A few days later…
Seiji, who was still freeloading, got a text from Saori. Incredibly, Satsuki’s hanged corpse had been found in that park restroom: the Suicide Bathroom. She’d hooked her purse strap over the ventilation window and hadn’t left a note.
Do you know anything about this? If you think of something, anything at all, please tell me.
It was an extremely agitated message.
“Just you wait. That girl’s going to end up unhappy. It’s bound to happen, and it’s going to be soon.”
It had turned out just the way Saori had predicted, but all he could see in her words was confusion and regret.
When Seiji read the text to Shiroshi at three o’clock tea…
“I see. That’s a pity,” Shiroshi said. Then he took a sip of deep red tea. His expression was perfectly composed, almost as if he’d known this was going to happen.
“Um, doesn’t that mean Satsuki hanged herself right after she left here?”
“Yes, she must have.”
“Did her conscience start to bother her or something? She didn’t seem like she was planning on killing herself.”
“Well, sometimes people hang themselves even when they don’t really want to.”
“…You’re kidding, right?”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
Young Shiroshi chuckled. As usual, it was a pretty cryptic response. Never mind that… Seiji’s eyes went to the second text. This one made even less sense to him.
“Saori said when they examined Satsuki’s body, they didn’t find a baby.”
After Seiji had heard about the suicide, his first reaction was to ask about the baby. It had almost certainly died, but maybe there had been some miraculous, one-in-a-million chance it had survived.
However, Saori’s response had been completely unexpected:
She couldn’t have been pregnant. Satsuki was on her period when she killed herself.
Ridiculous. How was that even possible?
The question made Shiroshi chuckle a little. “I see. I guess that makes you a fool, Seiji.”
“A f—”
Struck by a surprise uppercut, Seiji froze, speechless. Why was he getting insulted at a time like this?
Ignoring Seiji’s “living statue” impression, Shiroshi calmly poured himself a second cup of tea, smiling slightly as if he was savoring its fragrance. “Didn’t you think it odd? I just assumed you’d picked up on it as well.”
“P-picked up on what?”
“Satsuki was never actually pregnant.”
“Huh?” He caught himself reacting like a pigeon who’d been shot with a popgun.
“It was a delusion. Perhaps one could call it a type of false pregnancy. Think back: During her first visit to this house, she claimed to be on her way to the obstetrician. However, she was wearing slim-heeled pumps.”
“Oh—”
So that was it: When he’d felt something was off that time, what he’d noticed was her feet.
“Besides, there are no obstetrics clinics near here. The only thing like it in the neighborhood is a psychotherapy practice.”
“Then she was…”
“Yes, I would imagine she was seeing a counselor for her delusional pregnancy.”
But her symptoms hadn’t improved. Her husband hadn’t known what to do with her, and when he’d gradually begun to avoid coming home, the loneliness had made her symptoms worse. This had probably been the real source of her anxiety.
“It isn’t possible to hound someone to suicide and then go on as if it never happened. Guilt, regret, remorse, anxiety, the fear of discovery… These feelings became a distortion that came to dwell in her.”
“Then that’s why Satsuki died,” Seiji murmured, feeling somewhat relieved.
If Satsuki’s conscience was what had driven her to suicide, then the fact that she’d talked with Shiroshi in the mansion here right before it happened was just a coincidence.
But—
“Well, it’s probably time I told you, Seiji.”
Setting his teacup down with a soft clink, Shiroshi smiled gently.
For some reason, that smile seemed suddenly ominous, and Seiji involuntarily scooted his chair back. It gave a brief, sharp creak that sounded a little like a scream.
“Let’s review. The most prominent characteristic of the yokai aobouzu is the way he questions a person. He leaves the choice of whether to accept or refuse to the listener. If you ignore him, he’ll hang you, but if you make it clear that you refuse, in most cases he’ll vanish without doing anything.”
“H-huh. Is that right?”
“On that point, the itsuki is far more fearsome.”
“…Itsuki?”
It turned out to come from a story told long ago in Edo, before it became Tokyo.
Arriving late to a feast, one of the guests told the gathering, “Something urgent has come up, so I just stopped in to say I can’t come,” and tried to leave immediately. Since he was acting strange, they pressed him for an explanation, to which he replied, “I promised I’d hang myself at the Kuichigai Gate.” They forced some sake on him and kept the man there for a while. Before long, a report came in that someone had hanged themselves at the Kuichigai Gate, and so the guest escaped with his life.
“In short, an itsuki is a type of malevolent spirit that possesses a victim. Spirits that take control of someone and stir up their dangerous impulses are generally called phantom killers. An itsuki is the vengeful ghost of a person who has committed suicide by hanging; they take possession of random strangers and force them to hang themselves so that the possessed person’s soul will take their place in Hell and release the itsuki from their suffering. Once an itsuki takes hold of you, there is no way to refuse them.”
“Um, I can’t tell where you’re going with this,” Seiji broke in impatiently.
Shiroshi smiled at him. “Do you remember the story about the Suicide Bathroom?”
“The one on Saori’s blog, right? There’s a public restroom in the park where people keep—”
Just as he was about to say hanging themselves, he saw it.
The circular, red surface of the teacup in Shiroshi’s hand showed the reflection of an old woman with wild, unkempt hair hanging from her neck. Seiji started to his feet with a clatter. “Wh-wh-wha—?!”
“Oh, you finally noticed? What you just saw now is an itsuki,” Shiroshi explained, sounding completely unconcerned. All Seiji could do was stare at him, petrified. “As it happens, the Suicide Bathroom was her doing. The reason no suicide notes have ever been found is because the people who hanged themselves there never meant to do it.”
“Wha…? Huh?”
“On the way back from our meeting with Saori the other day, I stopped by that bathroom. As I’d anticipated, the itsuki was there, so I brought her back to the house with me and had her possess Satsuki.” The tone of his voice was as bright and melodic as ever; he might as well have been talking about the weather.