It was the summer of my third year in university. Having early on decided to skip all of my university lectures that year, I had plenty of time on my hands on days without a part-time job. I had so much free time that I read about halfway through the Kojien dictionary from the very first page for no particular reason. Not finishing the whole thing is just so typically me. Anyway, one day, while agonizing over such a warped daily routine, I received a call. It was from a girl going by the handle "Onkyo," whom I had met back when I used to frequent a local rumor-based forum where people talked about urban legends and the like. It seemed she had been going by a different name on the net until recently, but after running into me for the first time in two years—someone who knew her from her "Onkyo" days—she must have had a change of heart, because she seemed to be using that handle again.
Part of me wondered what she wanted, but she was cute enough that guys around us would occasionally glance her way when she sat in silence, so I didn't hate it. Though, half of those curious glances might have been directed at her heavily gothic-inspired fashion. We met at a designated curry shop, and after she arrived a little late, we made small talk. She calmly rattled off a half-baked theory called the "Curry Shop Conspiracy," making my head hurt. When I retorted, "The reason so many people commit crimes after eating curry is simply a matter of probability. It just means it's a dish eaten that often," she asked, "What's probability?" When I explained, "Probability means—well, to use screws as an analogy, given the absolute volume of them, it feels less like a piece of Buggy-chan and more like a part of Poseidon," she replied, "Who's Buggy-chan?" When I asked, "Have you never seen a full-length Doraemon movie?", she answered, "No." And with that, the conversation ended. She should have been four years younger than me. Was this a generation gap too?
I knew it wasn't from my own generation, but I had assumed everyone watched Doraemon movies on video or read them in manga. We weren't getting to the point. I was starting to get irritated. Come to think of it, and belatedly at that, this woman could not be trusted. Because there had been more than one occasion in the past when I had been tricked and put through terrifying experiences. Text messages talking about going on a date should probably be interpreted as meaning nothing more than a casual "hello." It was just as I pulled back a little to build a psychological wall that Onkyo suddenly stood up and waved toward the entrance, calling out, "Over here, over here." A girl, seemingly sixteen or seventeen, walked in clad in black—a black fashion I couldn't wrap my head around. She wore the same style as Onkyo, but even blacker. And to top it off, her hair was silver, she wore a pale purple lipstick, and emerald-green colored contacts. The girl swished her heavy-looking skirt and took the seat across from me. "This is Ruri-chan. She writes all these complicated kanji," Onkyo introduced. The girl gave a slight bow at the introduction, then leaned close to Onkyo's ear and whispered something. "The king stays, the king leaves, she says," Onkyo repeated with a nod. I pictured the characters in my head. *Ruri* (lapis lazuli)? I didn't know if that was her real name or some kind of net name, but for now, I had no choice but to nod back. "So, what's this?" At my words, Onkyo said cheerfully, "I told you I'd introduce you, didn't I?" I felt like burying my face in my hands. Ah, one of those "I'll introduce you to a friend" things. I certainly remembered a conversation to that effect, but I had no confidence in my ability to associate with someone from another world. Above all, I had someone special in my life right now.
Ruri-chan blinked her eyes at my undisguised look of confusion and showed a sad expression. Though, to be fair, if someone told me that was an angry face, it was subtle enough that I could have seen it either way. "Did you forget I said I'd introduce you? A friend who's so desperately cute it's a problem." Wait a minute. An extra modifier had just been added. The person I was supposed to be introduced to was definitely just "a ridiculously cute friend." "Are you here to consult about a trouble?" The two black-clad figures nodded in unison. Here it comes. I figured as much. Onkyo had a habit of sticking her nose into shady things, much like my master on the occult path. And the misfortune of having had to clean up her messes twice before probably meant she had grown attached to me. "I told you clearly, didn't I? That I was introducing a cute friend who's in serious trouble." The order of the modifiers had changed. I had a violently bad feeling about this. The curry I had ordered had arrived, so I decided to eat for now. Whether this was what they called authentic, it had unusually few ingredients, and the complex scent of spices hit my nose. I watched the two girls sitting in front of me, eating in silence. Where on earth do they sell clothes like that? Moreover, they seemed to wear makeup to match the outfits; going through all that every time they stepped outside must take a considerable amount of time. The girl named Ruri suddenly stopped her right hand holding the spoon and looked at me with eyes that asked, "Is this bothersome?" Hating myself for not being able to say a clear "yes," I looked away. Still, surrounded by that all-black attire, white skin, silver hair, and green eyes, she looked just like a doll. Onkyo still felt somewhat within the bounds of fashion.
