The House in Which Nightmares Dwell 7.3

[touchturnfly]

3

"-- Midori-san!?"

When Hirota was about to jump into the bathroom, he almost stumbled into something.

Right at where he stopped his feet, Midori was sitting by the door, crouched down.

A strong light shone down from the corridor.

"Midori-san, what's wrong!?"

"Somebody... ... was here."

Midori watched the inside of the dressing room. There was no flash light to lit up the dressing room's interior at that time, and made the space where no one was surface with a strange contrast.

"There's no one here."

"There was. He came from the bathroom -- A man holding a hatchet was -- Stop!"

Midori raised her voice because Lin passed by Midori's side and entered the dressing room. He pointed the flash light from one corner to the other corner in the room. The door of the bathroom remained closed, the glass reflected light and shimmered as if it got wet.

Lin held the door of the bathroom. After he opened the door with a light sound, he shone light at the inside.

"-- There is no one here."

"There was... ... Just now, I certainly saw someone."

Her hand that clung onto Hirota was trembling.

"He came here from the bathroom. He opened the door, got out, held a hatchet -- stained with blood --"

"Hirota-san," he said with a very composed voice. "Take Midori-san to the living room. I'm going to repair the breaker, so please go with her."

It took quite some time before the light was turned on. When Mai dashed in and turned on the switch of the temporarily cut off light, bright light poured down and a strength finally left Midori's shoulders.

"I thought the breaker wouldn't drop out any longer."

Mai's smiling face leaped at her straight away and Midori breathed a sigh of relief.

"... ... Thank you."

"I apologize, but after this we're going to place a camera in the dressing room. Please tell us when you're going to use the bath, because we'll turn it off then."

Midori looked at Mai's face.

"So the investigation will continue... ...?"

"We can't just not investigate what Midori-san has seen, right?"

Midori breathed a sigh of relief. To tell the truth she was afraid if she was told that it was her imagination and if Mai and the others went home."

"Thank you."

"I'm sorry for the inconvenience caused, but please let us investigate a little more.

"No... ... I'm in your care."

"A man holding a hatchet, huh. -- So did something happen in this house back in the day?"

Yasuhara worriedly looked at his notebook at Takigawa's voice. Mai and Hirota were not inside the base. They were attending to Reiko and Midori and helping them out in the kitchen.

"How strange... ... There shouldn't be anything here though."

"So from when were those newspapers you investigated?"

"The house was built around Shōwa 47, so I took them from about the year 45."

"Wouldn't it be a problem from before the house was built? Be brave and investigate all newspapers that were issued."

Yasuhara looked reproachfully at Takigawa.

"... ... Just now you said that so easily with all your effort right?"

"That's your duty, right? Shōnen Tanteidan."

Yasuhara threw the notebook in the bag.

"If I'm told by the boss to do it, then I'll do so. -- But you know it takes time, so it can't be helped, right? These kind of things happen. When following up on the register or something, I will try to search for the better method that's a little more effective," Yasuhara said, and stood up. "Boss, I'll go back for this reason. I will continue my investigation, so I will contact you if I find something."

"Naru nodded. After they saw Yasuhara off, he looked at Takigawa.

"Aren't you going home, Takigawa-san?"

"It's closing in on my field of expertise, so I'm going to watch the situation for a little while."

After smiling lightly, Naru suddenly said, "Bou-san, do you know of the word 'Kosori'?"

"The one that's got the little tsu taken out of 'kossori'?"

"Beyond the full-length mirror there is 'Kosori'. -- In this case it is?"

Takigawa brooded.

"A person's given name or the name of a spectre or something. What's with it?"

"Mai seems to have obtained that kind of inspiration. She said the full-length mirror is scary."

"... ...I wonder if there really is a spectre like that. 'Satori' is a famous one though. It's just because the name of the apparition changes accordingly per region. There are also many spectres that had the imitative sounds become names. It might be a name that circulates in a region somewhere.

"I see... ..."

Naru brooded. Takigawa put his arms together.

"Don't come in, go back, huh. Mai told me the madam said so. -- This naturally means something."

"Naturally, you could say. It's also possible that Mai was pulled along by Reiko-san's words."

"You may as well trust your own subordinate. -- Someone got into the house. Moreover, there was a warning. Right?"

"I suppose."

"So here's the case of Midori-san seeing a man holding a hatchet. Does it look like as if someone is beginning to warn somebody because of the man with the hatchet?"

"... ... I wonder about that."

"Don't just restrict your imagination up until that point, geez. A man holding a hatchet is inside this house. For argument's sake, let's say that A is going to be killed. Then B comes. A warns. -- Don't come in. Go back."

Naru didn't respond to this. After taking a breath he looked at Lin who was watching over the equipment.

"-- What do you think?"

Lin turned his head.

"As for me, nothing. Matters of unidentifiable spirits are outside my jurisdiction."

Takigawa glanced at Naru.

"What if you call out Masako-chan?"

Naru frowned for a moment, but for some reason he immediately was in deep thought.

"... ...You're right. ... ... We might add up even a little more information... ..."

---

Back to Chapter 7.2 | Forward to Chapter 7.4

Notes
- Dates mentioned: Shōwa 47 is 1972. Shōwa 45 is 1970.

- 少年探偵団 (Shōnen Tanteidan), which means 'a group of boy detectives', is one of Yasuhara's nicknames. The nickname comes from mystery writer Edogawa Rampo's Akechi Kogoro series. Akechi was inspired by Holmes and the Shōnen Tanteidan was his version of the Bakerstreet Irregulars (young boys who gather information).

- Naru is talking about コソリ (kosori), while Takigawa is talking about こっそり (kossori) with the small っ (tsu), which means 'stealthily, secretly'. The author wrote コソリ (kosori) in katakana script, because it's presumably a name and its meaning is unknown. On the other hand, こっそり (kossori) is a known Japanese word and therefore written in hiragana script.

- I translated 化け物 (bakemono) as spectre and 妖怪 (yōkai) as apparition.

- Takigawa is apparently talking about Satori, a monster that is able to read minds.