I Want to Go Home Too

by Miu Yamazaki

 

I had been looking forward to our school trip.

I never thought something like that would happen.

 

Earlier that day, we had gone to a shrine.

             “I’ve always wanted to come here.”

             “Me too. It’s famous for relationships, right?”

             “Let’s get some charms.”

             “I’m getting one too.”

             “Misa, you’re not getting one?”

             “I’m fine. I don’t really want one.”

             “Yeah, you’re not really into that stuff. Aya and I are going to go buy some, so wait here for a minute.”

             “Okay. I’ll just take some pictures while I wait.”

At the time, none of us thought much about it.

About Misa staying there by herself.

             “Sorry! We’re back.”

             “Misa? What’s wrong? You look really pale.”

             “Oh, no. It’s nothing.”

             “You don’t look fine. What happened?”

             “It’s just…”

             “Just what?”

             “That old woman over there was staring at me…”

 

             “Huh? Where?”

             “Over by that tree.”

             “…I don’t see anyone.”

             “You’re probably just tired.”

 

             “Oh no, we only have five minutes before we have to meet up.”

             “We should hurry.”

Misa looked back at the tree one more time.

There was nobody there anymore.

 

That night, back in our hotel room, we passed around a tape recorder and each said something.

              “Today, I had so much fun.”

              “The matcha parfait was amazing.”

              “I want to see him already.”

We each said something and laughed the whole time.

Then, Misa suddenly came down with a high fever. She looked pale and was shaking under the blankets.

              “Misa? Misa? Are you okay?”

The moment someone ran out to get a teacher, the lights went out.

Everything went dark.

              “Ahhh!”

A few people screamed.

A few seconds later, the lights came back on.

Misa was crying.

Not quietly.

Not normally.

Tears were running down her face, and she couldn’t stop crying.

              “What’s wrong?”

              “I don’t know…” she said, shaking.

              “I’m not sad, but I can’t stop crying…”

The next day, we left Kyoto and headed to Tokyo, still feeling uneasy.

Misa’s fever went away, and by that afternoon she was acting like nothing had happened.

Slowly, we forgot about it.

 

Five years later—

I was living in a shared house with some of my high school friends. One night, someone found an old cassette tape in the back of a closet.

              “Wait… this is  from Kyoto, right?”

              “Let’s listen to it.”

It was after three in the morning.

Aya put the cassette into an old tape player.

First there was only static.

Then our old voices.

              “The food was so good!”

              “I love him!”

              “Kiyomizu was beautiful!”

We laughed.

Then one of us frowned.

              “Wait. Did you hear that?” Aya said.

              “Huh? What?”

              “Stop… that’s creepy…” Misa said quietly.

We rewound the tape and played it again.

At first, all we could hear was static and our voices.

But there was something else underneath it.

A small voice.

Singing.

We turned the volume up.

It was an old woman’s voice.

Thin, shaky, almost like she was crying while she sang.

              “Tōryanse, tōryanse…”

No one moved.

At first, it sounded far away.

We rewound it again.

              “Koko wa doko no hosomichi ja…”

Closer.

Again.

              “Tenjin-sama no hosomichi ja…”

This time, it sounded like she was standing right behind us.

The room went silent.

Static.

Breathing.

Static.

A wet sound in her throat.

Then, at the very end, the old woman’s voice came so close it sounded like her mouth was pressed against the recorder.

               “…Kaeryanse.”

The tape stopped.

No one said anything.

              “What does that song mean…?” Aya asked quietly.

              “It’s one of those creepy Japanese children’s songs, right…?” I said.

Misa kept staring at the tape recorder.

              “It means it’s easy to go in. But it's hard to come back out…”

she said quietly.

Then Misa suddenly ran into the next room.

              “Wait…”

A little later, she came back with an SD card.

              “I knew it…”

Misa looked through the pictures she had taken at the shrine.

We looked at them too.

One of the pictures was of the shrine.

But standing near the tree was an old woman in a dark kimono.

Her face was blurry.

 

Then, even though no one touched it, the play button slowly pushed itself down.

 

              Click.

              Static…

 

Then I heard a voice whisper right behind my ear.

         

               “…It’s easy to go in.”

                Click.

 

There was another sound.

The tape started rewinding on its own.

Our voices started playing again.

              “Today, I had so much fun.”

              “The matcha parfait was amazing.”

              “I want to see him already.”

 

But this time, there was another voice mixed in with ours.

A voice that should not have been there.

              “…I want to go home too.”