It was autumn during my first year of university. Ever since the incident with the "Black Hand," I had occasionally been browsing "Peach Lore," an urban legend website. There, I happened to find a post recruiting participants for a sudden offline meetup. Most of the users were junior high or high school students, and as a university student, I remember feeling a bit out of place. But I had so much free time that I decided to go anyway.
Arriving a little late at a family restaurant in the city, I found the group—easily identifiable by the black hats they were supposed to wear—occupying a booth in the back. Among them was a girl dressed entirely in black, not just her hat. I would know her anywhere: Onkyo. She was wearing glasses, which she hadn't been wearing before. The glasses somehow made her look even more cunning.
After offering a half-hearted "Hey" of welcome, I took a seat at the end of the table, keeping an eye on Onkyo, who was already at the center of the conversation. Acting as if she had never forced the Black Hand onto me, Onkyo didn't even glance my way. Instead, she wore a little-devil smile as she watched the jittery teenage boys around her. Feeling a bit annoyed, I reached up to take off my hat and casually voiced a question that had just popped into my head. "By the way, why is the meetup sign a black hat?" "Who knows? Apparently it's been a thing for a long time," a girl sitting next to me replied, tilting her head. "Ah, I heard the origin story," piped up a guy nearby. "Apparently, if you go ghost-spot hunting, you always run into a woman in a black hat. Wherever she shows up, spirits apparently really manifest." "Yeah, yeah. I've even heard that the woman herself is a ghost," chimed in a few others. Apparently, it was just another urban legend. *(A black hat, huh?)* That made me suddenly think of the hat I had found in Shisho's room a while back.
The offline meeting dragged on endlessly with just drink bars, and everyone happily chattered about pointless rumors. "An invisible man?" Among all the trivial rumors, one actually caught my interest. "Yeah. Apparently he's sometimes around the city." The rumor of a walking transparent person felt strangely fresh. "Only, some people can see him and some can't. It seems... well, only people who aren't wearing glasses can't see him." "What kind of rule is that?" To the girl who laughed, several people around her repeatedly insisted, "No, seriously, for real." Ah. Hearing that made me remember something, too. Back when I had just started university, I was walking down the street side-by-side with a club friend. When a man approached from ahead, I smoothly stepped aside to let him pass, prompting my friend to give me a puzzled look and ask, "Huh? What's wrong?" "Nothing, just making room for that guy," I said, to which my friend gave a creeped-out look and replied, "There's no one there." I turned around, pointed at the man's retreating back, and said, "Right there." My friend looked, just tilted his head in confusion, and said, "Huh?" Come to think of it, that friend of mine was also wearing glasses.
When I shared that experience, everyone agreed, "That's it. No doubt about it." But I deliberately tapped my own glasses with my finger. "Ah, glasses." Right. I wear glasses, too. So that meant I didn't fit the condition that glasses-wearers couldn't see him. "Then I guess that's a different phenomenon," someone dismissed me instantly. It was the typical, convenient way of handling urban legends—only picking and choosing the details that fit. "I've met him, too," Onkyo said quietly. "He was in the seat right next to me at the movie theater. My friend could see him, but I couldn't." "It really is because of the glasses!" a boy who looked like a newcomer said happily. "But you don't usually wear glasses, do you?" another person nearby asked to confirm. "Right. My contact lens broke today. I need to get a new pair made." "Oh no, are you okay?" While the others worried, I fell into thought. Recently at university, I had learned the term "confounding factor." It refers to a hidden true cause that exists outside of what seemingly appears to be a cause-and-effect relationship. For instance, suppose people who "eat only bananas for breakfast" have a high probability of being "overweight." Does that mean morning bananas cause obesity? No, in fact, you hear about it as a diet method all the time. However, the people who dabble in this kind of "only-X diet" are very likely already struggling with obesity. In other words, "someone currently on a diet" is the hidden confounding factor in this example.
Now, applying this to the rumor of the "invisible man," the cause-and-effect being simultaneously stated is that glasses-wearers cannot see him—yet Onkyo wasn't wearing glasses at the movie theater. Before dismissing this as an irregularity, what if we consider the presence of a confounding factor? Her contact lens broke, so she was wearing glasses today. In other words, Onkyo has poor eyesight. And naturally, people who wear glasses every day also have poor eyesight. Could it be that the confounding factor for the "invisible man" is actually "myopia"?
