Chapter 72
Case 10: The Invisible Friend (5)
About a week had passed since then.
I had no idea what happened since then, and Yoishi didn’t talk about it either.
It turned out that the apartment next door was a haunted tool shack, but nothing strange happened. I didn't get paralyzed, or hear any strange noises, and I didn't feel any of the presences Yoishi mentioned. Maybe it really was like Karasu-san said, and the items had been spiritually treated. I was a little disturbed when I went to sleep at night as expected, but… well, if something abnormal were to happen, then the walking spirit sensor in my loft, Yoishi Mitsurugi would warn me about it – But now that I'd had time to calm down, a lot of things didn’t add up.
As I’m attending a lecture at university, I think to myself: What did it all mean in the end?
Assuming the kindergartner turning towards the camera in the video was ‘Shōko-chan', and supposing that the video was shot by that woman named Iizuka – Yoishi had said that the woman purposefully returned that DVD back to the rental store. Was it because something had already happened in that house? Did something happen to that woman’s daughter? Then—in short, what the hell happened to her? Was that the reason behind the immense darkness in that house? I didn’t know. Or perhaps it was better that I didn’t know -- but somehow, I wasn’t satisfied. Was it alright if we were the only ones that were saved? I couldn’t shake off those doubts.
I’m sure that was because -- the bitter memory of not having been able to save Akane Nanamori still cast a shadow over me.
Having said that—
After my lecture had finished, I got on my mama bike and headed towards Shakujii Park by myself.
For the time being, I intended to ask around about the rumored ‘Shōko-chan' in a nearby kindergarten.
I didn’t know how asking around would help. No, I’m sure the situation wouldn’t change. I understood that it was already over – or almost over. Still, I couldn’t come to terms with it unless I understood the end myself. If I didn’t get to the point where I was absolutely sure that there was nothing more I could do, I felt like something would swallow me up someday. I felt that leaving things in an ambiguous state would be an opening for the monsters to pounce on me. Krishna-san would say that I was an idiot, or that I hadn’t matured, but I was beginning to feel that this was what it meant to me to face the paranormal.
And the other reason—
The only other reason -- would be Yoishi.
It would be because of the ‘Yoishi Mitsurugi Rehabilitation Plan’, the goal to see her smile.
I would definitely see her smile someday. I recently learned that when I muttered this in my mind, that strangely enough, I felt less afraid. To begin with, if I were to decide that Yoishi’s reformation was finished as she was now, then in all honesty, I couldn’t call it progress. It would just be a bunch of muddling around in the dark, trying to make things add up. That’s why, I had to act. Even if it was something I couldn’t deal with, I had to act in any way that I could. That was my resolve as a mere human being facing off against the paranormal. Besides, Isn’t that what Karasu-san told me as well?
「As long as you're breathing properly, you're invincible」. I was deeply dejected hearing her laughter at the end, but even so, those words touched me more deeply than I had expected. It gave me hope that maybe it was true. Even when I was too scared to move, I still managed to make it through somehow. I had to make sure that I really was ‘invincible’ in the face of all kinds of paranormal.
“—Well then.”
I searched for kindergartens in the vicinity of the Iizuka household, and looking at the map search results on my phone, there were two kindergartens within walking distance of that house. If you were to consider the range with the bus service, the number of kindergartens would increase, but for the time being, I decided to check the ones close by.
In the cold wind, I turned up the collars of my pea coat and pedaled hard on my mama bike. Eventually, I reached Oumekaido Road, where I turned toward Shakujii Park.
I arrived at the Iizuka household shortly thereafter, but only gave it a fleeting glimpse before passing it by. It was still dark and gloomy, and it was hard to tell if anyone was there or not. The boarded-up doghouse was still there, and the curtains were closed.
The kindergarten was located less than five minutes away by bicycle. It was a cute building painted with colorful colors. There were many children playing inside the kindergarten, probably because there was still time before the end of the school-day.
