Posts on JPHorror

The Dark Souls-Like Indie Game with a Bitter Aftertaste

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 21:10:07 +0000

A while back, something became a hot topic in the gaming community... There's a game development company called FromSoftware, known for creating "Dark Souls," a massive, world-renowned hit. It became so popular that other companies started imitating its style, to the point where such games are commonly referred to as "Dark Souls-likes." It's no exaggeration to say they essentially pioneered an entire genre.

There was a man who loved Dark Souls so much that he dreamed of making a game just like it. He applied for a job at FromSoftware, but unfortunately received a polite rejection letter. Still, he didn't give up on his dream. Even if he couldn't get into FromSoftware, he could still make a game like Dark Souls. Over the span of six years, he worked entirely by himself to develop and release an original Dark Souls-like game.

The Great Locust Swarm on the Continent

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 21:00:06 +0000

An experience told by my late grandfather, from before the war. Right after graduating from university, he got a job at a railway company on the Asian continent. Whether it was near Chongqing or somewhere else, it happened over there.

One day, a massive locust swarm broke out near the town where my grandfather was living. Apparently, every few years the region was struck by this kind of abnormal outbreak. The huge swarms of locusts devoured every single crop in the fields, leading to food shortages and famine.

The Man Who Was a Net-Kama

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 20:50:06 +0000

Hiroshi was a good-for-nothing husband who had accumulated massive debts through online stock trading and got fired from his company. Without his wife Misae's knowledge, he had put her apartment up for sale as collateral for his debts, completely chilling their relationship. With too much time on his hands and nothing to do every day, Hiroshi decided to pose as his wife to find email pen pals.

He happened to find a college student named "Himawari," who looked like a singer Hiroshi liked. He quickly sent her an email and managed to become her pen pal. The two deepened their friendship by complaining about their lives, eventually reaching a point where they could talk about anything.

The Shisho Series: The Triangular Building Block

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 20:40:04 +0000

My earliest memory is of playing alone in my home on the second floor of a small ironworks factory that smelled of metal and oil. In the memory, neither my father nor my mother is there. I am simply in the room I was given, playing with stuffed animals and building blocks, listening to the intermittent sound of machinery echoing from below. The stuffed animals were a bear and a rabbit with one ear missing. The bear says, "The triangular building block is missing." The rabbit says, "Triangular blocks don't make good foundations, so we don't need them." I say, "Triangular blocks are for the roof." The metallic clanking echoes through the room bathed in the setting sun, and eventually, we all fall silent. "Look outside at night. There's only one black cloud," the bear says as it places a square block on top as a roof. "Yeah." Whether I ever saw that cloud or not, I no longer remember. The triangular building block that became my treasure after turning up in the corner of the room on the day we moved. Every time I pick it up, I still look out the window and search for that single black cloud.

The Unsettling Story from Moyuru Oshikiri's Manga "Sono 'Okodawari' Ore ni mo Kure yo"

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 20:10:06 +0000

In Moyuru Oshikiri's manga "Sono 'Okodawari' Ore ni mo Kure yo," there is a reader submission series called "Trauma Food." In this segment, people share episodes about specific ingredients or dishes they can no longer eat due to traumatic experiences unrelated to taste. Most of these stories are actually quite humorous, but the one that left a bad taste in my mouth personally was the submission from a person who developed a trauma regarding "white rice."

Occasional Lapses in Memory

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 20:00:06 +0000

I occasionally experience lapses in memory. To be exact, it's that feeling where "I realize that several hours have passed without me noticing, and I have no idea what I was doing just moments before."

Well, this kind of thing happens all the time to people, and since it's never happened to me while working or driving, I hadn't paid much attention to it.

It was a day off about two months ago. I remember leaving the house thinking I was bored and would head to the arcade, but the next thing I knew, I was sipping coffee at the Starbucks near the station. I had left home around 11:00 AM, and I came to around 2:30 PM.

Tape Recorder

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 19:50:05 +0000

An episode from the TV show "Tales of the Bizarre." A young man (played by Takuya Kimura), who moved to Tokyo for group employment after graduating from junior high, struggles to adjust due to his shy personality. Unable to hang out with coworkers, he spends his days simply going back and forth between the factory and his apartment. On payday, he buys a tape recorder. To soothe his loneliness, he repeatedly listens to his own recorded voice saying, "Welcome home" and "Good morning." One day, he decides to send a tape to his mother, making up a completely false report on how he is doing: "Tokyo is so much fun every day. I've made lots of friends..." The young man plays back the recording he just made. However, the content has turned into something completely different. "Mom, I want to go back home! I'm so lonely!" The young man dies of shock right on the spot. Later, the police are investigating the scene at the apartment of the young man who died under suspicious circumstances. Hearing the playback of the tape recorder left near the body—which says, "Tokyo is so much fun every day..."—the detectives lament, "Why did a young man with such a bright future have to die?"

[Ghost Hunter Series] Remote Viewing

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 19:40:10 +0000

New Hanbagura ~Fourth Night~

"Remote Viewing" Yoshida, the cameraman, aimed the television camera at the subject with practiced hands. "Alright, rolling." The shooting location was a coffee shop somewhere in Tokyo, just as dusk was approaching. The person in the lens was a woman whose face was covered in a black veil. She was supposed to be a fortune-teller, but where on earth did they find connections like this? The program's concept was as follows: A famous guest celebrity would be placed in Room 1120 of the luxury downtown hotel "Shinjuku Grand," and a self-proclaimed psychic, given no prior information, would be forced to remotely view them. It was a grandiose setup. Moreover, four cameras were deployed to have four people simultaneously perform remote viewing from different locations in a live broadcast. "So, I understand your main profession is fortune-telling, but you're also skilled at clairvoyance. We'd like you to fortune-tell—excuse me, use clairvoyance right away." The male celebrity host flashed a friendly smile. "Room 1120 at the Shinjuku Grand, correct?" The veiled woman answered quietly.

[Unsettling Story] Chikako Kikukawa: "The Girl Without a Name"

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 19:10:07 +0000

A 1970s shojo manga by Chikako Kikukawa, titled *Suicide Wish: The Girl Without a Name*, left me with a really unsettling feeling. It was included in a tankobon collection called *Unseen Screams*—though, of course, it’s long out of print.

One rainy night, a brother and sister are walking home when they witness a young girl (hereafter referred to as "the girl") attempting to throw herself off a bridge into a river. The brother rushes over to stop her, but they struggle and both end up tumbling into the swollen river. Swept away by the current, the brother desperately pushes the girl up onto the riverbank, but he runs out of strength and is carried away himself.

A Way to Go to Another World

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 19:00:08 +0000

This happened when I was an elementary school student. One of our favorite places to play was a spot we called the Shrine Park—literally just a park right next to a shrine. There were other places to play, but we'd go to the Shrine Park every once in a while.

One day, we were playing there as usual. The only difference was that, even though it was daytime and hardly anyone was ever around, this time there was a middle-aged woman sitting on the stone steps, watching us play. We felt a little uneasy, so while we played, we kept glancing over at her.

It's Your Fault

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 18:50:23 +0000

I remember this vaguely, so the details might be a bit off, but it's a story I saw on "Tales of the Unusual." The title was something like "It's Your Fault." The protagonist is an ordinary office worker. One day, while walking down the street, a rough-looking man bumps into him. "Watch where you're going, buddy!" Thinking nothing of it, the protagonist brushes it off and heads home. The next day, a middle-aged woman returning from shopping bumps into him, scattering her groceries all over the ground, and blames the protagonist. To blow off some steam, he goes into an arcade, and as he walks past a UFO catcher machine, a couple yells at him, "Because you walked by, we missed our chance to grab the stuffed animal, so apologize and pay up—" In that kind of manner, every single failure by anyone gets blamed on the protagonist. Moreover, even when he asks for a logical explanation, he gets told, "It's your fault, period." Work failures, traffic accidents—things just keep getting worse and worse. Eventually, even a nearby robbery-murder is blamed on him. Chased by the police and citizens, he runs for his life until he finds himself cornered.

[Ghost Hunter Series] Taking Shelter from the Rain

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 18:40:09 +0000

"New Hinasanbakuro" ~Night Four~ "Taking Shelter from the Rain" (All 6 parts) - Written by: Ghost Hunter

Who was it that I heard the story of the "Radio Ghost" from? They said it haunts an abandoned house in the neighborhood. I had laughed it off, but the catchy name strangely stuck in my mind. That day had been a disaster. At work, someone else's mistake was pinned on me; on the train ride home, my bag was stolen by a pickpocket; and when I stepped off the train, it was pouring rain. I wished I at least had a folding umbrella, but it couldn't be helped. Splashing through the puddles, I ran home along the darkened road. However, the rain only grew heavier along the way, turning the visibility into a misty haze. It was unbearable, so I dashed into a nearby abandoned house. "Uhee," I muttered involuntarily, shaking out my limbs. Just as I pulled a handkerchief from my pocket to wipe my face, I heard the sound of a radio coming from somewhere.

The Final Episode of the Anime "Black Bullet"

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 18:10:07 +0000

I watched the final episode of an anime because an acquaintance told me it was interesting. It wasn't really my cup of tea, so I was only half-paying attention while doing other things. It's a brutal world where people die easily, and the protagonist, a young boy, and the heroine, a young girl, continue to fight painful and bitter battles to protect people. The young heroine is head-over-heels for the older protagonist and acts like an uninvited wife, while he just shrugs and brushes her off with a "good grief" attitude.

Calling the Rain "Kobo Daishi's Tears"

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 18:00:06 +0000

Let me tell you a story I remembered. It's something I saw on TV a long, long time ago. If anyone living in Shikoku knows this story, I'd love more details.

First, about 20 years ago or so, Manno Pond—often called the water reservoir of the people of Kagawa Prefecture—dried up due to a severe drought. Manno Pond is a reservoir constructed by the legendary Kobo Daishi himself, a lake that practically never dried up, even when many other irrigation ponds in the vicinity did.

Welcoming Party for a Black International Student at an Izakaya

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 17:55:25 +0000

About 10 years ago, I saw a TV show. I think it was called "Kore tte Ari desu ka? (Is This Allowed?), an episode variety show featuring 130 million people," where viewers submitted things that made them want to snap, which were then reenacted in short dramas. There’s one story from it that still leaves me with an uneasy, unresolved feeling.

A Black international student named "Jason" arrives at a university, and the students throw a welcome party for him at a place like an izakaya. The students are all smiling, but Jason has a gloomy expression. Staring at the food before him, he says, "There are so many unfortunate children in the world. They die because they can't even get enough to eat. So, please never do something like this again."

Stories I Heard from a Mountain Climbing Enthusiast

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 17:54:42 +0000

I've got three mountain stories to share.

First story: An acquaintance of my parents is into mountain climbing. Apparently, this is a story he told. He’s a hardcore enthusiast whose hobby is what they call "route finding"—trekking through areas where there are no established trails. According to him, if you go deep enough into the mountains, you can see things scaling sheer cliffs at incredible speeds. Naturally, whatever those are, they are definitely not human.

[Unsettling Story] "Am I gonna die? Why?"

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 16:52:58 +0000

"Am I gonna die? Why?"
"Because of alcohol, you see."
"I'm quitting drinking."
Ferdinand
Governor of Guastalla, Italy. Terrified by a fortune-teller's prophecy, he completely abstained from all alcoholic beverages.
However, while receiving a body massage, an alcohol-based massage oil caught fire, and he burned to death.

"Does a food survey really take us this deep into the backcountry…"
"Oh, there happen to be some natives right where we need them!"
Biaka Boda
A politician in Côte d'Ivoire. He was ordered by the government to investigate the country's food situation. While carrying out that mission, he reportedly became food for cannibals themselves.

Tales of the Unusual: "And Then, It Repeats" Starring Teruyoshi Uchimura

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 16:47:14 +0000

Spring 1998 Special Edition: "And Then, It Repeats"
Cast: Teruyoshi Uchimura

Synopsis:
After a day filled with nothing but misery, including the bankruptcy of his company, the protagonist looks up at the night sky and sees a shooting star.
"I wish tomorrow would never come…" he mutters to himself.

Starting the next day, whenever the clock strikes midnight, he is thrown right back to the morning of the same day.

Remembering This After Reading the Door Story

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 16:47:11 +0000

When I was working late on my research at university, I'd hear footsteps in the hallway and someone would knock on the door. Of course, nobody was ever there… It's such a cliché story, really boring, right?

While my professor was telling this exact story during a lecture, the door to the lecture hall opened just a crack. I thought it was a late student, but nobody came in, and the door closed again.

[Shisho Series] Poison - Part 1

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 16:27:40 +0000

This is a story I heard from my Shisho.

1. "Are We Talking About Untouchables?"

It was early in the winter of my second year at university.
Shisho brought me to Takaya General Research. I had been there many times, so there was no reason to be surprised anymore, but this was supposed to be their own corporate building.
"What's wrong? Let's go."
Looking up at it made me want to sigh. It was the same detective agency, but it made me painfully aware of the gap in status between them and our own Ogawa Investigation Office.
When we stepped inside, the heating seemed to already be on. I felt a soft film of warm air, even though winter had just begun and it wasn't that cold yet. I wondered when the heater had finally been turned on at the Ogawa Investigation Office last year.
As always, the desks were lined up neatly, and several investigators were busy filling out paperwork. Since they were all familiar faces, they barely glanced at us for a second before returning to work.
Just as I was heading toward Ichikawa-san, the office worker sitting deep inside the reception area, a loud voice greeted us from ahead.
"Oh my, if it isn't Kanako-chan!"
"Welcome."
The latter voice belonged to Ichikawa-san, the veteran office worker. The one who spoke first was an auntie with flashy, heavily teased purple hair and oversized yellow-rimmed sunglasses.
"Nishina-san, what are you doing here?"
"What do you mean, what? I was just chatting with Icchan here about the recent economic climate."
Nishina-san was the woman who always brought "ghost" cases to Shisho. She was born into a family that had run a broad, long-standing business in O City's central shopping district. After taking in a husband as an adopted heir, she left the business to him and threw herself into various community roles, serving as an officer in the women's association, the chamber of commerce, and other groups. She was a busybody who loved gossip. A huge amount of information gathered around Nishina-san every day, and from that, she would handpick troublesome problems to introduce to Takaya General Research and the Ogawa Investigation Office. Naturally, the cases that ended up at the Ogawa Investigation Office were only the incomprehensible matters that a regular detective agency couldn't handle.
"Kanako-chan. Oh, and Sakamoto-kun, the assistant too. What are you two doing here together? Ah, you've finally decided to switch over to Director Takaya's place, haven't you? I knew it, I knew it. Staying over at a place like that is letting your talent go to waste, even if I feel a bit sorry for Ogawa-kun. I mean, with their top earner being poached, they can't possibly keep going. That's right, Ogawa-kun might as well come back here too. There are so many desks here, surely some are empty. You should do that. Right, Icchan?"
"Well, that's true. The director doesn't seem entirely opposed to the idea either."
"Hold on, what are you two talking about behind our backs? We just came to see the director. I called ahead, didn't I?"
"Oh, was that today? I suppose he's here unless he went off to play pachinko."
Ichikawa-san glanced toward the back of the floor.
"What are you talking about? If you try to go outside from the director's office in the back, you have to walk right past here."
Sure enough, the first-floor office was an open, two-story atrium with a clear line of sight.
In response to Shisho's retort, Ichikawa-san leaned forward as if telling a ghost story and whispered in a low voice.
"The thing is, sometimes he just disappears out of nowhere. He must have inherited ninja blood or something."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
Shisho looked exasperated.
"Speaking of ninjas, Icchan, I actually went to the Iga Ninja Village recently."
"Oh my, you didn't bring me a souvenir."
We walked past the two noisy women and headed toward the back of the floor.
"Ah, come to think of it, Kanako-chan."
Nishina-san was still saying something.
"What is it now?"
"Heave-ho."
Nishina-san lifted her heavy lower body off the chair she had claimed beside the reception desk. She approached us with a jangling sound. Her clothes and accessories were so cluttered that it was impossible to tell which one was making the noise.
"Aren't you looking a bit tired lately?"
"Huh? Why do you say that?"
"I've got a good eye for people, you know. It's like, somehow, you're losing your life force."
For a split second, my heart skipped a beat. In my mind's eye, I pictured Shisho going to see his primary care physician, Professor Shikada, for tests.
"Could it be because you're hanging out with such a young guy? You should moderate yourself."
She suddenly burst into a vulgar laugh.
"It's nothing like that."
I protested involuntarily.
"Really? If that's the case, maybe *you're* the one absorbing his life force."
"How absurd," Shisho muttered, trying to walk away. Just as Nishina-san stopped laughing, she grabbed his shoulder and held him back.
"Lately, I've noticed something strange about this town, you know. Haven't consultations about ghosts suddenly increased? A lot of people around me have seen or heard weird things, too. That grating, screeching noise that came from the sky the other day was one of them. It's made me do a bit of soul-searching. Wondering if maybe I've been dumping too many things on you lately."
"No, no, I appreciate it. The cases you introduce are a vital source of income for the Ogawa Investigation Office."
Shisho gently brushed her hand off.

