I’ll never leave my apartment ever again... if I can die, then they’ll have to remove my corpse. Oh, Reiko-chan! Did you reach this point in your life already? Is this why you took your life? I can understand it now... I have far less to offer the world than you did. I understand! This is why you killed yourself! You couldn’t fight any longer! When life deals you an impossible hand, there’s nothing else you can do. What’s left in the world? For you, for myself. Oh, Reiko-chan... I will follow you. We’ll meet in another life, and hopefully... hopefully I’ll be the man I couldn’t be.

I heard a noise clearly despite the fact that my head was immersed. There were no lobes to fill with liquid. This mortal method of hearing was obviously not how I was somehow able to hear clearly. Air may not be the medium which carried sound waves to me. Perhaps my whole body was an ear, so to speak.

I resurfaced in a rush, sending water flying all over my bathroom. The sound of a special song filled my bathroom. My suit pants on the floor were soaked from the huge tsunami I’d caused. I saw the phone’s screen glowing through the fabric. The chipper song mocked my grief, and yet comforted it. Caramelldansen.

I’d never assigned the ringtone to anyone else in my contact list, not that there were many on my list. I knew it must be her phone ringing mine. I tripped, face planting on the soaked floor of my bathroom as I left it. It didn’t hurt much, having no nose to break. I rummaged through my pants’ pocket, almost tearing them apart to get at it. When my no-eyes beheld the name on it, confirming my wild hope, I could only stare at it, disbelieving it could be true. Reiko-chan!!! It was her phone number! I answered eagerly. If she were truly alive, if it could be, I’d be... I’d be the happiest thing on the face of the earth! What I’d become wouldn't matter if so.

“REIKO-CHAN!” I exclaimed loudly into the phone. “Oh, Reiko-chan! I missed you so much!” I sobbed in relief. I felt so stupid I’d believed word printed on a newspaper I never read regularly. It would have been very easy to prank someone with the use of a decent printer. No, it couldn’t have been the case. There’d been articles online about it supporting what was printed. They’d determined the corpse found in the street beneath the building was Tanimura Reiko. I was glad that experts in forensics could be proven wrong! I was overjoyed and cried harder.

No words came in reply; the line was very quiet. “R-Reiko-chan... it’s you right? Ah... a-are you her mother or father?” I asked, stumbling on my words. I wondered why she or whoever it was would remain silent after calling my number.

Instead of her cute voice, the voice which finally responded was incredibly creepy. I couldn’t assign a gender to the voice, not even a species. “Susumu,” it said.

I gasped. “V-voice changer?!”

“Susumu,” the creepy voice resumed. “You must find Noh-face before the twenty-fourth hour this day. Reclaim your face, or it will possess yours for eternity. You will lose your identity, doomed to live a noh-life. Even your memories will disappear. If you want to live a normal life, surrender is not an option. Go, or die tomorrow.” It’d said Susumu instead of tomorrow, but I knew exactly what it meant.

“W-What’s the point?” I exclaimed. “Where’s Reiko-chan? Put her on the line! You have her phone! How?”

No other words came in response. I only heard creepy laughter. The owner of the voice seemed to be a mysterious benefactor, but the laughter was cold like glacial ice or space itself. “Where is she? You bastard? Tell me!”

“You are a yokai. Welcome.” The line disconnected and the last words were tinged with something I could only define as insanity.