I parked my bike by the fence and watched the children. It was a curious feeling: I wondered if I too, had such fun times once, giggling and running around half-buried tires and monkey bars.
The children, tiny in stature, were already developing their own individuality. There was a boy who was managing a group and leading a game, a boy who was in a world with only two girls, and there was even a gigolo-like preschooler who had several girls as his attendants. When you think about it, a kindergarten is the beginning of the outside world for most human beings. From here, they would experience the world outside the warm confines of family, they’d experience a world that was unjust and unreasonable in many ways.
Welcome to the real world.
Gazing at the children and uttering such strange thoughts out loud, which could neither be described as encouragement nor sympathy, I suddenly take notice of one kid in particular. That boy came right up to the fence I was leaning against, and looked up at me curiously.
“Yo.”
I tried greeting him.
The boy just gave a ‘yes’, and small nod in acknowledgment. However, he did not smile cordially from there. Apparently, this boy had acquired the individuality of not quite being able to fit in with the group.
That was just what I needed, so I asked him:
“There’s something I wanted to ask; Do you know the child called ‘Shōko-chan'?”
As soon as he heard that proper noun, the boy was instantly startled. So, he did know, I thought to myself. I smiled and said: “It’s alright.”
“I know her too. So, let’s keep ‘Shōko-chan’ a secret between you and me, okay?”
“…Okay.”
“Where is ‘Shōko-chan’ right now?”
“…”
“Is she here?”
I spoke and looked around inside the kindergarten.
The boy then shook his head in silence.
“Then… where?”
“…She was taken away by that auntie.”
“Auntie?”
“Mai-chan’s auntie.”
--Mai-chan? Huh….Wasn’t ‘Mai’ the name that Iizuka lady shouted when she yelled,
‘Go over there’….?”
“Is Mai-chan also one of your friends?”
It was right when I asked him that question. A woman in an apron who appeared to be a nursery teacher gave me a suspicious look and asked: “What is it?”, her watchful eyes were definitely on the lookout for any suspicious persons.
“Ahh, n-nothing...” As I stammered, the nursery teacher grabbed the boys’ hand and began to pull him away, “Let’s play with everyone.”
The boy looked at me regretfully, but muttered quietly.
“Mai-can… already died.”
“…Eh?”
“It’s because Mai-chan was good friends with ‘Shōko-chan’.”
***
--What did it all mean?
I was frozen still in that spot for a while, before I started pushing my bike, and thought to myself.
Mai-chan was already dead? I had easily assumed Mai-chan’s auntie to be that woman named Iizuka, but --- was the ‘Mai-chan’ that boy mentioned different from the Mai from the Iizuka family? Was this not the kindergarten where the rumor of ‘Shōko-chan’ originated from?
No…that boy knew about ‘Shōko-chan’. There was enough indication that the conversation was relevant. I don’t think it could have been a coincidence. In other words, the kindergarten mentioned in that woman’s story was that place. However, if that were the case – I felt a chill rise up. I had a terrible feeling of dread, so I jumped on the mama bike again. I pressed on the pedals as if something was rushing me.
--Wait a minute, let’s get everything straight. Let’s assume that Mai-chan’s mother was that woman named Iizuka…. 'Mai-chan' and ‘Shōko-chan' were supposedly good friends. Then ‘Shōko-chan’ was something dangerous. At the very least, it wasn’t human. However, if that boy was telling the truth, then ‘Shōko-chan’ was taken away by Mai-chan’s mother – in other words, by that woman named Iizuka. Does that mean that something called ‘Shōko-chan’ was in the Iizuka household right now? Damn it, I didn’t get it. In the first place, wasn’t ‘Shōko-chan’ supposed to be in the DVD, already sealed away by Yoishi? And yet --- And yet, that, what was this unpleasant feeling? What was this uneasy feeling of having looked over something important? Like an invisible puddle slowly drenching my feet.