Masako Sone's short manga "Dreaming of Spring" - A disturbing story

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 16:03:59 +0000

When the grandfather, a farm owner, anticipated based on various signs that the coming winter would be long and harsh, and bought extra supplies and expanded the basement, his sons laughed at him.
Now that the long, harsh winter has arrived unexpectedly early, the sons are grateful to their grandfather.
The adults (grandfather, eldest son, second son and his wife, the second son's wife's younger brother, and third son and his wife) take turns patrolling the inside and outside of the farm in pairs, and also take turns keeping watch through the night.
The two young grandchildren (the second son's daughter and son) are having a fun time every day because they are used to staying in the farm during the winter anyway, and the adults are spoiling them more than usual.
They are a bit unhappy that the TV and radio are broken, the telephone lines are cut by an avalanche, the only road to town is blocked by an avalanche, and the oldest aunt (the eldest son's wife), who was visiting a friend in town, cannot come back. However, they are eagerly looking forward to spring, when they can all have a picnic, go to school, and reunite with their friends.
Wary of starving feral dogs, the adults set traps everywhere and patrol while carrying guns.
Gunshots ring out almost every day, and the adults return with grim expressions.
The adults, who show gentle and reliable faces in front of the two grandchildren, discuss the future with serious expressions at night.
The eldest son gets drunk and rages, saying, "I'll never see my wife again!" while his younger brothers soothe him by saying, "Let's go look for her when the snow melts."
(At this point, the reader might wonder: Is visiting a friend in town really the truth? Is it a lie told to protect the children's ears, and is it actually an affair and elopement?)
In reality, this "early-arriving, long, and harsh winter" is a nuclear winter. The avalanches and cut telephone lines were caused by nuclear war, and "the TV and radio are broken" is a lie deliberately told so as not to shock the young grandchildren about the destruction of broadcasting stations.
The "feral dogs" are actually the townspeople who somehow survived, suffering from radiation sickness and starvation.
The family kills them to protect their own, but deliberately calls them "starving feral dogs" to protect their own sanity.
The two daughters-in-law have gloomy faces, whispering that they must hide the bodies before letting the children outside when spring comes, as the children shouldn't see them…
The third son has been losing a lot of hair lately.
He forces a laugh, joking, "I don't want to go bald before the old man, HAHAHA."
The story ends with a page depicting the contrast between the innocent grandchildren and the gloomy-faced adults, with a mushroom cloud and radioactive fallout mixing with the snow in the background.

There was an incredibly kind guy at my part-time job

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 15:54:07 +0000

I work part-time at a convenience store, and there was this guy, A, who was insanely kind to everyone. A was the same age as me, and we got along pretty well. We hung out together a few times, and he was just so nice to me and everyone around us.

Whenever A came over to my place, he would always bring drinks or snacks as a gift, and he even gave me tickets to see my favorite artist for free. Eventually, it got to the point where I felt guilty taking so much stuff, so I tried to pay him for it, but for some reason, he wouldn't accept the money. This strange dynamic went on for about a year.

Refrain

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 15:40:36 +0000

It’s more of a bleak, hopeless story than a purely scary one, inspired by an episode of the TV drama *Tales of the Unusual* called "Refrain."

The protagonist is a man who committed murder and is being interrogated by two detectives. As the interrogation begins, the man asks the detective what the date is. "Today is July 6th."
According to the man, he had arranged to meet his ex-wife—whom he divorced the day before, on July 5th—and his son at a restaurant. However, a sudden yakuza gang war broke out, and his wife and son were caught in the crossfire and killed.
…But when the date changed, he would be sent back to the morning of July 5th, forced to repeat the exact same events over and over again.
Driven to the absolute brink of his sanity after watching his wife and son die repeatedly, the man finally snapped and murdered one of the yakuza gang members *before* the incident could happen.
As a result, the time loop stopped, the date moved forward to July 6th, and he was arrested, leading to his current situation.

[Shisho Series] 'Poison, Part 1 (1/5): Are They Untouchable?'

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 15:25:32 +0000

This is a story I heard from my mentor.

1: Are They Untouchable?
It was early winter during my second year of university.
My mentor had brought me along to Takaya General Research. I’d been there often enough that it no longer surprised me, but this was apparently their own company-owned building.
"What’s wrong? Let's go."
Looking up at it, I felt a sigh coming on. Even though it was just another detective agency, the sheer gap between them and our own Ogawa Investigation Office was painfully obvious.
Inside, the heat was already on. I could feel a soft film of warm air. Winter had only just begun and it wasn’t even that cold yet. I found myself wondering when the heater had finally been turned on at the Ogawa Investigation Office last year.
As usual, the desks were neatly lined up, and a few investigators were busy pounding away at paperwork. Since they were all familiar faces, they just glanced at us for a second before going right back to work.
As I started heading toward Ms. Ichikawa, the clerk sitting past the reception desk, a loud voice greeted us from ahead.
"Oh my, if it isn't Kanako-chan!"
"Welcome."
The latter voice belonged to Ms. Ichikawa, the veteran clerk. The one who had called out first was an old lady with heavily teased purple hair and wildly flashy, oversized yellow-rimmed sunglasses.
"Nishina-san, what are you up to?"
"What do you mean, what? I was just chatting with Itt-chan here about the economy lately."
Nishina-san was the woman who always brought 'ghost' cases to my mentor. She was born into a long-established, prominent merchant family in downtown O City. After taking in a husband to marry into her family, she left the running of the business to him while she busied herself holding various executive positions in women's associations, chambers of commerce, and community groups. She was a busybody who loved gossip. A huge volume of information reached Nishina-san every day, and out of all that, she would handpick the troublesome cases and refer them to Takaya General Research and the Ogawa Investigation Office. Naturally, the ones that ended up at the Ogawa Investigation Office were only the most baffling cases that regular detective agencies couldn't touch.
"Kanako-chan. Oh, and Sakamoto-kun, the assistant, too. What are you two doing here? Ah, don't tell me you've finally decided to switch over and work for Director Takaya? Of course you have. Working in a dump like that is just letting your talent go to waste. It's a shame for Ogawa-kun, though. I mean, getting his top earner poached means he can't stay in business. You know what, Ogawa-kun should just come back here too. There are so many desks around, I'm sure some are empty. You should tell him to do that. Right, Itt-chan?"
"Well, I suppose so. The director doesn't seem totally opposed to the idea, either."
"Hold on, what are you two just deciding on your own?" my mentor interjected. "We're just here to see the director. I called ahead, didn't I?"
"Oh, was that today? Well, if he hasn't gone off to play Pachinko, I suppose he's around."
Ms. Ichikawa glanced toward the back of the floor.
"What are you talking about? If you try to leave the director's office in the back, you have to walk right past here."
True enough, the first-floor office was an open-plan, two-story atrium with a clear line of sight.
At my mentor's deadpan retort, Ms. Ichikawa leaned forward as if telling a ghost story and whispered,
"Except sometimes, he just vanishes out of nowhere. The man must have ninja blood in him or something."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
My mentor looked exasperated.
"Speaking of ninjas, Itt-chan, I actually went to the Iga Ninja Village just the other day."
"Oh, and you didn't bring me a souvenir."
We walked past the two noisy women and headed toward the back of the floor.
"Oh, that's right, Kanako-chan."
Nishina-san was still shouting something.
"What is it now?"
"Hee-yo-heave-ho."
Nishina-san hauled her heavy weight up from the chair she had claimed next to the reception desk, standing up with a jangle of metallic noise. Her clothes and accessories were so cluttered that it was impossible to tell which one was making the sound.
"Aren't you looking a little tired lately?"
"Huh? Why do you say that?"
"I've got a good eye for people, you know. It's like… your vitality is fading away."
For a split second, a chill went through me. The image of my mentor going for checkups with our primary physician, Professor Shikada, flashed across my mind.
"Could it be because you're hanging around with such a young guy? You need to take things in moderation."
She suddenly let out a vulgar laugh.
"It's nothing like that," I protested instinctively.
"Really? If that's the case, maybe *you're* the one sucking *his* vitality away."
My mentor muttered "What absolute nonsense" and tried to walk away. Just then, Nishina-san stopped laughing, reached out, and grabbed his shoulder.
"Lately, I've had this feeling that something is wrong with this town, you know? Suddenly, all these ghost complaints are popping up everywhere. Lots of people around me have been seeing and hearing weird things, too. That screeching noise coming from the sky the other day was one of them. I've been doing some reflecting on myself. Wondering if maybe… I've been dumping too much on you lately."
"No, no, I appreciate it. The cases you refer to us are a vital source of income for the Ogawa Investigation Office."
My mentor gently brushed her hand away.
"If you ever run into any trouble, come talk to me. I know a lot of people, you know."
"I am well aware."
My mentor gave a wry smile and nodded.
With that, we finally made our way to the director's office.

[An Unsettling Story] The Complete Two-Volume SF Manga "Kinu-Roku"

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 15:11:03 +0000

There's a completed two-volume SF manga called "Kinu-Roku." It wasn't axed; apparently, it was planned as a short series from the start, but it was interesting enough that ending it in just two volumes felt like a waste.

It's set in a distant cyberpunk future.
Once upon a time, people tried to emigrate to Mars. Utilizing their own advanced science, they modified their bodies to survive Mars' harsh environment and successfully evolved into a new human race known as "Martians."
Earthlings, eyeing the Martians' scientific prowess, declared war on Mars. However, the war fell into a stalemate, and a long time has passed since then.

A Small Middle-Aged Man Living in My Room

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 14:42:27 +0000

This happened when I was a student, back when I went to visit a friend's place.
That friend was somewhat notorious for never letting anyone into his apartment, but I somehow managed to successfully breach it for the first time.
It was tidier than you’d expect from a single guy living alone, and there was no particular reason for him to refuse visitors.
Yet, my friend kept glancing around nervously.
From time to time, he’d mutter things like, "Ah," or, "Oh."
Finding it strange and about to press him for answers, he suddenly widened his eyes and yelled, "Whoa!"
When I asked what was wrong, he ended up saying, "Well, you see, a tiny middle-aged man lives in this room."
He wasn't the kind of guy to normally say stuff like that, so when I probed further, he told me it was a "total old-man type" who was just a little larger than the palm of a hand, wearing a ribbed tank top, traditional loose underwear, and sporting a comb-over.
He doesn't really do anything, but if you keep ignoring him, he gets sulky, so you have to keep an eye on him, he claimed.
It was the kind of story you hear from time to time, but the idea of him getting "sulky" sounded oddly cute.
"If he's like a pet old man, maybe I'd want to see him too," I said.
My friend paused for a moment with an "Ah—" and added,
"Sometimes he comes out with his hands and mouth stained bright red with blood. I was seriously terrified the first time I saw it. I'm used to it now, though."
Perhaps emboldened by my friend's shock, the tiny old man apparently started showing up in that state every now and then.
Since he makes a genuinely delighted face when he gets startled, lately he’s just been putting on a fake look of surprise, my friend explained.

The Room Without Words

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 14:34:06 +0000

Cast: Takuya Kimura / Broadcast Date

During the period of high economic growth, an antique shop seemed almost forgotten in a corner of the city.
A young man in a factory worker's uniform—the protagonist—gazing at an open-reel tape deck displayed in the window, which looked old even for those days.
He takes out cash for the price tag from his pay envelope, hands it to the shopkeeper who has come out to the storefront, and takes the deck home.

[The Shisho Series] "Poison, Part 1: 2/5" A Little Marijuana and Hashish

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 14:30:42 +0000

Right after meeting Director Takatani, we headed straight to the Ogawa Investigation Agency. We had an important job to discuss today.
"We're cutting it close," the Master said, walking with fast, heavy strides. My own footsteps felt sluggish trailing behind him. After all, the other party was the yakuza.
"What's wrong, you look down. If you don't want to come, you don't have to be here today, you know."
"I can't just do that."
"Well, it's fine by me either way."
Oh, is that so? Then I'll stick to you out of sheer spite.
As we approached the multi-tenant building and I spotted the sign for Coffee Boston, I scanned our surroundings for any suspicious-looking cars. They usually rolled up in heavy, black-painted sedans. But for now, nothing of the sort was in sight.
I climbed the building's stairs and opened the door to the Ogawa Investigation Agency on the third floor.
"You're late. They'll be here any minute," Director Ogawa said. He was the only one in the office today; Hattori wasn't around. Given the recent suspicions of Hattori acting as a spy, it probably would've been awkward if he *had* been here.
A moment later, there was a knock at the door. I hadn't heard the sound of any flashy cars outside.
"Come in."
The man who stepped inside wore a black double-breasted suit, with a pale face and glasses. It was Matsuura, the assistant wakagashira of the Ishida gang—a man we’d had far too much history with lately. He tucked a black leather briefcase under his arm.
"Finally decided to take the job?"
Matsuura walked in with sharp, rigid posture, taking a seat on the visitor's sofa without waiting for the director's permission.
"Just you?" The Master dropped heavily into the chair across from him.
"We're busy right now, you see."
Matsuura replied with his legs crossed. I remembered reading an article in yesterday's newspaper about a yakuza gang war. It reported that gunshots had been fired at the entrance of a branch office belonging to the Ritsumitsu-kai, a secondary yakuza organization in the city. Just the other day, Director Ogawa had told us about the underground turf war between the regional Hishikawa gang and the Ritsumitsu-kai. I couldn't just skim past the news as if it had nothing to do with me.
"I appreciate you taking the time to come all this way despite being so busy. So, what's the job?"
As usual, the Master didn't bother changing his tone when speaking to Matsuura. Listening from the side, even though I was somewhat used to it by now, it still made my heart race.
Matsuura glanced briefly at Director Ogawa, who was still standing nearby. The director spoke up.
"I've left this matter to Nakaoka. She will be the one to decide whether or not we take it on. After that, as the head of this agency, I'll make the final call on whether to give it a green light or stop it."
Nakaoka was the Master's alias as an investigator. However, some people, like Mr. Nishina, had grown close enough to call her by her real name without hesitation, making it feel more like an open secret. Matsuura surely knew the Master's real name too, but he didn't say anything about it.
Since Director Ogawa was standing, I hesitated whether I should sit next to the Master. But hoping to act as even a minor human shield, I quietly sat down beside her. *It's fine. I'm her assistant,* I told myself.
"We're busy, so I'll keep the explanation brief."
Matsuura pulled a small glass bottle from his briefcase and placed it on the table in front of the sofa.
"What's this?"
Judging from the casual way Matsuura had been holding it with his bare hands, the Master must have figured it wasn't a dangerous substance; she immediately picked it up.
It was a clear glass vial, about the size of a bottle of over-the-counter cold medicine tablets. The glass was transparent with no label at all, and the white cap was just as plain. There was liquid inside, which was also completely colorless and transparent. It looked like mere water, but was it some kind of medicine?
"What is this?"
"It's a drug. It's been making the rounds among the kids in this town lately."
"A drug?"
The Master held the bottle up again, peering through it toward the ceiling lights, before tilting her head and setting it back on the table. I picked it up too, but nothing stood out. It was just a bottle filled with clear liquid.
"Is it an illegal drug?"
Hearing the Master say that startled me. I instinctively set the bottle back down on the table. Drugs—such terrifying things—were something I had never laid eyes on, not even once.
"I don't know. Finding that out is the job I'm hiring you for."
"Huh? There's no way I'd know. You guys are the experts, aren't you?"
At the Master's words, Matsuura's eyebrow twitched slightly. It seemed he had taken some offense.
"The 8th Ritsumitsu-kai strictly forbids drugs. No speed, no marijuana, and of course, no heroin or cocaine."
"Are you saying you aren't involved in drug trafficking? Then who's selling drugs in this town?"
"Punks from other, smaller gangs. They don't have any legitimate rackets, so they resort to drugs."
"As if the yakuza have any legitimate rackets to begin with."
"Hey, Master."
Her remarks were becoming far too provocative, so I panicked and stopped her. Matsuura stayed silent for about ten seconds before speaking, his expression unchanged.
"Aside from them, you've got former bosozoku punks playing at being half-gangsters and dabbling in stimulant deals. Lately, foreigners have been increasing a bit too—Chinese, Iranians. Because they're all small organizations, they can't deal directly with bulk brokers, so there are middlemen at every step, and their profit margins seem small. The going rate for a single packet of stimulants is 10,000 yen, or 13,000 yen with a syringe. That hasn't changed since the old days. Rumor has it that half-gangsters looking to make a bigger profit are cutting it with fillers. That's why people say the stuff imported by foreigners is higher quality. Marijuana, meaning cannabis, can apparently be picked up at clubs in the entertainment district. Cocaine and heroin are barely traded at all because the unit price is too high; smaller organizations have a hard time moving them. And then there are hallucinogenic drugs like LSD and MDMA—so-called psychedelics—that were recently classified as narcotics, and those are on the rise too. Ever tried any?"
Asked that by Matsuura, the Master looked unimpressed.
"No way, never."
"Is that so?"
Following the Master, I shook my head as well.
"Lies. Actually, I have."
"You have?!" I blurted out in surprise.
"Back in the day, a little marijuana and hashish. Just out of curiosity. Pure curiosity. But stuff like that doesn't really work on me. Must be my body chemistry. Haven't touched it since."
The Master deliberately took her time emphasizing the "body chemistry" part.
"I see. How wise of you. Furthermore, lately in Europe and America, drugs known as designer drugs or legal highs seem to be trending—things like herbal ecstasy. They haven't made it to this town yet, but they will eventually. Unlike natural drugs derived from plants, these are chemical substances made synthetically. They're distributed either by spraying the chemicals directly onto herbs or in tablet form."
"You don't use them as a racket, yet you're awfully well-informed. Are you running a racket behind the scenes after all?"
"In our industry, if the boss says it's forbidden, it's forbidden. In our outfit, that's been the rule since the previous generation."
Matsuura spoke quietly, but perhaps feeling the subtle pressure bleeding through his calm demeanor, the Master fell silent.
"It's just my nature to investigate everything."
"So… what about this one that's trending among the kids?"
The Master pointed her chin at the small bottle on the table.
"Word has it that a strange drug has been circulating lately. Even after looking into it, it doesn't seem like other gangs, half-gangsters, or foreigners are involved. Apparently, it's only quietly making the rounds among high school and college students in the city. If it looks like it's going to become a major racket for someone, we have to keep an eye on it, so I managed to get my hands on one—but the thing is, it's weird."
"Weird, how?"
"Try opening the lid."
"Is it safe?"
Prompted like that, the Master frowned in slight disgust.
"It's safe. Go ahead."
"It's not going to vaporize or anything, is it?"
With that, the Master nudged me. It seemed she wanted me to open it.
*Eeeh,* I lost my nerve, but under the Master's glare, I reluctantly picked up the vial, feeling terrified.
Well, Matsuura—who apparently knew what was inside—was sitting right in front of us, so it couldn't be anything lethal. Telling myself that, I twisted the cap.
With a small *pop*, the lid came off easily. I removed it and set it aside. The Master peered into the opening of the vial in my hand and sniffed it, going *hmm*.
"Hmm?" she tilted her head.
I followed her lead and brought my face close to smell it, but no particular scent came off.
"When it comes to liquid drugs, you have liquid LSD, ketamine, and certain designer drugs, but this is different from any of them. Stimulants are sometimes distributed in liquid form, but this is already in a retail state. Here, let me borrow that."
Matsuura took the vial. Then, right in front of us, he casually brought it to his mouth and drank it down in one gulp.
"Ah."
The voices of the Master, myself, and Director Ogawa—who had been watching from a little further away—overlapped in unison.
"Hey, are you alright?"
Matsuura didn't change his expression at all as he placed the emptied vial on the table.
"Yes. Absolutely fine."

