The Mannequin

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Mannequins in a Japanese suit shop

I don’t have any reikan (psychic sensitivity). 

So I’ve never seen a ghost or heard strange voices.

Even so, I once had an extremely frightening experience when I was in junior high school. 

I’d like to tell you about it.

When I was 14, my father died, and I moved to my mother’s parents’ house. 

My maternal grandfather had already passed away, so it became a household of just three women: my grandmother, my mother, and me. 

Even though I was yet to recover from the shock of losing a parent, I had to quickly adapt to a new environment.

I was anxious, but perhaps out of sympathy for my situation, my new classmates treated me kindly. 

In particular, a girl named S was very kind to me—she showed me her textbooks and kept me company. We became close friends, and from there, I naturally began to open up to others as well. 

After about two months, I was able to joke around and laugh with everyone.

In that class, there was a cute girl named F. 

I found myself drawn to her. 

Of course, not in a queer way. She was small and delicate, the kind of girl other girls would find adorable. 

(I’m tall and a bit dark-skinned, so looking back, I must’ve been a bit envious of her.)

I tried all sorts of things to get closer to her and it eventually worked. 

After a change of the classroom’s seating arrangement, we ended up in the same group and gradually started talking more. 

I learned she was from a single-parent household too, which made me feel even closer to her. 

In her case, though, it wasn’t that her father had died, but he had run off with another woman…or so I heard.

When I learned she also lived in a household of only women, I truly felt glad I had become her friend.

Even though that feeling only lasted until I set foot in her house…

I don’t remember why I went to F’s house that day. 

It was a long time ago, and also what I saw there left such a strong impression on me that the smaller details have become vague. 

S was with me too.

Up until then, S hadn’t really liked F and didn’t seem happy about me getting close to her. 

I don’t remember why she tagged along, but in any case, after school, despite us living in completely different neighbourhoods, S and I stopped by F’s house for some forgotten reason.

Her house was a one-storey building which was, frankly, quite old.

With warped wooden walls and almost no yard, it was squeezed into a narrow space with barely 50 centimetres between it and the neighbouring houses. 

I was a little surprised, but then quickly recalling my own grandmother’s old house and how F’s family must have been struggling financially, felt ashamed for judging. 

An old one-storey house 

“Mother.” 

F called, and a woman, quite beautiful even with some visible wrinkles, came out from the back with a warm smile, and bowed so deep that it almost felt discomfiting.

She seemed to have been bringing in laundry, holding towels and underwear in her hands.

“I’ll bring you something to drink.” 

She sounded overly cheerful perhaps because her daughter rarely had friends over.

F herself had said she didn’t invite people often. 

I firmly forbid myself to be surprised even if her room turned out to be not very cute and girly.

I didn’t want to feel superior over something like that.

But when the door to her room opened, I was caught off guard by what I saw.

As I said before, F was pretty and naturally had a good sense of style. 

Her room looked like what I expected it to be — fancy curtains and some stuffed animals on the desk — a cute room for a cute girl. 

Except for one thing.

In the corner of the room, standing and staring at us was —

A mannequin.

It was unmistakably a male mannequin. 

I can’t forget it even if I wanted to. 

With its arms bent inward in a kind of “W” shape, it looked as though it was looking straight at us. 

Like most mannequins, its face was perfectly formed, but that only made its gaze seem more lifeless and hollow.

It was wearing a bright red sweatshirt and a matching hat.

It might inappropriate to say this but, honestly, those clothes looked much more expensive than what F’s mother was wearing.

“This…”

Stunned, S and I looked at F searchingly, but she seemed unbothered. 

She walked up to the mannequin and casually adjusted the angle of its hat. 

Just by watching the way her hands moved, I got goosebumps.

“Looks really cool, don’t you think?” she said.

But contrary to her words, she sounded curiously flat. 

That tone of voice which didn’t seem particularly excited gave me even more chills.

“Welcome,” her mother said as she entered with a tray of cake and tea, breaking the tension.

S, probably just as uncomfortable as I was, helped set the plates down.

I tried to give them a hand too, but stopped when I saw that there were four plates. 

I wondered if her mother was going to join us.

Soon, still smiling cheerfully, her mother placed a cake and tea on F’s desk —

right next to the mannequin.

At that moment, I realised that we’ve come to a place we shouldn’t have. 

I could tangibly feel cold sweat cascading down my body. 

F stared intently at the tea placed beside the mannequin. 

From where I sat, I could only see her hair.

Then suddenly she turned forward as if nothing had happened and began poking at her cake, passing us the sugar pot.

I wanted to ask her about the mannequin. 

They were clearly treating it like a person — not just any person but someone important, giving it a cake, dressing it nicely. 

But neither F nor her mother ever tried speaking to it.

What did they think it was?

Clearly not just a regular mannequin. 

But if they truly believed it was a real person, they would refer to it as “him” or whatever, and explain to us what it was, wouldn’t they?

But they didn’t. 

That ambiguity made the situation feel even more unsettling. 

