Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

This is M-kun's story.
M-kun was a student who visited a friend named Kurasawa in Shizuoka during that summer vacation and stayed there for over half a month.

Kurasawa's family had been hatamoto of the former shogunate; during the Meiji Restoration, his grandfather accompanied their former lord and relocated to Shizuoka without stipend.
Prudent by nature and fortunate enough to have modest savings, he bought farmland to return to agriculture—later cultivating tea as well—and this samurai-turned-merchant venture proved remarkably successful. By the time of the present master, Kurasawa's father, they appeared quite prosperous, employing numerous workers.
The grandfather had long since passed away, and since the detached residence's retirement quarters stood nearly vacant, I stayed there throughout my visit.

“It’s quieter here than in the main house—better this way,” said Kurasawa. In truth, the eight-mat room was tranquil and comfortable. However, during my stay there was a stretch of three days of continuous rain, and I found myself growing somewhat bored. Of course, Kurasawa would come over from the main house every day to keep me company, but since we were not friends reuniting after a long separation—rather, we saw each other daily at the same school in Tokyo—there was no reason for any particularly novel topics to spring up now. On the evening of the third day, when my boredom had gradually intensified, Kurasawa appeared in my room dressed in hakama and haori. He said sympathetically.

“The truth is, I received word that an elderly relative living in town has passed away from a sudden illness, so I must go there now. Depending on how things go, I might have to stay overnight tonight—you’ll probably be lonely by yourself, but please bear with it for now. It’s that manuscript we discussed earlier. I had my family search it out from the storehouse and keep it ready—you should read it to pass the time. Though I doubt there’s anything particularly interesting in it…”

He placed seven old manuscript volumes in front of me.

“As I mentioned before, the sixth-generation master of my family supposedly lived from the Kyōhō to Hōreki eras. He went by the literary name Kyōyū and apparently dabbled in haiku among other things.”
“These seven volumes are a collection of miscellaneous essays Kyōyū casually compiled over time. Since essays don’t really have a set endpoint anyway, he probably never considered this complete—hence no title.”
“During the Restoration, my grandfather sold off most things but kept this at least.”
“Of course, there’d have been no buyers if we tried selling it properly. Yet tossing it to a scrap dealer felt wrong somehow—so without any real intention to preserve it, it just naturally survived. Shoved at the bottom of an old paulownia chest for ages with nobody reading it... until I stumbled upon it during this year’s seasonal airing.”

“Still, it’s a good thing they didn’t end up selling it for a pittance to some scrap dealer or the like. Looking back today, so many extremely valuable writings were discarded as scrap during the Restoration,” I remarked, gazing at the old, worm-eaten manuscript in my hands.

“Well, it’s obvious it’s not that valuable. Since you seem to have an interest in such things, go ahead and read it—if you find anything interesting, do tell me.”

With these words, Kurasawa went out into the rain.
As he had said, despite my youth I had an interest in such things—even back in Tokyo, I frequented used bookstores in Hongo and Kanda—so spurred by a mix of curiosity, I immediately pulled the old manuscript closer to examine it. Indeed, it might well have been two hundred years old.
The musty smell of the paper somehow felt nostalgically familiar.
Each volume was bound with twenty sheets of *hanshi* paper—seven volumes totaling 140 sheets—and since they were written meticulously in the Oie-style script, completing the entire set would require considerable effort. Resigned to this from the start, I turned on the electric light earlier than usual that day and began reading the first volume atop the small dining table.

Part essay collection, part memorandum book, its pages were crammed with a miscellany of incidents—one moment offering elegant entries of waka and haikai poetry, the next dry records of official duties. So informal was its composition that it lacked even a title—the author likely never intended to publish it publicly—yet even so, I thought its format excessively haphazard. But as I doggedly continued reading, I discovered sensational news articles from that era, such as “The Fukagawa Vendetta” and “The Murder at Yushima.” Drawn by this interest, as I continued reading further, I came across another article titled “The Strange Affair of the Inagi Household.”

In it were recorded such bizarre facts.

The original text merely states early July of this year, but based on an article from February of that year about a whale washing ashore at Gyōtoku Beach, it appears to have been an event from the nineteenth year of Kyōhō.

As dusk neared the sixth hour, a young man in servant’s attire passed through the Shitaya Uenokuzumachi area, clutching a cloth-wrapped bundle.

