Cat Phantom III |
I washed my face harshly, splashing it with cold water. While I didn’t have a particularly awful complexion when I peered in the bathroom mirror, my countenance was appalling.
“…”
How many times did I see something like that? The white arm on Nishimura. Then there was the woman in the corner of the store who had nothing from the stomach down. The man who was being dragged by the shin of the store staff girl… Recalling it evoked an urge in me to throw up.
Recently… it was really a recent development that I began to see strange things frequently.
It all kicked off with a part-time job at a convenience store that I started for the hourly wage.
Even though I had been warned that the job was notorious, I continued to go through it unflinchingly, and consequently, whether it be a dormant aptitude or a sixth sense, I unwillingly developed the ability to see “non-human, invisible entities.”
Initially, distinguishing between them was difficult, and it was only mildly noticeable when I passed by them or caught flickers of their presence in my vision, yet lately the number of times I perceived such beings had been on the rise, and even the beings I had detected varied in their levels of perception: some could be mistaken for living people, while others appeared to be in the same state as when they died. Some of them appeared with only parts of their body, such as legs, arms, and necks, rather than the full body, which was extremely disconcerting to me given that I was not accustomed to the sight of these things.
In the past, someone said that they wanted to see specters or get supernatural powers, but frankly speaking, it was not a good thing, it was truly not a positive thing.
Two days ago, I found out that something had been living in the back of the ceiling of the run-down apartment I resided in. The first time it happened, I originally suspected it was a rodent or something similar, but right when I became able to visually see such things, the entity was manifested. Nothing had happened until then but after coming to see the strange thing, noises began to emanate from the ceiling in the middle of the night.
The prospect of what in the world was rolling around in the middle of the night threw me into a creepy phase, so I chose not to pry too deeply into the matter. Nothing had ever occurred in the house I had been living in until this day so I would rather believe… that it was something more harmless than that thing in that convenience store.
From then on, every once in a while, I would see an old man looking at me through the window.
My apartment was two stories high. For the old man to look out the window and see my room would be out of the question. The only way he could do that would be if he was as tall as a telephone pole or climbing the wall and hanging from the window ledge. But that would never be conceivable.
The old man would make eye contact with me for a few seconds before disappearing. He was probably one of those kinds too.
For some reason, while I was having a cup of noodles, watching TV, getting up in the morning, or coming back from the bathroom, I felt his gaze on me. When I peered out the window, a strange old man was watching me with only a quarter of his face protruding from the window sill. Our eyes locked with each other briefly, and then he swiftly hid his face and vanished.
At first, I was so spooked that it made me jump up and down, though I was still fairly freaked out by it. Even so, I tried not to dwell on it too much, since he didn’t seem to do anything to me. If things turned too dismal, I could simply close the curtains and all would be well.
And so… my daily life had gone through a drastic change after working part-time at that convenience store.
“―Masa.”
“Whoa!?”
Kinoshita was standing right behind me in the mirror when I looked up in response to his call.
How long had he been here? I hadn’t even heard a sound.
“Well, you were spacing out, you know.”
“I-Is that so?”
“You spend all your time in the bathroom. Even if you are pooping, it’s taking a long time. I was just wondering what was going on.”
“N-Nothing, I was just washing my face. Let’s go back.”
“I see… I mean, are you okay?”
“Yeah?”
I returned a blunt reply and looked up at Kinoshita, who stared at me and made a serious face. Among the four of us, Kinoshita, who was normally the one to smile carelessly, unexpectedly became grave.
“Is it true?”
“…What?”
“About what you said earlier.”
About the thing you said to us earlier.
My eyes widened at his words instead of my mouth.
“So it’s true after all.”
“Why, you…” grea4
“I can tell, you know.”
Kinoshita shrugged his shoulders.
“I thought it was a joke at first, too. But whenever you tell a lie, you scratch your head unconsciously and then bite your back teeth a few times.”
Even I was not conscious of that habit of mine. Of all the guys in our unbreakable relationship, Kinoshita was the most perceptive and subtle.
“But you didn’t do that today, and you were acting really weird, staring at nothing all the time, sometimes making a really weird face.”
“Did I make such a face?”
“Well, yeah.”
“You believe me… don’t you?”
“I already know you’re not lying, Masa.”
I was tapped lightly on the shoulder and I kind of lost my strength. That was a small sense of relief.
My spirit had suffered significantly over the past few days due to the strange power I had acquired. Anxiety was accumulating within me like mud, weighing me down, and I wanted to deal with it. Deep down inside, even though I was ashamed of it, I wanted to share this feeling with anyone I could, because I didn’t want to carry it alone. The next thing I knew, I was spilling it all out to Kinoshita, who was before me.
