Entries from a Japanese Business Man Pt. 2

June 3
I heard her voice again.

It came through the ceiling. No one lives above me.

I left the radio on last night. I thought maybe it would help drown out whatever is happening. I woke to static. It was not on the station I left it on.

The Onryō is not a story. She is real. She is not resting. She is waiting. For what, I do not know.

Today I forgot the word for “window.” I stood there pointing at it, trying to describe what I meant to the clerk. He looked at me like I was a stranger.

I keep writing things down and finding the pages torn out the next morning. I do not remember doing it. But I must be the one doing it. Who else would it be?

There are scratches on the doorframe. I measured them. Yesterday they were lower. Today they’re at eye level.

The woman in white passed me on the street. No one else looked. She didn’t turn her head. Just kept walking. But the air behind her was cold and tasted like iron.

June 4
An old man spoke to me today.

I was sitting near the shrine,  the one halfway up the hill where the trees lean close together. I hadn’t meant to stop there, but I did. He was already sitting when I arrived.

He nodded at me, then looked out toward the street and said, "You’ve seen her."

I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to.

He said she comes when betrayal is near. That she follows men who forget who they are. Men who serve too many masters.

Then he stood up and walked away. No questions. No names.

I didn’t sleep last night. I’m not imagining her.

June 7
I saw her today. In the office.

I was checking the morning reports when I looked up and she was there, standing by the window between the filing cabinets. White dress, edges dark as ash. No one else reacted. I felt the sweat gather behind my knees. The pen slipped from my hand.

I tried to speak but my tongue was dry. She tilted her head, the air around her bending, the papers on the desk fluttering as if in a draft. Everyone kept working. Calm, unaffected. As if I was the only one who saw her.

I left.

Outside, the sky had turned the color of rust. The smell of iron hung in the air. Blood dripped from the trees in slow threads. The river below the bridge ran red and thick. I told myself it could not be real.

I started running. Behind me I heard voices, but when I turned, I saw faces I knew. The shopkeeper, the boy who used to wave, my coworkers from the office. Their eyes were blank. Their mouths open. They were running.

I slipped on the wet stone. The pain in my arm cracked through everything else. I tried to stand and almost fell again. That was when I saw the old man from the shrine. He was waiting at the corner, calm, hands behind his back.

He looked at me and said, “Kai‑inu ni te o kamareru.”

I pushed past him.

I reached the house, slammed the door, locked it. My breath came in gasps. When I turned, she was there.

No eyes, yet she looked straight through me. I tried to move, but her hands, or something like hands, held me still. She circled me slowly, soundless. Faces pressed from the walls, stretching the paper, whispering words I could not understand.

She guided me down the hallway. At the end, the wall swelled, skin and plaster twisting until a head pushed through, massive, open‑mouthed. It swallowed me whole.

There were more mouths inside, smaller, all teeth. They chewed. I could feel every bite, every tear. I screamed until my voice cracked and still it did not stop.

Then nothing.

I woke in bed, drenched, my arm broken, bent wrong. I thought it was a dream until I felt the pain. I checked my skin. No marks. I almost laughed.

I stood up and oriented myself. Legs sore from running, and with one functioning arm, I willed myself to the bathroom. All I wanted was to drown in the bath. I wanted to forget. 

Getting ready to shower, I removed my shirt. 

Bite marks. Dozens. All across my chest and stomach. Purple, red, fresh.

裏切り
裏切り
裏切り

June 9
They told me I’m going home.

The message came through the office. My contract is ending early. I am to return next month. No explanation, just the usual formal phrasing, but they’re making the arrangements.

I should be happy. For weeks I’ve told myself if I could just see the end of this, the heaviness would lift. I’ve imagined the boat, the air, the light through my mother’s kitchen window.

But when I heard the news, I didn’t feel relief. Not exactly. Something like it, but thinner. A version of peace I can’t fully trust.

I slept last night. Not well, but uninterrupted. My arm still aches.

The woman hasn’t returned. But I hear footsteps behind me when I walk home. Always the same rhythm. Always just far enough that I can’t look back.

I told myself this would end once I left. That I wasn’t built to live between worlds like this. Maybe that was just an excuse. Maybe the real reason is quieter.

I sent word home. Mother said my father smiled when she told him. She said it’s the first time in a long while she’s seen him stand up straighter.

I don’t know what I’ll feel when I step off the boat. I don’t know who I’ll be.

But I’m trying to believe the worst is behind me. I’m trying to believe I’m still whole.

June 16

The world feels quieter now. Not in the unsettling way it did before, but in a softer sense. Like something has passed. Or stepped back.

My arm is still healing. The break wasn’t clean. I’ve kept it in a sling. Stiff in the mornings, worse in the rain. I never told anyone what happened. Not in full. The story I’ve given is simple: I slipped.

But I know better.

I haven’t seen her since that night. The woman in white. The faces in the walls. The mouths. It all feels distant now, like it happened to someone else. But the marks are still on my torso. faded, but there. Some part of it was real. I live with the reminder.

I’ve been sleeping. Not deeply, not peacefully, but enough. The quiet no longer presses against my skin. I eat properly. I’ve stopped walking the back alleys. I take the long route now through the park, past the river.

I found a torn journal page behind the dresser. One I don’t remember hiding. My handwriting, but rushed. I folded it without reading.

There are moments I feel almost normal again. I brush my teeth. I shave. I speak to shopkeepers without checking over my shoulder. The shadows behave.

The Onryō was very much real. The bite marks prove it. My arm proves it. However, I wonder sometimes if it was my fault. Why was she here?

But she hasn’t returned. That’s what matters now.

I’m not whole. Not yet. But I’m trying.

July 1
I spent the afternoon near the river. The light scattered across the water like a kaleidoscope . For the first time in a long while, I noticed how green everything is this time of year.

The city feels lighter too. The markets are livelier, or maybe I’m just seeing them again. A vendor I hadn’t spoken to in months gave me a plum and smiled. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed small kindnesses.

I sent word home again. Mother replied  she said they’re getting things ready for when I return. 

I’m still cautious. I still find myself flinching at certain sounds, checking windows more than necessary. But I remind myself those were old habits, built during a time I no longer live in.

I’ve started looking people in the eye again. 

July 23
I was supposed to leave today. They’ve delayed my return.  Just two weeks, they said. No explanation, just a quiet apology and a new itinerary.

I didn’t argue. There’s no point. Things have always moved slowly here, and I’ve learned to accept that.

Still, I packed this morning. I wanted to feel ready.

The light coming through the window was warm, almost golden. I stood there for a while and just let it settle on my face. 

I sent word to my mother again. She said they were disappointed, of course, but understood. She told me my father had been asking about me more often. She didn’t say anything else. She never does.

I feel quiet. Not numb. Just quiet.

August 6

Word came that my father has been released from the camp. Mother said he’s thinner, quieter than before, but that he smiles when she mentions my name.

I’ll need to debrief with my superiors once I return. There will be questions, I’m sure. What I saw, what I learned, what I understood. I’ve kept good records. I hope they’ll be enough.

I’m ready to put this chapter behind me. Ready to come home, see my parents, speak in my own language without feeling the shape of it on my tongue.

The streets were quiet today, but not in a way that unsettled me. Just still. Peaceful.

Outside, I hear the low hum of engines. Not the usual ones. Heavier. Slower. The kind that makes your teeth buzz. The sky is so bright this morning it hurts to look at. A white light, sharper than the sun.

Still, I feel hopeful.
The waiting is almost over.