by Kei Oishi
“Yeah.”
The early summer days were long. It was already past six o’clock in the evening, but the sky was still light, almost too light. The two friends walked side by side in the warm breeze. They felt like they had slipped back in time to their school days, and felt very happy.
“Hey, Rika … you had a crush on Toyoshima-kun back when we first got to college, didn’t you?”
“Huh, what are you talking about?” Rika replied, blushing at Mariko’s remark.
“You’re turning red,” Rika smiled, looking at Rika’s down-turned face. “What, did you think I didn’t know? It was written all over your face!”
A flock of birds cut across the red evening sky, in a boomerang formation. Tulips bloomed brightly in planters at the entrance to a coffee shop. Rika recalled Yuji Toyoshima’s face. Still blushing, she looked at Mariko and laughed. She wondered what Toyoshima-kun was doing now. From somewhere wafted the smell of wet earth.
Mariko chose a small, Italian restaurant, which was filled with the aroma of tomatoes, garlic, and olive oil.
Sitting by the window, they watched the passersby, and ordered white wine and several dishes. When the wine arrived at their table, they clinked their glasses together, crying, “Cheers!” Finally, the waitress started bringing their food: a salad, an appetizer, fish, the meat dish Mariko ordered, pasta … Even though they conversed on the phone all the time, they never seemed to run out of things to talk about.
About an hour later, Rika got up to go to the restroom. After freshening up her makeup, she returned to her seat. Mariko, a sullen look on her face, was pressing her cell phone to her ear.
Seeing her friend back, Mariko put her phone back in her purse.
“What’s wrong, Mariko, did something come up?”
“No, not really,” she sighed. “Well, actually, there’s just this one kid who hasn’t been to school for several days.”
“Oh? What about the parents, can’t you call them?”
“I’ve been trying, but no one ever picks up.”
“Maybe they have a reason not to … “
“Even so, they could at least call the school, don’t you think?”
“Teachers have it hard, don’t they?” Rika laughed.
“We sure do,” Mariko laughed back, defeated. “Say, Rika, how’s your job at the care center going? Are you used to the routine now?”
“Yeah, I guess I am … “
Just then, Rika felt something brush against her stocking-clad ankle. Something like—a furry animal.
“Huh?”
Reflexively, she lifted the tablecloth and looked under the table.
There sat a naked, pale-skinned boy holding a black kitten.
“Iyaaaa,” she screamed and jumped back.
“What’s wrong, Rika?!”
Mariko’s voice echoed through the restaurant.
Still trembling with terror, Rika looked under the table again. But, she saw no one.
“Rika! Rika! What’s wrong?!”
Mariko helped her friend who had crumpled to the floor back to her feet. All oi the other patrons turned their attention to the two girls. A waiter ran over to see what was wrong.
Rika looked under the table one more time. But she saw neither a boy nor a black cat.
Toshio.
Another memory that she had tried to repress came back to her.
Mariko
After separating from her friend for the night, Mariko decided to pay a visit to the home of the boy who had been absent from her class. She had planned on talking late into the night with Rika, but the incident at the restaurant had thrown a monkey wrench into the works.
Rika was probably just exhausted. Her facial color was terrible, and she didn’t say much. Rika sure had changed. Not only her taste in food, but her fashion, interests, music, movies, and type of books she enjoyed had also changed, so much that Mariko felt like she was not talking to Rika, but to a completely different woman.
Evening had fallen, and it was starting to get dark. After going through an old shopping district and getting lost more than once, Mariko finally found the residential area she was looking for. She found the house after asking a few of the people she ran into in the neighborhood.
There it was. On the brick gate, she spotted the nameplate: Saeki.
“Well, here it is.”
Mariko pushed the interphone on the gate.
Ding dong.
No answer. She tried again.
Ding dong.
Still no answer. Mariko pushed the steel gate open and walked up to the front door.
“Hello,” she called out, knocking on the door. Still no reply. She tried the doorknob, and found it unlocked.
“Hello! My name is Mariko Nakata, a teacher with the school,” she called out, as she opened the door. “Hello … Hello! I’m coming in!”
She stepped inside the entrance. At that instant, she stopped, feeling something was very wrong, very ominous, in this house.
A long hallway extended straight from the entrance, with doors on both sides. Right off the entrance was a staircase that led up to the second floor.
“Urn … is anyone here?”
Taking off her pumps and walking into the house, she opened the first door on the right.
She gave an involuntary cry.
She saw the little boy from her class. He was slouched on the couch, staring off into space absent-mindedly.
“There you are, Toshio-kun … you surprised me.”
It clearly was Mariko’s student. But he seemed nothing like Mariko remembered him.
What on earth had happened here? The boy’s eyes were blank and his body seemed lifeless. She wondered if he was he sick.
“Toshio,” Mariko said as she extended her hand toward the boy’s face. She brushed his long bangs out of the way and pressed her palm to his forehead.
Contrary to Mariko’s expectations, the boy did not have a fever. Quite the opposite, his forehead was very cold, almost as if he was no longer alive.
