Sometimes on tour we would be allowed one evening to ourselves, when we might go see local attractions and explore the local shopping districts. This was one such occasion. Normally a manager would accompany us, but on this particular day the manager had taken ill and had chosen to stay in. The girls were not feeling particularly adventurous either, since it had been a tiring few days. Only Ji-young, who was always in the mood for adventure, was eager to go out and so in the end it was me who accompanied her.

It was a warm day for springtime and I had gone out dressed lightly, wearing only shorts and shirt without a jacket. We wandered together through a well-lit street in downtown Osaka that was bustling with people, many of whom were probably tourists. There were a number of interesting and pleasant places we might have looked in, but Ji-young dragged me into a small pet shop. I suppose it was a fairly cute little place, although there were strange animals on display: turtles, fish and reptiles; nothing that I would consider keeping as a pet.

I wondered why Ji-young had chosen this place and I supposed she had taken a liking to something in the window. I was about to ask her when I saw that she was talking with the man at the counter. It took a moment for me to realize that what had actually captured her attention was the small dog that the man was holding, a honey colored Pomeranian with a pink bow around its neck. Indeed it looked remarkably similar to a dog that Ji-young had owned some years ago.

"Coo-coo! It's the cutest thing," she said. "What's his name?"

"The dog doesn't have a name," the man replied in a calm monotone. He was not old, perhaps mid-thirties and he had a military haircut. He had a stiff face, one that revealed almost no expression, but his eyes seemed to move around sharply.

"Let me have it then. I'll give it a name."

"The dog is not for sale," the man replied in the same monotone.

"If it's not for sale, what do you have it here for?"

I walked over and took Ji-young by the arm. I tried to pull her away. "Come on, Ji-young, don't annoy the shopkeeper," then I said to the man: "I'm sorry, we'll be leaving in a minute."

Ji-young glared at me, but the man smiled. It was not an attractive smile, it looked unusual on his stiff face and it almost made him look childish.

"I don't mind actually," he said. He then added, "I'm a fan of KARA."

This did not really make him any more charming in my eyes, but I tried to sound polite. "Which member do you like the best?"

He looked between Ji-young and me, his expression unchanged. "Hara," he said at last.

"Since you're a fan, would you change your mind if we signed something for you?" Ji-young asked. She was still fixated on taking the dog, and she could be bossy sometimes, our spoiled maknae. We weren't supposed to go around offering autographs; we weren't supposed to be drawing attention to ourselves at all, but it was too late for me to say anything, since the man had already accepted the invitation. With the dog still in his arms, he pushed through a curtain to enter into a small back room. Ji-young followed him and I followed her.

It was an ordinary store room, small and packed with boxes. I thought I could smell ramen. A wooden crate had been turned over and a board game had been placed on top, half finished. The shopkeeper put the dog in a high box, so that its head couldn't see over the top, and then went to pull something out of a drawer. As he did so, Ji-young patted the dog's head and gave a curious glance towards the board game.

The man produced a book from the drawer. I recognized it as a photo book from one of our previous Japan tours.

"You were at our concert?" I asked.

"Yes, I went to the concert," he replied in that monotone. "I wanted to get a signature at that time but I wasn't able to." His eyes flickered over Ji-young who was now rearranging pieces on the board game. I was so tempted to scold her for being careless, but the man did not seem offended. If anything, he seemed pleased. He put down the photo book, as if he no longer cared for it. "Can you play Go?" he asked her.

"My grandfather taught me how to play," she replied.

"Are you good?"

Ji-young smiled cheekily. "Yes, I'm quite good."

The man was pleased by this answer. "Then we should play a game," he said. "How about this? If you win, I'll let you take the dog."

Ji-young began putting the pieces aside, ready to play. "Let's do it," she said.

He took a seat opposite to her. "But if you lose, you have to give me something."

"I'll sign your photo book," she replied simply.

"That's not a stake. If I am going to put my dog up, you have to put something at stake too. Something that's yours to lose."

Ji-young looked up at him curiously. "What do you want then?"

"A lock of hair."

