It was the early autumn of my first year in university. I held an offline meeting with my occult-loving internet friends, calling it a "training camp." We planned to stay at a mountain campsite in a lodge rumored to be "haunted." We often held offline meetups, but since this one involved staying overnight and included many women, we didn't want to let any weird members join. It ended up being a camp strictly for our core inner circle. The participants were our leader, CoCo-san, along with Kyosuke-san and Mikatchi-san, making four of us in total including myself. To put it bluntly, I was there just for luggage-carrying and heavy labor, but I was genuinely happy to be invited. The schedule was one night and two days. We rented a car and headed out. Thanks to it being off-season, the campsite was relatively empty. It should have been a paradise where I could breathe in all the fresh air I wanted, pet stray cats to my heart's content, and do whatever I pleased. However, Mikatchi-san suddenly suggested playing hide-and-seek. Once we started, CoCo-san couldn't be found anywhere, and before we knew it, day turned to dusk. Dinner time rolled around, so we left her alone and started making curry. She emerged from nowhere as we were cooking, but it only made me understand CoCo-san even less. By the way, everyone else was supposed to be in their twenties...
It happened that very night. The lodge rumored to be haunted simply turned into a drinking venue once the alcohol started flowing. Right around when we finished eating the curry, the weather suddenly turned bad, trapping us in an unexpected and fierce rainstorm. The lodge at night was enveloped in the eerie, roaring sounds of wind and rain while tiny lamps flickered—a wonderful occult setting. Yet, the magic of alcohol easily overpowered it. Exhausted from constantly being made to perform party tricks, I slumped down against the wall. That was when the lights went out without warning. Mikatchi-san, who had been giggling incessantly, shut her mouth, and a moment of silence fell over the lodge. "It's a blackout," someone muttered, and silence returned. The sound of rain and wind beating against the roof grew louder. The interior, stripped of its illumination, plunged into pitch darkness, and coward that I am, I suddenly felt scared. "Well, I guess we have to do *that*, don't we?" I heard Kyosuke-san's voice say. "Do what?" "The story where four members of a university mountaineering club get caught in a blizzard and spend the night in a mountain hut. That one." CoCo-san replied. To warm their bodies and chase away sleepiness in the darkness, four students each stand in the four corners of a room, and the first person begins walking along the wall in a clockwise direction. When they touch the person in the next corner, that touched person walks to the next corner and touches the person there. They supposedly repeat this all night long, walking in circles around the cabin. However, once the fourth person moves to a corner, no one should be there, so the movement is supposed to stop. Unless a fifth person, who shouldn't be there, is standing in that corner...
CoCo-san told this story in a flat, uninflected tone. I had heard it somewhere before. It was a childish kind of story. Doing something like that on a whim definitely wouldn't cause anything to happen. It would just be a buzzkill. As I was thinking this, Kyosuke-san chimed in, "We'll add two rules." 1. The starting runner can choose to go either clockwise or counter-clockwise. 2. Whoever arrives at an empty corner becomes the next starting runner. The next starting runner? At that rate, it's not even a question of a fifth person—it just wouldn't end normally, would it? That's what I thought, but it sounded somewhat interesting, so I agreed to play. "Alright, take this. It's more fun if no one knows who starts. Whoever draws the winning straw goes first." Holding a lemon-flavored piece of gum handed to me by CoCo-san, I crawled along the wall toward a corner of the room. "Is everyone at a corner? Okay, chew the gum as hard as you can." CoCo-san's voice came from somewhere near the diagonal opposite of the room. I did as I was told, and a faint sourness spread through my mouth. I had drawn the loser. The winner should be so sour it makes you want to vomit. Sensing where Kyosuke-san had headed by movement alone, I had a grasp of everyone's positions.
CoCo Kyosuke
Mikatchi Me It should look something like this. It gave me chills not knowing who the starter was or which direction they would come from. In other words, even if I were heading toward a "corner where no one is supposed to be," I wouldn't realize it. As I stood leaning against the corner, I felt the battering sound of the wind with my whole body. Bracing myself, wondering when they would come, my right shoulder was suddenly grabbed. Coming from the right meant it was Kyosuke-san. My heart pounded furiously, but without making a single sound, I moved along the wall to the next corner. That meant moving clockwise. Naturally, I walked with small steps, but distance was unclear in the dark, and the next corner felt strangely far away. Just as I started feeling a little scared, my hand finally brushed against something that felt like someone's shoulder. It had to be Mikatchi-san. After a momentary start, the presence of the person drifted away. When I stopped at that corner, I leaned against the wall again. The wall was faintly warm. Of course it was. In a pitch-black place like this, nobody could stand without touching something.
