I heard a hollow sound, echoing. Clack... Clack.
Master Izumin had called me a taxi to Enmeiji. When I got there I ran to the main shrine as fast as I could, hoping I’d see Chi.
And then I heard the sound.
It wasn’t a loud sound, but the temple was so quiet that it was a little scary, and the sound echoed in my ears.
“What is this sound...?” Gamo had gotten in the taxi with me. He sounded scared.
Supposedly this was where the young boy with the box was. That’s what Gamo had told me in the taxi.
I was disappointed to find out that it wasn’t Chi, but maybe the boy might know something.
I just wanted to hear what he had to say as soon as I could—
I didn’t want to think about anything else—
I didn’t want to imagine anything else—
I looked around.
It was probably because the sun had set, but I couldn’t see anybody around.
But...
I could still hear the sound.
And it wasn’t coming at regular intervals.
There was no order to the rhythm. Sometimes the interval would be shorter, and sometimes longer.
“Think it’s from over there?” Narusawa pointed to the back of the temple.
As I walked I could see the main shrine.
And there they were.
Someone was curled up on the ground beneath the eyes of the statue of Bishamonten that was right next to the shrine.
They should have been able to see us coming, but they didn’t turn to look at us at all.
They were laughing. It was a tiny laugh, like a snort.
In their hands was something square that looked like a box.
Clack. Clack.
The sound was coming from the box.
“Who are you?” I turned on the flashlight function on my phone.
And in the light, I saw...
“A white... person?”
Close-cropped, white hair, skin like snow, and a body and face that was pure white, like it had been dusted with white powder.
“H-He’s really here...” Gamo gulped. Even I could tell he was afraid.
I took a step towards the boy.
And then I felt an awful stench in my nostrils.
What was it? I felt sick.
“Myu-Pom, wait. Something’s not right about him.” Gamo grabbed my shoulder and stopped me.
I heard a voice again.
It was like someone talking to themselves, and so quiet it was hard to hear.
✦ ✦ ✦
The white-haired boy was chortling and whispering something.
“What’s wrong? That’s weird. This thing must be broken. It won’t shut. Hehe.” Clack...
I heard the sound again.
What was this sound?
“Hey, hey, miss.”
“...?!”
Suddenly he talked to me... at least, it felt that way. Did he call out to me? It was so sudden I was too shocked to react.
He still wasn’t looking at us.
Clack...
The sound, again.
“Looks like I screwed up making the box.”
“The... box?” Did he mean the Kotoribako?
“There’s, like, manuals and stuff online, but I didn’t really look at them. Oh well. But you don’t usually look at those, right? Only really serious people do. I’m sure eighty percent of Japanese people don’t look at the manual before they start putting something together.”
What was he talking about?
Clack...
And what was that hollow sound? I didn’t know. I was starting to panic, and I had to know what it was...
My cell phone flashlight shone on the young boy’s hands.
Was that... a box? It was about forty square centimeters in size.
The surface was really uneven. It wasn’t quite square.
It didn’t even really look like a box. It was more like he’d just piled some blocks together. And around the box were scattered lots of cards. They were trading cards. Just like the card I’d seen in the last photo Chi sent...
“Wh-Where’s the keyhole?” Gamo was looking hard at the box.
“There isn’t one...”
I finally figured out what the sound was.
The box wouldn’t hold its shape unless he was pressing on it. Especially the outside. There was a long, vertical block that hadn’t been put in very well. If he took his hand off, it couldn’t support itself, and popped out.
It was the sound of him pushing it back in.
Each time a block flew out, he’d been popping it back in with annoyance.
“I smell blood.” This smell... it was blood.
Where was it coming from? Was it the blocks? And then I realized...
The surface of the blocks was wet for some reason.
I could see what looked like hair, poking out from in between the gaps in the blocks.
“Hey...” I couldn’t take it anymore, so I spoke to the kid.
It wasn’t really because of the cold that my voice was shaking...
“Do you know where my friend is? Her name’s Chi. Her real name is Chizu Kawabata. She’s a first-year student at Seimei High...”
“I need a sacrifice!” The boy suddenly looked up.
“Hyah!” I almost fell backwards in surprise, but Narusawa caught me.
The young boy grinned and looked back at the box. “A sacrifice needs to go inside the Kotoribako. And that sacrifice needs to be someone everybody loves, it said on the net. Oh, but I’m a minor, so it’s not a crime. Because I’m a minor, you know.”
Clack.
Another block got pushed out.
When he moved it back, his hands were slick, too.