The Stepfather with No Blood Relation

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 14:00:07 +0000

It was a short shojo manga, but I've forgotten the title. The protagonist's father is a stepfather. Although they share no blood relation, she believes she was raised with great care. That is because her biological mother was a terrible woman who neglected her children and home, constantly running around and partying. The stepfather handled everything that a parent should do. The stepfather was always submissive to her short-tempered mother. As she grew up, the protagonist often wondered, "Why does he stay with a woman like that?" She had never once heard him speak ill of the mother, and whenever the protagonist brought it up, she would be gently reprimanded. "Your mother has a hard time, too. Let's be good and stay home together, just the two of us." While holding onto these doubts, she learns on TV about the notion that couples sometimes stay together solely for the sake of their children. While all this is going on, she happens to witness her mother cheating one day. Furthermore, she hears her mother say, "I only married the stepfather for his money." Back when the affair was exposed, her mother had been dumped by the protagonist's biological father, and the stepfather was the man she found when she was looking for a convenient tool. "He had zero charm as a man, but he was completely devoted to me and did whatever I wanted, so I made him my husband."

[Tales of the Unusual] The Ideal Sukiyaki

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 13:51:03 +0000

Overview
A story broadcasted in the Autumn 2009 special of the television series "Tales of the Unusual." Starring Atsushi Ito. Based on the short manga "The Last Supper" by Masayuki Izumi.

The Ideal Sukiyaki: Synopsis
First, spread beef fat across the entire surface of the pot. On top of that, place thinly sliced beef, and then sugar on top of the meat.
The seasoning is Kansai style.
After the sweetness of the sugar soaks into the meat, add soy sauce and sake.
It is preferable to add the ingredients at the following angles: beef at 60 degrees, leeks at 70 degrees, grilled tofu at 90 degrees, shirataki noodles at 60 degrees, shiitake mushrooms at 50 degrees, and enoki mushrooms at 30 degrees.
Since the calcium in shirataki noodles makes the meat tough, they should be placed away from the meat.
After that, add garland chrysanthemum and close the lid, waiting 3 minutes for the moisture to seep out from the vegetables.
These 3 minutes are called the time of the gods.
And the number of times to whisk the egg is nine and a half round trips.
At least three people are needed to eat it. Four people is ideal.
The protagonist, Kazuki Nishimura, has an obsession with sukiyaki. He has his own rules regarding the timing of adding ingredients, their placement, the surface area they cover, the angles, how to close the lid, and the number of times to beat the egg, among other things.
One day, he was visiting his girlfriend Shiori's family home to ask for permission to marry her.
In fact, after moving to Tokyo, he hadn't eaten sukiyaki even once in five years. According to him, eating sukiyaki alone is lonely, and eating it with just two people is unsatisfying.
He was ecstatic to be eating sukiyaki at her house, and moreover, with four people, which he considered the most ideal number.
The cooking method was Kansai style… premium meat… and familiar ingredients like tofu, shirataki, and vegetables. It seemed ideal, but he spotted eringi mushrooms, which he felt didn't belong, among the ingredients. He wanted to point out, "You don't put Western ingredients in sukiyaki!", but he held his tongue, telling himself this must be each family's unique taste.
Furthermore,
"What about that thing?"
"Later is fine, right?"
Hearing this conversation between the parents, he anticipated it was about the finale dish (shime) and felt hopeful.
Shiori's father was in charge of cooking, but since he doesn't usually cook, there were points to criticize, such as "the heat is too high" and "the soy sauce was added too early." Kazuki secretly adjusted the heat and bought time by complimenting the father's watch, pulling the strings of the sukiyaki from behind the scenes.
Thinking "pulling strings behind the scenes is kind of fun," he suddenly realized the lid wasn't on.
Even if he wanted to quietly put the lid on himself, it was too far away.
Sensing that giving instructions now would upset the good-spirited father, he couldn't say anything.
However, reminding himself that his purpose today was to get permission for marriage, he regained his composure.
Thus, the sukiyaki was completed.
He also has strict preferences for the order in which he eats the ingredients. He considers eating the least noticeable enoki mushrooms, leeks, and meat first to be the height of foolishness. Surprisingly, it apparently took him a week to figure out this single opening move.
However, the mother went ahead and took two-thirds of the meat all at once.
And the father grabbed a piece of tofu with his chopsticks and broke it apart inside the pot.
Though appalled, when he dipped an ingredient into the egg and put it in his mouth, it was delicious with the flavor of the meat soaked in.
The eringi mushrooms he was worried about weren't bad either… no, actually, they were good.
Kazuki thought it was about time to go for the meat, but when he realized, the meat was gone.
The entire family had eaten the rest of the meat in one go.
Kazuki was furious, but he managed to suppress it, sustained by the thought of marriage.
However, even after that:
When the meat got tender, they poured leftover sake into the pot; instead of finishing all the vegetables before adding the next batch, they added new ones while vegetables were still left in the pot; knowing the next batch of meat was cheap, they devoured all the expensive meat first; they served leeks that weren't ready to eat; despite his rule of using only one egg per person, they used a second one; they threw the used egg into the pot; and furthermore, it turned out that even Shiori ate her sukiyaki without using an egg. To him, this was a fundamental denial of sukiyaki. Sukiyaki without eggs, he believes, is just a sweet and spicy beef stew.
With complaints piling up, his anger finally exploded at them: "You sukiyaki amateurs!!" He declared that he could never become family with people like this.
Then the father blurted out, "Shall we get to that now?"
Realizing they were moving on to the finale dish, Kazuki decided to give them one last chance. He resolved, "If udon comes out, I will stay; if rice porridge (oziya) comes out, I will leave this place and never show my face again."
According to him, rice porridge's flavor is too strong, so udon is the ideal finale.
However, what was brought before him was:
"A black, jiggling, jelly-like sphere."
"What on earth is this?!"
Ignoring his bewilderment, the object—allegedly a natural find from the supermarket—was matter-of-factly dropped into the pot.
Apparently, salt was the ideal seasoning for them, and the udon that Kazuki considered the ideal finale was described by the family as "gross."
"Don't call this sukiyaki! This isn't sukiyaki! The sukiyaki I've believed in isn't like this…!"
Caught in the crossfire of the family's gazes, he hesitated over whether he should eat it or not…
Several years later…
Kazuki married Shiori and they were blessed with two children.
Today's dinner for them is sukiyaki. The one cooking is Kazuki.
The basic cooking method follows his old principles… but his minute obsessions are gone.
He quickly devours the boiled ingredients, and then drops the "black, jiggling, jelly-like sphere" into the pot.
He explains that eating it 1.3 minutes later, once it has turned oval-shaped, is the most delicious way to eat it.
It seems he has grown to like this object after all.

The Woodcutter's Tales

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 13:45:08 +0000

In the morning, while driving a forest road toward our work site, a hiker walking ahead of us stepped aside to the edge of the road, so I nodded in greeting through the window.
My partner in the driver's seat asked, "What are you doing?"
When I replied, "I'm just nodding because they stepped aside. Even if someone's walking, you don't even slow down," he said, "There's nobody there."
I looked back, and sure enough, there was no one. There were no places to hide, no side paths. Both the mountain side and the valley side of the road were sheer cliffs.

[Shisho Series] "Poison, Part 1 (3/5): Believe the Scientific Test"

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 13:30:16 +0000

After Nishizawa left, the Master and I headed for the university. At the Master's suggestion, we decided it would be best to confirm whether the contents of this small bottle were actually water.
That made sense. Naturally, that meant finding a laboratory equipped to test liquids.
When I mentioned that I knew someone in the Faculty of Pharmacy, the Master shook her head.
"The Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Pharmacy are Yakumo's territory."
I figured since we were just asking a student, we didn't need to be that on guard, but the Master flatly rejected the idea.
"Let's go to the Faculty of Science. I know someone we can ask."
The Faculty of Medicine and Faculty of Pharmacy were on a different campus, but the Faculty of Science was on the same campus we attended. Since it was physically removed from Yakumo Pharmaceuticals' territory, it gave us a sense of security.
"Still, what on earth is this? Do you remember hearing the name 'C'?"
"Hard to say. I don't know the name, but I feel like I've heard rumors that some kind of weird drug has been quietly spreading."
"This is news to me."
I've lived a life untouched by drugs. Sure, there were idiots sniffing thinner in high school, but it wasn't a delinquent school, so even those guys were rare. At most, maybe they smoked cigarettes.
I had been surprised to hear that the Master had smoked marijuana before. Though, the explanation that she just tried it out of pure curiosity made a strange kind of sense.
When we arrived at the Faculty of Science building, we wove our way through students in white lab coats and visited the molecular biology laboratory. There was a male lecturer there whom the Master knew well.
The Master really did have connections across all sorts of faculties and departments. No, not just connections—she seemed to have key people locked down at all the right points.
The lecturer, who was watching TV while eating a banana in the lab, didn't look the part, but muttering "I'm busy, though," he examined the contents of the small bottle anyway. I expected him to drop liquid onto a slide and look at it under a microscope, but he used surprisingly grand equipment instead.
The result was water. Moreover, it was pure water—not tap water, since it contained no chlorine, and free of minerals like calcium and magnesium.
"Probably distilled water. They boil water and turn the steam back into a liquid. We buy it from suppliers for cleaning and as a solvent. A 20-liter tank is about 3,000 yen, I guess."
The lecturer explained while chewing the rest of his banana.
"Were there any strange components in it, even in small amounts?"
"Even if you call it 'strange'… if we had to test it that precisely, we don't have the equipment here, and it's impossible without money. But hey, we normally use this as pure water for experiments anyway. Even if something was in it, it's at a level that wouldn't affect anything."
That was his flat-out verdict. Since an expert said so, for the time being, we had no choice but to accept it.
Leaving the Faculty of Science building, we decided to hold a strategy meeting at our usual cafeteria.
"Munch, munch. Anyway, let's go sniff out the rumors. It'd be great if we could find someone who actually bought and drank it."
"But it was just water, right?"
"That's why Matsuura said so from the beginning. Besides, the guy drank it. The question is, if it's just water, why is it circulating like you're buying drugs from a dealer? And look at this. Munch, munch. A tiny thing like this is a thousand yen. A thousand yen. How many bowls of this curry can you buy with that?"
"Four bowls if it's a medium size."
"Three bowls if it's a large. Alright, let's split up and investigate."
We decided to separate and go around asking questions. I also took custody of one of the two small bottles. It was the one used for the test earlier, so there was a little less in it.
I went to my own lab first. I'd been hanging out with the Master lately and hadn't been showing my face around here, so it was a bit awkward, but it couldn't be helped. After afternoon lectures ended, I called out to the guys idling around.
"A drug called 'C'? Never heard of it."
That was pretty much everyone's reaction. Next, I headed to a club activity I hadn't visited in a long time for similar reasons, and it was much the same. However, there was one guy here who said he'd heard about it from an acquaintance. He said he wasn't sure if it was this exact drug, though. Since he was a junior in his first year, I promised to treat him to a meal if he introduced me to that person, and he somehow agreed.
When we met up at a family restaurant near the university, the acquaintance turned out to be his girlfriend. She was wearing a coat, but beneath it was a blazer, so I knew right away she was a high schooler.
This bastard, he's dating a high schooler? He was a spindly, bean sprout-like junior I hadn't talked to much, but looks could be deceiving.
"This, this. This is the one I bought."
The high schooler, a girl named Misaki, wore heavy makeup, which made it expected, but she seemed a bit more flighty compared to the average high school girl.
"Why did you decide to buy this?"
"Well, a friend at school heard about it from an upperclassman. Apparently, it's a drug that lets you have funny dreams. Sounds kind of fun, right?"
"Where, and what kind of guy was selling it?"
"Just like my friend said, I was wandering around Shiramachi at night, and there was a guy wearing a weird mask in a narrow alley. He was wearing a black cloak, totally looking like a suspicious person. I thought, 'Definitely this guy,' and when I called out to him, he said it was a thousand yen."
"You talked to him? Was it a man's voice?"
"We didn't talk. He just held up one finger like this. Index finger. No way it was 10,000 yen, right? Besides, I didn't have that much. When I handed him a thousand yen, he gave me this."
"What kind of mask was it?"
"Like the kind they sell at festival stalls. Some anime character. I don't watch anime, so I don't really know."
Anime… Hearing that, I felt a sudden sense of deflation. How casual. This didn't seem to be the thing the Master and I had imagined at all.
"So, what did you do after buying it?"
"I drank it. It tasted like ordinary water."
I couldn't believe she actually drank something she bought from such a shady guy. That was the impression I had, but I didn't call her out on it to her face. She was a valuable witness, after all. Just as I thought that, her boyfriend chimed in.
"It's dangerous. You shouldn't do stuff like that. I mean, wait, have you ever bought drugs before?"
"I haven't! Not even once. My friend just got me to smoke weed once."
"Wait a minute, weed? Marijuana? Is it marijuana? You can't do that, Misacchi, seriously, did you actually do something like that? No way."
"Shut up. Whatever, it's fine."
After being subjected to that back-and-forth for a while, I finally got to hear the rest of the story.
"I drank it, but nothing happened."
"Nothing? Didn't you have a dream?"
"Hmm, I'm not really sure. I think I had one, but I don't remember much. It must've been no different from the dreams I usually have. Seriously, I felt like asking for my money back."
And so, despite treating the two of them to a meal at the family restaurant, I didn't get much of a harvest. Still, I learned that such rumors actually existed, and that the person selling them was real. Just that alone was probably a step forward.

[Unsettling Story] Doraemon's "The Real Dream Pillow"

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 13:08:39 +0000

The "Utsutsu Makura" (Real Dream Pillow) is a gadget from the manga *Doraemon*—or so it might seem.

It appears in the episode of the same name (included in Volume 5 of the Tentom虫 Comics). It is said to be a gadget that swaps dreams and reality.

The story begins with Nobita waking up early and finishing all of his summer homework. In that world, Doraemon tells him, "Isn't this a dream?" When Nobita wakes up, he finds himself on the last day of summer vacation, and he hasn't done his homework at all. Distraught at having his wonderful dream ruined, Nobita cries and wails. Feeling bad for him, Doraemon pulls out the "Utsutsu Makura." Nobita falls asleep again using the pillow.

Just in Front of the Swing

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 12:54:42 +0000

When I was a child, there was a shrine I used to visit from time to time. It was a small shrine at the foot of a mountain, about a kilometer away from my house. The shrine was usually deserted and remarkably quiet. Beside the shrine was a small grove, and the vines hanging down from the trees there formed something like a swing. Since they were tree vines, the range of motion was small, but to a child's mind, a naturally formed swing straight out of a manga felt fascinating. The neighborhood kids would occasionally head to the shrine just for that. One day, I went there all by myself. I can't remember why I was alone anymore. Probably the kids I usually asked to play were all out, or something like that.

Tales of the Unusual: Don't Stop the Memories of Love

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 12:37:22 +0000

Overview
"Don't Stop the Memories of Love" (broadcast on November 9, 2019)
An episode of *Tales of the Unusual* (Yonimo Kimyona Monogatari) that is widely acclaimed as the most terrifying entry of the 2010s. A TV commercial that aired only once a long time ago… what is the horrifying truth hidden behind it? A masterpiece where the terror rooted in "vague memories" makes the audience shudder, turning grainy, vintage footage into something endlessly frightening.

[Shisho Series] "Poison, Part 1 (4/5)" - What was that? That's kind of cute.

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 12:30:19 +0000

(Continuation of "Poison, Part 1" 3/5)
https://www.pixiv.net/novel/show.php?id=12811620

4. What was that? That's kind of cute.

While the matter of drug C, requested by Matsuura, wasn't progressing as I had hoped, I was at the Ogawa Detective Agency doing some part-time document organization.
I had been shown the case files of Takaya General Research several times before, studying their system in my own way, and through trial and error, I was trying to see if I could pull off something similar on a small scale. Director Ogawa had told me, "If you can make it look neat, I'll throw in a cash bonus," which gave me a bit of motivation.

The Origin of the Cobra Effect

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 12:00:12 +0000

I recently learned about a concept called the "Cobra Effect." It describes a situation where you implement measure B to achieve goal A, but people who don't care about goal A end up treating B as the goal itself. As a result, not only do you fail to achieve goal A, but you end up moving even further away from it.

Long ago, when Britain ruled India, many people were killed or disabled by wild cobras. To combat this, the British colonial government offered a bounty for every dead cobra brought in.

Communicating with my boyfriend via pager

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 12:00:07 +0000

This is a story about a boyfriend I used to date. Back then, I worked at a rear-projection screen workshop, and being prone to adolescent emotional instability, I often found myself crying alone in the middle of the night.

About ten years ago, cell phones were still out of reach luxuries, and we only had pagers. Whenever I cried at night, a message would always come from my boyfriend saying, "I want to see you." When I replied, "Okay," he would really come right away. Even without traffic, it takes at least fifteen minutes by car, but he always arrived in precisely fifteen minutes—timing that made it seem as though he must have left the moment the pager went off.

[Master Series] "Poison, Part 1 (5/5): So that's why you always failed"

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 11:43:23 +0000

Continuing from "Poison, Part 1" 4/5
https://www.pixiv.net/novel/show.php?id=12818977

5. So that's why you always failed

This is a story I heard from Kyosuke.