There was a certain feudal lord’s guard post there.

This too is recorded merely as belonging to a certain feudal lord, but given that it was in Shitaya Uenokuzumachi, it was likely the Tachibana family’s guard post.

As he was passing by the guard post, one of the guards noticed him and called out to halt him.

“You there, halt!”

Traditionally, samurai guard posts were often staffed by half-doddering old men—mocked in senryū verses as “dumping grounds for living geezers”—but here, the original text states: “Only robust, hot-blooded young samurai stood watch, so townsfolk lived in constant fear.” Having been stopped by these vigorous young warriors, the servant obediently came to a halt as the guard pressed further with his questioning.

“What are you carrying there?”

“This is a watermelon.”

“Open it.”

When **the servant** obediently opened **the cloth bundle**, **a woman’s severed head** appeared from within.
**The guard** raised his voice **and demanded**.

“Is this **a watermelon**?”

**The servant** turned deathly pale**, rendered speechless**, and stood frozen in place**. Then **the other guards** emerged one after another**, swiftly pinning him down and binding him with rope**.
**The three guards** examined **the head** and found it to be that of **a woman** in her late twenties or around thirty—pale but unattractive**. Seeing that her eyebrows were not shaved and her teeth not blackened**, it was clear she was not **a married woman**.
What was strange was that no blood dripped from **the neck’s cut surface**; yet this was unmistakably **a human severed head**, not that of **a clay doll**.
After briefly examining **the head**, **the guards** wrapped it back in **the original cloth** and then began interrogating **the bearer**.

“Where in the world are you from?”

“I hail from Honjo.”

“Are you in service to a samurai household?”

To each successive rigorous interrogation, the servant answered while trembling.
He still seemed unaccustomed to Edo and, overwhelmed by an abnormal terror, appeared half-drunk; yet to every question posed, he managed to give a coherent answer.
He was a servant of Inagi Yataro, who owned a small residence near the Okomegura in Honjo; his name was Ihei, and he had come from Hachimanzai in Kazusa three months prior.
Therefore, he still did not fully understand the ways of Edo or its layout.
It was discovered that today, following his master’s orders, he had taken a wrong turn and wandered into the Uenokuzumachi area while on his way to deliver a watermelon as an offering for Tanabata to relatives in Yushima.

“Is this your first time going to the Yushima residence today?” asked the guard.

“No, since today would already be my fourth time going there, even should I claim to be unaccustomed to Edo, I ought not have lost my way…” The servant tilted his head slightly, appearing perplexed even to himself.

“Do you have a letter from your master?”

“As it concerns relatives, there is no letter.”
“It is merely a verbal message.”

“Did you inspect this watermelon yourself?”

“I went to the regular greengrocer’s establishment where this humble one personally selected it, presented it before Master and Mistress for their approval, then wrapped it properly in a cloth bundle before departing—so...”
“How on earth did that turn into a human head along the way?”
“It is like a dream.”
“Surely it couldn’t be that I was tricked by a fox… but…”
“I haven’t the faintest idea what happened or how.”

Though it was the sixth hour of dusk, the lingering daylight kept the streets bright. Being tricked by foxes in central Edo seemed inconceivable. Yet this young servant—so rustic and seemingly honest—couldn’t plausibly be lying, leaving even the guards tilting their heads in unison. If one had reason to transport a human head, they’d surely do so under night’s cover. To carry such a thing openly at twilight bordered on recklessness. And if his account held truth—this preposterous matter of a watermelon becoming a severed head—what rational explanation could exist? The guards found themselves utterly perplexed.

“This is truly mysterious.”
“Let’s examine it once more properly.”

As a precaution, they opened the cloth bundle once more—and all gasped in unison.
The servant also involuntarily cried out.

The woman’s severed head wrapped in the cloth bundle had transformed back into the original watermelon.
Even when they tapped it or rolled it around, it was unmistakably a green watermelon.
The watermelon had transformed into a severed head and then back into a watermelon—performing wonders as if manipulated by a magician—so it was only natural for people to be astonished. Had it been seen by a single pair of eyes, one might dismiss it as trickery of vision. But for three young samurai and one young servant—four witnesses in total—to behold what appeared as a severed head suddenly revert to a watermelon could mean nothing less than being bewitched by a fox.
They exchanged looks of utter bewilderment and could only sigh for a while.

