It was 1998, I was twenty seven and big things were happening.
I was doing work as a session player in Japan. My band had caught a break with a hit song in the mid 90s, but we could never really capture that same success again. Fortunately it opened doors for me though and I was able to build a career producing for up and coming artists.
The 90s were really a magical time for music. In my opinion, there was something about the cultural icons before the computer age of the new millennium… I don’t know why, but to this day some of them still seem to have an almost mythical status.
Out of all of them though, there is one artist, that will always stand out from the rest.
Sayaka Koyama
Or as she was better known by her fans…
Sakoya
You’ve probably never heard of her. In fact nobody has… or at least not anymore. She was truly something special. If what happened to her never did, well… I don’t doubt for one second she would have been a massive worldwide star. Unfortunately though, it did, and now the world has all but forgotten her.
Sakoya was recording her new single ‘Summer Night’.
We had written it together and I was sure it was going to be huge. She was super excited about the track and everyone knew it was going to be her breakout song. The engineer twisted the knobs on the mixing board in front of him.
“Let’s do it again Sakoya… from the top!”
As she began singing and the room went completely silent. This was the take… everyone in the room knew it. We watched awestruck as she sang. She was a generational talent. I knew that with this song she would become a household name. Not only in Japan, but around the world.
It was like the positive energy from those sessions just snowballed. Everyone in the studio was constantly coming up with new ideas. We were catching lightning in a bottle and we knew it.
One day after recording we all went out for drinks. Sayaka told me she really liked my play style and she knew that I had to be the guitarist in her band.
“I won’t take no for an answer.”
I told her of course, if she wanted me to play in her band it would be an honor. We all spent the night laughing, singing, and joking. However the fun we had then wasn’t the celebration of new beginnings we thought it was.
It was the beginning of the end.
I got to the studio at the at the crack of dawn. Sayaka’s car was already parked. I figured she had wanted to get an early start but when I walked I was surprised to see her… tears running, her eye liner smeared. She looked at me and in a near whisper said…
“I think I’ve done something I shouldn’t have…”
I barely heard what she was saying. The pressure she was under must have been immense. This was the stress getting to her. I tried my best to console her. I told her we should go for coffee and we could talk about whatever was happening.
We walked to a cafe a few blocks away. We just talked about the record on the way there. We sat down outside. I tried to say something to encourage her, to talk about what was bothering her… but instead she wiped a tear and smiled.
“It’s okay. I’m fine… I’m just stressed out.”
I wasn’t convinced but at that moment a group of fans ran up. She did her best to conceal that she was crying seconds earlier, her face red and damp.
“Sakoya we love you! You are so talented! Can we get a photo?” they were giddy when she stood up with them. One of them handed me an instant camera. They smiled and leaned in posing. I was laughing along with them, that was, until I saw him. A man standing about ten feet away with the creepiest smile I had ever seen.
I don’t like to judge based on appearance, but something about the guy was just off. His clothes were filthy, his hair was long and greasy, beady eyes coupled with an unnaturally wide grin.
“Sug-koya… can I get a photo as well?” his voice like a bubbling cauldron, accenting words in all the wrong places, adding letters where he shouldn’t.
“Oh.. of course!” she said running over to him and posing beside him playfully.
I began to take the photo, something still unnerving me about the man. Right when I pressed the button he put his hands on her shoulders, surprising her.
“Oh” she exclaimed, dipping out of his grasp and laughing.
“Thank you Sug-koya…” the man said clutching the photo I had just handed him to his chest.
What was with this guy?
“You’re welcome! I hope you like my new single! It should be out soon!” she said seemingly unfazed by the bizarre man.
“Okay… I will…” he said in a low voice.
As we walked away I turned to see the man still standing there, clutching the photo and staring at us. We must have been a block away… he was just staring… and staring… and staring…
Unfortunately in spite of Sayaka’s optimism at the cafe, things we’re not fine. The happy and creative outpouring we had the weeks prior was completely gone. The energy now dark and border-lining on toxic. I had worked with ‘divas’ before but this was different.
When we tried to record, Sayaka’s heart just wasn’t in it. There was constant bickering and fighting. I started to think maybe it wasn’t going to be the record we hoped.
One day, the engineer suggested she work on a cover of an old classic ‘Famous’. We had put a demo together at the start of the sessions. He began to play it though the studio speaker system.
The lyrics began…
I want to be a star, have them all remember me
Oh if I could just take a chance, this surely is my destiny
Sayaka sitting with her head in her hands suddenly slammed them down onto the table.
“Turn it off! I don’t want to hear this! Turn it OFF!” she was shouting.
The engineer switched it off instantly but it was too late, she got up from her chair and threw on her coat, the door reverberating as she left the building. We looked at each other in confusion.
What about the song had set her off? Last week she was belting out to it and now she couldn’t even listen to it? A few of us went after her, this was a far cry from the girl we had been working with these past few weeks.
I started down the road we had taken the day we went to the cafe. The streets were packed and I didn’t think I had much of a chance of finding her. I had almost given up until I saw him… it was the man from thay day at the cafe.
The creep.
