“Sumiko, I need your help-”
“Hold on a sec, I’ll be right there, Tsukina-san….” Sumiko hollered back, pulling her hair up into a bun. Her old hairpin somehow stayed in place, after all the years of wearing it.
She walked out of the storage room to the front of the fish-mongery. Her boss, Mrs. Tsukina Takada, was carrying a much-too-large-crate of fish.
“Oh!” Sumiko rushed out. “I didn’t expect such a large shipment!” She grabbed the bottom of the crate and helped the older woman carry it to the old wooden table. The nasty smell of fish couldn’t bother either woman, not after years of chopping them up.
“Well you know, we had to order more since some of ours have been going missing lately….” Mrs. Tsukina sighed. “Look, I’m tired–”
“It’s fine,” Sumiko interrupted. “I can work ‘till we close. I know you’ve been aching since your fall yesterday.”
“Really?” Mrs. Tsukina sighed in relief. “Thank you. But be careful, Niigata is dangerous this time of day. Don’t trust any stranger you see, got that?” The older woman fussed.
“I’ll be alright,” Sumiko promised her.
When the sun finally set on Niigata, Sumiko watched the western street lamps illuminate the marina. The open store stall was perfect for that sunset ocean breeze. She adjusted her dirty yukata and admired the water.
Things were mostly quiet; there was just the occasional patron on his way home from one of the red-light motels, grabbing a little something for his wife to cook as an excuse for being out so late.
Niigata was a colorful place.
But it certainly did surprise Sumiko when an older man, dressed in a raggy, threadbare yukata walked up to her shop. His wrinkled face bore a warmly cold smile. He said nothing, not until Sumiko spoke up first.
“Good evening sir, interested in our fish this evening?” Sumiko bowed to him, putting down the cleaver covered in pink fish guts.
“Salmons,” he said with a rasp, his eyes just a bit too wide. “Salmon. Please.”
“Yes, sir, we’ve got some fresh this morning. Will just one package do?” Sumiko asked, gesturing to the packages of salmon.
“Very good, just one package do.” He seemingly echoed her words, tilting his head awkwardly, with the same smile.
Sumiko told him the amount of payment required, and passed him the small package. But when the old man lifted his hand, there was no money. He simply lifted his sleeve to his face and-
Sumiko stared at him, her blood stopped circulating and her eyes quit blinking.
He wiped away his face.
He wiped it away.
All it had now was a blank canvas, a blurry skin mass that looked unreal. The ridges of its cheekbones and chin were there, but nothing else. It was blank.
Sumiko closed and rubbed her eyes.
“I apologize, sir, I–” But when she reopened them, its face was still a blurry, empty slab of flesh. Not only that, but it had moved closer to her. In shock, Sumiko stumbled backward, knocking over bloodied packages of fish, and ran off out of the back of the store into the night. She fled through the dirt street of alleyways of miscellaneous store stalls and booths.
She couldn’t process what just happened, but she didn’t want to, either. She just ran, looking for someone, so she wouldn’t have to go back to the store. Hope kept her running.
Rounding the corner, she spotted a courtesan woman walking alone in the other direction. Her red kimono was slightly damaged and looked about old enough to have belonged in the Heian era centuries ago, but she was otherwise looking regular. Was she a performer based on ancient courtesans? Maybe she had heard of whatever the old man really was, if she enjoyed history.
“Miss! Miss!” Sumiko ran to her and pulled on her sleeve, but when it turned around, it was the same as the old man.
Instead of features, the courtesan only had a blurred, empty face, coated in white courtesan’s makeup. But no eyes, or nose, or mouth, or eyebrows. It was a blurred white canvas, same as the old man.
Sumiko screamed and fell to the ground. Her heart skipped beats and her mind was racing. She trembled as she stood up, and ran the opposite way. Her hair was messy and her yukata was torn from the fall, but she kept running. She cycled through what happened in her mind, but then just kept running.
She tripped on a rock and face-planted into the dirt, but scrambled to stand up. She stopped on her own yukata and fell again in her delirium. Her mind screamed at her to run.
“Miss,” said a voice. “Your sandal–”
She flipped her head around, expecting to see another blank, blurry person to be ominously glaring at her.
But she was wrong.
A man, tall, decently good-looking, was holding her left sandal. Panting, Sumiko got up and ran to him. He was wearing one of those western suits, and it didn’t look like it was in terrible condition, just a little scuffed up. His hair was ruffled and short, and he had the whisper of a beard on his face.
“Did you drop your– miss, are you okay?” he asked as she approached, partially barefoot and sobbing.
“Help me—you have to help–”
“Calm down miss, are you injured anywhere? Please, try to think straight–”
His attempts to console her didn’t work, and Sumiko just kept bawling. She felt as though she would start throwing up any minute now, but she just had to tell him what happened. “Please! There were these two people, and they didn’t have f-faces! The woman, she has this old Heian-like kimono, she-she didn’t have a face at all! But the old man, he had one, b-but he wiped it off!” Sumiko cried, Sumiko cried, clinging to his side. “He wiped off his face! W-with his sleeve, please, you have to believe me, I’m telling the truth– He wiped it off! With his sleeve!”
“I do.” He said, lifting the sleeve of his suit. “Was it… like this?”
Author’s Note:
This piece of mine won the 2025 Nikki Delamotte Award at Ohio’s State Just Write tournament. It was inspired by the scary urban legend of the Noppera-bō. I hope you all enjoy!
Evelyn Buklad | 16 | Ohio, USA