“They told me about somebody who could be a good sacrifice. And it’s actually the super-popular high school girl that Morizuka was telling me about a while ago. I figured she’d be the perfect sacrifice, but...” He took his hand off the box, and another block pocked out.
He’d been doing that again and again. It felt like something I shouldn’t be looking at.
I wanted to run away, now.
But I couldn’t take my eyes off his hands.
“Why?” I asked, without even realizing I’d done so. “Why is your hand wet? Why is it red?”
But he ignored me.
“But I guess I screwed up.”
“Huh?” He screwed up what—
“The sacrifice. Even if I screw up, I’m a minor, so it’s not a crime.”
“Tell me!” I yelled. “What’s... in that box...?” I couldn’t even speak anymore.
No more...
“What’s wrong? I’m a minor, so it’s not a crime.” The young boy slowly stood up.
The blocks fell apart again, but he didn’t try to fix them.
“I-I’ll call the police!!” Gamo said, but the boy just grinned and shrugged.
“The police? Why? I keep telling you. I’m a minor, so I won’t get in trouble.”
“Answer my question!” That was as loud as I could scream.
“If you want to know, I’ll give you this box. It’s a failure, but it’s halfway made.” And then the boy looked at me again.
He had a huge smile on his face. Different than the grin before.
“Myu—”
—How did he know my name?
“—that was you, wasn’t it?”
And then the white boy went away, leaving behind the falling-apart box.
“W-Wait!” Gamo tried to stop him, but the strange atmosphere around the boy seemed to keep him frozen in place.
The boy vanished, slowly, towards the graveyard behind the temple.
All that was left was the three of us, and the box placed in front of the statue of Bishamonten.
I didn’t want to imagine it. I didn’t want to see it.
If I saw it, I knew I’d regret it.
Maybe I could use my fortune-telling in my mind on the box’s contents. Maybe I could see a vision.
But I was too scared of what I’d see to do it.
No, it was better not to do it.
Don’t look inside that box.
I knew not to. I knew not to, but...
I took a step, and then another.
I walked towards the box.
Hey...
What did that boy put in the box? What did he mean by “sacrifice”? What did he mean, he got it wrong? How’d he know my name? Why would he give it to me? What was inside this wet, twisted thing that wasn’t even really a box?
I kneeled in front of it, and touched it with my fingertip.
It felt slick.
It was sticky. It was super cold, and I almost jerked my hand away.
It was made of wood, but I imagined it was made of stainless steel. The box was made of wood blocks, piled into a rectangle. And they were all piled together, randomly.
The smell had gotten stronger. It was clearly coming from inside the box.
I could hear something rattling.
A moment later I realized it was my teeth.
“Myu-Pom!” Gamo yelled to me from behind. “Don’t open it!”
I ignored his warning.
I took off the top block.
The smell got worse.
But I didn’t care. I kept removing blocks.
I could tell there was less room inside than I thought. The box was pretty big, but there wasn’t a lot of room to put anything in it.
“Stop it! Myu-Pom!”
I shook off Gamo’s hand.
And I kept tearing down the box.
A piece of hair stuck out of it and wrapped around my finger. It looked like human hair, but I told myself it couldn’t be. It was just a strange piece of fabric.
The wetness on my hands was cold, and I was losing the feeling in my fingertips. But I still couldn’t stop.
This isn’t true.
It can’t be true.
What’s inside is something that doesn’t matter at all.
It’s not a sacrifice. It can’t be. I mean, it’s the 21st century. This is Japan. It’s not a super-long time ago in the past, like the time of the samurai. And this isn’t a manga or an anime.
So my premonition would be wrong. It had to be. Please be wrong.
As I prayed...
I dismantled half of the box.
And then I saw something shine within it.
I took a deep breath, and looked inside.
I could see a hairpiece with a cute, little dog mascot. It was stained red and black.
“Aah... ahh....” I knew it.
It was...
It was the one I wore on my head. I’d given another one to Chi on her birthday, so we could match.
“No...” I reached out my hand for the hairpiece.
But it was dark. I judged the distance wrong.
And I touched the thing that was under it.
It was thick, like yogurt, and it was so disgusting I quickly yanked back my hand.
“Myu-Pom?! That’s enough! Stop it!” Gamo’s cell phone flashlight illuminated my hands.
My fingers were covered in pink yogurt mixed with red.
No, that wasn’t it. That wasn’t yogurt. Despite all that was going on, my brain knew exactly what was happening. This was...
Yeah, it had to be...
This was what was left of Chi’s brain.
“NOOOOOOOOOOO!” And then, I passed out.