At that moment – beneath my feet, something with a splash made a water pattern in the dark puddle that couldn’t have existed.
In an instant, I stopped my bicycle involuntarily.
“That’s right…..I….”
I didn’t see that girl named ‘Mai’ in the Iizuka household at that time.
I saw the paper door slide shut, but I didn’t see get the chance to see the girl properly.
A terrifying chill crawled over my entire back.
And then, all of a sudden – I heard the siren of a fire engine.
The kind of sound that resonated inside you when a fire engine is dispatched, if I recall, it was a warning siren linked with the accelerator. As if being guided by that sound, I started pedaling my mama bike once again. I stood up, pedaled as hard as I could, and went flying.
With each alleyway I turned, the sound of the siren kept getting louder from all sides. I was close. I knew the fire engines were all converging somewhere extremely close by. Eventually, I could see black smoke rising over some rooftops. Curious onlookers were gathering in sparse alleyways. They must have all come out of their houses after hearing the sirens. I pressed my way forward while avoiding them. And with each pedal stroke, my conviction deepens.
I turned down the last alley and flew into the street where the Iizuka household was visible, but a crowd of people was in front of me, so I couldn’t go any further. I parked my bike in the shadow of a telephone pole nearby and continued running from there.
“I’m sorry, please let me through!”
I shouted as I continued forward, but the police at the frontline were shouting angrily and pushing back the crowd, halting my progress. Even so, I could see it through a gap in the crowds. It really… was true. The windows of the Iizuka household were broken, and a black smoke bellowed forth from within. Even from a distance, I could tell how strong of a fire raged within, the fire hose from the fire truck had practically no effect.
“Ah……”
Bitter emotions escape through my mouth without forming words. It was the house I had just passed by. And the house I had entered just recently, albeit only once. The sight of it burning to the point of being unmanageable was just too much for me.
Right then, I felt something cold on my arm, and I turned around.
I looked back to see Yoishi, holding my hand. She had mixed in with the crowd; her pale face looked at me.
“I made a mistake.”
“What mistake?”
“I was wrong about ‘Shōko-chan’.”
Her words darkly distorted the landscape. For the time being, I led Yoishi away from the crowd of people. When we arrived back where I had put my mama bike, I asked:
“Are you telling me that it was ‘Shōko-chan’ behind us that time?”
Yoishi looked at me once, and vaguely nodded.
“But it’s a little more complicated than that.”
“…No, wait a minute. Explain it to me from the beginning in a way I can understand. Just what was ‘Shōko-chan’ anyway? I just came back from that kindergarten. I heard ‘Shōko-chan’ was taken away by that person named Iizuka. And that her daughter – ‘Mai-chan’, was already dead.”
I relayed the story I had heard from the boy in the kindergarten, and Yoishi gave a small nod.
“I heard it as well. Albeit a few days ago.”
“Then….”
“I don’t understand everything either, now that this happened, I can only speculate but – the only thing I can say is that ‘Shōko-chan’ was a living spirit."
A shiver ran down my spine.
A living spirt.* It was – in short, a strong emotion that a living human unconsciously emits. Jealously, resentment, and excessive affections turn into curses that cause misfortune, but….
*TL/N: “Living spirit” refers to an ikiryō, a spirit or curse born from the emotions of a living person in Japanese folklore.
“By living spirit, do you mean to say it’s a living spirit of children? Is that the imaginary friend you mentioned before? But why would an imaginary friend of children be cruel to them?”
“That’s not it. It’s not from children.”
Yoishi’s clear eyes contained a glint of sorrow as she spoke.
“After giving birth and raising them all that time, kindergarten is the place where your children first begin to live with other people’s children. That is the first time that parents see their children through the lens of others. That is when they first start comparing their children to other people's children. Why can’t you do the things that other children can do? Why is that child more adorable? Why don’t you listen to me like those other children? Why, why, why – Yes, a kindergarten is the beginning of the outside world for children, but it’s also true for their mothers.”
