I'm writing this in an impoverished town at the foot of a famous Japanese mountain.

As a younger man, I'd lived in America, watching anime, reading manga, learning Japanese. I was an insufferable ass. Perhaps it was cultural appropriation... I prefer the term Japanophile as it seems to show a profound love of the country and culture while also maintaining some semblance of its stranger quirky connotations. It's weird, sure. Leave me alone. I just really love Japanese culture and I don't feel the compulsion to defend it any more than that.

I met my girlfriend on a forum posting website sometime last year. It wasn't long after we'd started facetiming that I booked a flight to her home, deciding to leave all of my life (what little there was of a life) behind. Everything that I needed was ahead of me. Most of the people back in America tend to think of me as an Otaku or a Weeb and honestly, I don't care.

Yumi met me at the airport with her grandmother. I attempted to do all of the proper introductions as best I could while speaking to her grandmother in a broken version of her language. The older woman nodded along, tapping her cane, and smiling at my flustered behavior, easing my worried anxious mind. I know the language, but I still sometimes have a difficult time with it if anyone speaks it too quickly or uses lesser known words often. As the older woman led Yumi and I out of the airport, I could hear her saying something like, "He will do nicely." She approved. Nice. It seemed as though she liked me and to be honest, that was one of the things I'd been worried about as Yumi had told me that her grandmother was rather proper and strict.

We loaded into an old van with Yumi in the driver seat, her grandmother in the passenger seat, and me sitting in the back. I happily stretched my legs and settled into the dizzying effects of jetlag. Yumi explained as she drove into the countryside that I would be staying in the guest room while I settled in. Without even thinking, I blurted out that I had believed we would share a room. Yumi was an adult woman. There was no reason for us to be separated. I was being a guy, I know. I honestly wanted to fall asleep in her arms on my first night in my beloved Japan. But as I mentioned this, her grandmother shifted in her front seat, squinting at me.

Yumi laughed this off so as to break the tension. "No. You can't do that until we've married."

Married? She'd never mentioned anything like that before. I nodded at her grandmother and put my rumination aside. "Yes. Of course. I'm sorry." I assumed that she said this to quell her grandmother's anxiety. Who knew? Maybe she really did feel like she didn't want to sleep with me until marriage. That was fine too. I loved her after all.

The van took us alongside rice paddy fields and bamboo patches and beautiful draping trees that I couldn't recall the names of off-hand. Yumi had previously told me that she lived with her grandmother in a secluded farming community and so this didn't bother me initially, but each time the van turned a corner, I expected Yumi to call out that their home was just up ahead and that we'd be able to rest soon. This didn't happen. The van continued and the shadows drew longer. By the time we approached the small abode, my eyes were fluttering my dreams into existence and the moon was well in the sky.

I pulled my luggage from the van, hoisting it up the wooden porch steps of the home. Her grandmother led me to a bedroom, sliding the door open and ushering my tired body into it. For sure, I'd thought that sleeping atop a tatami mat would take some getting used to, but it wasn't long before I was asleep.

I woke up about an hour later to the smell of hot tea. After checking my phone and seeing it was only 11:00pm, I left the room, sliding the door shut ever so slowly and carefully so as to not wake anyone. I tiptoed to the kitchen in my white socks, the smell of tea wafting in my direction.

It was Yumi, craning over the kitchen counter and reaching for a spoon hanging just above the sink. "Hey." I said.

She jumped, slipping forward, and knocking the wooden spoon from its resting place. Yumi looked at me with wide stunned eyes then relaxed. "Oh, it's you." She said coldly.

"Couldn't sleep?" I asked.

She shook her straight black hair from side to side. "Sometimes I have a hard time sleeping so far from civilization. So, I'll make some chamomile. Tends to knock me right out."

I smiled at her and approached her. "I'm glad to be here. I was tired earlier."

She nodded. "I'm glad you're here too." I went over to where the spoon had fallen and picked it up, handing it over to her. "Would you care to join me for my nighttime tea?" she asked.

The two of us took a metal tray containing our small cups and the teapot out onto the cool porch. It was peaceful, even if a little creepy. I come from the city and so anytime I'm out in the countryside, regardless of locale, I'm always unsettled by the noises of bugs, wild animals, rustling bushes. Give me the sound of blaring traffic and screeching tires any time you'd like. We shared the drink, munching on butter cookies and holding hands.

"I don't like it here." she said absently.

"Really? You said over the phone that you enjoyed living with your grandmother."

"I do, but it's this place. It just doesn't feel right."

"I think I know what you mean."

We sat quietly for a little while longer, finishing off the tea with our eyelids now drooping and our yawns coming more frequently.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

"You sure you don't want to share the night together?" I asked.

"Some other night." She gave me a smile that almost hid the fact it was forced.

"Po, po, po."

Her complexion paled and her hand felt absent in my own. At first, I'd thought she had been the one making the noises.

"Po, po, po."

I twisted in my seated position and glanced out towards the forest in front of us. There, just before the trees, was a tall line of overgrown bamboo that went out in either direction, only splitting for the driveway.

"Po, po, po."

"Let's go inside." said Yumi.

