Editing Phenomeno:Case 01 (section)

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—Ahh, why did things turn out like this?

It was a night with a beautiful moon; I was pedaling hard on the mama-cycle.

I passed through the residential area to the north of the train station near the family restaurant, and from there, I continued west along the drainage channel. The drainage channel was called Shimokawa and was one of the tributaries of the Tamagawa waterworks. This river gradually curved northeast, towards the area I lived. Every time my bike bounced off the bumpy road, Yoishi's body would press against my back. I could feel the bulge of her small breasts through my jersey, and I indulged in misplaced delusions of how we looked like a nice couple.

However, clinging to my back was a denpa girl dressed entirely in black. Her arms wrapped around my waist were oddly cold. Aren't girls supposed to have a higher body temperature? Shouldn’t they be like soft, warm, and smell nice? However, I couldn’t feel any body heat from Yoishi, who was sitting in the back seat of my bicycle. In fact, if it turned out that she was someone only I could see, I wouldn't even be surprised. That's how far away from a date this night-time bicycle rendezvous felt like.

The residential area became increasingly distant, and fields belonging to landowners began to spread out in their place. Street lights too, diminished in number. It felt like there were more stars in the sky, and the smell of grass became stronger. We were close to my home.

"Quite rural."

"Shut it," I replied to Yoishi after a considerable period of silence.

"I didn't mean that in a bad way. I didn't realize Musashino still had places like this."

"That's why I figured the rent was so low," I grumbled with a hint of self-derision.

Houses became even sparser, and after passing by a few old shrines, we entered the area lined up with dense groves of trees. A short distance along this narrow path would lead to my house.

"To be honest, I didn't want to come at night," I spoke towards my rear.

"It's a phenomenon that only happens at night, so we must go at night." Yoishi readily replied. It was actually a pretty good argument.

For a short while, we both remained silent, until eventually, Yoishi asked:

"What was your wish?"

"Huh?"

"After all, you took the trouble of living in 'The Wish-fulfilling House,' didn’t you?"

‘Took the trouble’, she says, but the truth was I just had no money for anywhere else.

"Nothing special. I just wished that my family's business would go well, that's all." I answered.

"A family man, how surprising," Yoishi commented, devoid of emotion.

'Surprising' is pretty harsh, I started to reply, but then the house beyond the black forest came into view.

"Is that the one?"

"Yeah."

Looking at it again, I'm amazed that I had rented such a place. It looked like a haunted house no matter how you looked at it. 

As soon as I slid the mama-cycle into the ground-floor garage, Yoishi jumped off the rear seat of the bike. I pressed the switch on the steel column and the garage's ceiling light turned on. That was all it took to significantly reduce my fear. Yoishi began walking about on her own, looking at the building from several angles. 

"A magnificent building."

She said, as she began walking ahead of me. She went up the stairs to the entrance on the second floor. Not having any other choice, I placed one foot on the stairs, but could go no further. As for Yoishi, she quickly climbed the stairs, casually opened the door, and took a glance inside. Ahh, right. Now that I think about it, I rushed out without locking the door. That means I'd left it unlocked for several days, how careless of me.

All I could do was look from the bottom of the stairs. It was pretty pathetic of me, but I was the one that experienced the fear. I'd say it's animal instinct to not want to get any closer unless safety is ensured.

"How is it?"

"Dark."

Well of course it is.

And with that, Yoishi quickly went inside. I was afraid of being left behind at the bottom of the stairs, so I rushed after her. When I opened the front door, the lights were already on inside. Yoishi stood right next to the light switch, and glanced around from the ceilings to the walls. Lights really are a great thing. I was calmed just by it being bright, so much so that I didn't know whether those creepy happenings were real or not.

When I was about to take off my shoes at the foyer, I saw that Yoishi's knee-high boots had already been neatly taken off and arranged. She might have had a better upbringing than I thought, but then it struck me.

Come to think of it, we hadn't even properly introduced ourselves to each other yet.

"Hey, I know it's belated, but--" I turned toward her and said, "I go by 'Nagi' online, but my real name is Nagito Yamada. I'm in my first year of university this spring."

She simply nodded once without turning around and said:

"I'm Yoishi."

"Isn't that a handle?"

"No. My surname is Mitsurugi. Not that it matters."

—Yoishi Mitsurugi ("美鶴木 夜石").