It was December of my first year in high school.
I don't like the cold, so this time of year is always tough. On top of that, now that I'm a high school student, I still can't accept that our uniform involves a skirt. I'd rather wear jeans to school. When I said that, my classmate, Shiho Takano, said something surprisingly granny-like: "You can only dress this cute while you're young."

Freezing

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 11:43:04 +0000

Yoriko Shikura, a housewife working part-time as a supermarket cashier, feels that she is not truly needed by anyone—neither her supermarket manager and colleagues, nor her husband and children.

One day, Yoriko is forced to stay late to check the inventory of frozen foods inside a large walk-in freezer. While she is doing the inventory, an employee fails to notice she is inside and locks the door, trapping her in the freezer.

The Kind-Hearted Cafe Owner and the Young Female Employee

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 11:03:56 +0000

This is a story I read in a gag manga.
It was part of the protagonist's daily routine to visit his favorite local coffee shop, enjoy a cup of coffee, and chat with the kind-hearted master and a young woman who worked there.

One day, the master had to step out briefly for an errand. Worried about leaving the young woman all alone, he asked the protagonist to watch the shop in his absence.

Earwax Removal (Spoilers)

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 10:49:46 +0000

"Earwax Removal"
Asano, a mysterious hitman who prioritized dandyism above all else, was pointing his gun at a beautiful target from a hotel room.
All that was left to do was pull the trigger… But this man always had one ritual to perform before carrying out a job.
He would clean his ears with his "proudly owned ear pick." That was his personal brand of "dandyism." And this time, as usual, he inserted the ear pick deep into his ear, but…
Unbelievably, the ear pick got stuck deep inside and wouldn't come out!
This was bad. If anyone saw him with an ear pick jammed deep in his ear, his dandyism would be completely ruined!
Panicking, the hitman tried every way he could to get it out.
However, the ear pick seemed to be lodged quite deep, and even moving it slightly caused excruciating pain in his ear.
Could it be caught against his eardrum?
Shortly after, a woman he had previously made plans to hang out with let herself into the room.
Realizing it would be bad for her to see him in this state, he tried to chase her away, but as she left, she slapped him across the face.
To his surprise, the ear pick slid out just a tiny bit!
"This is great," he thought, and begged her to slap him some more, but she was creeped out and ran away.
At his wit's end, the man decided to try pushing the ear pick even further in.
Surprisingly, this time it slid right in smoothly without any pain.
"This is working," he thought, and as he kept pushing it in further, the ear pick completely disappeared inside his ear and could no longer be reached.
The hitman panicked, but told himself that completing the mission came first! He aimed his sights at the beauty again, and just as he was about to shoot,

[Shisho Series] "Poison, Part 1/3" Do you know about Schrödinger's cat?

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 10:47:08 +0000

This is a story I heard from Kyosuke-san.
It happened in December of our first year in high school.
Right around the time the second-term final exams were about to begin. Unwillingly, I was studying at home. I knew I wouldn't get a good score anyway, but I also knew that if I didn't study at all and got a terrible grade, endless hassles would inevitably pile up later on.
As I compared my math textbook with the notes I'd taken myself, trying hard to decipher what they meant, the noise from the next room—which usually didn't bother me—became irritatingly noticeable.
Pop music was leaking through at quite a high volume.
"Hey, keep it down."
Next door was my sister's room. When I opened the door and yelled, my sister, who was sprawled out on her bed, said "Yeah, yeah" and plugged her earphones into the stereo.
Though we were twins, for some reason my sister was much smarter than me and attended a local public high school known as a prep school. Her school should have been in the middle of final exams too, yet she was showing off so much composure. It was genuinely sickening.
I pulled myself together and went back to my desk. Finally getting into the groove, I managed to focus on my studying for about an hour.
"Hah…"
My eyes were getting tired, so to take a break, I stretched and drank some coffee that had gone cold.
Suddenly, a small bottle sitting in the corner of my desk caught my eye. It was the little vial I'd gotten from a man wearing a strange mask in Shiramachi last night. I had gotten interested when my homeroom teacher, Xavier, told me it was a drug popular among high schoolers, but now that I actually had the real thing in front of me, my impression was just, *Oh, is that all it is?*
It was colorless and transparent, with a white cap. There was no label on the bottle either. Once, I timidly took off the cap and sniffed it, but it was odorless. Since smoking was already enough for me, I wasn't really interested in drugs, and even if someone told me it was good stuff, I didn't feel any urge to try it. It was just that I'd heard a rumor about "weird things happening," and my occult-loving blood had started acting up.
However, given the circumstances under which I'd acquired it, I felt a sense of caution. Mazaki Kyoko, who was with me, had talked to this masked figure we met in an alley about various things, and before I knew it, I ended up joining a gathering with a way-too-suspicious name: the "Poison Drinking Club," right along with Kyoko. There was no way I'd feel like trying a drug that this kind of guy was selling for a thousand yen. It was way too dangerous.
"Tomorrow, huh…"
I let out a deep sigh. Tomorrow at 8:00 PM was the gathering time. I had exam prep to do and even thought about blowing it off, but whenever I remembered the look in Mazaki Kyoko's eyes as she gazed at me and pleaded, it completely threw off my rhythm.
*If anything happens, you'd better take responsibility.*
Thinking such thoughts, and reluctantly deciding I should push ahead with tomorrow's studying as well, I opened my textbook once more.
The next day—meaning the day of the "Poison Drinking Club"—I headed toward the biology club room at the end of school hours.
Aside from a few athletic clubs that took things very seriously, club activities were suspended for everyone during this period.
"See you later~"
Leaving behind the stream of classmates heading home early, I walked down the deserted school hallway, feeling enveloped by a comforting sense of alienation. The realization that this solitude of walking a different path than everyone else was my true place of belonging soaked deep into my chest. But the person waiting ahead of me might share that exact same feeling—she was that kind of girl. That thought made me slightly unstable.
"Kyoko, are you in?"
When I opened the door to the classroom used as the biology club room, Mazaki Kyoko was sitting at a desk, reading a book by herself. We had made plans to meet up and discuss where and what time we'd rendezvous tonight.
Kyoko looked up and said, "Welcome." I sat down on the opposite side.
"Are you really going?"
"Yes. You'll come with me, right?"
"Well… I made a promise, but…"
There were many things I wanted to say, but naturally, seeing her right in front of me, the words wouldn't come out. I let out a sigh and rested my cheek in my hand.
"If it looks dangerous, I'm running away, you know."
"Right. Shall we run for it?"
For some reason, Kyoko seemed to be in a good mood, finding something amusing.
"That guy… he mentioned it, didn't he? About Cetus."
At my words, Kyoko's good-natured smile vanished. In its place emerged a faint smile, as if harboring some deep awareness within.
"A pitiful monster that fell from the ecliptic, he said."
"Yes."
"That story you told me about when you were a child. It's similar to that."
On the day I was invited to Kyoko's birthday party, I had heard about an incomprehensible event that had attacked her when she was little. It was an unbelievable story about how, along with an earthquake, all the constellations in the sky had changed.
For example, the current Zodiac constellations that everyone knows are different from the ones Kyoko used to know. That was why Kyoko said fortune-telling by stars was nonsense. The constellation for November 20th, the day she was born, was Cetus.
When she confessed such a secret to me, her eyes were not lying. At least, that was how it felt to me. That was the source of the fear, sadness, and isolation she harbored, something she could share with no one—even if it was merely the product of her delusions.
Yet, what on earth was the meaning of that masked man's cryptic words? Was it just some cold-reading trick used by fortune-tellers? No, that wasn't it. The Cetus Theatre had indeed existed for a while.
That masked bastard was dangerous. My intuition told me so.
Kyoko closed the book she was holding and placed it on the desk. It was a book titled *The World of Quantum Theory*.
"Yamanaka-san. Do you happen to know about Schrödinger's cat?"
I wondered what on earth she was going to bring up.
"I've heard of it. It's that thing where you don't know if the cat inside the box is alive or dead until you open it, right?"
"Well, something like that. But phrasing it that way is a conventional way of thinking. It assumes that the cat is definitely in one of those two states, and you just don't know which one it is inside the box. However, in the microscopic world of quanta, it's possible for a truly dead cat and a living cat to be in a state of superposition."
"Superposition?"
"Before that, there's a famous experiment in quantum theory called the double-slit experiment. You shoot electrons from an electron gun at a plate with vertical slits. Electrons are tiny particles—that is, matter. So when they're fired, they fly in a straight line. If they miss the plate and pass through a slits, white spots appear on a screen placed behind it where the electrons hit. If you fire them randomly many times, a cluster of elongated white spots shaped just like the slits appears on the screen. This is only natural. Electrons are particles, after all, so they fly straight."
"So what? Is this physics? Weren't you in biology?"
"I studied it because I was interested," Kyoko said with a composed face.
"Next, you do the same thing with a plate containing two slits. It's called the double-slit experiment."
Kyoko stood up and drew a diagram on the chalkboard.
"The electrons fired from the electron gun still pass through the two slits at a certain rate and head toward the screen. Now, I wonder what kind of pattern appears on the screen?"
Kyoko handed me a piece of chalk.
To be honest, I didn't want to accept it because I hated that scratchy feeling chalk leaves on the skin.
With no other choice, I tapped the white chalk onto the square enclosure representing the screen, making dots. I drew a cluster of dots shaped like the two slits. That was completely obvious.
"Right. That's the conventional answer. But the result of this double-slit experiment was eerie, as if it shattered the common sense humanity had taken for granted."
Saying this, Kyoko wiped away what I had drawn with a chalkboard eraser and instead drew five identical shapes at equal intervals. Since each was vertically elongated, it looked just like striped patterns.
"This is what appeared on the screen."
"That doesn't make sense. Aside from the number, there are dots right in the dead center. Isn't that the solid part of the board between the two slits? If they flew straight, they shouldn't hit there."
"No. This is the result of an actual experiment."
Feeling unsatisfied, I thought about it anyway.
"Then was it wrong to say those electrons fly straight?"
"That's wonderful. Great thinking. Were your physics grades good, Yamanaka-san?"
"Shut up."
"These striped patterns are called interference fringes. It's known that the same phenomenon occurs in experiments using waves."
"Waves? You mean ocean waves?"
"Yes. Waves are less about the substance itself and more about the way energy is transmitted. It's not that the same water keeps moving forward, but rather that the energy of moving water is passed on to the next water, pushing the shape of a wave forward. In the process of propagating a spatial distribution pattern, simply put, waves try to spread out radially. Therefore…"
Kyoko picked up the chalk again.
"After passing through the slits, the waves don't move straight ahead; they spread out radially. The waves that emerge from the two slits advance radially like this and collide with each other. Right around the middle in front of the board, the two waves crash, creating a high wave there. And the crest of the wave from the left and one of the subsequent crests from the wave on the right also collide, creating a high wave crest to the right of the center. The same goes if you reverse left and right. Furthermore, a similar thing happens outside that on the second subsequent crest. The way these high wave crests strike the screen is what creates these five interference fringes. Five is just an example, though."
I groaned while looking at the diagram. It was quite easy to understand. I briefly thought that she might actually be surprisingly well-suited for teaching.
"So, electrons were waves?"
"Well. Thinking that way seems to explain this experiment."
"What's so eerie about it? You're making a big deal out of nothing."
Kyoko smiled.
"However, electrons are not waves; they are particles. Just a single fired particle is flying through space. This is a fact. That's why, with a single slit, a single elongated line shaped like the slit appeared on the screen."
"I don't get it at all."
"This is a case where many electrons are fired rapidly from an electron gun. So, even if electrons aren't waves, perhaps when they pass through the left and right slits simultaneously, they interfere with each other through some property humanity doesn't yet know, creating striped patterns. So, what do you think happens if you fire electrons one by one, leaving some time between each?"
"One by one? Well… wouldn't the same thing happen as when there's only one slit? They don't interfere with each other."
Since she handed me the chalk again, I drew two lines on the chalkboard. Seeing that, Kyoko wore a suspicious smile.
"And yet, what actually appeared in the experiment was this."
Kyoko drew the same five striped patterns as before.
I felt a slight chill. I felt like I finally understood a bit of what Kyoko meant when she called it eerie.
"A single entity passes through both slits simultaneously and causes interference. In other words, the moment they are fired from the electron gun, things that were particles start behaving like waves. This is bizarre. Furthermore, an experiment was conducted where sensors were attached to each of the two slits to observe whether electrons fired one by one passed through them. Since an electron is a single entity called a particle, if one sensor reacts, it means the other one wasn't passed through. It's impossible for a single particle to pass through two slits at the same time. The results showed just that. One of the sensors registered a reaction of a particle passing through, and neither sensor reacted simultaneously. The particles apparently hadn't turned into waves."
"I feel kind of relieved."
I meant it as a joke, but it might have been mostly my honest feeling.
"But strange, isn't it? If so, what on earth were those five striped patterns that looked like they were drawn by waves? That's the question. However, the moment they started observing the slits with those sensors, the stripe patterns appearing on the screen changed. The two lines you drew earlier—the ones that appear when electrons are treated as particles rather than waves—started showing up."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Because they were observed, the electrons lost the possibility of 'passing through both slits simultaneously and potentially interfering with each other from left and right.' In other words, what was flying through the air was the very possibility of where the electron currently was."
Kyoko's explanation now sounded like something from a world completely detached from the field of science.
Yes. It was just like the occult.
"The common sense of the world we know doesn't apply in the microscopic world of quanta, which includes electrons. It's just like the world of the occult we love," Kyoko laughed, as if reading my mind.
"In the microscopic world, quanta are nothing more than possibilities until they are observed. You can only predict whether the probability of them being there is high or not. In other words, until observed, quanta exist in multiple places simultaneously as possibilities. This isn't wordplay; it's a fact derived from experiments."
"It's a fact claimed by this thing called quantum theory, right?"
Thinking it was a rather clever remark on my part, I felt like I had struck back. Kyoko nodded honestly, saying, "That's right."
"Schrödinger's cat thought experiment is what brings this microscopic-world fact of quantum theory into the real world. To skip the details, simply put, you put some radium, a Geiger counter, poison gas, and a cat inside a box."
"And I'll also add sex, lies, videotapes, a room, a dress shirt, and myself."
Ignoring my joke as if nothing had happened, Kyoko continued.
"Suppose the probability that a certain amount of radium undergoes alpha decay after a certain time and emits an alpha particle is 50%. The device is set up so that if an alpha particle is emitted and the Geiger counter reacts, poison gas is released, killing the cat. You are watching over this situation from outside the box. The box, the cat, and the poison gas are all things in the real world. This isn't a story about a mysterious microscopic world where common sense doesn't apply. Therefore, you think like this: after a certain amount of time, the probability that the cat is dead is 50%. You won't know until you open the box, but it's one of two things: it's either alive or dead."
"That's why I said that at the beginning. That you won't know until you open it."
"No. Inside the box, the alpha particle is a tiny quantum. Therefore, it follows the laws of quantum theory. Quanta behave as probabilities until observed. If the probability that an alpha particle exists at a position where the Geiger counter reacts after a certain time is 50%, it means that the possibility of it not being there and the possibility of it being there coexist simultaneously at equal concentrations. It's not one or the other. The life or death of the cat, determined based on that result, is the same. Inside the sealed box where you cannot observe it, a living cat and a dead cat coexist in a one-to-one superposition."
"Come on, that's a story about the microscopic world."
"As a thought experiment, Schrödinger devised a device where the laws of the microscopic world affect the macroscopic world, taking a stance critical of quantum theory. He thought it would be absurd if something like that happened in reality. After all, when you actually open the box, the cat is either alive or dead, one or the other. However, as experiments based on quantum theory progressed through the hands of many later physicists, the laws of that microscopic world could no longer be ignored. Einstein protested, saying, 'God does not play dice,' but electron spin 'quantum entanglement' was also confirmed repeatedly through experiments. Even if we call it the microscopic world, the matter making up our bodies, if you increase the magnification of a microscope and peer closer, is ultimately made of quanta like atoms. Everything in this universe is like that. We exist within the laws of quantum theory. We all exist in a superposition of multiple possibilities of what might be there. Therefore…"
Kyoko walked over and placed both hands on my shoulders. Her beautiful face drew close right in front of me, making my heart skip a beat. Her lips parted seductively.
"By observing me, right now, I am able to remain myself."
Sensing her face coming even closer, I instinctively stepped back.
Swept away by the mood, I felt like I was about to fall into a strange state.
"So what does that even mean?" I spat out. I wanted to escape from this bizarre atmosphere.
Kyoko let out a "fufu" laugh, one I couldn't possibly imitate, and sat right up on top of the desk, crossing her long, slender legs.
"A man named Hugh Everett at Princeton University developed this interpretation of the microscopic world and argued that quantum theory should also be applied to humans. After all, the observer is also an entity entirely composed of quanta. Schrödinger's cat in the box is definitively either dead or alive when you actually open the lid. But you, the one opening the box and looking at the cat, can be thought of as simultaneously coexisting as 'you watching a dead cat' and 'you watching a living cat' until someone else observes you. No, you have to think that way—as an actual, solid fact."
At Kyoko's words, I couldn't retort with "Isn't that just a fact of quantum theory?" Because somehow, her words felt like the truth.
"This is Everett's many-worlds interpretation. For you, this world is made of parallel worlds with countless possibilities that are determined every time you observe them. They coexist in superposition. And as time passes, those parallel worlds branch out into branches and leaves of 'possibilities that ended in different observation results,' diverging into countless parallel worlds that the you on this side can no longer interact with. That world, including you, likewise constitutes parallel worlds with countless possibilities, in superposition, until observed by someone other than you. This entire universe exists in superposition with countless other universes that are slightly different. A world that branches due to the coincidence of whether a single quantum happened to be at a certain point in the vast universe at a given moment, or not. Or an astronomical number of universes born from the possibility that this universe might have had different physical constants at the moment of its birth. This is Multiverse in theoretical physics—the theory of multiple universes."
"There's no way something like that exists."
"That which cannot be perceived is not synonymous with not existing. You can never absolutely prove that a multiverse overlapping with our universe does not exist."
"…Are you saying you came from there?"
Kyoko gave neither a "yes" nor a "no."
"A parallel world where the constellations are different is a world of possibilities lying at the end of a branch different from this observation world of mine now. Now that it has been observed and its possibilities closed off, it is a place where physical interference of any kind, such as the retention of memories, no longer reaches. And yet, I remember. Those stars. How do you explain—"

Are you the real M-kun?