When I presented this theory, it got surprisingly little traction. A boy who looked like a high schooler said, "Both of you wear glasses and have bad eyesight, yet only you could see the guy? Maybe your glasses are just fake fashion frames, actually?" "No, my prescription is getting outdated anyway, so I'm planning to replace them soon. Even so, I can see fine like this." Saying that, I handed my glasses to the boy sitting right in front of me. The moment he put them on, he winced and went, "Whoa." Of course he did. I had absolute confidence in my severe nearsightedness. "Well, then being nearsighted doesn't mean you can't see him, does it?" "That's..." I couldn't counter such a natural objection. Besides, I felt like you shouldn't look for logic in urban legends in the first place.
When someone asked, "What kind of person is this invisible man?", I answered, "Just an ordinary guy." He hadn't left much of an impression. Average height and build, and I felt like his face was totally ordinary, too. Onkyo also replied, "My friend saw him, but said he was totally plain." Surely he wasn't a ghost. He didn't have that kind of vibe at all. And yet, for some reason, there were people who simply couldn't see him... Since it had generated enough talk to become an urban legend, there must be many cases of encounters. Yet he seemed to engage in ordinary citizen-like behavior, like walking down the street or watching a movie. The fact that it wasn't a scary rumor about being attacked or cursed actually added a strange sense of realism to it. Or rather, it felt more like he was just a pitiful person who was exceptionally hard to leave any impression on.
After that, the topic shifted to another urban legend. When Onkyo announced, "Ah, I have to head home," the offline meetup was brought to a close. I would have loved to talk more with Onkyo—a girl who wasn't just cute, but carried that distinct atmosphere of "our side." But since she showed no interest in me, my pride kept me from making a move. Watching her brush off the obvious affection of the surrounding boys, my lingering shred of pride simply wouldn't let me join their ranks.
About a week later, I decided it was time to get a new pair of glasses. Perhaps because I started staring at computer screens constantly after entering university, my myopia had worsened, and my old glasses from high school no longer matched my prescription. Previously, I would always get an examination at my usual ophthalmologist before buying glasses, but since this was a new city, I had no idea where to go for an eye doctor. I could theoretically just walk into an optician's store and get them made, but that felt a bit risky. In the end, I decided to go to a fairly large eye clinic that had good reviews online.
The clinic was crowded with patients. While I thought that proved its good reputation, the long wait irritated me. Finally, my turn came. After a brief medical interview and an eye-dominance test, the nurse said, "Next, please put your chin on this machine." It was obviously a vision-testing machine. Perhaps overly accustomed to handling patients mechanically, the nurse didn't even try to make eye contact as she proceeded with the test with dry efficiency. "Alright, then open your eyes wide and keep looking straight ahead." As told, I rested my chin on a white, box-like machine that resembled a microscope and peered into the lens with one eye.
Inside the round field of view, an image of a road stretching straight out toward the horizon was displayed. A man was standing in the middle of that road, looking right at me. Then, the next instant, the machine adjusted its focus, forcibly shifting my field of view to the horizon. A large red balloon floated near the point where the edge of the road disappeared. Just as I clearly recognized it, the focus shifted again—the horizon blurred, and instead, the foreground of the road came sharply into focus. The moment I saw the figure of the man standing on the road again, I felt a chilly gust of wind pass through my head. *(Eh...?)* The focus shifted back toward the balloon. Then back again. The man was still standing there, facing this way. "Alright. We're done." The nurse's voice brought me back to my senses. Stirred by the strange sensation welling up inside me, I blurted out, "Could you let me see that one more time?" "Huh?" The nurse replied in a tone completely devoid of friendliness, adding with a deliberately guilt-inducing, flustered tone, "The next patient is waiting, you see." Lacking the strong willpower to push back, I muttered, "Ah, right," and stared at the white machine. At the eye clinics I had visited before, they used similar machines, but the picture inside was always composition featuring a large truck parked on a road. I had assumed these things were all the same everywhere, but maybe they differed depending on the manufacturer? Receiving the cold glare of a nurse eager to process patients quickly, I checked the label on the side of the machine. 《 JFR-T2 / Sunami Seiki Co., Ltd. 》 That's what was written there. Sunami... A name I saw frequently in this town. Was it a local company?
"Next, we'll measure your vision over here." The nurse urged me toward a panel lined with black "C" symbols. As the examination proceeded according to a set routine, one bizarre thought kept spinning around in my head. Why on earth would I think something like that? Was it because it had just come up in conversation the other day? Even so, wasn't it completely absurd? The "invisible man" I had met only once... could he actually be inside an eye clinic's vision-testing machine?