I watched as he hurriedly turned down an alleyway.
‘No…’ I thought as I began running through the sea of people. I saw him at the end of the alley peering out onto the street.
Staring at someone…
“Hey!” I yelled grabbing him by the arm.
“Are you following her around town?” I said wanting to throw the guy against the wall.
He was stalking her… this is why she had been so out of it! This freak had probably been sending her letters and following her home, staring at her window from the street in the middle of the night.
“N-n-no!… I promise…. I mean… I was… just now, I saw her, but but but…” he could hardly speak. I loosened my grip on his shoulder.
“I only just saw her… I only followed her because of that pale man. The pale man was following her. You have to believe me! Look! They are right over there.” I let him out of my grip
I looked out suspiciously from the corner and there she was, standing in the park talking with someone. She looked distressed. She was shouting and waving her arms around wildly like she was arguing with him.
I understood then why he had called him ‘the pale man’. He wore a sharp black suit and hat, but from what I could see of his hands and head his complexion was a ghastly grayish white. I almost wondered if he was wearing powder.
I saw the man raise his hand, wagging his finger in her face. Instantly her arms and head fell low, dejected.
I was about to run over, when the man let go of her and disappear into the thick of the crowd. When I got to her she was still staring at the ground emotionless.
“Sayaka…?” I said wondering what was wrong with her.
“Sayaka!?”
Her head turned slowly from the ground up. Her face looked nearly as drained and pale as the man she had just seen. She just stared at me blankly, like she didn’t recognize me. Suddenly she snapped out of it.
She was acting like nothing had happened.
As we walked back to the studio she told me she wasn’t worried about any ‘stalker’. Again she assured me things would be fine. I tried to push the issue but she told me the pale man was just an old acquaintance and there was nothing to worry about. She told me it was going to get better and she apologized for how negative everything was the last few weeks.
I almost believed her, that was, until the day he came to the studio.
After that incident things changed again; it was like ‘Sakoya’ was trying to conquer the album. She sang take after take until her voice was hoarse. Even when we told her we had enough she would insist we keep going. She was giving it everything she had.
Sakoya clapped her hands “Okay, once again, this time with heart!”. We all looked around almost concerned. She had recorded this line dozens of times already. Each time only slightly different than the last.
Her manager Rin spoke up “Sayaka… we don’t need…”
Suddenly we heard the entry door to the studio fly open. We all stopped, the only sound, the clock on the wall and the heavy footsteps trudging toward us.
Nobody had access to the studio and the door had definitely been locked.
Sakoya looked at us from the recording room, unable to hear through the soundproofing. “Guys come on! What are you doi-‘ she stopped mid sentence frozen in place, her jaw open.
It was the pale man.
Even though he was only feet away, I still couldn’t catch a glimpse of his face. It was like every angle I tried to look there was something covering him: the brim of his hat or his collar. Nobody moved or said a word.
He walked toward the recording room and entered. We watched as he got right up to Sayaka, leaning in to whisper something in her ear. She looked completely horrified. It lasted only about ten seconds but it felt like minutes.
Then, he slowly turned around and walked out, his boots clacking along, echoing through the room as he left. The door snapped shut.
We all just stared at Sayaka wondering what had just occurred. With a blank expression she said flatly “I’m done for the day”. She quietly picked up her things and walked out of the studio.
We postponed the next few sessions after the event with the pale man. I mean I guess he wasn’t technically the reason why… but we unanimously decided we had been working for weeks and now was as good of a time as any for a break.
Sayaka called and asked me to meet. When we did I was surprised to see she was wearing a disguise: thick sun glasses and a wig. I asked her to tell me about the pale man but she brushed it off and said it didn’t matter.
I was confused, what had all of this been about then? I asked her if it wasn’t the pale looking guy and it wasn’t a stalker then what was the issue?
“I CAN’T… talk about it” she said, her voice dropping, defeated.
I stared at her my eyebrows raised “Talk about what exactly?!”
Then she just broke down. She just kept mumbling to herself saying… “it was a mistake, I was foolish… it was a mistake…” obviously something was wrong, but she wouldn’t talk about it and I had no idea what to do.
I phoned Rin to let him know, and then I brought her home.
He called me the next morning.
Sayaka was missing, and I had been the last person to see her. Rin had gone to her house early and she wasn’t there. He contacted her family and friends but none of them knew where she was.
The police grilled me for hours asking me what I knew… why had I met up with her? I told them about the pale man and the ‘stalker’ from the cafe but it was obvious they didn’t trust me. I was a foreigner and the last person to see her.
I was the suspect.
I think I started to lose it a little then.
I would see her around town… always out of the corner of my eye. I remember at grabbing a woman thinking it was her. She turned around and looked at me so fearfully, shouting. I just kept apologizing over and over again until I eventually ran off.
I thought I saw her on the train… it was packed and I could hardly move. By the time I got to where I thought she had been, ‘she’ was gone.
One day I got called to the studio… Sakoya was back. She wouldn’t tell anyone where she went. She said the reason she came back was to tell us in person… she was done with music.
She wanted to toss the entire album.
“Just scrap it. I’m done with this. You can not change my mind.”