II

Ihei was released without incident.

No matter how they debated it, they ultimately found no way to settle the matter conclusively, so even these young samurai of the guard post—who prided themselves on their martial prowess—had no choice but to release Ihei as he was.
However many strange occurrences might have transpired in the interim, since the watermelon had reverted to being just a watermelon, they could only trust the bearer's account and bring the matter to an uneventful close.
Ihei hastily departed from the place.

Stepping out into the open, the young servant breathed a sigh of relief.
He started hurrying toward Yushima with the questionable watermelon in his arms but stopped after just a short distance.
He suddenly wondered whether it was wise to deliver this to the intended recipient as it was.
No matter how he thought about it, leaving this utterly bizarre watermelon behind felt somehow unsettling.
Yet he couldn’t very well honestly say that it had transformed into a severed head along the way.
Deciding it would be safer to return to his residence, report the circumstances to his master, and seek further instructions, he abruptly changed direction and headed back to the Honjo residence.

Because considerable time had been spent at the guard post as well, by the time he crossed the long Ryogoku Bridge and arrived back at Inagi’s residence near the Okomegura rice granary, daylight had completely faded.
Inagi was a minor hatamoto whose household consisted of four: Master Yataro and his wife, one maid, and one manservant.
At that moment, his master’s colleague Ikebe Kyōsuke was visiting and conversing while cooling themselves on the veranda of the eight-tatami room at the rear.
As the residence was compact, Ihei entered through the back door and proceeded directly to stand before the veranda of the six-tatami tearoom—where Mistress Okome peered through the lattice and addressed him.

“Oh, Ihei?” “That was quick.”

“Yes.”

“You seem out of breath—did something happen on the way?”

“Yes.” “Well... there was an urgent matter along the way...” Ihei said as he set down the unsettling bundle on the veranda.

“Actually... this watermelon...”

“What happened to it?”

“Yes.”

Since Ihei kept stammering over his words, Okome appeared to grow impatient and stepped away from the lamp to approach the veranda.

“So then, you went to Yushima and came back?”
“No, I did not go to the Yushima residence.”

“Why didn’t you go?”

Unaware of the reason, Okome grew increasingly frantic and reached for the cloth bundle placed before her eyes.

“Actually, that watermelon…” Ihei was repeating the same explanation.

“So then,”
“what happened to this watermelon?”

While saying this, Okome opened the cloth bundle just to be sure—and immediately let out a cry of surprise.
Ihei also cried out.
The watermelon had once again transformed into a woman’s severed head.

“What on earth made you bring such a thing?”

As expected of a samurai’s wife. Though momentarily startled, Okome swiftly covered the suspicious object with the cloth bundle and pressed down firmly from above. Hearing the commotion, both the master and the guest emerged from the sitting room.

“What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

“Ihei has brought back a human severed head.”

“A human severed head...”
“Outrageous!”
“Explain yourself,” Yataro demanded, his own shock evident as he pressed for answers.

He could no longer hesitate.
Since he had originally returned intending to report it, when Ihei recounted all the events that had occurred at the Shitaya guard post, Yataro—and naturally, the guest Ikebe as well—furrowed their brows.

“It must be some kind of mistake. That’s impossible!”

Yataro pushed his wife aside and flipped open the cloth bundle himself, but it was not a human head.
Yataro burst into laughter.

“Look at that. How could this be a human head?”

However, since it had indeed appeared as a human severed head to both Okome’s and Ihei’s eyes, Yataro brought out a lamp to the veranda and examined it thoroughly together with Ikebe. But as it was unmistakably a watermelon, Yataro laughed again.
However, Ikebe did not laugh.

“Ihei, having been involved in the previous incident, could perhaps be said to have seen the same phantom again. However, it was truly perplexing that even the Mistress, who knew nothing of it, had seen a human severed head.”
This could not be entirely dismissed as mere negligence by the guard post attendants or Ihei’s timidity.
“For safety’s sake, how about we split open that watermelon and take a look?”

To this, Yataro had no objection either.
So, deciding to test this by cutting it open, he thrust the dagger handle into it and twisted sharply—whereupon the watermelon split open like a crimson maw and spat out a single blue frog.
The frog had no time to leap before being pierced through by Yataro’s dagger handle.

