Dark Water - Koji Suzuki

Ikuko watched from the living room as her mother inspected yet another glass of water in the kitchen, holding the glass up to the fluorescent light hanging from the ceiling. She claims it just doesn't taste the same as their house in Musashino. Yoshimi watched as the countless particles of dirt danced around the tiny bubbles floating in the glass. She'd always take a gulp out of habit, Ikuko had noticed, but a "strange odour" attacked her nostrils and always kept her from finishing.
"Mommy, can we do the fireworks now?" Ikuko decided to take this opportunity to approach Yoshimi about the miniature fireworks she had acquired from Yuko, a friend at school. Yoshimi, however, seemed in a trance, most likely visualising the path their water had to take from the Tone River.
"Mom!"
It was dusk on a Sunday in late August. Urged on the deepening dark, Ikuko uncharacteristically had begun to plead. Yoshimi snapped back to reality and turned to face Ikuko, absentmindedly caressing the glass in her hands.
"There's nowhere to set them off." Yoshimi sighed, exasperated. The park by the canal in front of the apartment building had been closed for construction. Ikuko then realised that they had never been on the roof, and promptly mentioned this. Yoshimi gave in and they proceeded to the elevator with a box of matches, a torch and the bag of fireworks that Ikuko had clutched in her arms. The elevator arrived with a groan and the doors opened to reveal an elderly attendant standing in the corner.
"Which floor do you require, ma'am?" He asked, eyes resting on Yoshimi's face. She entered on the opposite side of the elevator, eyes fixed to the floor. Ikuko turned to the man and smiled apologetically.
"Seventh, please." She replied, watching her mother, feeling slightly embarassed as usual by her behavious. But the fact was, her mother was somewhat anxious around men. She had overheard a conversation that her mother had had with her aunt, Kayo. Yoshimi had simply had enough of men. During the ten years she had lived with her husband, Ikuko's father, she hadn't once felt protected and safe. When they had separated three and a half years ago, Yoshimi had felt relieved. Although Ikuko loved her father, she couldn't help but feel detached from him and sometimes feared this anxiety about men was hereditary. Both her grandmother and great-grandmother had been divorced, and Ikuko was almost convinced that she would meet the same fate. The doors opened and Ikuko surveryed the deserted seventh floor. A lot of the units were bought as an investment, and many of the others were converted into offices, so inevitably the building emptied out dramatically at night. She had enquired about other children living in the complex once, and the super had told Yoshimi later that a family with a 12 year old daughter had lived on the second floor but had moved the year before due to some tragedy. Ikuko was quite depressed by this fact. They would have both now been the same age, thirteen, if the girl was still living in the building. But since then, there had been no children until Ikuko 4 months earlier. In the gentle breezeless dusk, Yoshimi and Ikuko lit their fireworks. The red jets stood out in the deep darkness. Ikuko held aloft her sparklers and cried in delight. At times like these, she took advantage of being able to act her age, rather than putting up a mature front to take the focus of her somewhat weary mother. Yoshimi took in the view from on high and seemed carefree for the first time in years. It was when the score of sparklers had all turned into charred cinders that they were forced back down to earth. Ikuko slightly resented the impending darkness for ruining this moment of freedom. As they made their way back to the elevator, Ikuko saw out of the corner of her eyes what looked like a handbag. It didn't seem like it had been dropped, but rather placed there on purpose. Who'd come to a place like this and lose their bag? Ikuko picked it up. It was difficult to see in the dark, but against the glow of the street lamps from below, the Hello Kitty motif was visible on the cheap vinyl.
"Give that to me!" Yoshimi scolded. She couldnt' stand the thought of Ikuko "scavenging through garbage", and often told her grandmother off for allowing her to pick up various items that they found on their walks. Having taken the bag, Yoshimi had no idea was to do with it, and Ikuko felt a slight twinge of smugness at the idea of getting revenge on her mother through one of her many flaws. Holding the bag as far away from herself as possible between her thumb and forefinger, Yoshimi made her way down to the superintendant's unit with Ikuko in tow.

"How odd." Mr Kamiya mused.
"You could display a notice and try find the owner?" Yoshimi suggested.
"But the only child in the building is Ikuko, right sweetie?"
Ikuko nodded furiously, looking from her mother to Mr Kamiya and the bag, and back to her mother.
"You did mention that a family used to live on the second floor..." ventured Yoshimi.
Kamiya looked up in surprise, "Ah, yes. But that was two years ago."
"Two? I thought you said they moved last year?"
The super hunched, "Well, yes. They didn't move out until last summer."
Yet, neither the bag nor its contents looked like they had been exposed to the elements for an entire year on the roof. The bag itself was as brand new as if it had just been purchased, Ikuko noticed as Kamiya rifled through it, looking for clues of an owner.
"I'll try displaying it on the counter for a while to see if we can find an owner." The super obviously sought to end the conversation, however he did turn to Ikuko to proclaim,
"If we don't find an owner, then you could always have the bag, couldn't you?"
"NO. That wouldn't be right. Please dispose of it if the owner remains a mystery." Yoshimi sternly replied, pouring cold water all over Ikuko's dreams of a new Hello Kitty bag to make all her schoolmates jealous.