Several days passed. I kept checking Peach Lore, but there were no particularly unusual posts. Onkyo didn't show up either. Then, checking my original home ground—the logs of "Ash Dawn"—for the first time in a while, something made me jump. *Onkyo: Invisible XXX. Tomorrow at 19:00 at the usual place.* No one replied to Onkyo's sudden standalone post, and it had been completely ignored. It was Onkyo. I knew it. It was a message meant only for me, someone who frequented both Peach Lore and Ash Dawn. The log was from yesterday. The designated time was today. I hurriedly checked the clock. It was past 18:00. Good. I still had time.
As I got ready to leave, I felt my chest pounding. That heartbeat should have come from the anticipation of meeting a girl I liked, but an ominous premonition—one that threatened to disrupt that pleasant rhythm—took over instead. Onkyo had said her contact lens broke. Naturally, in order to get a replacement, she must have undergone an eye exam at an ophthalmologist or optician just like I did. And if... If the two of us had thought the same thing independently, then even if it was just a delusion, maybe it was a delusion that carried some kind of meaning.
Thinking about all this, I arrived at the family restaurant. It was the same place we had used for the Peach Lore meetup the other day. As I was locking up my bicycle, someone called out, "Right on time." It was Onkyo. Wearing her usual gothic attire, she wasn't wearing glasses today. Sure enough, she had gotten her contact lenses made. We went inside and chose a table in the back section, which was completely empty, so we could talk about weird things without worry. A waiter immediately brought over a set of chopsticks, forks, and water. Onkyo ordered katsu curry and a salad, and I asked for a plate of french fries. *(Is this girl seriously planning to wolf down a whole meal?)* I thought, slightly exasperated, and made sure to preempt her by saying, "I'm not paying for you, you know." Even though we were both people who had to repurchase glasses and contacts, why was her wallet string so much looser than mine?
Making me wait until she finished her curry, she finally steered the conversation to the main point. "So you did end up replacing your glasses." Saying that, Onkyo reached out, pulled the glasses off my face, and inspected the frames. Without returning them, she held up a single finger toward me. "Two pairs." "Too bad, it was scissors." I snatched my glasses back and said, "You got contacts, I got glasses. I guess it's a hurdle you can't avoid if you want to buy new ones." Resting her elbows on the table and cupping her chin, Onkyo replied, "I figured you'd notice." "Hypothesis ① about what people who can't see the 'invisible man' have in common: they wear glasses." With the hand not propping up her chin, Onkyo held up one finger. "I wear contacts and wasn't wearing glasses, yet I couldn't see him. You were wearing glasses and could see him. So, hypothesis ① is false. Hypothesis ②: Myopia." That was the theory I had proposed. "Both you and I have bad eyesight. Yet you could see him. So this one is false, too." Onkyo raised a third finger. "And hypothesis ③: Having undergone objective refraction testing in this city."
More complicated terminology came up than I had anticipated, and though I almost said "Huh?", I managed to keep my composure, nodded, and said: "Right. To get glasses or contacts, you have to take a vision test. Using that machine. Where I lived before coming to university, the picture inside was a composition with a large truck down the road. But when I asked people from various regions at university, almost all of them had the hot-air balloon pattern." "Conversely, having been born in this city, I didn't realize that the picture in that refractometer was a special composition not used anywhere else. I asked all my local friends one by one, and sure enough, every single clinic's refractometer used that exact picture." A ref-what? Another unfamiliar term popped up, but it seemed to be the name of that vision-testing machine. For now, I just nodded as if I understood completely. "It's made by a local manufacturer called Sunami Seiki, and they have almost 100 percent market share in this city." I stared intently, with a look of astonishment, at the cute, black-clad girl resting her elbows on the table in front of me. People might be fooled by her looks, but she really was someone you couldn't let your guard down around.
"Are you saying that the guy standing on the road in that picture is the 'invisible man' from the urban legend?" Instead of answering, Onkyo asked, "Can I eat some cake?" I nodded without thinking, hoping to urge her to continue, but did that mean I was treating her to it after all? Watching Onkyo order it with sheer delight, I felt a weird shudder run through me, suspecting that this, too, might have been part of her strategy.