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 10:43:53 +0000

At the end of my second year in junior high, I had to move away.
The day before the move, I saw my classmate, M-kun, walking past my house while muttering to himself.
M-kun and I had gone to the same school from kindergarten through the second year of junior high, and our houses were in the same neighborhood, but we had barely spoken to each other since the lower grades of elementary school.
M-kun was a bit chubby, unathletic, timid, and had few friends, so I wasn't very fond of him.
That's why I don't know why I called out to him at that moment.
Even so, I remember the conversation we had back then very clearly.
"What are you muttering about?"
"I made a weird promise… I made a weird promise…"
"Who did you make a promise with, and what kind of promise was it?"
"I can't tell you because it's a promise… But wait, aren't you transferring schools? Then I guess it's fine. I'm going to stop being myself… Ah, no, I shouldn't. It's a promise, so I can't tell you."
And then M-kun walked away.

The Dark Past of the Villain in the Video Game 'BioShock Infinite'

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 10:00:25 +0000

The backstory told by the villain in the video game 'BioShock Infinite.'
The setting is America in 1890.
The villain is a white man who belonged to the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the U.S. Army and fought against Native Americans in the Indian Wars (or so he claims).
One day, a fellow soldier in his unit approached him and said, "I hear you have Native American blood in your veins."
According to the villain, this was "a baseless and slanderous accusation," but ever since that day, he began to feel alienated within his unit.
It wasn't that he was being insulted or harassed, but the attitude of his comrades felt somewhat distant, and he couldn't shake the feeling that he was "not being accepted as a true brother-in-arms."
Then, when he participated in a battle that would later be called the Wounded Knee Massacre (which was hardly a battle, but rather a one-sided slaughter), he bravely led the charge into enemy territory, set fire to tents housing unresisting women, children, and the sick, tortured captured Native Americans to death, and committed every imaginable atrocity.
Praised as a "hero" by his comrades for his performance in this fight, he felt that he had finally been "recognized as a true white man."

The Friend We Forgot After Summer Break

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 10:00:07 +0000

This is a story I just heard from my older brother, and I'm not sure if it's true or not…
It happened when he was in college, about ten years ago. There was a close-knit group of about ten people in his major.
After summer vacation ended, everyone was back to attending classes, complaining about the heat and fatigue, and a week had passed. My brother was eating an ice cream in his boarding room at night when he suddenly thought, "Wait, what happened to [Name]?"
When he thought about it, he realized he hadn't seen [Name], a member of their close group, even once since summer break. They were good enough friends to have gone to the beach together over the vacation, so if the guy hadn't shown his face, my brother should have at least called him to check on him. Yet for some reason, he had completely forgotten all about him.
He immediately tried calling, but got voicemail.
The next day at university, he asked the others, "Hey, I wonder what happened to [Name]?"
Everyone started making a commotion, saying, "Now that you mention it, I completely forgot he existed!"

Tales of the Unusual: High Noon - Spoilers

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 09:45:07 +0000

Overview
"High Noon," broadcast on June 11, 1992, on the TV anthology series *Tales of the Unusual* (Yonimo Kimyona Monogatari), starring Koji Tamaki.
Alongside "Zundoko Beroncho," it is considered one of the most popular comedy episodes in the history of the show. On a sweltering summer afternoon, a man visits a rundown diner. Looking like an ordinary office worker, he orders one meal after another, showing no signs of stopping. With its unique worldview and striking impact, the episode sparked a massive reaction after it aired.
It is adapted from a gag manga episode titled "The Greatest Live Broadcast in History" by Hisashi Eguchi, originally featured in *Susume!! Pirates*.

The Master Series: "Poison (Middle Part, 2/3): Would You Prefer Not to Be Katy?"

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 09:29:01 +0000

Continuing from "Poison (Middle Part) 1/3"
https://www.pixiv.net/novel/show.php?id=12839030

2: Would You Prefer Not to Be Katy?

It was 7:30 PM. I arrived at the west exit of the station. Kyoko was sitting on a stone bench surrounding a roadside tree near the entrance of the underground east-west passageway.

She was wearing a thin Chester coat that revealed her slim silhouette. With round sunglasses on, she looked just like a celebrity trying to maintain a low profile.

[Unsettling Story] Takashi Yanase's picture book "Kirakira"

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 09:00:08 +0000

In Obie Village, a strict rule was observed: "Never approach the tall mountain nearby." This was because a giant, eerie, one-eyed monster covered in fur, known as "Kirakira," lurked on that mountain. It was said that the terror of the creature was such that anyone who laid eyes on it would be left speechless, so not a single person dared to go near the mountain.

"What's so great about Kirakira? One day I'll beat it to death with this staff!"
So boasted Kiri, a boy living in Obie. He was skilled with a staff, but he was also reckless and hot-headed. One night, Kiri suddenly disappeared from the village. Convinced that he had headed for Kirakira's mountain, Kiri's older brother, Kiru, set out alone toward the forbidden mountain with his trusty bow in hand to rescue his missing brother.

The Subordinate Caught in a Factory Accident

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 08:44:47 +0000

I hesitated to write about this because it involves a subordinate at my company, but it was so utterly baffling that I decided to share it here.

I work at a factory. The other day, a major accident occurred there, and one of my subordinates was caught in it. I can't go into the details, but it was a horrific accident that severed his right arm from the shoulder down. His right leg was still attached, but the doctors said recovery was impossible, leaving no choice but to amputate that as well. He was unconscious when he was rushed to the hospital by ambulance, and his condition was critical. Thanks to the medical staff, he narrowly escaped death, but he remained in a coma.

[Shisho Series] "Poison: Part 2 (3/3)" — Already Dead

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 08:32:26 +0000

The room suddenly plunged into pitch darkness, and from here and there came the sound of indrawn breath. I was startled, too, and instinctively grabbed the edge of the table.

Tiny specks of light appeared on the ceiling. They spread in an instant to cover the space overhead, and a night sky was born.

A planetarium. Now that I recall, black machinery of some sort had been installed in the four corners of the room. That must have been what it was.

[Tales of the Unusual] The 23-Minute Miracle

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 08:32:08 +0000

Overview
"The 23-Minute Miracle" (1991)
One of the most disturbingly chilling episodes in the history of "Tales of the Unusual." Japan's constitution has changed following a coup… A beautiful female teacher suddenly appears in an elementary school classroom and begins her lesson. As the calm and methodical lesson progresses, a terrifying truth begins to emerge. What is the transformation that occurs once 23 minutes have passed? A masterpiece depicting a chilling near-future.
(Broadcasted on December 26, 1991, as part of the "Tales of the Unusual '91 Winter Special")

The Payphone by the Park Was Ringing

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 07:59:00 +0000

When I was in elementary school, a teacher told us about a strange experience they had.

Back when the teacher was in college, they were a long-distance track runner. They had moved to Tokyo from the Tohoku region and were living in a boarding house. Because the university track was far from where they lived, they had mapped out their own training course through the town to run every day.

The Ecology of a Namba Scam Artist

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 07:58:55 +0000

A while back, I was walking around Namba hopping from shop to shop with my hands full of shopping bags. A man around my age, maybe 30, was power-walking straight toward me from the opposite direction and ended up crashing right into the cardboard box I was carrying that had a kettle inside. I instinctively said, "I'm so sorry," and suddenly the guy collapsed onto the ground, shouting, "Ow! Ow! Why'd you run into me?! That's terrible!"

Tales of the Unusual: The Bomber's Switch (2009)

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 07:44:11 +0000

It happened a few years ago, so it might be a repost, but every time I watch "The Bomber's Switch" from *Tales of the Unusual*, it leaves such a deeply unsettling, lingering bad taste in my mouth.

The protagonist, Egusa, is an ordinary college student who works part-time to pay his way through school. One day, while handing out tissue packets on the street, he accidentally bumps his arm against a local thug, causing the thug's canned coffee to spill. The thug flies into a rage and kicks over the box of tissues. As Egusa is picking up the scattered packets, ignoring the people just walking right past him, only one person stops to help him.

The Bachelor Room

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 07:22:44 +0000

It was the winter of my first year in university.
Around that time, I frequented a local occult forum called "Dawn of Ash." It had a secret sub-site that only regular members could access.
Although the site's official purpose was to discuss black magic, no one followed that rule anymore; it had essentially turned into a general occult community. High school and university students who were temporarily into scary things would flood in as newbies and quickly disappear. Naturally, a secret sub-site exclusively for people who could talk on the same level was bound to be created.
I was still a bit too young to be considered a regular, but because my master in the occult path had drilled various things into me, everyone treated me kindly, even if I was a bit of a coward.
One of the regulars, a user named Itami, posted something interesting on that secret sub-site.
"Itami: A buddy of mine at university is the president of a club called the 'Psychic Research Club,' and it seems he's having some trouble lately. Would you guys mind hearing him out?"
The Psychic Research Club?
In front of my PC, I felt a little excited. It sounded sketchy, but I kind of wanted to check it out.
"Mikacchi: Psy-chic- lol"
"Itami: No, it's—well, saying it's proper is a stretch, but they take it pretty seriously."
"Mikacchi: Psy-chic- rofl rofl"
"Itami: Shut up for a second, will you."
"Kyosuke: Sure, I'm in."
That was the final word from the boss. If Kyosuke-san was participating, I would too. And definitely Mikacchi-san. And koko-san as well.
"koko: You shouldn't go."
Huh? Why?
Koko-san opposed it. A chill ran down my spine. Had she foreseen something?
However, after Itami-san's relentless coaxing, a few of us ultimately raised our hands to help with this consultation.
Just what kind of consultation did the president of the Psychic Research Club want to bring to the regulars of an occult forum? With anxiety and excitement all mixed up, I had a hard time falling asleep that night.
A few days later, on a Saturday, four of us rang the doorbell of a house with a nameplate reading "Nagai."
It was past one in the afternoon. Located in a quiet residential area, it was quite an impressive Western-style house.
Itami, the one who should have been here, hadn't come. He had said something about an urgent matter, but was that true? Did he run away? Koko-san's warning flashed through my mind.
"Hello. Nice to meet you."
A small man poked his head out from the entrance.
"I'm Nagai, and I'm the president of the 'Psychic Research Club' at Commerce University. I've heard a lot about you all from Itami."
He spoke with a refined tone. Behind his glasses were long, coolly shaped eyes. He was quite a handsome young man.
Without sizing us up, he cheerfully invited us inside with a "Please come in."
"No one else is home today, so please make yourselves at home."
We walked down a long hallway and were guided to his room. It was a spacious Western-style parlor. As soon as we sat down at the table in the center, Nagai brought us some black tea.
During self-introductions, everyone used their handle names.
"Kyosuke."
"I'm Mikacchi!"
"Uni."
"Ah, I'm Yamashita. Nice to meet you."
Yamashita-san, a working adult, said this while adjusting his glasses with his right hand. He was wearing a suit and tie today as well. It seemed he had been working through the morning.
"So, what kind of things do you do at the Psychic Research Club?"
I asked that first.
"Um, are you familiar with these?"
Nagai lined up five cards on the table, each with a different mark: a circle, a square, a star, and so on. They were the ones you often saw on TV.
"They're called Zener cards, and they're used in ESP experiments."
Nagai turned the cards face down, smoothly shuffled them with his left hand, and wrote "Zener cards" on a piece of paper with his right hand. Quite dexterous.
Then, he arranged the five face-down cards in a horizontal line.
"Try to guess where the star is."
An experiment in clairvoyance. I stared intently, but nothing could be seen through the solid gray backs of the cards.
I pointed to the far right, followed by Kyosuke-san, Mikacchi-san, and Yamashita-san in that order, leaving just one card on the far left.
"Now, let's see how your ESP abilities are."
Nagai flipped the cards over one by one, starting from the one I had chosen on the far right.
Wave, circle, cross, square. Everyone missed. I felt a slight sense of frustration at Nagai's smiling face.
"You all missed. But it can't be helped. The star was… because he…"
Saying this, Nagai flipped over the last card on the far left.
"Ate it."
Oh, I thought.
The last card wasn't the star I saw earlier. It was a joker. The joker from a deck of cards had changed into an illustration of itself scooping up a star with a spoon and eating it.
"Is—is this a magic trick?"
Yamashita-san was startled. No, everyone was surprised.
"So cool!" Mikacchi-san exclaimed excitedly.
"Hahaha, just joking. We actually do serious research most of the time."
Nagai pressed the joker card flat against the table with his left hand, slid his right hand underneath it, and pulled something out.
A spoon. A spoon came out. Which meant, as for the card…
Just as expected, when he opened his hand to show us, the spoon the joker was holding had vanished.
Nagai tapped the table with that real spoon—*clink, clink*—to prove it was hard.
"Watch closely."
He grabbed the handle of the spoon with his left hand and made a gesture like channeling power with his right hand. Just as his movements grew more intense, he gently touched the tip of the spoon with his right hand, and the spoon bent as if its spine had snapped. The moment everyone gasped in surprise, he held both ends of the spoon with both hands and blew a breath onto the handle.
Right before our eyes, the spoon straightened right back out.
Amazing. Amazing, but this…
It looked exactly like the movements magicians performed on TV over and over again.
"It's magic."
Nagai flashed a devilish smile.
"So the Psychic Research Club is just a magic circle?"
Kyosuke-san said unhappily. I felt that scam-like occult stuff was problematic, but having it brushed off so easily didn't feel good either.
"No. Magic is the means; the goal is strictly the manifestation of psychokinetic phenomena."
Straightening his posture as if to say the real topic was about to begin…
Right then, completely ignoring the mood, Mikacchi-san spoke up.
"I can do it tooooo."
Nagai folded the paper where he had written the spelling of Zener cards in half and stood it up on the table.
"Watch."
Then, she struck her left cheek twice with the palm of her right hand, immediately struck her right cheek twice in the same way, and brought her right fingertips close to the paper like a knife-hand, keeping her palm open. The paper didn't budge.
"Now, from the right."
Just as she said, she struck her right cheek twice with that same right hand, then her left cheek, and brought her right knife-hand close to the paper.
The paper fluttered softly and fell backward.
"If you slap your right cheek first, psychokinetic energy comes out."
I was a bit impressed with Mikacchi-san for saying that. But Nagai just laughed, "Hahahaha," and said, "That's just wind. When you end on the left cheek, you sweep away the air as you extend your right hand."
I see. So that was the principle. Upon having the trick explained, Mikacchi-san pouted in annoyance.
"We call this kind of magic an 'artifact.'"
"An artifact? What's that?"
"In Bachelor theory, it refers to something that induces PK phenomena."
Nagai smiled.
"Parapsychologist Kenneth Batchelder proposed a session that makes paranormal phenomena more likely to occur. In a darkened room, people who have gathered to experience paranormal phenomena relax and chat. In that setting, 'staging' such as moving a table or making strange noises with magic tricks—in other words, artifacts—is permitted under a tacit understanding. In that environment, the expectation that 'anything might happen now' makes it harder for psychological inhibitions like 'such a phenomenon is impossible in common sense' to take effect. Only in a space where the locks holding down the power generated by the human mind have been cleverly removed can genuine PK phenomena be born."
Speaking in a flat tone, Nagai lined up five spoons on the table.
"It is precisely in Batchelder's room…"
Nagai's eyes shone darkly as he stared at the spoons.
"PK…"
Kyosuke-san muttered quietly.
Yamashita-san, who had been gazing fixedly at Nagai's face, spoke up.
"Y-You… weren't you on TV? When you were a child."
Nagai looked up, startled. Wearing a forced smile, he opened his mouth.
"You remember very well."
"W-Well, I liked those kinds of shows, you see."
"What kind of TV was it?" I asked, and Yamashita-san gestured toward Nagai, saying, "He was the spoon-bending boy."
"I just appeared on a local evening show a few times."
Nagai held a spoon in his right hand and raised his left hand. With a tense effort, as if channeling some invisible force, his left hand trembled.
Everyone watched with bated breath, but the spoon didn't bend, and Nagai let out a deep sigh.
"When I was in elementary school, for some reason, I could bend spoons. At first, I showed my friends and amazed them, but then adults started making a big fuss. I started appearing on TV like that… And then, I gradually started getting scared. Scared of failing."
Nagai repeatedly clenched and unclenched his left hand.
"That's when adults in suits appeared."
"Ooh, Men in Black!"
Mikacchi-san squealed in delight.
"Are you familiar with Sony's ESP Laboratory?" Nagai asked, and Yamashita-san said, "Ah."
"It's the psychic research institute created at the urging of Masaru Ibuka, one of Sony's founders, right?"
Yamashita-san replied, pushing his glasses up his nose with a click.
"That's right. Not just Sony, but various major corporations were seriously researching psychic phenomena. It seems they abruptly shut it down after the Aum Shinrikyo incident led to a strong backlash against the occult. The people who appeared before me were from such a corporation."
◆
A boy is sitting in a chair. It was a white room.
"You don't need to be so nervous, kid. Want some candy?"
The boy, with a stiff face, rolls a piece of candy around in his mouth.
"Now, won't you bend this spoon?"
The boy holds the spoon he was handed in his right hand and raises his left.
Sweat drips down the boy's cheek. An adult in a suit checks his wristwatch.
The boy squeezes his eyes shut. *Clatter.* The spoon falls onto the table. Its neck is bent ninety degrees backward.
The adults bring a small, black box-like machine close to the spoon. Then they shake their heads.
"This kid is no good."
The world warps with a low drone. This kid is no good. This kid is. No. No. No.
◆
"D-Did they find out metal bending was a trick?"
Yamashita-san asked, and Nagai nodded.
"My condition was bad that day, and it wouldn't bend no matter what, so I finally resorted to a trick. By that time, I was completely broken from the stress of not being allowed to fail. I thought I'd done it smoothly. Normally, I wouldn't have been caught. But they saw right through it."
Nagai tossed a straight spoon onto the table with a *clatter*.
"They told me that spoons genuinely bent by real psychokinesis have a certain characteristic."
"A characteristic?"
"They are always magnetized. What they were investigating was magnetic force."
"Spoons are magnetized?"
I was a bit surprised. I'd never heard of such a thing.
"From that day on, I couldn't bend a spoon even once. Everyone turned on me and started calling me a liar. But…"
Nagai brought his fist down quietly onto the desk.
"Someday, I want to reclaim that power from back then. My power."
His voice was strained. The fresh, handsome young man was now revealing a dark, obsessive passion.
"So, you created a club and kept repeating psychic sessions?"
Kyosuke-san asked in a cold, dismissive tone.
"And why do you need to consult us about this?"
Right. That part still didn't make sense.
"Lately… strange things have started happening during the Batchelder theory sessions."
"Strange things?"
Kyosuke-san narrowed his eyes.
"I have no idea why such things happen. But everyone gets scared and leaves. That's the situation."
"What happens?"
To Kyosuke-san's question, Nagai didn't answer, instead starting to close the windows of the room.
"Please take your seats. Since it's everyone's first time, let's first experience a Batchelder theory session."
Doing as we were told, we sat at the table. In the center, the spoons remained lined up.
Nagai took his seat as well and said, "Now."
"As I mentioned earlier, in Batchelder theory, to induce genuine PK phenomena, a relaxed space and psychological reassurance—the feeling that even if something strange happens, it might just be someone's prank—are important."
Nagai held something like a remote control in his hand.
"I've set up enough trickery to make the table shake, so you can rest easy on that score. Now then."
The room lights went out. Pitch black.
"What are we supposed to do?"
Mikacchi-san's voice rang out.
"Let's just chat and have fun like normal."
The moment Nagai replied…
Even though it had just begun, it appeared. As if it had been waiting for them.
White hands were hovering right above everyone's heads. They were draped in a faint bluish-white light. They were long. Twisting and writhing as if they had no joints, there were ten, fifteen, or even more white hands.
"Hk—"
Yamashita-san and Mikacchi-san let out gasps. I, too, felt a sensation of saliva flowing backward into my throat.
The swarms of white hands stretching out from nowhere caressed the walls, the ceiling, and the table.
"Th-This is definitely… o-our territory, isn't it?"
Yamashita-san rasped out. As for me, I couldn't even make a sound. I pulled my neck in and stiffened my body.
If they touch you, it's over. That kind of obsessive dread took hold of me.
"Isn't this a magic trick too?"
Mikacchi-san's scream only fueled the sense of reality. This wasn't some trick. This was something far more terrifying.
"Why?!"
It was Nagai's voice.
"Why does something like this always show up?!"
He was crying out, almost weeping.
The white hands picked up the spoons on the table. As if they had found a toy, they played with them for a moment before beginning to bend them into squiggly shapes. Multiple white hands swarmed over a single spoon. A chilling bluish-white light squirmed in the darkness.
"Ky-Kyosuke-san…"
I squeezed out the name of the person I could rely on most in a situation like this.
Right then, a warm orange light flared up in the darkness. The silhouette of Kyosuke-san's back emerged. Unable to help myself, I stood up from my chair and, crouching down, felt my way toward him.
Kyosuke-san was holding the flame of a lighter underneath a white hand that was closing in right before his eyes.
It was a sight that defied belief.
"Not physical objects, huh."
Just as he muttered that, in response to Nagai's voice shouting, "Wh-What are you doing?", Kyosuke-san answered, "Oh," and turned around.
"Maybe doing something like this."
He showed Nagai how he was bringing the lighter's flame close to the white hand. The very next moment—
"Uwaaaaaah!"
Nagai screamed, and at the same time, the white hands began to writhe and thrash in the air. It wasn't just the hand being scorched by the lighter. All of them. It was a sickening sight.
"Turn on the lights!"
Kyosuke-san shouted. Yamashita-san went, "A-Ah," and the sound of him frantically feeling around the surface of the table echoed. "I found the remote," he said. And the lights flickered on immediately.
*Clatter. Clatter.*
The spoons dropped onto the table.
Every single white hand had vanished into thin air. Everyone was holding their breath and looking around their surroundings.
Kyosuke-san leaned forward, peering at the spoons on the table. An accessory chain spilled from his chest, the silver crucifix at its tip swaying.
"I see. They're all warped to hell and back."
Just as Kyosuke-san said, the spoons were all twisted out of recognition.
"You did this, didn't you?"
Kyosuke-san stared at Nagai with sharp eyes. Nagai was hugging his own shoulders, shaking violently.
"N-No."
"No, it was you. Even though you're right-handed…" As he said this, Kyosuke-san made a motion of writing something with his right hand. Was he referring to when Nagai wrote out the spelling of the Zener cards?
"The power to bend the spoon was trying to come out of your left hand."
He picked up one of the mangled spoons and held his left hand over it.
"Your first magic trick bent the spoon using your right hand, but the next one—the one that failed—used your left hand. The spoon-bending you did as a child… you did it with your left hand, didn't you?"
Nagai slowly shook his head from side to side. It didn't look like he was denying it; it was more the reaction of a scolded child.
"And the white hands from just now were all 'left hands'."
Huh. Mikacchi-san, Yamashita-san, and I were all shocked. In a situation like that, he noticed something like that?
"It wasn't me."
"I tried scorching it with a lighter, but the reaction only happened the moment you saw it. Because it was your hand."
Nagai's hand? No, was that a metaphor? Meaning—
"It's your power. I don't know if it's childhood trauma or whatever, but the power you've kept suppressed is bursting out like that."
Just as Yamashita-san had called it "our territory," I had thought the hands from earlier were a spiritual phenomenon. Yet Kyosuke-san alone saw it from a completely different perspective.
"I've seen it before, long ago. This kind of power."
When Kyosuke-san said that, Yamashita-san nodded, saying, "I-I see. The phenomenon from back then?"
"You're wrong!"
Nagai shouted. Mikacchi-san jumped with a start.
"I'm not using any psychic powers! Not since I was a kid, never! It was a magic trick from the very beginning! I just wanted to surprise people, I wanted them to say it was amazing! That was all! Psychic powers don't exist, do they?!"
Nagai slammed his hand against the table.
"Then… what the hell is that?"
Tears streamed from Nagai's eyes as he looked up with a terrified expression.
"You…"
Kyosuke-san wore an expression of surprise.
"Just go home."
"Hurry!"
The moment Nagai barked those words in a harsh tone—
With a sharp *click*, the lights went out.
A white hand materialized in the darkness, pressing the light switch in the corner of the room. Startled, I looked over, and the hand vanished smoothly back into the dark.
I felt a blood-draining terror at the return of the darkness.
Faint, whitish things were drifting around us. We were surrounded by them.
"Stop it, Nagai."
Kyosuke-san said in a muffled voice.
"I can't take any more of this!"
Mikacchi-san cried out, half-sobbing.
"It's not me!"
The sound of a chair crashing down echoed. Nagai had collapsed onto the floor. The sound of him scrambling and crawling across the floor.
"Turn—turn it on, this…"
Yamashita-san muttered in a panicked voice, presumably pressing buttons on the remote.
"Ah—"
The lights flashed on abruptly. Holding the remote, Yamashita-san…