She was a very strange one indeed. What kind of person reveals their real name on the internet and doesn't give a shit about their surname?

"'5' ("五") was on the wall of the toilet?" 

She asked, as if suggesting that the conversation we just had was a waste of time, so I pointed to the far end of the second floor and said, “That way”. Yoishi silently moved in that direction. Without hesitation, she opened the door, turned on the lights, and peered in.

I quietly followed.

"See? It looks like the number '5' ("五"), doesn't it? It's not a schema or whatever, right?" I asked Yoishi from behind.

"You know of words such as schema?" she asked in a condescending manner.

"Well, I mean, I am an occult maniac, after all."

That was a lie. It was a piece of information I had only just acquired.

"If you look at a meaningless shape with prior knowledge of a specific set of information, the brain tends to recognize the figure in line with that information— that is a schema in cognitive science, but this is without a doubt a '5' ("五"). Even I see it that way."

Yoishi spoke as she traced her fingertips over the engraving, paying no heed to my words.

Well, even if it wasn’t a schema, it didn’t solve the problem. If anything, it made things worse. If this was truly a deliberately-written "5" ("五"), then someone — or something — in this house wrote it.

"'6' ("六") was near the bath?"

After she finished carefully examining the "5" ("五"), Yoishi switched on the light in the room with the bath just opposite to the toilet and opened the door. She moved her face right in front of the symbol engraved into the window sill. As I watched the scene from behind her, I caught the smell of something odd.

Truth be told, it'd been bothering me since I met her — but now that I was in an enclosed space with her, it became clear to me once more.

"...Are you wearing some sort of perfume?"

Yoishi wordlessly shook her head.

"Wait, but this smell on you..."

That’s when I realized what that smell was.

I'd smelled it in club rooms during middle school.

A somewhat sour, nose-curdling smell, as if something was rotting.

"...Um, I totally understand this is a rude thing to ask a girl," I asked, pinching my nose, "But when did you last take a bath?"

Yoishi turned around and looked at me quizzically. Then she looked up at the ceiling. I had a bad feeling about that gesture, as if she was searching through distant memories.

"Wha... It was so far back you have to think about it?"

"I don't quite remember, maybe last month?"

"Wh-what the hell! Get in the bath! The bath!"

"But I'm already here."

"That's not what I meant! Do you not take showers? Wash your hair?"

"What does that have to do with the numbers counting down?" Yoishi seemed completely bewildered as she asked me, but come on, I'd heard about the term "dirty girl," and I know French royalty were famous for never taking baths, but this is contemporary Japan. Do high school girls that don't take baths for a month exist?

"What you say lacks reason," she said flatly, and then peered closely at the window sill once more. "It is unmistakably, a '6' ("六")."

She quickly turned around and asked, "How about '7' ("七")?" She really had no interest in anything other than the paranormal. Sighing, I reluctantly guided her.

It was on a wall on the staircase landing to the third floor.

This was the place where the middle-aged man I didn't know was standing during the pseudo-word-association game Yoishi had me play earlier. As expected, I didn't feel like following her there, so I just gestured towards it. Yoishi wordlessly climbed the stairs and leaned against that wall as well.

"Hmm."

"That looks like '7' ("七") too, right?"

However, Yoishi didn't immediately answer. Instead, she took out a mini-flashlight from her pocket, shined it at the number '7' (七), and looked all around it.

"Is there something strange about it?"

"This is certainly a '7' ("七"), but— it's strange."

I was about to ask ''What's strange?'', but at that moment-

Yoishi suddenly vomited. She didn't do anything cute like place a hand to her mouth in an effort to hold it back, but rather, standing upright in a daunting pose, she boldly hurled, which definitely made me take a step back. She was used to vomiting, that's what that posture gave off, and I ended up completely seeing it through to the end.

Dripping vomit.

Sparkling gastric fluid, and the remnants of the orange juice she was drinking earlier.

—What the hell is she?

She doesn't take baths, boldly vomits out in the open… 

And to make things worse, she's an occult-loving denpa girl who wears coats during spring.

However, I finally noticed that the denpa girl did seem to be struggling a bit.

"Hey, are you alright?" I ran up to her and began rubbing her back. She gave a feeble nod and wiped her mouth.

There was vomit on the landing, but she resumed conversing as if nothing even happened.