"You know about subliminal effects, right?" Onkyo said, plunging her fork into a strawberry shortcake. "There was an experiment where they inserted text telling people to drink Coca-Cola into a few frames of a film at a movie theater. Even though it flashed too fast for anyone to actually see it, the audience all ended up wanting to drink Coke." "Isn't that an urban legend?" "Even so, there's still a lot we don't know about the effects of visual and auditory stimuli on the subconscious. Did you know that the word 《SEX》 briefly floats up in the starry sky in Disney's *The Lion King*?" "Hey." Shocked to hear a word like "sex" come out of Onkyo's mouth so unblushingly, I reflexively glanced around our surroundings. "Disney animation apparently uses sexual subliminal effects to strategically attract children." "Is this a conspiracy theory?" She really was the epitome of an occultist. Watching her devour the strawberry shortcake, I gave a wry smile at the gap between her appearance and her interests. "As for the picture in the refractometer..." As if savoring the lingering taste of the strawberry she had just eaten, Onkyo licked her lips before continuing. "A truck on the horizon, a floating hot-air balloon, a house with a red roof... In machines made by ordinary manufacturers, all of those compositions are designed to make you concentrate your focus on that specific point. And yet, in this city's machine, a man is standing right in front of the balloon. Almost as if to get in the way." That's right. He was in the way. When told, "Please look straight ahead," and trying to concentrate your gaze on a single point, having a human standing in front of the balloon makes no sense. It just leaves you confused about which one you're supposed to look at. "And yet, the machine's focus immediately forces your attention onto the balloon. Because everything else blurs out." "Then there's no point to that guy being there." As I chimed in, I felt like I was talking to Shisho. I was probably imagining the exact same thing as Onkyo. But the fact that I wanted to hear it spoken aloud by this girl herself—I suppose that just proved how thoroughly I had gotten used to this kind of role. "Right. Your focus concentrates on the balloon, and the man excluded from the focus is treated as if he doesn't exist. He's not the target you're supposed to be looking at. *'Even though he's visible, he's invisible.'*"
So that was the subliminal effect. Information embedded deep somewhere in the brain. This man is invisible. A fresh chill ran through me. Onkyo had neatly put into words the vague thought I'd been entertaining. "Still, that picture is way too small. You can't even see his face clearly." "It's the same as the 1/3000th-of-a-second 'Drink Coke.' It's a technique to implant things into the subconscious." Her pronunciation of "Coke" was strangely good. "I saw that guy once before, but why did you figure it out if you hadn't?" "My ears were ringing." Tinnitus. That word made my heart skip a beat. Whenever I encounter something not of this world, my ears ring. "It's a terrible feeling. The man in that picture..." Onkyo clamped her mouth shut and nodded, as if confirming it to herself. "He's not normal." It was the expression of someone harboring fear, yet still trying to gaze directly at it—the expression of "our side." "The 'Hand' was real. On all those websites, it's just a bunch of trivial people, but you managed to escape." "So you're saying I'll notice him if I go to the eye clinic, too?" "I'm glad I could live up to your expectations." Confronted with Onkyo's unnaturally mature way of speaking, which totally contradicted her girlish appearance, I finally asked my last question. "Why on earth did they make a picture like that?" "I don't know. But there's only one thing I can say..." Having gone that far, Onkyo suddenly cut herself off. Her expression instantly shifted into one of shock, freezing completely in place.
What's wrong? Just as I was about to ask, the sheer gravity of the situation made me catch my breath, too. Onkyo was staring straight at me. But her focus wasn't locked onto anything at all. Keeping her face forward, Onkyo used the condensation from the sweating water glass to write characters on the table. 《*Don't look.*》
At that moment, it felt like an iron rod had been driven straight down through my neck. Someone was sitting at the next table. While staring straight at Onkyo, all my nerves were directed toward the presence caught in the very edge of my field of view. Who is it? Yet I couldn't turn around. An eerie aura, as if the air inside the restaurant were growing turbid, was spilling over from that direction. A man. I couldn't see his face clearly. Since when had he been there? He definitely hadn't been there when we entered the shop. Even when I had reflexively scanned the room earlier because of Onkyo's risqué remark, I hadn't noticed him.
At the edge of my vision, at the seat belonging to that blurred-out figure, there was no water glass, no set of spoons or chopsticks. Unnoticed by either of us, and unnoticed by the staff, he had slipped in there before we knew it. The invisible man. Just as cold sweat began to slowly soak through my entire body, the man smoothly stood up from his seat. And quietly, he walked toward the exit. Even as he left the restaurant, I didn't hear the staff call out their usual "Thank you very much."
Abruptly, the commotion returned. The bustling atmosphere of the family restaurant rushed back in. Onkyo and I let out a breath, as if a binding spell had finally broken. "You've gotta be kidding me," I blurted out. Chasing after him wasn't even a thought in my mind. Intuition told me there was only one choice: let him pass. That guy was way too dangerous. "Why would *he* show up right here, right now?"
Comments (-)