Without hesitation, from the beginning to the end. All the mind-boggling, whacked-out incidents that I had experienced. I shared them with Kinoshita.
Kinoshita seemed taken aback, but he kept throwing in interjections to make the conversation go smoothly, allowing me to fully explain how over the past few weeks, I had discovered that invisible entities—which I had never before believed to exist—really did exist, that my common sense had been overturned, and that I had developed a strange ability.
“That was tough.”
After all of that, Kinoshita remarked to me, seeming genuinely worried for me. It wasn’t a look of suspicion; he was genuinely trying to believe me, even if he didn’t fully buy into what I had experienced.
“You quit that convenience store, didn’t you?”
At his words, I shook my head to the side.
“Seriously? You’re not quitting?”
“Yeah.”
“How can you keep going after something like that?”
“…”
“Before things escalate into something even more bizarre, the sooner you quit, the better. I don’t know what it’s like, but it’s certainly not safe for you when you can even see specters now.”
If so, the next time something more horrifying might strike.
I’m afraid for your safety, Kinoshita warned me.
“I know you’re a stubborn person, but you don’t have to be that stubborn. I’m not saying you’re like Nishimura, but you absolutely don’t have to force yourself to get involved, or you might face even worse consequences.”
While expressing concern, Kinoshita tried to convince me to quit. He said a series of the most sensible things.
However…
“Even so, I… I think I’ll stay there for a little while longer.”
Kinoshita made an incredulous face at my response. Even I felt like an idiot for saying this.
“Why?”
“No particular reason.”
“Is that so…”
“Don’t look like that, laugh at me. I used to make such a fuss about it, but now I can see specters, you know.”
Say it was hilarious or something. I was only unable to see the specters myself but I behaved with such haughtiness.
“It’s hilarious.”
I could only put my trust in what I could see with the naked eye. I had never believed such things. I depended on the world in which I refused to believe and denied everything I didn’t want to believe.
How many people did I hurt with the thoughtless words that I uttered carelessly? I wondered how many of those I dismissed as liars were stating the truth and not falsehoods.
“Now it is my turn to be called a liar.”
When I told Nishimura and Tanaka, they did not believe me at all. Considering how I had behaved up to now, I thought it was a natural reaction. I had been fooling around with these guys since high school.
To be frank, I felt slightly lonely when they told me that I was joking. Looking at something you didn’t want to look at, and then having it so easily dismissed when you complained about it, must have felt like this.
“Perhaps I am being punished for ridiculing those who can see specters with prejudice.”
“Punishment?”
“Isn’t it funny?”
“I won’t laugh at you.”
Even though I smiled at him with expectant eyes, Kinoshita shot me a worried look. He remained silent for a while before opening his mouth with a start.
“Don’t tell me… Hyuga is…”
I responded at once to Kinoshita, who said so with an even sterner expression on his face.
“You’re wrong.”
“…I’m not wrong, Masa… because it’s you.”
“I don’t think that way, like you think, Kinoshita.”
“You’re still holding it back, huh? …Indeed, a lot of things have happened but… That was… It’s not something you should feel responsible for…”
“I already said it’s not like that.”
“Masa, it’s okay, you don’t have to think like that. You weren’t punished; you simply want to punish yourself, don’t you?”
“Like I said…!”
“I know you can’t resign from that convenience store because of what happened to Hyuga―”
Having been told that much, my exasperation was no longer masked and I slammed the washbasin.
Kinoshita, like an esper, deduced my true intentions so easily.
My true intentions, which I sought to deny even to myself. No matter how deep I went, I was always a twisted person who couldn’t be honest. For this reason, people around me regarded me as a bother and stopped approaching me.
My undue pride always brought misfortune to those around me.
“My bad… Even though you were concerned about me.”
Even though I tried to alleviate the uncomfortable atmosphere I had created, my voice sounded so strong that it looked to be negatively affecting the situation.
“My phone number. You have it, right?”
“What?”
Even so, Kinoshita probably sensed my feelings and made me look up at him with a cheerful voice.
“Once you have made your decision, it can’t be overturned so easily… So If you need anything, call me anytime. I’ll be there for you… Don’t push yourself.”
I nodded deeply at those words.
Ah… he really was a great guy.
After returning from the toilet, we reminisced about old times again.
Just in time for my soon-to-be-starting part-time job, I bid farewell to Kinoshita and the others. Before parting, I gave Nishimura a warning just in case.
Soon after getting on my motorcycle and starting down the road, the bustling streets vanished and I found myself on a lonely road with few lights.
Now―
What would be brewing today?