to sweat profusely. He starts to tremble, as if he is having convulsions. Smoke gushes forth, and the sofa is engulfed as the fire rages. Suddenly, the man lunges at the stationary camera. He clicks the shutter, over and over again. From the way his mouth is moving, one can see he is crying out Yuriko Kobayashi’s name. Yet even as he calls her name, he continues to squeeze the shutter as if he were obsessed. But there is no one else there besides him and his sister .

The screen shifts to the window frame covered by the curtains in the room. The building that houses the studio recedes slowly, farther and farther away. It becomes clear that this picture is being filmed with a small camera, through a gap in the curtain no more than two centimeters wide. But then, as if remembering something, the scene closes back in on the studio. Someone’s right hand comes into the picture — a man’s hand. In it he holds a bundle of notes of some kind. The hand isn’t trembling at all. He scatters the notes under the window of the studio, and then the building again recedes from view .

The camera approaches a car. Inside it are Yuriko Kobayashi and the first man. He hands her Yudai Kiharazaka’s sister’s apartment key, her insurance card, and her pension account book. Also doctored photographs and her diary, for practicing her handwriting. Yuriko Kobayashi has regained her composure and is smiling at the man. From here it is impossible to see his expression. The camera gets into the car. The door closes and the car slowly begins to drive away. The picture abruptly ends there .