"The Doll" by Shinichi Hoshi

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 07:15:04 +0000

"The Doll" by Shinichi Hoshi
A young punk was ordered to act as a hitman, but he was trembling with fear that he would fail and be killed.
He met a mysterious fortune teller who gave him a doll.
"This doll is yourself. As long as you protect this doll, you will be safe."
The punk bought a safe, put the doll inside, tore the key to pieces on a bench, and flushed it down the toilet.
Now he was safe… As he tried to leave his apartment, the door wouldn't budge, as if it had been welded shut.
"Aah!"

Look, See? It's a Doll

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 07:00:20 +0000

T-kun transferred to our school around May or June of the fifth grade. It was an awkward time in the middle of the first semester, and he was a quiet guy who didn't stand out in any way.
What left an impression on me was how pale he was.
He wasn't an albino or anything like that, but since all the kids in the countryside of Kyushu were tanned dark, he just felt somehow unusual.
He seemed to struggle to make friends.
It wasn't quite bullying, but he somehow got left out of the circle of kids.
He was that type of kid who was always by himself in the corner of the classroom.
One day during summer vacation, I was wandering around the neighborhood and saw T-kun, so I called out to him.
When I asked him what he was doing, he said, "Nothing much."
We talked for a while, and just as I was about to say goodbye, he invited me to come over to his house.
I had no plans anyway, so I decided to tag along.
He led me to a newly built apartment building that was about fifteen stories tall—a place I'd heard about as being somewhere only rich people lived.
When I asked if he lived there, he answered, "Yeah."
The entranceway used an auto-lock system, which was still rare in the countryside back then, and T-kun explained to me how it worked.
There was no one else home. A luxurious-looking sofa set was placed in the living room, but moving boxes from a moving company were scattered around messily.
It felt strange to me that even though about three months had passed since he moved in, he still hadn't unpacked.
T-kun brought out cake and cola from the kitchen.
"Help yourself," he said. Even though he was usually timid and quiet, this time he felt strangely pushy, almost aggressive.

"Be Silent" (from Tales of the Unusual, starring Atsuro Watabe)

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 07:00:12 +0000

A composer was asked to write a new song, but he was having a hard time getting it right. Gradually, he began to suffer from a near-neurotic condition and became bothered by the sounds around him—for example, construction noise and the sound of the television.

His symptoms worsened to the point where even the sound of his wife walking in her slippers and the humming of the refrigerator started to annoy him. When he began to find even his worried wife's voice unpleasant, she lost patience with him and left.

The Master Series: The Drawer

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 06:21:27 +0000

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.

South Park: "Americans Can't Tell the Difference Between Japanese and Chinese People"

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 06:08:15 +0000

This is about the South Park episode featuring the Chinese restaurant and the sushi bar. A Japanese sushi bar opens right next to a Chinese restaurant in South Park. The Chinese owner of the restaurant gets angry at the appearance of a business rival. The Chinese owner complains, "Americans can't tell the difference between Chinese and Japanese culture! If this keeps up, I'll be out of business!" The Chinese owner starts harassing the Japanese sushi chef in various ways related to their respective countries. The harassment gradually escalates until the Chinese owner finally tries to push the Japanese man from a height to kill him. In the end, due to various circumstances, the Japanese man jumps himself (committing suicide), but as he falls and looks down, he realizes something and screams out, "This is terrible racism!" The Japanese man crashes straight into the Chinese restaurant below and dies (the running gag being that Americans can't tell Japan and China apart). The Chinese owner is arrested by the police. The American police officers find the case troublesome, and also think, "If we arrest this Chinese guy, there won't be any Asian restaurants left in this town" (since Americans can't tell Chinese and Japanese food apart). They decide to brush it off by saying, "Japan has the highest suicide rate in the world, so that Japanese guy must have committed suicide too," and release the Chinese man, ending the episode. In a later, separate episode, this incident is briefly mentioned only as "a Chinese man killed a Mongolian" (because Americans can't tell Japan and Mongolia apart either).

Taking My Son for a Walk

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 05:49:28 +0000

That day, I took my son out for a walk. It was a pleasant, early spring afternoon. My son was smiling happily in his stroller. He was in such a good mood that I thought about walking a little further than usual… That was my first mistake.

Pushing the stroller and talking to my son, I felt truly happy. Before I knew it, I had reached a park a bit further away than the one we usually go to.

[Tales of the Unusual] Don't Stop the Memories of Love

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 05:45:08 +0000

"Don't Stop the Memories of Love" (2019)
Though a relatively recent episode, it became a hot topic on social media as "genuinely terrifying" and "trauma-inducing," representing the pinnacle of "Reiwa-era strangeness."
Skillfully weaving urban legend motifs with a chain of curses, it re-presents the "terror lurking right next to daily life"—a theme long explored by "Tales of the Unusual"—by combining 90s J-horror elements with modern sensibilities.
Starring Yuki Saito, whose gripping performance accelerates the unsettling atmosphere, and leaving viewers with "that voice" and "that song" stuck in their heads long after it ends—a popular masterpiece from the 2010s onward.
(Starring: Yuki Saito / Directed by Kazuyuki Iwata)

The Shisho Series: Book Edition - The Countryside (Part 2) [Izanagi-ryu]