The next Saturday was the first time Ikuko saw Mitchan. Ikuko was in the bath, innocently enjoying her alone time, playing with a mermaid doll her father had given her a week before he had moved out. As she was watching her hand guide the doll through the depths, an unfamiliar hand came down on hers and lightly pulled the doll away. Ikuko looked up, prepared to argue with her mother yet again, but saw...a young girl. Almost the mirror image of Ikuko, this girl had a red bow pulling her bangs out of her eyes, and this made obvious the scar above her eyebrow.
"Who are you?" Ikuko asked, fear not even registering.
"Mitchan." The girl replied with a smile.
"Where did you come from just now?" Ikuko questioned further. Suddenly there was a knock on the door and Ikuko's head snapped towards the door.
"Ikuko, what are you doing in there?" She heard the muffled strains of her mother's voice, worrying as usual.
"Nothing! I'm getting out now." Ikuko loudly proclaimed, and looked back to the girl, who was no longer there. The mermaid doll was floating instead in her place. Ikuko emerged from the water, puzzled by what had just happened. She was sure she was much too old for imaginary friends, but decided in that moment to keep Mitchan to herself. The last thing she needed from her overprotective mother is for her to think Ikuko is crazy. As she pulled the plug on the bath and watched the water circle the drain, she could have sworn she could hear a girl screaming from afar. Ikuko shook her head hard, and left the bathroom with enough gusto to nearly knock Yoshimi down in the hallway.
"Ikuko! What's the matter with you!?" Yoshimi enquired, holding Ikuko's shoulders.
"I thought I was late fofr school. I must have read the clock wrong." Ikuko never was a good liar.
"It's Saturday..." Yoshimi watched Ikuko's face in that annoying way she did, looking for a sign of truth.
"Oh. So it is. I forgot." Ikuko let out an obviously fake laugh before disappearing into her room, leaving her mother standing in the empty hallways, confused and concerned by her normally calm daughter's agitated manner.
Once she was in the safe confines of her bedroom and heard her mother's footsteps leaving the hallway in the direction of the kitchen, probably to inspect the water yet again, Ikuko let out a sigh of relief. She turned and fell onto her bed, waiting for her heartbeat to return to normal, trying to push the thoughts circling her brain out of her mind. As she regulated her breathing, Ikuko felt something sticking into her back. She sat up and scoured the bed for lumps and bumps. She pulled back the sheets to inspect further, and was physically knocked back in shock. There, in the middle of the bed, was a red vinyl Hello Kitty bag in mint condition. Without a second thought, Ikuko picked up the bag and threw it through the open window. She could imagine the state it would be in after all the cars, unnoticing and unfazed by the flash of shiny red in the road ahead, ran it over. Ikuko felt herself shaking quite violently as she attempted to do up the buttons on her blouse. She took a few deep breaths, not once tempted to look at the road below to view the carnage, and readied herself for breakfast.
"So...?" Yoshimi had an uncharacteristic goofy smile on her face spread across her usually stern face. Ikuko looked up from ther half-eaten piece of toast expectantly, suddenly aware of the jam that had accumulated around her mouth under the intense stare of her mother. They both remained silent, staring at each other in question. Finally, when she looked as if she might burst, Yoshimi spoke up.
"Did you like your present?"
"Present?" Ikuko concentrated on the oily butter melting and mixing into the jam on her toast, entranced by it.
"Yes. The new Hello Kitty bag. The one we found looks as if it's been claimed, and I saw how fond you were of it. So I bought you one from the markets after work yesterday! It's on your bed."
Ikuko just sat staring in disbelief at her mother, the toast she had brought mid-mouth dropped upside down on the plate. It was then that she broke out in a sprint to rescue her poor bag from becoming roadkill.
"Ikuko! Where are you going?" You haven't finished..." Yoshimi's voice echoed quieter and quieter down the hall after Ikuko until there was only the sound of her footsteps and breaths, growing heavier by the second. Rounding the corner into the rarely used stairwell, she took the stairs a flight at a time, jumping with all her might, praying the groundshock wouldn't be too painful. As she reached the second floor, Ikuko was stopped in her tracks by someone blocking the stairwell.
"Excuse me, please!" Ikuko pleaded with them, flashes of tyres hitting red vinyl passing before her eyes. The figure turned to reveal a smiling face. Mitchan. And she was holding the Hello Kitty bag, pristine as it had been propped on her bed. She extended her arms slowly to reach for the bag. Mitchan mirrored her movement, gently dropping the bag into her outstretched arms, and skipped off around the corner.
"Wait! Come...back." Ikuko finished her sentence in a whisper, realising Mitchan was already gone.

