Case 10: The Invisible Friend (4)

As soon as we entered, I saw countless talismans stuck on top of the front door. They were also stuck above the door of the modular bath, and another in the cramped kitchen. For some reason, many of the talismans were old, and some were blackened as if they had been blasted from above with a gas burner. But the most bizarre thing about this room was that the partition door leading to the living room had been removed and was replaced by a thick, old shimenawa. You would never see such an impressive thing even at a shrine. And it was definitely not something you’d find in an ordinary rental apartment.

“…Karasu-san, please explain it to me.”

“You’ve seen it before, haven’t you? A shimenawa?”

“I understand that, I’m a regular user of ‘Ikaigabuchi’ too! What I’m asking is, why is there such a huge shimenawa in a place like this? It's strange, no matter how you think about it! This is just like the doll memorial in Kyoto…”

I said that much, and then, Ah, I understood.

…I see. So that’s why Yoishi wanted to see this place. This was a room built exactly for that purpose, a room for slowly purifying items that couldn’t be out in the world, items that had a certain history about them – Wait, this wasn’t a time to be accepting.

“K-K-Karasu-san! If you had something like this next door, you should have told me when you introduced me to this apartment.”

“No, because, you were in a very precarious situation at that time.”

“Being in a precarious situation means that I don’t have the right to make such a basic choice?”

I yelled out loud at Karasu-san, but I felt my voice being swallowed by the darkness behind the shimenawa.

There were countless boxes placed in the dark living room behind the shimenawa, but even I, despite having no ability to sense the paranormal, could tell. Something felt wrong. I could tell from that fact that although the light in the corridor was switched on, the living room right next to it was dark, as if it repelled the light. It was, how should I put it, otherworldly. The air itself was distinctly different. There was something so thick in the air that made me believe it was dangerous, to the point where even the gravity there might be different.

However, Yoishi took off her shoes, quickly went under the shimenawa alone by herself, and muttered “How wonderful” to herself.

“Right, right?”

Karasu-san nodded happily as she followed, and seeing Yoishi happily pick up the suspicious items one after another and stare at them as if she were admiring antiques made me think dark thoughts to myself:

--Hey, take a look. This is what a true occult maniac looks like. In internet slang, they're the ‘denpas’ who suddenly broadcast their occult fantasies to the world. Ever since the cat incident happened, some people in the western club building branded me as a ‘weirdo who likes scary stories’, but even that perception will be completely overturned when they find out about this kind of existence. I'm sure they will understand how normal, how much of a beginner I am in the unfathomable world of the occult -- I thought such thoughts to myself, while I waited in the corridor, refusing to go through the shimenawa by myself; I saw Yoishi in the living room lift something and ask Karasu-san:

“This is?”

“Oh, they’re opposite mirrors that were in the storehouse of a large landowner in Toyama. It is said that if you hold the two mirrors up to each other on the night of the new moon, you will multiply.”*

“What do you mean by multiply?”

“They say that your reflection in the mirror starts to take on a different personality. If you were to close the mirror in fear, the self in the mirror would remain there, and begin life anew in the world of the mirror. It is said that the mirror was originally used in a local brothel, but the details are unknown. Anyway, it's dangerous, so it's wrapped up nice and tight and can’t be opened.”

“Hey…Yoishi, don't open that thing, okay?”

I warned her from the corridor, but of course, Yoishi wasn’t listening.

“This cell phone is…?”

“This is similar to the story, ‘The Monkey's Paw’ by W. W. Jacobs. From what I’ve heard, it seems to be a cell phone found in the hands of a child who committed suicide, and if you were to press the call button on the phone and make a wish, the wish will be granted in a dubious way. Like getting into the school of your choice, but losing a leg in exchange.”

“And these shoes?”

“Ah, those are dangerous. A certain man is said to have crafted them from the skin of his wife. They seemed to have been at bad terms from the start, but the husband killed his wife and made shoes out of her skin so that he could trample over her, again and again. But it seems that shortly afterwards, the husband jumped off a building while wearing those very same shoes.”

…What the hell is that….? Why, why the hell is that thing here??

“This rope is…?”

“That is said to have been used by people who hung themselves in the dense woodlands. The local police and fire brigade found it when they made their regular patrols, but no matter how many times they cut it off when they recovered the bodies, people kept using it to commit suicide again and again for some unknown reason. It was as if the string was enticing them, so they handed it over to a local shrine, but the head priest there also ended up committing suicide, so after a series of events, it made its way here.”

…Wait, what the heck were the events happened that brought it here? Why the hell were so many dangerous things all gathered in the apartment next to mine? Now that I think about it, when I ran away from that ‘Wish-fulfilling house’, Karasu-san quickly introduced me to this apartment, but why was a cheap place so close to the university vacant up until now? Wasn’t it because it was a dangerous place?

Once a person starts thinking negative thoughts, those thoughts begin to growl and spin, faster and faster. I began to worry about the potholes in my life one after another.