“Could this be its doing?” Ikebe said.
Yataro split the watermelon cleanly in two and probed further inside, where several strands of hair were discovered.
The long hairs were tightly tangled around one of the frog’s hind legs, appearing as though binding it.

The hair seemed to belong to a woman.
When Yataro considered that the watermelon’s resemblance to an ugly woman’s face might be connected to some unseen strings being pulled, he could no longer laugh.
Okome’s face turned pale.
Ihei began to tremble.

“Ihei,”
“Go to the greengrocer immediately and investigate where this watermelon came from,” the master commanded.

Ihei left immediately but returned after a while and gave the following report before the master, his wife, and the guest.
According to the greengrocer’s explanation, that watermelon had not been procured from the vegetable market.
It had been received from the residence of a hatamoto named Obara Kazuma who lived near Yanagishima.
Obara, being an unemployed samurai in *kobushin-iri* and having a spacious estate, had turned the entire vacant land behind it into fields where he grew various vegetables—not only for consumption within his household but also sold them to nearby merchants as a sort of side business.
After all, since it was the lord’s leisurely pursuit, cunning merchants—taking advantage of it being cheaper than procuring from the market—would flatter and deceive to acquire the produce at bargain prices below market rates, making this their usual practice.

The greengrocer scowled upon hearing Ihei’s account.

“The vegetables we receive from Lord Obara’s estate are indeed excellent—both reasonably priced and of fine quality—but we’re often troubled by complaints from our regular customers.”
“Just the other day, we were scolded by a regular customer who claimed a small snake emerged from a pumpkin—and that too was one we had received from Lord Obara.”
“But now, for a frog to come out of the watermelon we delivered to your residence…”
“Though, to be fair, that area teems with snakes and frogs—naturally their eggs must’ve found their way inside the pumpkins and watermelons to grow there.”
“But claiming the watermelon looked like a woman’s severed head seems a bit too elaborate.”
“You may look all serious-faced there, Mr. Ihei—but you’ve got quite a knack for spinning scary tales.”
“Hahahaha.”

The greengrocer seemed to believe only the part about the frog leaping out of the watermelon but dismissed the matter of it appearing as a woman’s head as Ihei’s prank, refusing to engage with it at all. Ihei insisted it was an indisputable fact, but his poor eloquence led him to be out-argued in the end, and he ultimately withdrew without achieving anything conclusive.
However, it became clear that the watermelon had indeed been grown in Obara Kazuma’s field.
It was also discovered that a snake had emerged from a pumpkin at the same estate.
However, whether that snake too had strands of a woman’s hair entangled around it was something Ihei failed to ascertain.

With no further means of investigation left, Yataro had the watermelon finely chopped up and discarded in the trash pit at the back. The next morning, when he peered into the trash pit to check, only the watermelon’s rind remained—its crimson flesh seemed to have melted away like water. The blue frog’s corpse was nowhere to be seen.

The incident had been settled with that, but as Yataro still felt unsettled, a few days later while heading out toward Shitaya, he stopped by the guard post to inquire—whereupon the guards confirmed that the events had indeed occurred. And they said that they still found it suspicious. When asked why they had initially found Ihei suspicious and called him to stop, they replied that it was simply because his behavior had seemed questionable. Yataro thought it was only natural that a servant from the mountains, unfamiliar with Edo and wandering around lost, would be deemed suspicious. Moreover, as they continued talking, one of the guards let slip something else.

“Not only that, but the cloth bundle that servant was carrying also appeared to be dripping fresh blood, so we deemed it increasingly suspicious and conducted an investigation—but that too was this humble one’s misperception, leaving me with scarcely any honor remaining these days.”

Upon hearing this, Yataro furrowed his brows again but exchanged perfunctory greetings and parted ways there. He did not speak a word about how a frog and strands of hair had emerged from that watermelon.

After that, nothing particularly unusual occurred at Inagi’s residence. Yataro admonished his household members not to speak of the incident to others, but when the author of this account happened to overhear the story from Ikebe Kyōsuke on one occasion and pressed Inagi’s master about it, Yataro answered with evident annoyance that it was indeed exactly as reported. It was about four months after this incident that the servant Ihei was still serving without incident. He was unmistakably a man of substance.

Regarding the Obara household that had produced the watermelon, the author knew nothing at all, so when he inquired about it again with Inagi, Yataro answered while considering his words.