After lying to her mother yet again about her "sudden need to go for a morning run", Ikuko made her way down to see Kamiya. She pounding on his door as hard as her little fists would allows until he appeared, bleary-eyed and dressed in a torn dressing gown.
"Morning, Ikuko. What can I do for you this morning?" He said with his trademark smile.
Under his gaze, Ikuko suddenly felt very silly and very young, she didn't know whether to ask him or not.
"It's nothing to do with me, but you said that the family that lived on the second floor suffered a 'tragedy'. What was it exactly?" She averted her eyes and stared at her feet, feeling slightly like her mother.
"Ah, that. Well, it happened two years ago. The little girl about your age, she was playing somewhere around here and...she went missing, you see?"
"Kidnapped?" Ikuko burned with the need to know everything.
The super leaned his head to one side and ran his fingers through his thinning hair, "I don't think it was for ransom or anything if she was. The police simply called it an 'open criminal investigation' ".
"So she was..." Ikuko let her inquiry train off unfinished, not wanting to say the word.
Kamiya shook his head, "They never found her. For almost a year, her parents never gave up hope that she'd return. But in the end, I guess they did give up. They moved to Yokohama last summer. Kawai, that was their name."
"Do you know the girl's name?" Ikuko leaned forward in anticipation.
"Mitsuko, I believe. She was a lovely girl. There are some evil people in this world, that's a fact."
"Mitchan?" Ikuko let the name escape through gritted teeth.
"Possibly. It's a very common nickname, so I can imagine someone may have called her that. Why do you ask anyway?" Kamiya squinted his eyes, watching Ikuko as Yoshimi does when she's looking for clues.
"I'm writing a story about the building for class, and I thought this may be an interesting angle." She was becoming much too good of a liar lately, thought Ikuko as she waved her goodbyes and headed back to her dull apartment and depressed mother.

She had been asleep for about two hours when her conciousness began to edge it's way back up from slumber to wakefulness. The roof. Ikuko couldn't stop thinking about the peacefulness of it, the city lights dancing in front of her, the wind whipping past her. She had to be up there. She stood in front of the elevator, watching the numbers lights up in succession. Ground, one, two...it paused. Was someone getting on? The lights started again. Three, four. The doors began to open, and Ikuko readied herself with an excuse to whoever was inside. But there was no one. Confused, Ikuko stepped inside and found the seventh floor button was already pushed. When she reached the landing of the staircase leading to the rooftop, Ikuko turned on the ceiling lights. Two fluorescent tubes flickered to life. Encouraged again by the light, Ikuko bounded up to the roof. She stood, well clear of the edge, watching the hustle and bustle of the twilight city. She even let out a soft chuckle as she watched an older boy of maybe 16 or 17, obviously affected by too many sakes, as he stumbled up the path leading around the construction site across the road and fell directly over a low hedge. Suddenly, the ladder of the watertower behind her creaked as if under the strain of human weight. Ikuko turned to see who was up there with her, fearing dealing with a drunk at 1am on a roof. It was then that she noticed the figure of a girl crouching directly over the watertower opening.
"Mitchan!? Get down, it's dangerous up there!"
And with that, she disappeared from sight. Ikuko woke suddenly in a sweat, and immediately and inexplicably began to cry. There was no mistaking it. Mitchan, the body of Mitsuko, was in that overhead tank on the rooftop. Ikuko tried to suppress the thought, only to have the scene unfold in her mind. While her parents were preoccupied, the little girl had either fallen in the tank...or been intentionally thrown in by someone. The decomposing corpse. The Hello Kitty bag she clasped so tightly. The water-filled coffin. They had been drinking that water for the past four months. How many times had her mother cooked with it, made hot drinks and chilled summer drinks with it? How many times had they soaked in hot bathwater that teemed with countless putrid cells? How many times had they washed their hands and faces in it? Ikuko pressed her hand to her mouth and made a dash for the bathroom. She crouched down over the toilet, and saw herself in the water's reflection. Her eyes were bloodshot. A stinging sensation burned the back of her throat and nose. Hallucinations coursed through her veins. Her relflection morphed into that of the corpse of a girl floating in the foul water. The face was purple and swollen to almost twice it's size. She was no longer able to withhold the vomit. Apart from jerky gasps, Ikuko had all but stopped breathing. As she tried to avert her eyes from the putrefying corpse, she hit her head on the door and collapsed in a heap, her face hitting the chilly wooden floor.

As they crossed the bridge over the canal, Ikuko resisted the impulse to turn back and look at the apartmen building. She had in her lap a bag containing their valuables and a change of clothes. Once she had come to on the floor of the hallway and found her mother hovering over her on the phone to the police, she made her mother hang up and listen to her for once. Her mother surprisingly didn't think she was crazy at all, and was in fact relieved to have a reason to fear the water in the apartment as she did. Yoshimi had immediately gone and woken Kamiya to check the last time the tank was cleaned. She was told that the tank was often left unlocked during the cleaners' lunch break, and discovered in the log book that the last time it had been cleaned was March 17th, two years previously. The same date Mitsuko Kamai had been reported missing. She had convinced the super to have the tank checked the next day without explanation, called a taxi, and gotten herself and Ikuko out of there and to a hotel as soon as possible. As Ikuko caught a fleeting glimpse of the building, she saw the looming flesh-coloured tank high above the ground. Was little Mitchan still having fun splashing around in that sealed "bath" of hers?