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 05:31:41 +0000

The next day, morning came. When I woke up, Shisho was sleeping in a terrible, twisted position right beside me. I felt a slight sense of relief. Afterward, the four of us, along with my uncle and his wife, had breakfast together—a total of six people. Something felt missing.
Right. There was no newspaper.
"Ah, it doesn't arrive until noon."
That's right. Both my PHS and Shisho's cell phone had no signal out here in this information-restricted countryside. After finishing our meal and returning to our room, I decided to ask Shisho about what happened last night.
"We went there, didn't we? To the place where Kyosuke got hurt."
"Yeah," Shisho replied, turning on the electric fan and sitting cross-legged.
"Did something happen?"
"No, nothing happened."
His evasive answer irritated me a little. After everything that went down, there was no way nothing happened.
Then, Shisho narrowed his eyes meaningfully and slowly opened his mouth.
"It was there during the day, but gone at night." He meant it had been dug up.
"It seems they realized we noticed."
A creepy smile played at the corners of his mouth.
"What was buried there?"
Shisho didn't answer right away, instead lying down flat on the tatami mats.
"Do you know what an Inugami is?"
"I've heard of it."
I remembered Kyosuke mentioning it before this trip.
"It's said to originate from the black arts of *Jukondo*—evil sorcery. If a person who commands an Inugami desires something belonging to someone else, the Inugami instantly brings disaster upon that person and won't stop until the object is given to its master. Inugamis are passed down from parent to child, and such families are called *Inugami-suji* or Inugami lineages. These lineages are detested within the community, and most social interactions, especially marriage, are avoided. Because of this, Inugami families repeatedly intermarry within their own clan, making their 'blood' increasingly concentrated."
Shisho held up a finger while lying on his back, acting secretive.
"Contrary to their name, Inugamis are often depicted looking like small rats. Some records even describe them as dogs the size of a single bean. Inugami lineages sic these creatures on their rivals, bringing about sudden physical ailments like stomachaches or high fevers. People possessed by an Inugami have Shugendo monks or priests find the cause, identifying whose specific Inugami is afflicting them. After that, they go to the house of the identified Inugami lineage and…"
"Offer tribute?" I interrupted.
Shisho shook his head at me.
"They go to complain. To tell them, 'Stop acting outside the bounds of human decency.'"
Legend has it that Inugami beliefs survive mostly in rural farming areas. In a tight-knit community where human relationships are deep and intense, when an unreasonable disaster occurs, blaming it on a specific individual is probably just one of the gears in Japan's old social structure.
It's also a factor that creates discriminatory classes. However, Shisho noted that Inugami lineages are slightly different in meaning from the so-called discriminated buraku communities.
"Inugami families are invariably wealthy. Most of them are upstart landowners born around the time when a commodity and monetary economy began permeating rural villages. In a village where owning land and farming fields were everything, some households grew magically wealthy by lending land, lending money, and distributing cash crops. And people who couldn't understand this paradigm shift thought: *'That family got rich because they use an Inugami. They greedily covet our land and wealth, exploiting us using sorcery.'* They say the lack of money, the lack of land, a bad stomach, an injury—it's all the fault of the Inugami lineage. By believing that, they might be trying to maintain some sort of balance as a community."
People in the old days used to say someone losing their mind was possessed by a fox or a dog, right? Shisho continued.
"This isn't limited to Inugamis; fox possession, snake lineages, and monkey lineages are all the same. Pretending to lose your mind is very easy, and furthermore, it makes it easy to express what is possessing you. If it's a fox, you act like a fox; if it's a dog, you act like a dog. By doing that, the existence of a possessed lineage—and the harm they are causing—can be reaffirmed among the exploited people."
To me, it sounded like he was saying it was all an "act."
The Inugami wasn't some terrifying, supernatural entity—or rather, even if it harbored the darkness of human hearts, it was merely one of the systems in rural villages for resolving concrete frustrations. That was how it sounded to me.
Shisho, who had been speaking comfortably, suddenly fell silent. I felt suffocated by the weird silence.
In that silence, the image of Kyosuke collapsing at the four-way intersection the previous day flashed through my mind, along with the chill that had attacked me afterward, and I began to feel increasingly sick.
Once again, Shisho slowly opened his mouth.
"There is a record passed down about how to create an Inugami that goes like this. First, you bury a dog in the ground, leaving only its head exposed, and let it starve. And when starvation reaches its absolute limit, you place food right in front of its nose, and the moment the dog stretches its neck out to snap at it, you chop off its head with a machete. That head, filled with intense 'intent,' is placed in a box, cursed, and made into an Inugami. At that time, the remaining body is left buried in the road, and by having unsuspecting people trample over it every day, the dog's 'intent' is sustained and grows even stronger. It's considered even more ideal if that road is a busy four-way intersection."
"Ugh."
I involuntarily clutched my mouth. I felt like an ominous premonition was crackling inside my head.
It was just past ten in the morning when Yukio arrived, riding a scooter with a loud, tearing roar.
"Oh, Ryu. Rare to see you out greeting people, meow," he said, patting Ryu's head as the dog sat at the edge of the eaves. I had carefully observed Ryu's face when he slowly crawled out of his doghouse to eat in the morning, but the veil of memory was still too thick, and I could only feel to the extent of, "I'm not sure, but it looks like Ryu."
"Well then, let's get going right away."
Yukio led the way on his scooter, and we followed behind him in a car Shisho drove, which he had borrowed from his uncle.
I should add that initially, when Kyosuke tried to get into the driver's seat, Shisho told him something like, "A beginner mark driver should quietly sit in the back," to which Kyosuke retorted, "As if your driving is anything great," almost turning the atmosphere sour.
Yukio's "teacher" apparently really was a school teacher. Yukio said he was taught by him back in elementary school. After retiring and his own children becoming independent, he bought land deep in the mountains, built a house, and had been living quietly there with his wife.
"When you work as a public servant in a countryside like this, you can't escape the duty of protecting 'tradishun,'" Yukio had said before we left, but he didn't seem entirely unhappy about learning the kagura dances himself.
"The teacher is a bit particular, so please don't get upset even if he says weird things."
I recalled the mystical appearance of the white-robed dancer I had seen in my childhood.
After hitting the national highway for a bit, the car ran along the river, turned toward the mountains again, and from there climbed a mountain road endlessly. The road was bad, with fragments of broken rocks scattered all over the asphalt here and there.
"Aren't these falling rocks?" Shisho muttered, carefully dodging the stones nonetheless.
The sunlight was somewhat milder than yesterday, and opening the car window let in a breeze that provided just the right amount of coolness.
Just as I leaned forward, thinking I caught a glimpse of a snake's black body on the mountain slope, koko in the backseat spoke up.
"You shouldn't stay away from the bike."
Until just a moment ago, she had been playfully tickling Kyosuke next to her and making a fuss, but her voice now had a stark, serious tone. I instinctively shifted my gaze forward.
I thought she meant we were about to lose sight of Yukio, but that wasn't it. Just as I was about to turn back toward koko to ask what she meant, a strange thing happened.
Yukio's scooter, without any sign of accelerating, smoothly drifted farther and farther away.
I thought our car had lost speed on the slope, but that wasn't it. The speedometer stayed in the exact same position. Before I could understand what was happening, our car was left behind the scooter, and Yukio's white helmet disappeared deep into the winding mountain road without ever looking back.
"Step on the gas," Kyosuke said sharply, but Shisho only replied, "I am," staring straight ahead with a serious expression.
Neither had we slowed down, nor had the scooter sped up. To my eyes, the road itself seemed to be stretching out. I looked around, but the same mountain scenery just repeated, and I couldn't figure out where on earth it was "warped."
Before I knew it, we had completely lost sight of Yukio's scooter. It was a single, winding road. Until we caught up, we had no choice but to keep going. Shisho dropped a gear, but it just made the engine roar louder without any effect.
"This is bad," he muttered while shifting the gear back.
"Is this some kind of curse?"
To Shisho's light tone, Kyosuke replied flatly, "I don't know."
Unable to believe what was happening, my eyes darted frantically around. It was still early in the morning. Everything felt like a joke.
"Really bad."
Looking ahead, I felt the road was getting narrower and narrower. The curves were also becoming sharper, and the scenery through the windshield was entirely trees, trees, and more trees.
The green color and the black soil of the mountain seemed to press in like walls.
What was barely two lanes was now completely one lane. The guardrail had vanished as well. To the right was a ravine. If we fell off, there would surely be no surviving. Judging by their reactions, there was no doubt the other three were seeing the exact same things I was.
Mass hallucination? That word flashed through my mind. But could even the effect of the car's accelerator be bound by something like that?
"Hey," Shisho called out to koko. "Isn't this a dream?"
koko shook her head. Shisho nodded a little while later. It was a bizarre exchange.
"If something else weird would happen, it'd give us a hint. Like a human being hanging…"
…from a tree branch.
At Shisho's whispered tone, I instinctively shrank back.
I genuinely felt like such an eerie sight might appear deep within the surrounding mountain forests, and the hairs on the back of my neck bristled sharply. The road stretching forward and the road stretching back. An image flashed through my head that both ends were somehow connected somewhere in the winding mountains, and a chill ran through me.
Shisho kept desperately turning the steering wheel through the approaching sharp curves. It was as if he was afraid to stop.
Something abnormal, something abnormal. As those phrases repeated in my mind, I felt a familiar sight briefly flash within my line of sight. I strained my eyes toward the mountain slope, but it rushed past in an instant.
A short while later, the same thing appeared ahead of us once more. The moment I saw it, I shouted.
"A snake!"
With incredible reflexes, Shisho slammed on the brakes. The car stopped just short of scraping against the curving slope.
Kyosuke opened the backseat door and leaped out. Immediately climbing up a tree root, he spotted the black snake lying sprawled across the mountainside. We also got out of the car and approached.
Looking closer, a long nail was driven deep into its black head. Pierced from the top of its head down to its jaw, pinned to the ground, the snake was dead. Its writhing body amidst the short grass looked like pitch-black blood welling up like groundwater. Kyosuke hooked his right-hand fingers around the nail and pulled it out.
At that moment, from high above.
From a place that could only be described as the sky above, a deafening scream echoed out. It was a voice that was neither male nor female, nor entirely human nor beast.
Yet the next moment—though it was an indescribable sensation—I instantly knew it was an auditory hallucination. And I was struck by an eerie premonition that the scene right in front of my eyes was about to flip over like a page. Tree branches rustled uneasily, and my legs froze stiff as pillars.
"Get back in the car," Shisho's voice snapped me out of it, and I jumped into the passenger seat as if fleeing.
Without even time to put on my seatbelt, the car accelerated violently. And the moment we rounded the next curve, Yukio's scooter appeared right in front of us. It was running down the mountain road, looking no different than before when it had been pulling away, its white helmet bobbing up and down.
The road had somehow returned to its original width, and though dented in places, the guardrails were properly on both sides. I was speechless, slowly shaking my head. As if we had been trapped in a green labyrinth, time hadn't passed at all, and everything connected back seamlessly.
I stood dazed by an event that felt like a daydream.
"You really did it now," Shisho exhaled deeply, letting his body sink back into the seat. "To think that was the work of a human…"
His voice sounded as though pale blue flames were flickering at the edges of his words.
When I looked at Kyosuke, he was holding the nail that had been driven into the snake earlier.
"Hold onto it."
The moment Shisho said that, Kyosuke tossed it away out the window.
"Hey," Shisho chided, his tone sounding more like a sigh than actual anger.
Kyosuke looked away, saying, "Unnecessary things invite more unnecessary things."
Shisho stared resentfully into the rearview mirror. Up ahead, Yukio took one hand off the handlebars and pointed toward the mountain side.
We must be getting close to our destination. That seemed to be what it meant. Soon, we arrived at a detached house standing alone deep in the mountains. It was a traditional Japanese house built very similarly to my uncle's. They kept chickens in a large yard.
Yukio took off his helmet and called out toward the house, "Teeach-er!", and I approached from behind, whispering into his ear.
"Didn't you lose sight of our car just now?"
"Huh?" Yukio asked, shaking his head with a puzzled look.
I figured as much. That phenomenon had probably reacted to our spiritual awareness. To Yukio, it must have just been an uneventful mountain road.
However, it was clear we had been targeted. I felt a malice that felt like a "warning." It was of the exact same quality as the one I had felt at that four-way intersection where Kyosuke had injured his foot.
I looked at Shisho's face, but he only shook his head slightly, as if telling us to let things take their course.
"These are the people I called about earlier."
Yukio said, stepping inside the entryway and calling out to the back. Eventually, a reply came, and we were invited into the house. We were led to a tatami-floored guest room, and feeling intimidated by the orderly atmosphere of the interior, we sat formally in seiza and waited. We heard the sound of creaking corridors, and a white-haired man appeared from beyond the sliding paper doors. Since Yukio had said he was his elementary school teacher, I had imagined someone a bit younger, but he looked close to seventy. The teacher stood at the entrance of the guest room, glaring down at the interior, and shouted at Yukio who was sitting cross-legged.
"What kind of freaks have you gone and brought here?!"
"Wha—?" Yukio's eyes bulged in shock. Startled, I looked at the faces of my companions.
With a stern expression on his face, the teacher spun around on his heel and stomped angrily out of the room.
Flustered, Yukio chased after him. Left behind, the rest of us could only sit in stunned silence. But Shisho wore a strangely delighted expression and said:
"That old man said, 'What kind of *mono* have you brought here?' But he didn't use the *mono* for 'person' [者]; he used the *mono* for 'specter' [物]."
Or perhaps the *mono* written as 'demon/ogre' [鬼]… Shisho muttered, writhing his body as if tickled.
Kyosuke watched him with cold eyes. Presently, the sliding doors opened once more, and an old woman, presumably the teacher's wife, quietly lined up cups of tea in front of us.
"Excuse me—"
Just as I started to speak, the teacher reappeared, accompanied by Yukio with a deep frown etched between his brows. As they entered, the old woman slipped away past the sliding doors. Pulling a zabuton cushion closer with a smooth motion, the teacher sat down in front of us. Yukio sat nervously behind him, scratching his head.
"Now then."
The teacher spoke, fixing a piercing glare upon us from deep within his wrinkles.
"I'll say this beforehand: my original duty is to exorcise the likes of you lot."
His eyes were fixed straight on Shisho.
"Now, what is this business you want to ask me about?"
Without a hint of intimidation, Shisho casually opened his mouth.
"I've done a bit of studying on Izanagi-ryu. I got the impression that Esoteric Buddhism, Onmyodo, Shugendo, and Jukondo are all blended together into a single whole. Among them, the influence of Onmyodo seems particularly strong. With the Tensha Shinto Prohibition Act of 1870 and the subsequent suppression, the Tsuchimikado main family as well as all sorts of folk Onmyoji should have had their lives snuffed out—yet how is it that such a practical form of it still survives in this region?"
Without letting his expression crack, the teacher answered simply, "I don't know."
"Well, that's fine. Ignorance of the law, is it? Come to think of it, wasn't the setting of the 'Musasabi-Moma Incident' around these parts as well? …Ah, I digressed. In any case, in this Heian era—ah, Reiwa era—I hear that Izanagi-ryu still earnestly performs karma-subjugation and sick-patient prayers, and sometimes even casts *shiki* rituals."
"You mean the Shikiko? …Throwing around words you barely understand."
"Well, I admit my knowledge is superficial. What I actually want to know about is the Inugami lineage."
"That has nothing to do with us."
The teacher replied flatly.
"Please listen. As you know, Inugami lineages are a folklore widely distributed across Shikoku."
Shisho spoke while remaining in seiza.
He said that because there are places where the techniques to exorcise Inugamis are passed down, there is consequently room for Inugamis to lurk in the depths of society. Especially in a land where such techniques are woven into daily life, Inugamis exist right next to the mundane.
"On our way here, we saw a snake with a long nail driven straight through its head. It was clearly set up as a tool for casting a curse. If someone were to find the secret place where the body of the Inugami being used by a certain someone is buried… what on earth would that person do?"
The moment Shisho stopped talking, all the teacups in front of us simultaneously began to rattle.
Thinking it was an earthquake, I instinctively looked up at the electric light cord. The cord was swaying slightly, and the shoji paper where light streamed in from outside was also faintly vibrating. Kyosuke scooped up a drop of spilled tea with his finger and stared intently at it.
I figured it was probably just a minor earthquake, but an indescribable anxiety stirred in my chest.
After the shaking subsided, the teacher slowly opened his mouth.
"Ine."
Huh? Shisho asked back, and I whispered into his ear, "That's the local dialect for 'Go home.'"
"Does that mean we have no choice but to leave this land?"
Shisho stood up, approached the shoji screen, and put his hand on the wooden frame. With a pleasant, sliding rustle of wood, blinding light poured in. Beyond the veranda, inside a fence built in the yard, chickens were pecking at the ground.
Watching that scene, Shisho muttered:
"They didn't panic at all."
It took me a moment to realize he was talking about the earthquake earlier. Indeed, there had been no sound of chickens making a fuss.
"Can't something be done?"
To Shisho's words, the teacher merely shook his head. Yukio looked flustered.
"It really seems like I'm thoroughly disliked here. Local history researchers and folklore scholars must visit sometimes for fieldwork, right? Do you chase away outsiders like that too?"
"When demons come instead of humans, it's customary to drive them off with a volley of stones."
Demons, huh? Shisho muttered in a voice barely audible, then looked up again.
"Speaking of demons, I hear that in Izanagi-ryu, people make paper cutouts called *hei* to lure invisible demons out for rituals. Are they called the demonic horde? River Misaki, Water Deity Mentatsu…"

[Unsettling Story] Joe Hill's Novella "Loaded"

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 05:19:49 +0000

A horror writer Joe Hill's novella "Loaded." A female employee shoots and kills her boss at a jewelry store in an American shopping mall due to a romantic dispute. A security guard, who is the textbook definition of an NRA member currently separated from his family for threatening them with a gun, rushes to the scene. However, mistaking a Muslim woman in the store for the culprit, he shoots and kills her along with the baby she is holding. He also shoots and kills the female employee, who had completely lost her will to commit a crime, when she startles from a noise, and then shoots the witnesses, framing the female employee for the massacre while he instantly becomes a hero. However, a female reporter notices inconsistencies in his testimony, begins investigating, and the truth is soon brought to light. From here, it gets brutal: the security guard shoots and kills the police chief and goes on the run. He forces his way into the home of his wife's sister—where his wife and son are staying—intending to flee the country with his son. But when he blasts the door lock open with a shotgun, he accidentally blows off the face of his son who was standing right on the other side. Blaming his wife for "making him stand in such a place," he shoots her too, and naturally, shoots the sister and her brother-in-law as well. Furthermore, believing that a newspaper reporter is to blame for all of this, he storms the newspaper office and massacres the staff. Finally, when the last remaining female reporter is hiding and trembling under a desk, holding her daughter whom she happened to bring along, the security guard towers over them and says, "Don't you wish you had a gun too?" And that's how it ends.

Visiting Kiyodaira, a depopulated village in Tokushima Prefecture

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 04:41:25 +0000

This is a story from back when my wife used to work as a tour conductor for a travel agency. There's a depopulated village in Tokushima Prefecture called Kiyodaira, and she went there to accompany a company's employee trip. It was a village with almost nothing except nature. Most of the clients were young office ladies, accompanied by only one middle-aged male boss. It was a relaxed three-day, two-night trip—having barbecues by the river and just walking along mountain trails.

Tales of the Unusual: Saigo no Hitotoki (The Final Moment)

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 04:34:33 +0000

TITLE: Tales of the Unusual: Saigo no Hitotoki (The Final Moment)

This is one of the segments from "Tales of the Unusual: Spring Special" broadcast on March 29, 2004.
Starring Hiromi Nagasaku.
The protagonist, Yayoi Suzuki (played by Hiromi Nagasaku), boards a mysterious bus with its destination listed as "Sainokawara" (the Buddhist underworld riverbank for children).
The other passengers on the bus are a married couple, a grandmother and her grandson, a punk, a water purifier salesman, a detective, and the driver.
Eventually, the bus departs and drives along a winding mountain road. Just as the driver turns the wheel for a certain curve, a parked car fixing a flat tire suddenly appears in the middle of the road.
Panicked, the driver swerves and smashes through the guardrail. Screams echo through the cabin. The view of the valley fills the windshield. However, for a while, nothing happens. The passengers open their eyes with trepidation, only to find…
At that exact moment, time has stopped, leaving the bus suspended in mid-air.

The Shisho Series: Book Edition - Countryside [The Devourer of Mikogami]

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 04:34:26 +0000

Previous chapter: Book Edition – Countryside <2> [Izanagi-ryu]