“Though it is in the neighborhood, I myself am not well acquainted with it.”
“However, I hear it’s an estate with rather unsavory rumors.”

As for what those rumors were, it seems he never gave a clear explanation.
The author, too, seemed not to press further into investigating, and the original article ended there.

Three

“Hah, your ghost story obsession really never wanes,” said Kurasawa, sitting on the veranda of the eight-tatami room and laughing as he fanned himself with an uchiwa.

With his relative’s funeral concluded the day prior, he had come to my room that morning asking if I’d found any intriguing articles in recently published essays. When I recounted *The Inagi Household’s Strange Incident* to him, he immediately dismissed it with derisive laughter.

According to the calendar, today marked the start of autumn; yet after three days of continuous rain followed by clear skies, blazing weather persisted daily—a heat so intense that stepping into sunlight felt like one might be seared.
Even so, the large trees thriving in this garden meant the air didn’t circulate well, but it wasn’t unbearable enough to suffer from the heat. I spread a rush mat on the veranda and sat facing Kurasawa, yet now that the ghost story I’d so earnestly recounted was being dismissed outright as unworthy of consideration from the very start, I couldn’t help feeling a certain dissatisfaction.

“You’re just laughing, but when you think about it, isn’t it strange? If it were just the servant alone who saw the woman’s severed head, that would be one thing—but since it was also seen by three guards at the checkpoint and by Inagi’s wife, it’s truly strange.”

“There’s nothing strange about it.”

“Then, can you explain it?”

“Of course,” Kurasawa maintained his composure.

“Hmm, interesting.”
“Let me hear it,” I pressed.

“Perhaps I’ll enlighten this superstitious fool,” he laughed again.
“What you’re fixated on is how that watermelon appeared as a severed head to multiple witnesses.”
“If only the servant had seen it that way, you’d accept it as simple illusion or hallucination.”

“So you see,”
“As I was saying—since it wasn’t just the servant who saw it…”

“Whether one person or a crowd makes no difference.”
“Don’t you know of ‘mass delusion’?”
“How can you accept group psychology yet reject mass delusion?”
“I’ll interpret the incident thus.”
“Now listen carefully.”
“The servant being an Edo-unfamiliar country bumpkin likely struck them as odd—his behavior naturally appearing suspicious.”
“Add to that his carrying a watermelon-shaped bundle—those checkpoint guards must have suspected it might be a head.”
“No—one among those three guards surely became wholly convinced it was a severed head.”
“Thus, to his eyes, fresh blood seemed to drip from the servant’s cloth bundle.”
“Since he’d wrapped a watermelon, perhaps the cloth was damp.”
“Deeming it suspicious regardless, they halted him for inspection—and upon opening the bundle, a severed head appeared.”
“To that man alone, it had appeared as a severed head.”
“Ah—once one cried ‘A head!’, the other two—already harboring private suspicions—fell under a kind of suggestive spell and likewise saw a head.”
“That is what we call ‘mass delusion’.”
“Once matters reach that stage, there’s no remedy.”
“When three samurai clamored ‘A head! A head!’, the honest country-born servant—bewildered by terror and panic—joined their delusion, making the watermelon appear as a severed head to him too.”
“Hence when they gradually calmed and re-examined it, the watermelon remained a watermelon—no longer resembling a human head to any eye.”
“Considered thus, there’s nothing mysterious about it.”

“Admittedly your explanation accounts for the guard post incident—but what about when the servant returned home and the watermelon turned into a severed head again? When the master’s wife unwrapped the cloth bundle without knowing anything, yet there was a woman’s severed head—how do you explain that?”

“The essay may describe the wife opening it without any prior knowledge, but that probably wasn’t what actually happened.”
“Before unwrapping that cloth bundle, the servant must have first reported the guard post incident.”
“Even a samurai’s wife is still a woman after all.”
“While scoffing ‘What ridiculous nonsense,’ she undoubtedly opened it with lingering unease.”
“By then night had already fallen.”
In the dim veranda corner where the andon’s light scarcely reached—peering fearfully into that gloom—the watermelon naturally appeared as a woman’s head once more.
“Of course it looked that way to the servant too.”
“But that too was just a fleeting illusion—once everyone composed themselves and looked properly, it became an ordinary watermelon again.”
“That’s all there was to it.”
“People back then were easily spooked by such trifles.”
“Finding a blue frog or strands of hair when splitting open melons? Mere quirks of nature—snakes crawl from gourds and eggplants too.”
“Frogs as well.”
“Weren’t Honjo and Yanagishima crawling with snakes and frogs in those days?”
“It was exactly these chance convergences that layered on the ghost story’s eerie texture.”