How would F react if I asked about the mannequin? 

I felt like no matter what answer I got, I would start screaming.

Something was definitely wrong.

Desperate to change the subject, I noticed a birdcage in the corner.

Any topic was better than the mannequin. 

I felt like if I could only see F as she normally behaved at school, I could feel at ease.   

“Do you have a bird?” I asked.

“It’s gone now,” F replied.

“Oh…that’s sad…”

“I didn’t need it anymore.”

Her tone was robotic. 

No trace of affection for the pet.

I just wanted to leave. 

I want to go home. I want to go home. This place is crazy. We will go crazy too if we stay for too long.

Just then S abruptly stood up. 

“Where’s the bathroom?”

“Down the hall, right outside,” F replied, and S quickly left.

At that moment, I honestly resented her for leaving me alone.

I kept looking down the whole time. 

By this time I had become convinced that any kind of normal communication with F was impossible. 

It seemed as though a long time had passed, although it probably lasted only a few minutes.

S came back and said to me:

“I’m sorry, let’s go home.”

Her face looked deathly pale. 

She refused to even cast a glance in F’s direction.

“I see. Welcome back,” F said. 

That odd way of saying nearly had me fainting.

S grabbed my hand and tried to drag me to the outside. 

But still, I thought I should at least say goodbye to her mother. 

I didn’t have the courage to face her, so I called out to the room next to F’s room, the sliding door to which was slightly open.

A room with sliding doors and tatami floor

“Excuse me, we’re leaving now…”

It was a miracle I managed to say even those words.

No sooner had I said that, a hand shot out from the gap and slammed the door shut.

We ran out of the house like two fugitives.

We pedalled our bikes desperately throughout our journey home.

S rode ahead the whole time, silent, as if she couldn’t even waste a minute getting away from the place.

When we finally reached a place that felt safe, we bought drinks and gulped them down.

“Stop being friends with her,” S said.

I didn’t need to be told.

“That house is crazy. F is crazy too. But her mom is way worse. She was completely…”

“Her mom?”

S told me what she saw when she went to the bathroom.

When she left F’s room, the sliding door to the adjacent room was wide open. 

As she walked past, she casually glanced inside.

Mannequin arms —four or five of them—scattered across the tatami floor.

And sitting nearby, F’s mother was licking one of the arms like mad.

Trembling, S used the bathroom, and on her way back, she cautiously peeped inside the room again. 

But as she did so, her eyes directly met with the eyes of the mother, who now sat staring at her.

The cheerful smile she saw earlier had been completely wiped out of her face, and her eyes looked dead serious.

The mannequin arms were gone, replaced by folded laundry which included men’s underwear.

“W — what happened to the mannequin…?” S blurted out in spite of herself, then instantly regretted it.

But the mother only smiled like before, without saying a word. 

It was right after this that S hurriedly asked us to leave.

The whole incident was so creepy that, after the visit, we avoided talking to F unless she spoke to us first. 

And we gradually drifted apart.

We considered sharing our story, but doubted anyone would believe us. 

It would just look like we were trying to isolate her, especially when everyone knew S never liked F much. 

We secretly spoke to several other people who had been to F’s house, but no one seemed to have seen anything strange while there (yet another reason why we couldn’t share our story with anyone.)

But there was one boy who saw something.

He had gone to F’s house, rang the doorbell, but no one answered. 

That was odd because he had told them that he would be coming beforehand. 

Wondering if they couldn’t hear the doorbell because they were at the back of the house, he decided to wait, but finally when still no one showed up, he laid his hand on the door, which easily opened. 

He peeked inside.

The sliding door to one of the rooms was open (we are not sure if it was the same room as the one S saw), and inside, he saw a man in a yukata sitting cross-legged with his back turned.

Even though no sounds could be heard, blue lights — seemingly from a TV — sometimes flickered and illuminated the room. 

But no matter how many times the boy called out, the man didn’t turn around. 

Not only that, he never even moved at all… 

The boy got creeped out and left. 

There shouldn’t have been any men in F’s house.

Even if the man was F’s relative or her mother’s acquaintance, what could he possibly have been doing, sitting there still like a stone in front of a TV?

Did those men’s underwear belong to him?

Wasn’t the man actually that mannequin I saw in F’s room? I wondered. 

But was it possible for a mannequin sit cross-legged?

If it was, it must have been a different mannequin from the one we saw. 

Did that mean they had more than one mannequin in that house…?

I decided I’d better not think about it anymore.

Fourteen years have passed since then, and I can now look back calmly. 

I still don’t know what it was we saw. 

If they wanted to keep it a secret, why show it to not only me but S (who was not her friend) as well?

I have never come up with a plausible answer.

And I’ve never seen a mannequin with arms shaped like a “W.”

You couldn’t even get it dressed with those arms.

And yet, that red outfit fit it perfectly.

As if it had put it on itself…

That’s all I experienced.

Sorry for the choppy writing—I’m not used to this.

It might not be so scary, but I’ve never been more terrified than I was then.

Thank you for reading💖