I was in a situation where I was going in and out of the Beatnik Research Society, aka one of the largest occult sites in Japan, my apartment had a collection of cursed items next to it, and moreover, a girl resembling a vengeful spirit inhabited my loft. I'd become numb to the fact that Yoishi was close by because of everything that had happened, but this was definitely not a normal life. I tried to roughly recall the people I’d met since I came to Tokyo, since the ’Ikaigabuchi’ offline meeting, it’s been nothing but a string of dangerous people starting with Karasu-san, and in the ultimate form of Yoishi Mitsurugi. No, the ultimate of the ultimate was the evil priest, Sako Takita. He was undeniably the worst of the worst, and I don’t know if I’d go so far as to lump him with Yoishi, but anyway, the only sane ones are the Kurimoto siblings – no, wait, wait. Am I not being fooled by Krishna-san’s large bosom and baby face? Even she is clearly involved in the occult, and as long as she is the leader of ‘Ikaigabuchi’, she can be thought of as a major figure in the occult, right? According to Sako, she was ‘on the verge of breaking down once’, and even her eloquent younger brother, Yukihito Kurimoto said he had ‘died once’. Oooo…. oiii, does that mean that none of them are sane? Does that mean none of them are sane human beings of this world? If I keep on associating with them like this, I’ll surely be dragged to the world on the other side, won’t I? No, both of my feet are already immersed in the other si – Argh, look at them, your feet. Can you see them clearly? Is that the ground? Are your feet there? Isn’t it just an ink-like darkness, spreading outwards….?

“………………”

--No.

….It’s….dark.

Before I realized, I was standing alone and still, in the dark.

…Was it a blackout?

But when I reached out my hand, I found that the walls of the apartment that had just been there had disappeared.

…Hey, where is this? Yoishi---? Karasu-san?

I look around frantically, but no one was there. I didn’t even know if I was in a wide, or a narrow place. A sticky darkness alone enshrouded me, a lukewarm darkness that penetrated through my nose and through my mouth.

I grabbed my hair and was about to start screaming, when –

*SLAP*- I was smacked on the shoulder.

“--Yes, deep breaths.”

When I came to, I saw Karasu-san’s smiling face in front of me.

I had slumped down to the floor, and she was crouched beside me, looking at me.

“Take a dee—ep breath in, then hold. Yes, slowly let it out--- Repeat that three times.”

I didn't understand it very well, but I did what she said, I started to breathe better and calmed down. I looked down at my feet in a daze, they were still there. I was wearing gray socks, and sitting on the floor of the apartment. And the fluorescent light was there and all. I was drenched in sweat and there was a wall against my back.

“You'd better remember.”

Karasu-san smiled as she gently stroked my hair.

“Your fear most likely comes from forgetting to breathe.”

“Breathe…?”

“It’s probably the effect of your childhood asthma. If the fear inside you intensifies, then like now, make sure you're breathing properly. No matter what kind of paranormal lies ahead of you, you’ll definitely make it through somehow. As long as you're breathing properly, you're invincible. You're not broken at all.”

I felt my nose reflexively sniffle. That was the kindest look I’d ever seen from the ‘outrageously’ dressed Karasu-san. And that soaked into me like the sunlight on a warm spring day. It became a strong Kotodama, and strengthened the foundations of my heart.

“…Thank you.”

I unconsciously spoke those words of thanks out loud—

“No, you don't have to thank me. Maybe, so…”

Uhehehehe, Karasu-san laughed slack-jawed and my sense of security collapsed in an instant.

“—Let’s use this.”

I heard Yoishi’s voice and raised my head to see she was casually holding up the creepy rope from earlier.

“Use it… for what?”

In response to Karasu-san’s question, Yoishi took out the DVD from her pocket.

“This rope is a ‘sewing thing’.”

“…Hmm? What’s that?”

“It may be the final result, but it is tinged with the idea of ‘sewing’ the subject to the spot. Maybe the first person who committed suicide with this rope is still haunted by it, unaware of their death. Or perhaps the rope is still faithfully protecting the wish of its first master. The number of things clinging to this rope is so numerous that it makes it hard to fathom their true nature, and the only thing they’re staring at, is our necks.”

After uttering those horrifying lines—

Yoishi began to unravel the somewhat overtly thick straw rope, split it to a reasonable thickness, and began to tie it around the DVD from all four sides.

“…The rope needs something to bind to, and in this, there exists something to be bound to.”

The way she crouched on the living room floor, mumbling something with her mouth as she handled the rope, was, as expected, a ghastly sight.

“Shut up… Be quiet… It doesn’t matter what color it is.”

I heard such intermittent speech, but I had no idea who she was talking to, and quite frankly, that scared me. Eventually, something that resembled an object bound with rope rolled on the floor, and Yoishi sat down there as if her mind was at peace.

“It should be fine now.”

Yoishi muttered, causing Karasu-san to sigh in exasperation and shrug her shoulders.

“And so, the number of strange things keeps growing.”