He declared offhandedly and laughed loudly once more.
Though I found it increasingly irritating, since I lacked the arguments needed to refute it outright at that moment, I regrettably had no choice but to remain silent.

Outside, the midday sun seemed to have grown ever fiercer, and the shrill cries of cicadas clamored through the air.

After a while, Kurasawa began to speak, laughing as he did.

“Even so, there’s a strange legend in my family—we’d made it a rule never to eat watermelons.”
“Of course, this has nothing to do with that story, but…”

“But you eat watermelons, don’t you?”

“I do eat them.”
“It’s simply that this household happens to have such a legend.”

I had often eaten watermelons with him in Tokyo.
Moreover, I had not known until now that his family had such a bizarre legend.

Kurasawa explained about that as follows.

“It’s said to be a story from two hundred years ago… It was a certain summer when field raids became rampant around here. Let me clarify—since this was during Edo’s golden age, our ancestors were living in Edo and had no connection whatsoever. At that time, there lived a farmer called Matazaemon here—an old family that maintained quite a large household. As I mentioned earlier, with field raids running wild, Matazaemon’s household had their hired workers keep strict watch every night. Then one dark evening, they caught someone sneaking into the watermelon field. A crowd rushed over and beat him down. Though it was one thief against many—they could’ve subdued and questioned him safely—but with so many hotheaded young men gathered there, they immediately started shouting ‘You damned thief!’ and beat him senseless with hoes and spades until he stopped breathing. When the master heard of this, he must’ve thought they’d gone too far—but it was too late by then. The victim wasn’t a man but a woman over sixty, dressed in filthy rags like a beggar. Even in death, her eyes stayed wide open—though nobody knew who she was. Given those times—a beggarly field raider—killing her apparently caused no real trouble. They dumped the body at a nearby temple before dawn and considered the matter closed. But afterward, rumors spread that her ghost haunted that watermelon field. Just your typical ghost story—nothing special—but then came the real ‘aftermath.’ Whenever Matazaemon’s family ate watermelons from that field, they’d fall sick and die. First Master Matazaemon died, then his wife, then their son. When their daughter took a husband, they plowed under that field. Yet the curse persisted—the son-in-law died too after eating watermelon elsewhere. So Matazaemon’s house ultimately perished because of watermelons. Of course, it must’ve been mass hysteria—but even afterward, those living here were said to suffer watermelon curses.”

“Does the curse persist even when the owner changes?”

“Well, that’s how it is. After Matazaemon’s household perished, even when new owners came to live there, eating watermelons still proved dangerous to one’s life. Thus, after the owners changed many times over, by the time my family moved here in the early years of Meiji, it had become like an empty house.”

“Do your family members not eat watermelons?” I asked with keen interest.

“My grandfather was a samurai and didn’t seem particularly superstitious,” Kurasawa explained, “but being an Edo-period man at heart, he rarely ate fruits—what they called ‘water fruits’ back then, mainly considered children’s fare.”

“Given his general disinterest in fruits even aside from the legend,” he continued, “he hardly touched watermelons.”

“My grandmother abstained too.”

“The superstition intertwined with their habits,” he said, fingers tapping the manuscript’s edge, “until my parents naturally stopped eating them altogether.”

“Persimmons? Mandarins? Bananas?” His laugh carried across the veranda. “Those they’d eat—but watermelons? Never.”

“I alone devour them shamelessly.” His teeth flashed white against summer’s glare.

“Though here—” his voice dropped conspiratorially— “their disapproving stares make me restrain myself.” He leaned closer, sweat glistening at his temples. “But in Tokyo? As you’ve seen—I gorge freely.”

“Ice-chilled melon flesh—” His throat worked as if tasting it anew— “there’s nothing finer.”

He kept right on laughing nonchalantly.
I, too, found myself drawn in and smiled.

“So, setting your family aside—is it true that everyone who lived here before and ate watermelons died?”

“Well, I don’t know for certain myself,” Kurasawa laughed, “but according to people around here, it’s by all accounts true.”
“Even if that were indeed fact, it would be either some sort of nervous reaction making people believe watermelons bring curses, or else an uncanny coincidence.”
“The world’s full of such uncanny coincidences.”