I saw the white hat of a tall figure with black hair just peeking over the very top of the bamboo. Let me explain to you why this was so startling. The bamboo at its highest was seven feet high. The perpetrator must have been a giant.

"Okay." I said, helping her move our tea equipment into the house.

I couldn't sleep for the rest of the night. I'd heard that bit of folklore before. That was Hachishakusama, a demon that tended to kidnap children; it was an old legend. I'd read about it years ago on some internet forum and although I'd never considered myself a believer in the supernatural, there was no denying the similarities.

Every sound in the dark room gave me chills and just as I was about to close my eyes and succumb to the pillow, I could see a tall slender figure cut out from the moonlight of the nearby window; it began tapping on the glass, repeating "Po, po, po, po, po."

At breakfast, Yumi and I recounted the story of the previous night to her grandmother in great detail, with me adding that I'd been tormented while trying to sleep by the ghastly thing.

"Foolish children believing in such foolish tales. No wonder you're not ready to marry." said her grandmother while looking up from her tamago gohan. The old woman rapped her chopsticks against the bowl. "Calm your nerves if ever you hope to be a good father."

I sheepishly ate my food and decided to go for a walk on my own.

This trip was not going the way it was supposed to. I walked down the dirt driveway, kicking rocks with my hands in my pockets. I heard quick footsteps coming after me from the direction of the house and I spun quickly, sure that the tall pale woman-thing was coming after me. It was Yumi and I felt my shoulders relax.

"I'm sorry about that." she said, matching my pace.

"It's alright." I sighed a long sigh and put my hand out for her to hold as we walked. She crooked her arm into mine and rested her head on the end of my shoulder.

"Hachishakusama." I let the name fall into the open air in front of me.

"Don't," I felt her tense beside me, and I could feel her nails actually press into my bicep. "Don't say that name."

"So, the demon is real? You believe that?"

She shook her head. "Only kids believe in ghosts, right?"

"Right."

That night, I woke up to the same strange tapping on the window. "Po, po, po."

I looked directly at the window. I could actually see the details of her. Long black hair that hung all the way down to her knees. Her white hat. Her smiling black eyes. Her distinct mannish voice. "Po, po, po."

That's when I noticed that there was something under the blanket with me. As I pushed the covers away in a hurry, I grimaced. My body and the tatami mat were covered in black dirt or ash. I scrambled from the bed, slipping through the door as quickly as my body would allow. Once in the hallway, I steeled my nerves and tried controlling my breathing. Then I heard it. At first, I thought it was the demon, but it wasn't. The sound was coming from the grandmother's room. Chanting? I moved down the hallway in my boxers, approaching the bedroom door. I could smell incense. And something else. Sulfur.

I could hear the old woman's voice through the door.

"Life for life.

Soul for soul.

Take what you need.

Leave us be."

My breathing picked up and it felt like a gerbil was running on a treadmill in my guts. I half expected to have a small varmint protrude from my mouth.

I slid the door gently in its frame, peeking in through a crack. The old woman sat in the center of her room. There was a black ashy substance covering her forearms and hands. She held an incense lantern in her hands above her head. Sitting across from her was Yumi, on her knees and praying.

"This is fucking crazy." The sentence came out before I could even comprehend what I'd done.

Yumi's head shot to meet my eyes. The eyeballs in her skull were pitch black. She opened her mouth and long strands of black hair began spilling out of her maw. The hair whipped around in a frenzy, as though it had a mind all its own. I gagged at the thought of having something like that in my own mouth. The long black hair kept coming. And kept coming. The hair was coming towards me. The old woman stayed entirely static. Her chanting was over, but she maintained her closed eyes and concentrated demeanor. Yumi craned over onto her hands and knees, choking out the hair. Then pale dead fingers squirmed their way out from between her parted teeth.

Then came an entire forearm. Then a shoulder. Then a head. "Po, po, po."

Hachishakusama palmed the floor with struggling erratic motions as it pulled itself from the insides of my girlfriend. "Po, po, po."

I slammed the door shut and ran for my life. I pelted down the hallway, out the front door, down the driveway, through the rice paddy fields. I ran until my chest was on fire and my legs began to spasm.

Every sound in the countryside's open air caught my attention and so it was that every step I took forward in my tired state was soon followed by a look over my shoulder.

I walked all night and was eventually picked up by a startled farmer sometime after the sun began to peek over the horizon.

Moneyless and pantsless, he pitied me, giving me a pair of spare trousers. The farmer gave me a ride to the nearest town and I've since been taken up in the kindness of strangers.

I tried calling home yesterday. I asked to borrow a local shop's phone. After picking up the receiver and dialing the number out, I expected to hear my mom's voice. Instead, it was Yumi.

"Hello? Please, come back. I love you. I miss you. Please, come back."

I stayed silent on the line.

Yumi giggled and the sound over the phone ceased. Then, "Po, po, po."

I hung up the phone and left the shop.

I see Hachishakusama in every passing reflective surface. It follows me everywhere I go. I can't sleep. When I eat, it violently comes back as viscous sludgy black vomit. Every time I catch my reflection, she's standing closer to me, her lips parted and coming for my mouth. No one else sees it. Even as I sit in this run-down internet cafe, I can see her in the shine of the computer monitor.