“Hmmm, no fever,” Mariko muttered as she took her hand away. Looking closely at the boy’s face, she noticed that black-red things dotted Toshio’s forehead, cheeks, and jaw. Both knees were dirty as if he’d been crawling around some dusty area, and his knees were scraped and bleeding.
“You don’t seem good. What’s wrong?” Mariko asked again, but the boy kept staring at the wall.
Mariko sat down on the sofa opposite Toshio and sighed.
The house was quiet. Hardly any sounds from outside were heard in here, and the silence in the room accumulated like cold air, and settled like the bottom of a body of water. No, it was not just the silence. Mariko felt something else, something the likes of which she had never felt before. A very deep sense of foreboding was also accumulating here.
“Oh, yes,” Mariko said, unable to stand the silence anymore. She took out a large envelope from her bag, took out a single piece of drawing paper from the envelope, and placed it on the coffee table.
It was the picture that the boy had drawn in art class last week. On the paper was a stocky man, who was presumably his father, and a longhaired woman who was surely his mother, drawn in crayon.
Looking at the picture spread out on the table, Mariko found herself remembering her friend, Rika Nishina.
Why did I just think of Rika?
Mariko licked her lips.
Yes, Rika, whom she had just met earlier that evening, had long, black hair and white clothes, like the woman in her student’s picture.
“It’s very good. All the other teachers said so.”
When she praised his picture, the boy’s face, which had hitherto been emotionless, broke into a slight smile.
“Toshio-kun? Where’s your mother, out shopping?”
The boy did not respond to Mariko’s question.
At a loss, Mariko stood up and slowly moved over to the window, looking out the curtain at the trees. At that moment, from somewhere in the room, a cat cried.
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Meeeoooowww!
Mariko took her cell phone out of her bag, and pressed redial on Rika’s phone number.
Rika
Rika opened her apartment, and walked in, turning the light on. She saw a dark-looking woman, reflected in the window
“Who are you?” she screamed, sliding back.
But, upon closer inspection, Rika noticed that the woman reflected in the window was herself. A woman wearing white, with long, black hair and a pale face.
“What’s happening to me?”
Shaking her head, Rika went into her bedroom. Instantly, she screamed.
She knew she was not seeing things. There it was, on her bed …
“Why? Why?”
She surely left it outside of her door that morning. She was sure that she locked her door. But…
Shuddering, Rika reached for the brown scrapbook on top of her bed. Her fingers were trembling uncontrollably.
She didn’t want to look at it. But, she could not resist. Almost as if she was being controlled by someone else, Rika picked up the old scrapbook. Still trembling in fright, she began turning the pages. No, it was not Rika who turned the pages. It was that other woman inside oi her, turning the pages, using Rika’s fingers, well manicured with bright-red nail polish.
“… Today, a girl named Rika Nishina, a college student studying social care, came to my house. I had planned to kill Rika Nishina, as I have all the others, but then thought of something, and decided not to kill her yet. Just killing her is no fun. Instead oi killing her, I will live inside of her body … .”
Shaking violently, Rika slowly lifted her head and looked at that other woman, reflected in the window. The longhaired woman with the dark face.
That… that is not me . . . her name . . .her name is . . .
“Ka … ya … ko … “
Rika mumbled the word unconsciously. She trembled in terror at her voice, at the meaning of that word.
She was still holding the scrapbook in her hands. She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. She continued reading the words on the page.
“… Rika Nishina’s interests do not match my own. She likes meat, but I cannot eat it. She drinks tea, but I prefer coffee. She likes to wear colorful clothes, but I like to wear white. Her underwear is all fancy satin and lace, but I prefer white cotton. She has short hair that she dyed brown, but I think I look better and more feminine with long black hair. This girl enjoys sports, but I hate them. She thinks that the world is just filled with kind, good people, but that just isn’t so. It just isn’t possible … She is so different from me. Her tastes in music, movies, and literature, her taste in men, everything about her is different from me. Therefore, I have to improve her, a little bit at a time …”
Rika felt her consciousness slipping as she continued to read.
So that’s what happened … I have another woman living inside of me . . . this woman … this woman named Kayako … she’s trying to take over my body.
The room went black before her eyes.
Why me … ? Why does it have to be me … ? Why … why … why … ?
Repeating this over and over inside her mind, Rika passed out.
Toshio
Toshio crept over to the woman who had fainted on the bed.
He felt a strong atmosphere o{ nostalgia around the woman. She had the scent o( his mother.
Toshio crouched at the side of the bed, and tentatively reached his hand out to touch the long hair spread around her head.
A long, long time ago—when Toshio had still been alive—he fell in the street and ran home, crying. His mother had covered his skinned knee with a brown liquid that stung, and told him, “Boys aren’t supposed to cry over something as small as this,” smiling gently at her son.
He remembered this.
How long had passed since then?
“Mommy …” Toshio called out.
Just then, a phone began ringing somewhere in the room.
Rika
Rika awoke to the sound of her phone ringing. She looked around the room, panicked. She saw someone hiding in the shadows. She thought she saw it, anyway.
“Who’s there?” she screamed.
The phone kept ringing.
She sat up on her bed, and looked around the room again. She thought she must have fallen asleep with the lights on.