Ji-young cast a look at me, as if to say, what should I do? I creased my brow and shook my head hoping to convey a clear message: this is crazy, don't do it!

She replied to the man: "It's a deal," and then to me, since she knew that I was nervous, "It's only a lock of hair, I can grow it back."

And so they played their game. I stood to the side and watched, but my understanding of the rules was not complete enough to judge who was winning at any one point. The game went on for what felt like a long time to me, and with every move my agitation increased. At last a move by her opponent caused Ji-young to grasp her hair with her hands and she cried: "Ah! I've lost."

The man stood up immediately. "In that case you have to keep your side of the deal. I'll get some scissors."

Ji-young glowered. I knew that she would be mad, she hated to lose anything and now she would have lose a lock of hair, adding insult to injury. For a split second I thought that it might be a good thing, that she ought to learn a lesson, but when the shopkeeper opened a cupboard to retrieve the scissors, I changed my mind. In addition to the scissors there were also other utensils hanging up, pliers and a butcher's knife, and this was unsettling to me. It may have been my overactive imagination, but I thought that I could smell blood.

He took the scissors gently from where they were hanging and brought them to Ji-young's head. She sat still even though she was clearly miserable, and he measured out a piece of hair with the precision of a surgeon. It had become so silent in the room that when he cut, the clean slash of the scissors seemed to echo around.

Immediately after, the little dog for whom all this fuss had been caused, began to whimper in its box and instinctively I went to pat its head. The poor little creature seemed terrified. Ji-young was not though, and she was already moving pieces on the board.

"Let's play again," she said.

The man did not reply. He had calmly taken the lock of hair and tied it with a string. He placed it between the pages of his photo book.

"This is getting ridiculous," I said, speaking up at last. "We should go home now."

Ji-young ignored me, as I might have expected, but the man smiled at my suggestion. That stiff, unusual smile. "Perhaps you should listen to Nicole," he said and I shuddered at the sound of my own name in that monotone. "If you want to play again, you have to raise the stakes. You would have to risk something again, perhaps something that is not so easy to grow back..."

"It won't matter, because this time I won't lose."

"Then you are willing to raise the stakes?"

I stepped in at this point and pulled Ji-young by the shoulder. "She isn't," I said. "We're going now."

She shook me off. "I won't lose this time," she repeated.

I didn't know whether it was her arrogance, or her injured pride, or whether she simply did not see the seriousness of the situation, but either way they began to play for a second time. I attempted to pull her away again, but this time we were interrupted by a visitor. An old lady had pushed through the curtain which connected to the shop. She walked straight over and slapped the shopkeeper on the back of the head.

"What are you doing? You are meant to be in the shop, get back to work!"

The man cowered and held his hands over his head. She hit him again. He stood up and said at last, "I'm going, Mother, I'm going."

The old woman glared coldly at Ji-young and me. "I do not allow any sort of hussies in my shop, get out, get out!"

Without any apology, I took Ji-young by the hand and we left the shop in a hurry.

Outside we were greeted by the warm evening and the hustle and bustle of the real world. I was so furious at Ji-young that I didn't speak to her the whole way back. I was thinking of ways to hide that she had lost a whole lock of hair, and what the managers would say and whether I would be blamed. Eventually my feelings of anger turned to feelings of guilt and I scolded myself for not being more forceful from the start.

A few days later Ji-young emerged sporting a new hairstyle and her misdemeanor was either forgiven or simply passed over altogether. It seemed that my worrying had been for nothing. Between us we rarely spoke about our adventure at the pet shop, and in time I almost forgot about it. That was until recently, when a news story appeared on my SNS concerning the arrest of serial killer in Osaka. The story stated that the accused was a pet shopkeeper and they had found an assortment of dismembered human body parts hidden and packed carefully away in his store room. I immediately forwarded the story to Ji-young and then went to look for her. When I found her, she was in her room and she had the story up on her computer screen. She was staring at it dreamily.

"What are you thinking?" I prompted her.

She replied: "The poor little dog. I wonder what they ended up doing with him."

I buried my face in my hands.