The House in Which Nightmares Dwell 8.3

[touchturnfly]

3

Takigawa rushed to the washroom and discovered Hirota sitting on the washroom floor.

"-- What happened!?"

Hirota looked at Takigawa, and just when he was about to tell him about what he had seen just now, he gave up on the idea. For some reason he hesitated to put it in words. Because of that he merely showed him the bathroom.

"... ... What the hell have you been doing?"

He sounded too calm and only shocked, so Hirota was puzzled. He accidentally dropped his gaze on both of his hands and discovered that his hands were only moistened.

-- This can't be.

Until just now it surely had blood stuff on it. Thinking about it he checked his body once again and discovered it hadn't been stained at all. The drops that weren't thoroughly dry were absorbed and the grey of the trousers wasn't permeated in a deep color.

"No... ... Wait a minute."

Hirota answered. His voice was strangely hoarse.

"Wait a minute, you say. I don't admire you for destroying someone else's stuff for no reason."

"... ... Aah." Hirota said and stood up. In order to calm his heart that was still beating like a broken bell, he slowly approached the bathroom.

The white tiles, the bathroom of stainless steel and the broken and fallen white plastic lid. No red color was on them and no kind of stain could be discovered at all.

-- This can't be.

Hirota talked to himself once again. He certainly saw it. He clearly remembered the red, sticky glaze and the odor of tarnish that irritated his nose. The skin of the man's head had changed in color and both eyes had become muddy with a paste of white gelatin.

"Did something happen?"

Hirota heard Mai and looked back at her. Behind Mai stood an expressionless Naru whose emotions could not be seen. He was watching Hirota.

"It's... ...nothing."

"It's nothing, you say? We heard a loud crash, you know?"

"I tried to take a look outside and then I slipped."

Hirota gazed at the ventilation window.

"But--"

"That's all," Hirota declared.

-- I imagined it, he told himself. He didn't see anything. Although he felt like he had seen something. Various things happened and he didn't realize it himself, but he was tired. So he felt like he had seen something imaginary.

-- However, that's all.

Hirota told himself.

-- I didn't see anything.

"Um... ...Are you alright?" Midori asked after he returned to the dining room.

Hirota made a strained smile.

"I'm fine. Rather, I'm sorry. I'll compensate the lid."

"Don't worry about it."

"No, it's my fault. -- Is it okay if I could have some coffee?"

"I'll make it."

"Ah, I will do it myself."

Hirota arbitrarily took a cup from the tableware shelf and placed it on the counter.

I have to calm down. -- Even he thought in such a way, his hands were still faintly shivering, and when he tossed the instant coffee into the cup, he spilled a considerable amount on the white porcelain rim.

-- That thing, it's no more than an illusion. It was just a hallucination.

Telling himself that, Hirota unintentionally stumbled on a problem. Just how much of it was a hallucination?

If the blood on his hands, the head in the bathtub were hallucinated, then did the hallucination started after he lost his balance?

-- Or did the hallucination start from the point where he discovered the person outside the window in the first place?

He didn't know what kind of person it was. But there was definitely a person outside the window who peeked in. Those eyes, blinked --.

When he considered up until that point, Hirota's body suddenly stiffened. -- This house barely had any space on each side of the house, hadn't it?

That's right -- Hirota thought. The side of the Sasakura house was about a mere fifteen centimeters, the opposite house was about twenty centimeters, in either case it wasn't a width that a human could get into.

To say nothing of how the guy outside the window could be peeking from that window when even Hirota, who was in the house, was using the bathtub as a stepping stone.

His hands shivered faintly again. The spoon that he used to stir the coffee, scraped the bottom of the cup. The sound of it hurt his ears.

So he was already hallucinating from the point where he saw those eyes. -- Then, what about the red stains he found in the bathtub? And the searching in the bathroom? Going into the bathroom to begin with?

Suddenly it felt like the floor at his feet had warped.

Hirota wondered whether he was truly awake now. Could it perhaps be that the sensation of grasping the spoon, the coffee's scent, feeling the presence of Midori behind him and just about everything as well was a hallucination?

"Hirota-san? Is something wrong?"

After Midori called him, Hirota awoke from his reverie in a fluster.

-- How foolish. What's wrong with me?

"Nothing in particular. -- Midori-san, are you fine with staying up like this?"

"Yes," Midori vaguely nodded.

"Even so you must be tired, so if you don't sleep your body can't keep up. -- What about aunt?"

"I made her sleep. -- You're right, I should sleep too."

Midori smiled and stood up. Hirota fixedly watched over Midori leaving the dining room.

-- This is reality.

-- Then, from where did he start hallucinating?

Hirota shook his head lightly and after that he realized one more thing. In a haste he took out the handkerchief from the pocket of his trousers.

Somewhat fearfully he opened it, but there was no stain in sight.

---

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