● Countryside <3> [The Devourer of Mikogami]
"Morning."
Yukio's voice woke me up.
Instantly, I went into combat mode, just like the night before.
"You're bright-eyed right after waking up, aren't you?"
Watching me jump right up with an admiring look, Yukio laughed. I looked around, and Shisho's futon was already empty. Koko-san's was too. He could have woken me up, I thought, as I spoke to Yukio.
"Where is everyone?"
"Taking a walk, maybe?" With that, Yukio gazed at the three futons lined up in the room.
"What's going on here?"
Maybe he had imagined something strange, because his expression had turned peculiar. Ignoring him, I left the room and walked out from the veranda. Sensing human presence near the annex, I headed that way.
The weather outside was fine. A cloud or two drifted in the sky.
Today was supposed to be a continuation of yesterday, but perhaps because I was standing in the morning sun, that terrifying experience felt unreal, like an illusion. In fact, wasn't it just a dream or an illusion? Thinking such things, I pushed the wooden gate and stepped through the hedge.
The annex was there, just like the previous night, and Shisho, Kyosuke-san, and Koko-san had gathered around it. Shisho was calling out to someone inside the room, but then he looked at me and made a gesture indicating it was hopeless.
"Morning."
"Good morning," I replied, approaching as I asked, "What's going on?"
"No good. They won't let us in." Shisho said this and tugged on the sliding door, but it only rattled and wouldn't open. It seemed a bar had been placed across the inside to prevent it from opening.
The windows were the same; the storm shutters were closed, and through the gap, something resembling Old Man's eyes peeked out. But then a hand reached out, making a shooing gesture as if to chase us away.
"The person inside seems fine, but this is a no-go."
Shisho sighed and gave the door a solid thud. Kyosuke-san stood with his arms folded across his chest, saying nothing. When I looked at his eyes, they were bloodshot. Having entered his third consecutive all-nighter, he looked utterly wretched. Beside him, Koko-san, who should have slept plenty, kept yawning.
"What's everybody up to?"
Yukio came through the hedge and joined us. For some reason, feeling awkward, I blurted out, "Nothing at all."
"Say, the Old Man lives in this annex, right?"
"Yeah. Wasn't he here?"
Asked by Shisho, Yukio answered with carefree indifference.
"Was he a *tayû* of the Izanagi-ryu?"
"Hmm. Well, I suppose so."
During dinner on the first night, when the topic of wanting to learn about the Izanagi-ryu came up, hadn't everyone in this house remained silent about it? On the contrary, we were told things like the Old Man was practically bedridden. What could be deduced from this was…
"Well, lately he seems to be getting a bit senile, you see."
Finding it difficult to say, Yukio scratched his face.
As I thought. Was that the reason he had been saying incomprehensible things?
Just as I thought that, I waited a second. What about the baby made of paper inside the mirror, and the moving paper dolls? Did all of us share a hallucination?
I looked at Shisho, but he looked as though he were deep in thought.
"Time to eat breakfast," Auntie's voice echoed from the main house.
Everyone exchanged glances and hurriedly left the grounds of the annex.
Surrounding the dining table were the aunt and uncle, the four of us, and Yukio and Hatsuko-san—eight people in total—eating a breakfast menu of grilled salmon, river nori, and rolled omelet.
"I've got a bit of business this morning, so I'll drive you back just past noon. Until then, make yourselves at home."
Hearing the uncle's proposal, we all looked at Shisho in unison. I didn't quite understand what was happening, but thoroughly unpleasant things were occurring. It felt like retreating as quickly as possible was best. As for a driver to the town, there was Yukio. Today was Saturday. Didn't he come here with that very intention?
However, Shisho said, "Please do," and bowed his head to the uncle. Beside him, Koko-san pouted, saying, "My rolled omelet is one piece short."
Did she even realize what was happening?
"Didn't a rat take it?" Koko-san teased, stealing a piece of rolled omelet from Yukio's plate and eating it.
Kyosuke-san remained unresponsive to the commotion, quietly moving his chopsticks with a completely blank expression. He looked thoroughly exhausted. Wouldn't it really be better to just go home right away? I thought that and looked at Shisho, but he was silently reaching for a piece of grilled salmon as well.
Does anyone here actually understand what is going on?
The breakfasts laid out were for seven people. Yet there were eight people gathered around the low table.
Among them, Hatsuko-san, who was sitting with us at the table, was made of paper.
A life-sized paper doll that looked remarkably like Hatsuko-san moved chopsticks also made of paper in front of its bumpy face. I tried not to look its way, but every time it entered the edge of my vision, I felt like I was going to throw up whatever I had eaten.
The aunt and uncle and Yukio didn't seem to see it, showing no reaction whatsoever. That was precisely why I couldn't scream out. What on earth is this? The continuation of yesterday's nightmare had abruptly begun. Did Shisho and the others notice? Falling under the illusion that space was bending and warping, I shoveled down my breakfast.
"Thanks for the meal."
Almost simultaneously, everyone finished eating, put down their chopsticks, pressed their palms together, and stood up from the table. The aunt and uncle headed toward the kitchen. And the four of us companions, along with Yukio, headed toward the garden. The paper Hatsuko-san made a momentary hesitant gesture as if wondering whether to go to the kitchen too, then followed us out to the garden a little late.
"Sensei told me. To bring you guys over one more time."
Once we got to the garden, Yukio brought that up.
"Why?"
"I don't really get it, but he said if things stay like this, it's bad, or something like that."
As we walked, Shisho heard this and threw back another question.
"The Old Man had a black mask. Do you know about it?"
"Ah, you mean the grandpa mask? The grandpa mask of the twelve *hinago*."
"What was a twelve *hinago* again?"
"Hmm. I don't really know, but that's what they call 'em."
"It's a mask related to the Izanagi-ryu, right?"
"Yeah. Our hamlet has them too. Demon-like masks. Well, they're kind of guardian deity masks, ya see. In this house, there should be a grandpa mask and a grandma mask that the Old Man brought. Really, it'd probably be better to enshrine them at a shrine or something, but the Old Man holds onto them for dear life and won't let go."
A guardian deity? Yesterday, it had looked ominous, as if it were meant to bring a curse.
Gradually feeling the presence of the paper Hatsuko-san following closely behind me, I walked toward the entrance. Did Shisho and the others really notice? Was I the one who had to do something about it?
"Excuse me. We're going to borrow the car again."
Shisho called out toward the house. "Sure thing. The keys are still in it," came the reply.
"Going already? Well then, I'll lead the way on my bike again."
With that, Yukio started running. The rest of us climbed into the uncle's car. Shisho in the driver's seat. Myself in the passenger seat. In the back seat were Koko-san and Kyosuke-san. There was no seat for Hatsuko-san. Yet her paper hands reached out toward the closed door. Just as Kyosuke-san suddenly reached his hand outside, he produced a cigarette lighter from his palm like magic. Then he set Hatsuko-san on fire.
It happened in an instant. The paper Hatsuko-san flared up and collapsed on the spot. Pitch-black smoke rose, and eventually, it too faded away. All that remained behind were ashes.
As he started the car, Shisho said,
"Looks like we can't just go home like this after all."
I remembered the countless faces I had envisioned when coming to this village. Various faces had emerged along the roadside, and every single one of them seemed to be saying: *Go home.* Now, those same faces were speaking another phrase all at once.
*(We won't let you go back) (We won't let you go back) (We won't let you go back)*
…
I shook my head and snapped out of it. Regaining my senses, I roared,
"What was that just now?!"
In broad daylight, a human made of paper had been walking around. Such an unreal, abnormal event made me doubt whether I was truly awake right now. I pinched my cheek as hard as I could, but the pain was real.
"Shut up."
Kyosuke-san scolded me. "It echoes in my head."
"Anyway, this is the work of a human," Shisho said. "If we don't find out who's behind this, there's nothing we can do. Since he went out of his way to summon us, Yukio's teacher should be able to tell us something."
That's right. For now, we had no choice but to bet on that.
Guided by Yukio's motorcycle, we took the same road as yesterday, heading deep into the mountains. We pressed endlessly forward on a road where the pavement was cracked and riddled with holes, and fragments of rock that had tumbled down from the slopes were scattered about.
Every time we wound our way through the thick grove of trees, it felt as though the exact same scenery was repeating itself, sending a chill down my spine. However, the bizarre phenomenon from yesterday—where we couldn't escape the mountain roads—did not happen again, and without losing sight of Yukio's bike, we arrived at the teacher's house.
It was a detached house halfway up the mountain, with no other houses in sight. Even for a remote countryside area, it was a particularly isolated location.
Just like yesterday, several chickens wandered around the enclosure in the wide garden. A large tree stretched out as if leaning against the two-story Japanese-style house, giving it a rather dignified appearance.
We parked our cars in a row at the corner of the garden where Yukio had left his bike. The four of us who got out of the car, plus Yukio—five people in total—stood in front of the entrance. When we called out from outside, a reply told us to come in.
"Pardon the intrusion."
As I was taking off my shoes at the entrance, Yukio's teacher came over with a stern look on his face. Without a word, he led us to the same guest room as yesterday.
We each took our seats on the cushions arranged around the table. Shisho opened his mouth to speak, but the teacher preempted him.
"My people are out at my home village. I can't serve tea."
With his back straight and arms folded, he glared at each of our faces one by one.
"Yukio. You're not needed here."
Taken aback by the sudden words, Yukio looked surprised. However, nodding three times, he said, "Well, I just dropped 'em off, and I got business to do anyway, so I'll be heading back."
With that, he rose from the seat he had just lowered himself into. He looked bewildered by the teacher's stern face and tone.
After seeing off Yukio as he said "See ya" and left the room, the four of us and the teacher exchanged glances.
Before long, the teacher stared intently at Shisho's face and began to speak.
"Looks like you've gotten yourselves into a troublesome situation."
"Is that because we didn't leave immediately, as you warned us?"
Even at this stage, Shisho was still making lighthearted remarks.
"Since yesterday, the mountain has been restless."
The teacher cast his gaze toward the window. Prompted by him, I looked that way too, but the shoji screens remained closed, and I could only sense the light from outside. Yet, perhaps due to his grave tone, my jittery heart from moments before felt somewhat calmed.
The teacher had said the mountain was restless, but the surroundings were eerily quiet. Not a single sound could be heard. It felt as though we had been left behind in the innermost depths of a deep mountain, destined to be forgotten by the world forever.
"There are a few things I'd like to ask you."
When Shisho said this, the teacher gave a deep nod.
Starting from something buried at the four-way intersection on the first day, Shisho proceeded to explain what had happened up until this morning in chronological order.
The teacher listened intently, but right at the part about the phenomenon that occurred in the Old Man's annex, he suddenly stood up, took a rope from the cupboard, and began stringing it around to cover the four corners of the room.
A protective barrier. Kyosuke-san started to stand up to help, but was told, "Stay seated." Koko-san wore a bored expression, looking as though she couldn't even tell whether she was listening to the exchange or not.
"And so."
Prompted by the teacher while he worked, Shisho finished explaining the situation. The teacher gave his own face a sharp slap with the palm of his hand, followed by a motion as if stroking his cheeks, and let out a sigh. Watching this, Shisho said,
"Honestly, I can't believe it. Even if the Izanagi-ryu preserves ancient practices like Onmyodo, how could it successively cause such realistic phenomena?"
I thought to myself: Exactly. No matter how remote this village might be, it was connected to urban areas by roads—it was part of a continuous world. We hadn't strayed into some alternate realm while alive. And yet, how could such unbelievable things happen back-to-back?
"Old folks often say it. That the *tayû* of the past were great," the teacher replied to Shisho, as if reminiscing.
"Whether it was pacification or prayer, they were far greater than the *tayû* of today. Times have changed. Why do *suso* come into existence? Because people envy. Because people bear grudges. Because people hate. Above all, because they lack.
In a land like this, far removed from the villages, people starve. For the sake of survival, they will even steal from others. And so they try to protect themselves from that malicious intent.
You asked why there is no amulet for the Inugami, didn't you? The Inugami is a beast that reads people's feelings of jealousy and envy toward others and curses them of its own accord. Once the technique is successfully performed, even the practitioner can no longer control it. It becomes tied to a family bloodline, and when a girl is born, seven more appear. When she marries, it follows her to that household too. The amulet is what seals it away when it cannot be returned. A lowly technique like the Inugami is returned by a *tayû*. You can tell just by looking at the number of amulets how many obstructions there are that cannot be easily returned.
The *tayû* of the past pacified, exorcised, and sealed the countless *suso* born every day, along with the entangled demons and the retainers of the gods. Times are different now. Even old folks in these mountains receive pensions. Everyone smiles. No one starves. The *tayû* are no longer needed."
Behold.
The teacher pointed to the sacred straw rope enclosing the four sides of the room. No, to the papercraft attached to that rope. It was a doll shaped like a human. It looked very much like the ones we saw in the Old Man's room.
"These amulets are called the twelve *hinago*. They represent the *tayû*. In the past, grand *tayû* rituals like home exorcisms required twelve *tayû*. Nowadays, the population in the land has decreased, the *suso* have decreased, the *tayû* have decreased, and it is no longer possible to gather as many as twelve *tayû*. These are substitutes for those lacking *tayû*."
"The twelve *hinago*?"
Shisho tilted his head in puzzlement. I recognized that word too. If I recall correctly, Yukio had called the Old Man's masks by that name.
"The *tayû* of old possessed a power incomparable to today's. It is handed down that if *tayû* from different hamlets ever tested their spiritual powers against each other, they would clash with summoned Shikioji, shatter giant boulders, summon fireballs, and unleash powers rivaling natural disasters."
The teacher glanced briefly at the shoji screen leading toward the garden.
"Nowadays, they use dynamite for civil engineering work, explosives. In the past, that was something the *tayû* undertook. They moved boulders with spiritual power. Not only that, there was even a rite called *yamatsuyashi*."
"Yamatsuyashi?" Shisho repeated, to which the teacher said, "It is the sorcery of 'exhausting the mountain,' meaning to cause a mountain to collapse."
Hearing that, I was dumbfounded by the sheer scale of it. A terrifying power.
"But that's a power of past *tayû* that exists only in legend, right? What on earth is happening now?"
To Shisho's question, the teacher let out another deep sigh.
For a short while, silence fell. I watched the exchange between Shisho and the teacher, holding my breath. Kyosuke-san similarly said nothing, merely staring fixedly at the exchange. Koko-san maintained her usual bored expression, fidgeting with a frayed edge of her floor cushion.
Amidst that silence, I felt a strange sense of incongruity. There was something odd about the quietness from moments before. It wasn't that the silence itself was unpleasant, but how should I put it—I felt as though I was overlooking something. What on earth was this?
My train of thought was interrupted by the teacher's words.
"Tomeki-san used to be a fine *tayû*."
"You mean the Old Man?" Shisho confirmed. The teacher nodded.
"He was skilled at divination, not using lots or rice divination, but using *azusa* bows—something almost extinct nowadays."
Lots were supposed to be divination using Buddhist prayer beads. It was relatively common, and I had seen it myself. When you wanted to divine something, you determined its outcome—whether good or bad, success or failure—by whether the number of beads you gripped in your hand was odd or even. I had never heard of '*azusa*,' but it was presumably a form of divination using a bow.
"However, a *tayû* is fundamentally meant to 'repel' (*haneru*). Divination is meant to 'receive' (*ukeru*). A *tayû* cannot keep going if they take in too much."
The teacher's eyelids drooped heavily.
"If a disciple keeps taking things in, the master makes them stop being a *tayû*. I heard that the permission for Tomeki-san to act as a *tayû* was originally granted by his grandfather, Kesazuru-san, but he only learned the *azusa* bow later in life."
"Permission… I've heard of that. It's when a master allows a disciple to take the name of a *tayû*, right?"
"That's right. A *tayû* is permitted to study under multiple masters. One skilled in healing rituals, one skilled in household exorcisms, one specifically skilled in extraction. *Tayû* vary greatly. Permission is received for each."
"When Tomeki-san came to start absorbing the *suso*, the master who could have made him stop was no longer of this world. By now, he probably can't perform *tayû* rites anymore."
I remembered Yukio saying about the Old Man, "He seems to be getting a bit senile, you see."
Was that also because of the repeated acts of 'receiving'?
"To serve under a master is not simply about learning rituals and techniques. Of course, liturgical texts are passed down as well, but the true meaning of studying under a master is inheriting the master's *mikogami*."
*Mikogami.* Hearing that word made me tense up slightly.
*(As expected, he possesses quite the mikogami.)*
Inside the Old Man's room, the paper doll—the twelve *hinago* mimicking a *tayû*—had said just that. What on earth was a *mikogami*? And those words had clearly been directed at Shisho.
I secretly glanced at Shisho's face. Shisho repeated the paper doll's words back to the teacher once more.
"Does *mikogami* mean guardian spirits or ancestral deities?"
"Slightly… different. It's not like ancestors watching over their descendants and kin. A *mikogami* is something you welcome in."
"Welcome?"
"For example, after the master of a house dies, while he is laid to rest in the grave, his spirit is defiled by death. As the years pass, at the appropriate time, that spirit is raised from the grave. This is an *arahitogami* (manifest god). To wash away the clinging defilement of death, it is celebrated with a 'taking-up kagura' (*toriage kagura*). Through this, it becomes an *aramikogami* (wrathful mikogami). Furthermore, after several years, a 'welcoming kagura' (*mukae kagura*) is held, and only then does it truly become a *mikogami*."
The teacher clasped his prayer beads in his hands and closed his eyes.
"Even if they are *tayû*, humans are human. Naturally, they should stand no chance of matching demons and the retainers of the gods on equal terms. A *tayû* prays by borrowing the power of a *mikogami*. Borrowing the power of former humans who have become gods. The more powerful the person, the more powerful the *mikogami* they become. A dead *tayû* becomes an exceedingly powerful *mikogami*. If there is a demon lingering about, they threaten it: 'I'll go bring Chisaburo from the inner mountains.' A *tayû* who was skilled at subduing demons remains a powerful *mikogami* who can 'repel' demons even in death."
With a clicking sound, the prayer beads moved in the teacher's hands. He seemed to be counting the beads with his fingers.
"A *tayû* welcomes their dead master as a *mikogami* and borrows that power for their rituals. Eventually, they take on a disciple, and when they themselves die, they lend their power to that disciple as a *mikogami* once more. The lineage of *tayû* that has been continuously handed down in this manner protects the next generation of *tayû*. Behind a single *tayû*, many *tayû* attend as *mikogami*."
I rubbed my eyes.
Behind the teacher, who was speaking with solemn gravity, a heat-haze-like…

The True Identity of the "Youngest Sister" Among Five Sisters Living on a Space Station

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 04:00:10 +0000

An 15-year-old sci-fi short story I read on a creative writing website. It only featured female characters, though the author was male. It was set in an era where people could casually own vacation homes, workplaces, and research space stations in outer space, much like building a villa, office, or lab on Earth. A family of researchers was continuing their work on their own private space station. Only the mother, the head of the family, remained on Earth, while all the daughters were in space. From the eldest to the fourth daughter, they were all engaged in the same research and, despite their different personalities, got along well. However, as the research progressed, they found themselves short-handed. Not wanting to let outsiders in, the daughters asked their mother for a new sister. The mother immediately coordinated DNA, gave her growth promoters, and created and sent an infant. However, perhaps due to a DNA abnormality, the sisters were shocked when they saw this young fifth sister. It was obvious at a glance that something resembling a tumor was protruding from her body. The second daughter proposed surgical removal, but the eldest rejected it on the grounds of inadequate facilities. They decided to monitor the situation using anti-cancer drugs and growth promoters that would rapidly grow only normal cells.

I was a grandmother's boy

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 03:56:59 +0000

I was very close to my grandmother. Both of my parents worked, and since we lived in the same house, I was spoiled a lot by my grandmother since I was little… And when we were alone, she often told me that I was her favorite grandchild.
However, everyone's life has an end, and death will eventually come to someone no matter how precious they are to you.
And my grandmother died in the summer of my senior year in high school…
I remember crying for about a week.
It happened that winter. Exhausted from studying for entrance exams, I suddenly woke up in the middle of the night feeling a presence.
When I looked at my bedside, my grandmother was sitting neatly in a kimono.
I immediately realized it was a ghost, but strangely I wasn't scared.
That was because she was looking at me with the same gentle face she had when she was alive.
"Grandma," I spoke to her…

When I opened the bathtub lid to take a bath

Thu, 27 Aug 2026 05:24:19 +0000

This happened a few years ago during the summer, when I was working as an office lady and living alone. The 1DK apartment I lived in at the time had a unit bath where the toilet and the bathtub were in the same room.

One night, figuring the bathwater was ready, I went to take a bath and opened the bathtub lid. I saw a shadow that looked like a human head. The upper half of the head was floating right in the middle of the tub, while everything from the bridge of the nose down was submerged. It was a woman. Her wide-open eyes stared blankly at the wall opposite the tub, her long hair drifting and spreading out like seaweed, and her thin, white arms—floated up by the buoyancy—were flickering in and out of view among the black hair. No matter what position someone tried to get into, there was no way anyone could fit inside the narrow bathtub like that. It was clearly not human.