Listening to the sound of the wind, my right shoulder was abruptly grabbed hard again. Kyosuke-san. It had to be on purpose. Glearing at the figure on the other side of the dark, I quietly moved forward clockwise again. Just like a replay of before, I touched someone's shoulder, and that someone left. Waiting in that corner, I braced myself, thinking I wouldn't get startled this time, but sure enough, my right shoulder was grabbed by someone coming from the right, making me jump. And so I moved for a while, secretly vowing, "If I become the next starting runner, I'll change the direction." Instead of someone's shoulder, my hand touched a flat wall standing vertically. I almost let out a voice. A pocket. For some reason, my brain called the empty corner that at the time. I suppose it was an association with an air pocket. Having reached the pocket, I had earned the long-awaited right to start next. This meant the four of us were now lingering in each of the four corners. Naturally, I began to move counter-clockwise. I was finally going to get to touch Kyosuke-san! No, please don't misunderstand. I wasn't basking in the joy of touching Kyosuke-san as a woman. I was simply fueled by the desire for revenge against the one who had startled me. However, given the pitch-black night, there was certainly a risk of grabbing the wrong spot. But wouldn't that just be an unavoidable accident? I walked to the right, silencing my footsteps as much as possible. And with the sense of distance I had already figured out, I thrust my left hand into the exact position where they had to be.
The next instant, an unnatural hardness struck my fingertips. I rubbed my finger and shuddered. A wall? That meant... a pocket? No way. I was the one who started... As I stood there dumbfounded, something strongly grabbed my left shoulder. Kyosuke-san. Naturally, I had reached out my left hand imagining a human shadow pressed against the wall. What a person. Standing there in the darkness without leaning against the wall. Or perhaps it was a trap. The presence of a person drifted away along the wall. Frustration welled up inside me, and left behind, I seriously pondered how I should move next. And a little while later, when my right shoulder was grabbed again, I let out an embarrassing "Uhi" sound. Damn it! It was Kyosuke-san. Someone reversed the rotation again. And I had intended to cause a sad accident this time, too. Cursing mentally, I headed toward the next corner clockwise. Then I touched Mikatchi-san (probably) somewhat hesitantly.
The next rotation also came from the right. The next one, too. And the next one after that. Irritated that it never became the counter-clockwise direction where I could touch Kyosuke-san, no matter how long I waited, I kept praying, *Come on, pocket, come on, pocket.* When the next pocket came, I would naturally start counter-clockwise. I kept moving, thinking only of that. How many rotations had it been? The strange game, where only presences stirred in the dark, suddenly came to an end.
A scream of "Kyaa!" made my blood run cold. It was Mikatchi-san's voice. With a scuffling sound, a flashlight turned on. When Kyosuke-san placed the flashlight pointing toward the ceiling, the room brightened all at once. Mikatchi-san was cowering in the corner of the room, holding her head. CoCo-san approached her and asked, "What's wrong?" "Because it's weird! Why isn't the empty spot coming around?!" I thought so, too. As long as the pocket came, I could get Kyosuke-san... Wait. Something was wrong. I banged on my alcohol-slowed head. It wasn't strange that the rotation didn't stop. Even without a fifth person, the person who entered the pocket would just restart it on their own. So, there was nothing unnatural about endlessly walking in circles around the room, but... Um, the first person starts, touches the next person, and the fourth person enters the pocket. They just repeat this, right? Um, so... what happens then? My thoughts became tangled. With CoCo-san's single remark, "Let's go to sleep," the game was dropped for the time being. Kyosuke-san looked at me, declared, "Too bad for you," and wagged an index finger left and right. Mikatchi-san recovered easily and said, "Oh well." As expected of a gathering of occult freaks. Could they really not care about a level of this? If you're freaks, care about it! I was too bothered to sleep easily.
To be continued in "The Four Corners"
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