“Hey…it can’t be….”
“That’s right, it’s always the adults who distort children.”
“….No way, then ‘Shōko-chan’ is….”
“—Yes. ‘Shōko-chan’ isn’t an imaginary friend of children. It’s an imaginary child of countless mothers.”
For a moment, the face of a child I’d never seen before flashes across my mind – It was the figure of the child in that DVD, slowly turning around towards me. The child slowly turns their face towards me, and looks up.
That fair, well-formed face, and red eyes look me in the eyes, and smile.
“The proper child who has all the ideal attributes not present in your own child – the child one yearns for. That’s what ‘proper Shōko-chan’, and the ‘yearned Shōko-chan’ originally was.* However, the girl transformed at some point. She transformed into the being that blamed her own child for not being able to become the ideal child. Eventually, that warped ideal child turned into an existence that blames and harms countless children - 'Harmful Shōko-chan’*."
*TL/N: So here, we have one of the interesting kanji puns that are not easy to translate. The syllables ‘Shō’ and ‘ko’ in ‘Shōko-chan’ are written in Katakana as ショウコちゃん throughout the case, but here, they are written in kanji forms as 正子ちゃん(Shōko-chan) and 憧子ちゃん(Shōko-chan). The kanji for 子(ko) means child, and the other kanji before ko are proper (正) Shō’, and yearned(憧) Shō’, so proper child and child yearned for.
*TL/N: Continuing from the previous explanation, the kanji used here is 障, which has a meaning of hurt or harm, so harmful child. Interestingly the two kanjis here can also be read as Shōji(障子), which means paper sliding door, and which, if you can recall, first closed behind Nagito and Yoishi in the Iizuka household.
“No… wait a second. A moment ago, you said it was a little more complicated, what did you mean by that? Why was that imaginary child taken away by Iizuka?”
“That woman, never had a child to begin with.”
“…Huh? Then who was the Mai-chan that died?”
With a somewhat cold gaze, Yoishi focused at one section of the crowd gathered at the scene of the fire.
It was a group of women who looked like young mothers around thirty years of age. Even though it was the scene of a fire, there was an atmosphere of enjoyment in the spectacle.
“I heard it from them. They said that woman was divorced by her husband. They said it was because she couldn't have children, but I don’t know if that was true or not. Whatever the case might have been, she lived alone since then and took ‘Mai-chan’ to the kindergarten every day for a walk. That’s how she became famous at the kindergarten, as Mai-chan’s auntie.”
“But… then that means that Mai-chan exists, right? She had a child, right?”
I made my counterargument, but –
The strange uncomfortable feeling from the story didn’t allow the goosebumps on my arm and back to go away.
“When you were standing in front of the house, did you notice what was next to the front door?”
Yoishi looked at me as if she could see into the depths of my soul, making me feel a horrifying chill.
Next to the front door – Ahh, I’m sure it was…
A doghouse. And its entrance was boarded up with layers of planks.
…The name tag on that was doghouse was—
“That’s right—”
“’Mai’… was the name of her dog.”
“Iizuka-san used to have a collar on her dog. However, that changed at a certain point. Just like the kindergarten kids, she knit a yellow school uniform for her dog, put it in a baby stroller, and started walking it. Those people laughed at her, saying it was creepy for her to treat a dog like a human being.”
Yoishi’s gaze didn’t waver as she pointed to the crowd of amused gossiping mothers who were watching the fire.
“I don’t know when Iizuka-san brought ‘Shōko-chan’ home from that kindergarten. But she ended up so far gone that she didn’t even notice that her dog ‘Mai-chan’ and been replaced by ‘Shōko-chan’.”
“………..”
“The thing she called ‘Mai’ back then was no longer a dog.”