“That might be the case.”

I, too, had eventually surrendered to him.
The watermelon discussion thus temporarily died down, and then the topic of Kyoto came up.
I was scheduled to leave here in three or four days and then visit relatives in Kyoto.
Kurasawa had even suggested going together, but after an elderly relative died, he said it would be difficult for him to travel now, as he needed to attend the 14th-day and 21st-day memorial services.
“My presence or absence makes no real difference, but if I were to neglect the Buddhist rites and go out wandering, people would talk.”
“Since my father and mother are sure to raise objections as well, there’s nothing to do but postpone the trip for now,” he said.
“And then he asked me, ‘How many days do you plan to stay in Kyoto?’”

“I can’t stay that long.”
“About half a month，I suppose，” I answered.

“In that case, it’d be around the 27th or 28th,” he said thoughtfully.
“You’ll stop by here again on your way back, won’t you?”

“Well,” I mused.
The reason I felt compelled to show restraint toward his parents and household members—Kurasawa himself aside—was that imposing on them again would create various complications.
As if sensing this hesitation, he continued speaking.

“You really mustn’t hold back.”
“This being the countryside, we won’t make any special preparations—even if you stayed a hundred days alone, it’d cause no trouble at all. So please do visit on your return.”
“I’ll be counting on it—be sure to come.”
“If you leave Kyoto around the 27th or 28th, you can definitely reach here by the 29th, yes?”

“In that case, I’ll come on the 29th,” I finally promised.

“Depending on circumstances, I may not be able to meet you at the station, so please come straight here.”
“Listen.”
“The 29th.”
“I’d like you to come in the morning as much as possible.”

“Hmm, since it’s the hot season, if I take the night train from Kyoto, I should arrive here around eleven in the morning.”

“Around eleven in the morning on the 29th…”
“I’ll definitely be waiting,” he pressed.

IV

That day was sweltering throughout.

After sunset, as I was walking through the fields behind the house, Kurasawa came after me as well.

“How about I show you the site of that watermelon field?”
“It used to be kept entirely as vacant land in the past—but one can’t just say such things in today’s world.”
“I kept urging my father until we turned that whole area into tea fields nowadays.”

He led the way and guided me, and indeed, the entire area was now tea fields, with no trace remaining of the tangled watermelon vines that once characterized it. Rather than leaving a vast vacant lot to grow wild with grass and become a habitat for snakes and frogs, he explained proudly while gesturing around, turning it into such splendid cultivated land was far better. The fields too gradually sank into the deepening evening gloom as a cool breeze wafted in, accompanied by the sound of insects.

“Oh, how cool!” I blurted out.

“Unlike Tokyo, it really does become much more bearable once the sun sets.”

Having started to say this, Kurasawa peered through the dimly lit field beyond.

“Oh, Yokota’s here.
Why did he come around this way?
Maybe he followed us.”

“Huh? Yokota…,” I said, also looking around in the same direction.
“Where is Yokota?”

“There he is—standing right over there!
Can’t you see him?”

“I can’t see him. No one’s there.”

“He’s right over there.
Wearing a white outfit and a straw hat…,” he said, stretching up from between the fields to point.

Moreover, to my eyes, there was nothing to be seen.

Yokota was a young journalist employed by Tokyo’s XX Newspaper who had been assigned to the Shizuoka branch office since last year.
Since he had known Kurasawa since his student days, he would also come to visit the house.
I too became acquainted with him through Kurasawa’s introduction recently.
There was nothing strange about Yokota coming to visit, but his figure remained invisible to my eyes.
As I stood there dazed, somewhat baffled by what Kurasawa was saying, he left me behind and hurried forward as if to greet that person—then soon began calling out the name repeatedly.

“Yokota… Yokota….”
“Hmm, that’s strange.”
“What’s going on?”

“You’re mistaking something,” I cautioned him.
“Yokota was never here from the start.”

“But he was definitely standing there…”

“But isn’t the fact that he’s not there proof enough?” I mocked with a derisive laugh.
“If it were your so-called ‘group delusion,’ it should have been visible to my eyes as well…”
“I couldn’t see anything at all.”

Kurasawa fell silent, simply seeming to ponder something strange.

