Riri was just 19 years old when she first started going to Tokyo's Kabukicho district to visit host clubs, where women pay to be entertained by men, in the hopes of meeting Roland, a celebrity host who regularly appears on TV.
The young woman, who goes by a pseudonym because she is avoiding debt collectors, reveled in the glamorous world of host clubs. And she found it eased a sense of loneliness in her. Since she was a baby, she has been separated from her parents and lived in orphanages.
It was in the sleepless town of Kabukicho that she met a host she fell for, hard.