Looking into those strangely colored pupils, a word suddenly popped into my head. *The Lady with the Green Eyes*. What was that again? I repeated it a few times in my mind. *The lady with the green eyes.* Ah, that's right. It was a novel by Maurice Leblanc, one of the Lupin series. It was a story where the phantom thief Arsène Lupin meets a green-eyed girl and gets involved in an incident surrounding a massive inheritance she is supposed to inherit, and if I recall, ancient Roman ruins hidden at the bottom of a lake appeared in it. Come to think of it, when I read it long ago, I had arbitrarily superimposed the visual of the green-eyed girl with Princess Clarisse, the heroine from the Hayao Miyazaki film *The Castle of Cagliostro*. What was the girl's name again? I'd forgotten. Even though I quite liked her. I scooped the curry with my spoon and sipped it like soup for a moment before I remembered. "Aurelie?" It slipped out in a mutter. Onkyo looked surprised upon hearing it. "How do you know that?" Her look of surprise surprised me even more. "Is it a crime for me to read Lupin?" "I mean, it's not a crime, but…" What is wrong with this girl? She hasn't seen full-length Doraemon movies, but she reads the Lupin series? Well, it's not a crime, sure. But I was left with a lingering sense of unease. "So, what happened?" Having finished eating, I reached for my water. Onkyo nudged Ruri with her elbow. Ruri pressed her lips to Onkyo's ear and whispered. Soon, Onkyo turned to face me. "Ruri-chan has low blood pressure. So when she wakes up in the morning, she can't move for a while. She says weird things happen in her room while she's waking up and dazed." She whispered the rest into Onkyo's ear again.
"There's a small chest of drawers next to Ruri-chan's bed, with underwear and small items inside. One of those drawers is open. Even though they should have all been closed before going to sleep at night." I was gradually getting irritated by this character-acting that practically screamed, "I won't let strangers hear my voice!" Between the outfit and all, did she need to advertise so hard that she wasn't normal? Ignoring my irritation, Onkyo's translation continued. Unsure of whose face I should be looking at while listening, I shifted my gaze back and forth between them. "Huh? While thinking it's strange, she sees something twitch and move slightly from that open drawer. When she concentrates her attention on it, something white slowly, sluggishly comes out from inside. She immediately knows it's a human hand, but of course, it's not a drawer big enough for anyone to hide in. She sees fingers, she sees a palm, she sees a wrist, she sees an arm—there's no elbow, it just stretches and stretches impossibly long. But she can't move. She can't look away. She's terrified. And then, that hand grabs something and sluggishly crawls back into the drawer. Once it slides all the way in and disappears, she can finally get up." I felt a sense of déjà vu. Why? I felt a chill run down my spine. This story felt like a bad trip during sleep paralysis. Or maybe just a dream. "That inability to get up—are you really completely unable to move? And when you finally *can* get up, is it sudden? Don't you have the sensation that the eyes you thought were open have just opened for a second time?" Onkyo translated. It was less like "I can't move" and more like a tenfold-concentrated version of "I don't *want* to move." Getting up is sudden. No such sensation. The feeling of "not wanting to move" seemed to fall outside the usual pattern of sleep paralysis. In most cases of sleep paralysis, you *want* to move. Besides, even if it were a type of hypnopompic hallucination, I didn't quite understand why it would happen upon waking up in the morning. Could such a thing even happen? Would you call it a waking hallucination?