"Ever since I saw your post, I thought it was strange. Why did the countdown begin from '7' ("七")?"

"Huh?"

"Countdowns should normally start from 9 ("九") or 10 ("十")."

"How should I know?"

I mean, ghosts were scary because you don't know what they're thinking. How would a human like me know why something like that began counting down from "7" ("七")?

"Wrong. The paranormal has no rules, but the other side has a will of its own." said Yoishi as she climbed the stairs; I had no choice but to follow.

As if to say there must be an "8" ("八") and a "9" ("九") somewhere, Yoishi turned on the lights to the third floor and began sliding up to the walls. Her posture, as she crawled about on all fours, scampering along the walls, was both creepy and comical. Afterwards, Yoishi began mumbling something to herself and didn't respond to anything I said, so I gave up and went back down to the second floor. I poured water from the small sink next to the toilet into a bucket, and threw a rag in. Even after everything, this was still my house; I couldn’t just leave the vomit on the stairs like that. As I took the bucket to the staircase landing, I was reminded of the blank face of the man Yoishi had shown me in the family restaurant a while ago, but I tried hard not to think about it and cleaned up the vomit.

Ughh, why does vomit smell so acidic? Somehow it always entices you to vomit, too. Moreover, it was irritating that the person who vomited didn’t seem to care at all. As if it was obvious that it would be my job to clean up after her.

"Hey, do you not eat? There's only liquid in this."

I commented with a bit of a nasty tone. But Yoishi, who'd come back down from the third floor, simply mumbled that there was no "8" ("八") or "9" ("九") anywhere. The way she said it, as if she was deeply disappointed, kind of ticked me off. 

"Didn't I already tell you there weren’t any more?"

She ignored my comment and began looking at the walls on the second floor. Half-exasperated, I watched over her as I went down to the second floor with the rag and bucket. Then, I looked at the clock. "Say," I called out to her, "Are you alright being out this late?"

Of course, that was pretty belated, given that it was almost three o'clock in the morning.

If I were her parents, I’d be furious with her for being out this late.

"I hope you called home before coming out at this hour. I mean, I know it's my fault this is happening, but parents always worry. Back home, I always thought my parents were a pain in the ass, but once you leave, you feel an appreciation for that stuff."

However, she wasn't listening to my passionate sermon.

Instead, I noticed she was completely immobile, staring at a single spot.

"What is it?" I asked, but Yoishi didn't move. She stood still, frozen like a mannequin. I moved behind Yoishi and looked where she was looking.

It was the spot where Yoishi had just vomited —the staircase landing where the middle-aged man I didn’t know was standing in my imagination.

"Wa...Wait a second. Who're you having a staring match with?"

When I placed a hand on her shoulder, she twitched, as if breaking free from a spell.

And then she whispered, ever so softly, "I see."

When she turned around, she seemed to look happy. I could tell by the slight blush creeping into her pale face that she was excited.

"Hey, did you notice?"

"What?" 

But Yoishi didn't respond, instead, she turned around and headed toward the entrance.

"H...Hey, wait up!"

"Let's leave."

She quickly put on her deep black boots, then walked straight out of the entrance. I hurriedly put on my sneakers and chased after her. Trying not to look inside, I shut off the lights, closed the door, and remembered to lock it this time. After that, I stuck close to Yoishi as she staggered down the stairs.

We arrived at the mama-cycle left inside the garage, Yoishi looked up at the building once more, and said, "This building is very interesting."

"What're you talking about?"

"Under the stairs to the third floor. There exists a meaningless space."

At that moment, goosebumps broke out all over my neck and back at once.

I see—

The eeriness that I'd felt all along about this house, I finally understood it. Indeed, it had always felt like something was odd about this house. And that was the area under the stairs which I could never reach. The area under the stairs that I just couldn’t get into, whether from the outside or the inside. I’d often heard stories about doors that couldn’t be opened, and this was similar in that it was a space where we didn't know what was inside, but its existence could be felt somewhere.

"And, look at this."

Yoishi pointed at the mailbox by the staircase entrance on the ground floor.

My full name was written on a piece of paper the size of a business card, with three lines inscribed on it, crushing the name from above.

It was unmistakable.

The number "3" ("三").

The countdown continued.

Yoishi placed her face almost right onto the engravings and mumbled happily, "This place is the real deal," but I spoke in a hollow voice:

"I can’t take this anymore."