About a Place in the Kinki Region p.5: "Masshiro-san" - an article published in the August 1993 issue of a monthly magazine
It's said that any child living in this apartment complex will start to act strange.
The condominium was constructed about six years ago during a real estate boom where establishing new towns was very lucrative. They cut into the side of Mt. ●●●●● and turned an area of land there into its foundation. It was a fair distance from the closest city but was still within easy driving distance, which made it popular right out of the gate—the complex was already entirely reserved the moment it opened. It included over a thousand apartment units and had a park alongside several other amenities. All in all, it more closely resembled a small town. It starkly contrasted its surroundings, having a brand new apartment complex sit amidst a rural area inhabited by locals living in much older homes.
The condominium was mostly occupied by families who wanted to live somewhere away from the inner city to raise their children. Mothers could be seen in the park with their children during the day and would often visit their neighbours to chat over tea. Quite quickly, a community was forming between all the mothers there.
D-san and her family were one of many families to move in as soon as the complex opened. Her family consisted of herself, a housewife; her husband, a company employee; their 10-year-old daughter K-chan; and their three cats which they'd had for a while.
D-san would see her husband and K-chan off in the morning, then spend her day getting through household chores, all the while joining in the other mothers in the complex for chats—essentially just gossip sessions.
She only noticed something strange was going on after a few months of living there.
K-chan was behaving quite oddly. She'd always been a bit disobedient, but that was typical for a girl her age—this was something different. She started to exhibit some concerning behaviour like intentionally stepping on the tails of the family cats, or crushing tomatoes while at the grocery store. D-san would scold her, and this would seem to work for a while, but she would soon start acting out again. This behaviour really troubled D-san.
After discussing the problem with her husband, they wondered if perhaps the move was causing stress for K-chan. One day, D-san was complaining about the issue with some of the other mothers she was close with—as it happened, the other mothers with children around K-chan's age had similar experiences.
They described things like their children catching butterflies and plucking their wings then burying them in the ground, dropping flowerpots from balconies, or kicking baby strollers. Ever since moving to the apartment complex, the children had been playing malicious pranks they'd never engaged in before.
D-san remembered that just the other day she'd chased off a group of children, around elementary school age, who were ripping flowers out of the flowerbeds and tossing them away.
D-san and her husband began to suspect that the elementary school all the children attended might be the root cause. Due to the apartment complex's location, all the children living there ended up going to the same school, and so they spent a lot of time there. The school had been around for a long time but only used to see attendance from local children. To accommodate the influx of new attendees from the apartment complex, the school saw some reconstruction and hired a number of new staff. Thus, the students at the school were a mix of 'local children' and 'apartment complex children.'
While attending an open day at the school, the two of them asked one of the teachers if the children had been misbehaving at school lately. The teacher couldn't think of anything relevant but, after considering it for a bit, mentioned that the apartment complex children seemed to have some sort of secret game they were playing.
Supposedly they would refuse to let the local children play, and some of them would run crying to a teacher about it because they felt left out. This had been causing some trouble for the teachers.
When D-san and her husband returned home from the open day, they asked K-chan about the game. She didn't want to say anything at first, but explained the game after her parents promised to keep it a secret.
The game is called "Masshiro-san". None of the kids knew how it started, but they all played it. Adults and local children weren't allowed to play, so it was a secret between all the apartment complex children.
"Masshiro-san" is similar to a game of tag. It typically includes around four to six players, but the number isn't set in stone. Firstly, the group is split into boys and girls. The boys then play rock paper scissors until they have a single loser, who becomes Masshiro-san. While the boys are doing this, all the girls run away. The boy who became Masshiro-san then chases after the girls and tries to catch one. The other boys help him catch her either by telling him where to go, or blocking the girl's escape—but they are never allowed to touch her. Only Masshiro-san is allowed to touch any of the girls.
If Masshiro-san catches one of the girls, he requests a 'substitute' from her. The nature of the substitute varies—it could be an eraser, it could be a sock. Regardless, the girl must give Masshiro-san a substitute. If she doesn't, something bad will supposedly happen.
The game only ends when the captured girl presents her substitute. It doesn't matter how long it takes her, whether it's hours or even days. Until she hands it over, she's not allowed to say a single word.
When she heard the game described to her, D-san felt very unnerved. This didn't feel like a simple children's game to her, but something else entirely.
That same night, after everyone had gone to bed, D-san heard the sound of their front door closing. Since she slept in the same bed as her husband, she knew it must have been K-chan, who slept in a different room.
When she came out into the hall, K-chan was taking off her shoes by the door as if she'd just came back home.
D-san demanded she explain what she was doing going outside in the middle of the night, to which K-chan explained she was "handing over a substitute." When asked who she was handing it over to, she only said it was "Masshiro-san." When asked what she had handed over, she mumbled "Mi-ke," the name of one of their cats.
There was a small pool of blood in the front room, and a vase lying on the ground nearby had some bloody cat fur stuck to it.
Shortly thereafter, D-san and her family moved out of the apartment complex.
Translation Notes 1-8
The translation notes are organised by part. Please be careful of spoiling yourself by reading ahead.
This is an amateur translation of the web novel 近畿地方のある場所について as posted to kakuyomu.jp by the author 背筋. The web novel is freely accessible to the public, and this translation has no relation to any other adaptions. I claim no rights or ownership of the content presented.