Asleep … no, not asleep. I … I fainted … I read that scrapbook and … I passed out …
That brown scrapbook was still there, on top of her bed.
The phone was still ringing. Taking a deep breath, she picked up the phone.
“Yes, this is Nishina.”
“Hello? Rika?”
“Aaah, Mariko!” Rika was so relieved she wanted to cry. “Mariko, sorry about today.”
“You scared me. Rika, are you all right?”
No matter how she felt, Rika always became re-energized at the sound of Mariko’s voice.
“Yeah. Thanks. I’m just tired, I guess … Sorry again for ruining your evening.”
“Don’t worry about it. Let’s get together again soon.”
“Yeah. Mariko, where are you now?”
“Remember I told you about that kid who hasn’t been in school? I’m here at his house.”
“Is it all right for you to be calling me now?”
“Yeah, well only the boy is home … I’ve been waiting here for over an hour, but his parents haven’t come home yet.”
“Really … what a drag.”
As Rika was sympathizing with her friend’s predicament, she heard a cat cry on the other end of the phone, Meeeeoooowl
“Ah,” Rika’s voice spilled out unbidden. All of a sudden, like bubbles from the bottom of the ocean, memories that were hidden in the depths of her mind came rushing up to the surface.
“Mariko! Where are you?! Mariko! Mariko!”
But what Rika heard from the receiver was definitely not Mariko’s voice.
Meeeeoooowl
“Mariko! Mariko!”
The phone went dead.
“Aaahh, Mariko,” she muttered, looking around the room. She picked up the scrapbook on the bed and opened it again.
“… Today, Toshio’s teacher, a woman named Mariko Nakata, came to the house. I have decided to kill her, just like all the others …”
“Mariko …”
She didn’t have time to dally around. In a daze, Rika rushed out of her apartment. She thought she saw a little, pale boy in the shadows, but she did not turn around.
Mariko
“Hello … Rika? Rika!”
The phone connection had been severed. Shrugging, she redialed. This time, the phone just rang and rang. Rika did not pick up.
“What happened?” she shrugged, before turning back around to her student.
“Toshio-kun?”
She saw then that Toshio, who was just fast asleep on the sofa, was gone.
“Huh? Toshio-kun … Toshk>kun …”
Calling his name, she checked around the house.
“Toshio-kun … Toshio-kun …”
The kitchen, the guest room, the small room that housed the family’s Buddhist altar, the toilet, the bath, Mariko checked every room on the first floor, but did not find the boy.
“Toshio-kun … Toshio-kun …”
As she headed up the stairs, she clearly heard a child’s voice, and more faintly, a woman’s voice from the second floor.
Mariko crept up the stairs silently. The voices were coming from beyond the door just at the top of the stairs.
“… Mommy, where were you … ? Nakata Sensei’s here … She said she wants to see you, Mommy …”
By listening carefully, she could make out what the child was saying, but the woman’s voice was soft, almost whispering, and Mariko had no idea what she was saying. She was sure that there was a woman, the boy’s mother, in that room.
“Toshio-kun,” Mariko called out from in front of the door. “Toshio-kun, I’m coming in,” she said as she opened the
door.
The room was apparently the child’s bedroom. There were pictures of cats drawn in crayon hung up all over the walls. There were more pictures of cats drawn in crayon all over the floor. But…. the boy’s mother was nowhere to be seen.
“Toshio-kun,” Mariko called. But, the boy went on drawing his picture with his crayon, as if he hadn’t even noticed Mariko come in.
“Toshio-kun … Weren’t you speaking to someone just now?” Mariko asked, but the boy was engrossed in his picture and didn’t lift his face.
Mariko shrugged and looked around the room. This room was filled with pictures oi cats.
“Your mom and dad sure are late getting back, huh?”
Mariko kept talking to the boy drawing his pictures on the floor.
“I really want to see your mother today.”
Suddenly, the boy, who had been looking down, looked up to the ceiling. And right then, a woman’s voice called out:
It was a quiet, weak-sounding voice. But it was no hallucination.
Rika
Relying on her recollection from a year ago, Rika sped on her way to that house by taxi.
“Oh, here it is,” she proclaimed to the taxi driver, and jumped out of the car.
The name on the plate on the brick gate was the same as it had been a year ago: Tokunaga. Yellow police tape was wrapped all around the house.
Since the entire Tokunaga family had died, no one else had moved into the house.
Standing in front of the gate, Rika looked up at the house. With the black summer sky in the background, it stood formidably before her.
A year ago in this house … no, she stopped herself from remembering. That’s because she knew that if she remembered, she would surely run away, leaving Mariko to her fate.
“Mariko …”
She could not stand by and let Mariko die. Rika steeled4ier resolve and ducked under the police tape to head for the front door.
The house was just the same as it was on the day the Tokunaga family was found dead in the attic, the day the police started their investigation.
Feeling around on the wall, she flipped the light switch, but nothing happened. But it was not completely dark. Light from outside that came in through the openings in the curtains dimly lit the interior of the house.
Rika squinted her eyes. There, at the entrance, was a pair of pumps that she recognized. They were the shoes that Mariko had worn that day.