I couldn't really picture what low blood pressure was like to begin with. And what was that "hand"? "When you're finally able to move, what does the drawer look like?" "It's still open. Even if I peek inside, there's nothing there. Just underwear and socks." "What is it that the hand grabs and drags into the chest of drawers?" "I don't know. I don't remember. I probably knew while I was looking at it, but once it disappears, I can't remember anymore." I see. So she doesn't even know what disappeared. In other words, this phenomenon holds true even if nothing actually vanished. Suddenly, I was reminded of a book I had read previously. It said that dreams are fragments of film played back while the brain is sorting through things, sinking unnecessary short-term memory deep into the drawers of the brain. Among those fragments are strong memories that activate the brain, and those synthesized and reconstructed into something understandable are what gets projected during REM sleep. The fragments cut from that are "forgotten" so as not to pressure the brain's memory areas. I don't know if that's true. But I couldn't help feeling some kind of allegorical meaning in the "hand from the drawer." "Could it be that the thing that hand grabbed was something unnecessary to you?" After whispering to each other in murmurs like they were conferring, Ruri shook her head from side to side. "It might have been something precious. I don't even know that much. When I sit up on my bed and look around my room, I feel like I've lost something important, and it makes me terribly sad." If the story I was hearing now wasn't simply a lie made up by these two, it was a deeply unsettling tale. It gave me even more chills. I didn't hate it, though. This feeling. "Does this happen over and over again?"
"Starting about a month ago. Every two or three days. Oh, but lately it might be every day, she says." I thought for a moment. *Clack, clack,* I tapped the desk with the handle of the unused spoon. "There's a way to find out if something is actually disappearing from the room." The two girls were staring intently at me. I made a motion like brushing something away in front of me with the spoon and continued. "Take everything out of that room except the bed and the chest of drawers." A faint sound of intake of breath followed a moment later. "If you do that, and you feel a hand come out and grab 'something' and disappear back into the drawer… then that feeling of loss is nothing more than an illusion." After all, it would already be confirmed that there was nothing in the room to begin with. I figured I had said something clever. I thought it was a good idea myself. However, there was a vast gap in thinking between myself—who half-concluded that the mysterious event Ruri experienced was a dream or some kind of hallucination—and Ruri herself, who did not see it that way at all. Ruri trembled visibly and brought her mouth close to Onkyo's ear. "If I do something like that, and the hand stretches out endlessly and grabs me on the bed…" I felt a chill. The air grew taut. *Damn it. I let my guard down.* Experience told me that excessive fear had a bad influence on the person and those around them. Above all, the most troublesome thing was being made to cry. "That's awful," Onkyo said, making a gesture as if shielding the girl next to her. Then she coldly declared, "What is your game?" and glared at me slightly. Game or no game, I had intended to offer a cooperative solution. But it only resulted in the other side slapping an unwanted label on me as a guy who didn't take other people's troubles seriously. There I was, feeling guilty again.
I felt like I was being run ragged by this girl named Onkyo. "Fine. Scratch that plan." I shrugged. In the end, before I knew it, I had been roped into promising to conduct an on-site investigation in the bedroom where that hand-bearing drawer supposedly lived. Two days later. It was Saturday. I was pedaling my bicycle while yawning. It was early, before the dawn had broken. Captivated by the subtle, deep colors of the dark sky, I minded the hem of my shirt against the faint chill. The news had said it was going to be hot today. Struggling to unfold a awkwardly bulky hand-drawn map, I checked my destination. Oh. It was right around the corner. Thinking that, I turned the corner wall, and a neat, white three-story apartment building came into view, floating in the twilight. Oh, come on. Weren't they living in some pricey place? Hearing that a high schooler lived alone made me think *who the hell does she think she is*, but maybe her parents were loaded. I parked my bicycle in the bike shed and climbed the stairs. My destination was the corner room on the third floor. Really scandalous. I stood in front of the designated door, but Onkyo was nowhere to be seen. Exactly at our meeting time, too. It was still dark all around, and wandering around in front of a woman's apartment at this ungodly hour of the morning was thoroughly awkward. Feeling self-conscious about my surroundings, I tried twisting the doorknob just in case, but as expected, it was locked. It seemed I had no choice but to wait for Onkyo. I squatted right there on the spot. *Why am I doing this kind of thing in a place like this?* Thinking that, I pressed my fingers to my forehead with a gloomy feeling. The long and short of it was an on-site investigation to solve the troubles of Ruri, the lady with the green eyes, who saw hallucinations of a hand coming out of a dresser drawer upon waking up.