From where it had flown in, a single autumn firefly trailed a faint glow as it streaked past the tip of his nose—and as I watched, its shadow soon fell to the ground and vanished.

Three days later, I left Kurasawa’s house and went to Kyoto.
He came to see me off at the station and, having once again pressed me to return by the morning of the 29th at month’s end, parted ways.

Upon arriving in Kyoto, I sent a picture postcard to Kurasawa, but there was no response to it.
Knowing his usual negligence in writing, I didn’t find it particularly suspicious.

The 29th—a day looming before the 210th day—was a cloudy, turbulent sort of day, and inside the train was terribly sweltering.
A little past eleven in the morning, when I arrived at Shizuoka Station and got off the train while wiping sweat from my face, I spotted a young hired worker from Kurasawa’s household among the crowd on the platform.
He immediately ran over and took my bag.

Next, Yokota came into view.
He was wearing a straw hat and a white Western-style outfit.
The two who had come to greet me exchanged only brief salutations before guiding me in near silence to a café-style rest area in front of the station.

While waiting for the ordered soda water to arrive, Yokota was the first to speak.

“I thought there was likely no mistake, but even so, I was secretly worried until I could see your face.”
“I’ll come right to it—today at 2 PM, the Kurasawa family’s funeral will…”

“The funeral….”
“Who died?”
“Mr. Kurasawa Koichiro….”

I was so shocked I couldn’t utter a word. The hired worker remained silent, looking downward. The three cups brought by the waitress were merely lined up before our eyes.

“It was two days after you departed for Kyoto,” Yokota continued. “Kurasawa said he was going into town for leisure, and since he came to visit my branch office at dusk, we went to a Western restaurant called XX Hall and had dinner together. It was then that Kurasawa ordered watermelon…”

“The watermelon…,” I asked in return.

“That’s right. He ate the watermelon topped with ice. I ate it together with him. And so we parted without incident, but that very night, Kurasawa developed diarrhea and was treated by a doctor under the diagnosis of rectal catarrh. So at first he seemed to be making considerable progress toward recovery, but after the 20th he took a turn for the worse and finally developed symptoms resembling dysentery… In fact, before it could even be definitively confirmed as dysentery, he passed away the day before yesterday around six in the evening. They say eating the watermelon was to blame, but that night at XX Hall, there were five or six others who ate watermelon besides us. In fact, I ate it together with Kurasawa. Yet everyone else was fine—only Kurasawa ended up like this. I suppose his stomach was weak after all. In any case, it was such a dream-like occurrence that I was shocked. I immediately thought to send a telegram to Kyoto, but the postcard from you was nowhere to be found. Even so, it seems that before Kurasawa drew his last breath, he left instructions saying you would surely come around eleven in the morning on the 29th, so the funeral was to be held that afternoon… We’ve been awaiting your arrival based on that instruction.”

My mind was in such disarray that I didn't know what to say. What caught my eye amidst that turmoil was Yokota's white clothes and straw hat.

“When you went to XX Hall with Kurasawa, were you still wearing those clothes?”

“That’s right,” Yokota nodded.
“And the hat—also that straw…”
“That’s right,” he nodded again.

A straw hat and white summer clothes—that might have been Yokota’s sole outfit. Therefore, when one thought of Yokota, they might associate him with that straw hat and white clothes. That previous night, when Kurasawa had perceived Yokota’s figure as a sort of hallucination, it might have been natural that he saw the straw hat and white clothes. Moreover, the fact that he ate watermelon together with Yokota—who had appeared in that hallucination—and thereby cut short his own young life cannot be dismissed as mere coincidence.

That he often ate watermelon in Tokyo was something I also knew. Despite having said he tried to avoid them as much as possible in Shizuoka, he had eaten watermelon together with Yokota. He himself, who had wielded the notion of mass delusion to dismiss outright the Inagi family's strange occurrences, could not possibly—it seemed unthinkable—have fallen prey to superstition and been cursed by the watermelon. Could this too be mere coincidence?

He had told me to return without fail by the morning of August 29th.
I returned on that very morning and arrived precisely in time for the funeral.
I thought it at least some small consolation that I had kept my promise and returned on this day.

While turning these thoughts over in my mind, I boarded the car in front of the rest area together with Yokota and the others. The weather grew increasingly ominous, and the sky’s color—looking ready to unleash its fury at any moment—threatened my already darkened heart.