I recalled the face of the woman I saw in that house, of Iizuka. I recalled her sullen eyeballs that made me reflexively think ‘She was dead, while alive’. And – when that woman shouted, ‘Go over there!’, the sliding paper door was indeed shut from the other side by something. That’s right, it was shut intentionally by something that had a will to do so. There was no chance it was done by a dog.
“But, then… what about that DVD? Didn’t Iizuka-san film that? And didn’t ‘Shōko-chan’ show up on it?”
Yoishi shook her head in reply, ‘That’s not it’.
“Iizuka-san, who had no child, couldn’t have been allowed to enter the kindergarten. And in this day and age, when outsiders are closely scrutinized, she should not have been able to attend a kindergarten event. That’s why, there’s no way that film was shot by her. And If that was the case, there could only be one reason why she would have that DVD in her possession. She was given that video by one of the mothers whose child did attend that kindergarten.”
Yoishi’s face contorted, as if she was on the verge of vomiting while looking at the crowd of mothers with their small children.
“And that was probably how it all began. Her own child’s sunny, happy day – and she passes it to Iizuka-san, a woman without a child of her own. At first glance, it seems like an act of sharing one’s happiness, but to Iizuka-san, it was without a doubt, a sad, painful, and miserable act. She might have tried returning it and throwing it away many times. On the other hand, she may have repeatedly watched that recording of children’s development with mixed feelings. Then one day, Iizuka-san finally noticed. The cameraman panned the camera to the left unexpectedly, and she saw the child that was not participating in the event.”
“…Ah.”
“Yes, in that moment, everything changed. Iizuka-san, unable to bear a child of her own, was granted the perfect child every parent idealized: ‘Shōko-chan’.”
A repeated view of the kindergarten event.
Then, the image tilts to the left.
A child who should not be there appears.
“But--”
I shook my head to shake off the image in my mind.
“But then, that’s just too sad for Iizuka-san, Isn’t it?”
“It is.”
Yoishi affirmed with her face pale, devoid of blood.
“I believe it started as a small matter born from a small act of malice. But, even after finally having gained a child, Iizuka-san was just like the other mothers. She, too, wanted to show off to everyone. She wished for the existence of the perfect child she had been granted, ‘Shōko-chan’, to spread far and wide into the world.”
“Ah—so that’s why she returned that DVD to the rental shop? That’s what you meant when you said she did it on purpose?”
Yoishi nodded in agreement.
“Children who were initially wished only to be born healthy, somehow become a product of their parents' egos. The tendency to give them unusual names, unusual hairstyles, and to dress them in peculiar clothing may all be substitutes for a perverted proxy competition by adults.”
‘But…’ said Yoishi, looking up at the house engulfed in black smoke.
“Children never grow up the way their parents want them to.”
The black smoke, which showed no sign of ceasing, bellows up into the sky as if mocking the firefighting efforts.
“Is it ‘burning Shōko-chan’ now? Or ‘laughing Shōko-chan’?”*
*TL/N: Continuing on from the previous kanji puns, Yoishi now uses 焼子ちゃん, with the kanji 焼 meaning to burn, and 笑子ちゃん, with the kanji 笑 meaning to laugh or smile.
When Yoishi muttered those words, I felt I heard a child’s laughter from the blazing flames.
And amidst the red, black flames that danced and wiggled, I thought I saw the figure of a red-eyed child standing still.
Unable to bear it, I looked away.
Besides me, Yoishi quietly stared at the group of women. They must have been the mothers who gave birth to the imaginary child, and in the light of the blazing red flames, they seemed to be laughing.
“Ughhh…..”
A bitter feeling welled up from the pit of my stomach, when—
Yoishi, standing next to me, plunged down first.
Her beautiful white face was twisted in pain, and she started vomiting.
As several people frowned and looked towards us, I gently put my hand on her back.
Eventually, Yoishi raised her pale face, and asked sorrowfully:
“Say—don’t you think having kids is scary?"
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