The Filth of the Living

Kobe, 1984.

A woman gave a little blood. Four days later, she disappeared.

Her husband drew one last circle on the map, enclosing a nameless blank spot. Not long after, he died too.

That year, Kuroda Takeshi was eight years old.

There was a kind of blood that flowed through the alleys of the lowest neighborhoods, and through the homes up in the mountains that had no street addresses.

It took him many years to see what was hidden in that blank spot. Then he began crossing out the names inside the circle, one by one.

Twenty-two years later, in a warehouse in Tokyo, he met a Beijing punk named Ye Tian.

The Kuroda Takeshi arc of City Without a Place to Stay.