If I wanted to be thorough, I suppose it would have been better to stay on watch inside the room all night, but spending the night in the room of a youthful girl I had just met was something even I wanted to avoid. From what I heard, even without setting an alarm, she usually woke up around a fixed time every day. It was just that because of her low blood pressure, it took her a long time to actually get up out of bed. And the plan was for Onkyo and me to go to the room a little before that waking time and see for ourselves what was actually happening there. Yet Onkyo wasn't show up. She was the one who had been given the spare key specifically for today. Had she overslept? After waiting irritably in front of the door for twenty minutes, Onkyo finally appeared, accompanied by the sound of small footsteps. "Are you an idiot?" The words slipped out of my mouth before I could stop them. The figure approaching me was clad in the exact same gothic getup as the other day at the curry shop. Was that outfit something she couldn't compromise on, even if it meant being late for a meeting? It would have been futile to interrogate her and listen to her excuses, so I settled for a sarcastic jab—"Always looking so cute"—and gestured toward the door, telling her to open it. Without even offering a proper apology, Onkyo took out the key and pressed it to the doorknob. With a small metallic scraping sound, the door swung open, and the two of us slipped inside. The entryway alone was spacious. That was the first thing that surprised me. I couldn't help comparing it to my own room. We advanced through the dark, half by feel. Naturally, we kept our footsteps silent. This was out of consideration not to make any unnecessary noise that might disturb the normal waking of the girl sleeping inside. Onkyo stopped in front of a door inset with frosted glass and held a index finger to her lips.
As I nodded to show I understood, she turned back and gently pulled the knob. A sliver of light entered my field of vision. Faint morning light leaked through a gap in the room's curtains. Dawn was about to break. And all because we'd wasted extra time. No sooner had I thought that than I was left dumbfounded by the sight spreading out before my eyes. A surprisingly large room, serving as both a dining and living area, was crammed with furniture and objects. They clearly didn't belong to daily life. They were placed right in the middle of the room and in locations that encroached on the living space. It wasn't that it was just messy. If forced to describe it, it gave the impression of being in the middle of moving house. However, the furniture that supposedly belonged in this room normally seemed to neatly occupy its proper place. In short, there was simply *too much* of it. Had extra furniture been hauled in from somewhere else? It hit me. What we talked about at the curry shop two days ago. *"Take everything out of that room except the bed and the chest of drawers."* Had she actually gone ahead and put my proposal—the one that was supposed to have been rejected—into practice to coincide with our visit? Feeling reassured because someone was watching out for her. A bad feeling washed over me. Several pale rays of light illuminated that casually placed furniture. Onkyo tugged at my shirt with a stiff expression. Pointing in the direction she indicated was a door leading to another room. The bedroom? I swallowed hard. The furniture must have been brought out from the room beyond this door. That meant, beyond this door was—
Onkyo quietly pushed the door open. A dim interior spread out before me as I followed behind her. Were the curtains thicker here than in the outer room? Even so, the air of dawn was beginning to fill the space. A desolate room. It was a bizarre sight. Just a bed and a small chest of drawers. Nothing else. The room wasn't small by any means, but it felt even wider now. And the topmost drawer of that chest was open. A chill ran through me. I heard a ringing in my ears from somewhere far away, and then it faded out until it was gone. The sound of a sharp gasp catching in someone's throat reached my ears. Onkyo was trembling.