Well — this is something I heard from someone else.
I can't say for certain how much of it is true, since I never looked into it myself. But I've heard the same story from more than a few people now, so I thought I'd share it with you tonight.
There's a mountain in Fukuoka called Aburayama. During the day it's perfectly ordinary — families spreading out picnic blankets, children running around, that sort of place. But deep in the woods, they say there's a small lake that doesn't appear on any map. The locals have always called it Kitsune-ko — Fox Lake — though apparently no one knows its proper name, if it has one.
This happened in the autumn, about two years ago.
There was a university student named Yōsuke. The usual sort of story — he and three friends decided to go looking for Fox Lake on a dare. They entered the mountain trail just after eleven at night, four of them, torches in hand, talking and laughing as they climbed. But somewhere along the way, the talking stopped. One by one, they all went quiet.
No one could quite explain why. It wasn't fear, exactly. One of the friends said afterwards that he simply lost the urge to speak.
After about thirty minutes on the trail, the trees opened up, and there was the lake. The moon was out, so it was brighter than they'd expected. The surface glowed faintly, and with no wind at all, the water lay perfectly still — like a mirror, like something held under glass.
Yōsuke stopped at the water's edge.
The moon was reflected in the lake. Nothing strange about that — of course it would be. But one of the friends standing beside him felt that something was wrong. The shape of the moon in the water was thin, elongated. It had been close to a full moon that night, yet the reflection was a narrow sliver — and it was moving. Swaying slowly, back and forth. With no wind at all.
He looked more carefully.
Two ears, he said. Pointed, upright.
The light in the water had taken the shape of a fox. A tail fanned out softly behind it. And it was looking back at them.
At that moment, Yōsuke began walking toward the lake.
"Hey," one of the friends called out. Yōsuke didn't turn. "Yōsuke — hey —" He reached out to grab his shoulder, and stopped. Yōsuke's body was cold. Not the ordinary chill of an October night — cold like something pulled from deep water. The friend let go without meaning to.
Yōsuke knelt at the edge of the lake and leaned over the surface.
The water moved. Not a ripple, not something breaking the surface from below — it moved from within. As though something on the inside had shifted.
Yōsuke made a small sound and stumbled. The others grabbed him and pulled, and all four of them made their way back down the mountain.
Yōsuke didn't say a word on the way down. They walked him home, said goodbye. That was the last time any of them saw him.
A few days later, when no one could reach him, his friends went to his apartment. The room was there. His belongings were there. But Yōsuke was gone.
The police searched Aburayama — up the trail, all the way to the lake. What they found there were his shoes.
Placed neatly at the water's edge. Side by side.
That was all. No sign of Yōsuke anywhere.
…The shoes are what stay with me.
Taken off and set down carefully. Whether someone else arranged them or he did it himself — either way, to remove your shoes and set them neatly like that means you intended to go somewhere. That you were ready to step into something.
Perhaps the fox in the water was still waiting for him.
Or perhaps, on that night, the arrangement had already been made.