No one could believe it. Months of work gone to waste? The album was so close to being done, it was going to go platinum! Why just throw it all away? Why quit like this perfectly out of the blue after disappearing for days?
After an hour of trying to convince her, Rin called the record label and told them.
It was over.
A few days later Sayaka showed up at my house.
We went for a walk, in silence for most of it. Eventually we sat down at a bench. She said there was something she needed to tell me. She started to open her mouth, to speak, to tell me what had been going on but, the words just wouldn’t come out.
A black sedan with tinted windows pulled up a few yards from us.
She looked at it and then back at me. She clasped my hand for a moment while she stared at me wordlessly. I felt something metal in the palm of my hand; it was her key. She nodded to me and turned toward the vehicle. The pale man stood ominously outside the driver door. I still couldn’t get a glimpse of him, the shadows of his hat covered his face. I watched in shock as they got in the vehicle, she was crying. Then they drove away.
Sayaka Koyama was never seen again
I went to her house, I wasn’t sure what I supposed to find there. I looked around the living room when I saw it, a note on the table next to a leather bound book. It was a text on the legends and creatures of Japanese myth. I read the note.
“I told you I had made a mistake, done something I shouldn’t have… I don’t think you even heard me. Unfortunately it was true. This is something I can’t fix, no one can. I should have payed more attention… I *was foolish. Now it’s too late. Don’t come looking for me. Don’t look for the pale man! DO NOT! Unless you want to suffer the same fate. I’m sorry!”*
The pale man? I thought in disbelief. The man she left with? What was she talking about? I began flipping the pages rapidly.
No… no… no… nothing.
I felt a lump in the bottom of my throat as a flipped the page… a sick feeling welled up inside me. I looked at the image in disbelief.
“The Covered Man”
It was him… The same unnaturally ghoulish looking pale skin. His face covered here, not by a hat but this time by his long fingered hand. He did not wear suit in the depiction but a tattered black frayed robe.
“This folktale is extremely rare. Unknown to most, the only records taken from few small villages in rural parts of Japan. The Covered Man goes to great efforts to hide his face. However mysterious though it is said that the covered man appears to help people who are set on a goal…”
I stared at the book stunned trying to make sense of what I had just read. It continued.
“However… the covered man’s own goal appears only to harm those who work to such ends. Do not trust a covered man! If your goal is to be rich he will make you poor. If your goal is to be healthy he will make you sick. If you want to be liked, you will be hated. Do not trust anything a covered man tells you regardless of how alluring it may sound. Once a victim falls for his tricks it’s said he coerces and threatens the tricked one and those they care about.”
Why did she get into his car? Why is that I could never catch his face?
I thought about Sayaka’s dreams of mega-stardom. Could she really have been tricked by some creature of folklore?
I knew what she really had always wanted… to be known and remembered.
I called Rin, later that day. I couldn’t believe it when he said…
‘I don’t know who you are talking about? Who is Sakoya? Sayaka? Sakura? Whatever her name is! We have been recording instrumentals all week? Have you really gone mad?” he was 100% serious; he had no idea who she was.
When I returned to the studio I rummaged for hours looking for the recordings and tapes… there was nothing. Not a single one. I couldn’t even find the notepads with the lyrics, or notation for the songs.
I asked one of the other session players. At first he looked at me wearily, but then he scanned the room and leaned in close.
“I remember, but… I feel like I’m going crazy. Nobody else does! Not even her fans!? Was it all in our heads?” Neither of us could think of a reasonable explanation and after bringing it up a few times to the others we were both at risk of looking completely nuts.
We let it go.
I’d never forget the events of that summer, it was too much for me. Everywhere I went was a reminder of the strange happenings that unfolded that fateful year.
I was never able contact her family or friends.
I went to her house but it was clear a family lived there now… I couldn’t find the key.
How could the police investigate the disappearance of someone they no longer thought existed? Any reports they had made had supposedly vanished.
Nobody talked about her in the chat rooms or web pages. Her fan club was gone.
She had disappeared. It was like she had been forgotten… out of existence.
I almost started to think that we had gone insane. That it was all some fever dream we had cooked up while cooped in the studio recording instrumentals. Were we just two failed musicians dreaming of a lucky break that almost happened but never did?
That was until I went back to the coffee shop and saw him. The man with the grin.
“Hey… listen…” I said shaking, feeling like I had gone crazy.
“You remember, don’t you?” he started to laugh low and guttural.
“You remember right? Sakoya?” as soon as I said it he broke into a boisterous and uncontrollable laughter.
“HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH’ tears leaking from he his eyes while his face strained. “HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH” I nearly tripped as I backed away.
I could see it in his eyes… he remembered.
I ran home and flipped open the pages of my photo album. I screamed so hard that it hurt.
There were the photos of that day. The one of the man with disconcerting grin, and the one of the girls. There they were standing there with Sayaka, but….
Sayaka’s face was just a gray splotch, like someone had scratched it out…
Except it wasn’t scratched out, it had been printed INTO the photo.
I left Japan shortly after, but I never forgot about Sakoya…
The pop sensation who truly, never was.