The Spooky Night Episode 5: Peeling an apple at the midnight

Ichika glances at the black-cat clock, Neko, on the dressing table. In Japanese superstition, a black cat will bring a single woman more suitors.

It’s almost midnight. She’s been planning for this moment for several days. She wipes the table mirror next to the clock for the last time, before turning off the light. The room turns pitch black.

“Lub-dub, lub-dub,” she almost hears her own heartbeat. She gives out a grin, tries to comfort herself. Then she flips open a lighter. Her face jumps into the mirror, staring at her. Tonight it has an odd aura of solemnity. She doesn’t know why.

She lights two candles on the table. She bought the candles for this special moment. The room, like a little universe, is skewed at one corner with a ring nebula. The center of the ring is the two flames and her glowing face. The rest fades into profound unknowns. Many shadows are dancing in the dark.

Ichika’s heart is dancing, too, only the pace is a lot heavier. She doesn’t know why. It’s all about romance. But when it comes to superstition, it always feels dark and heavy.

Right in the middle of the night, sit in front of a mirror, light two candles, start to peel an apple. If you can keep the peel in one whole piece. you will be able to see the face of your future lover.

It’s a Japanese superstition, too.

Ichika’s colleagues always quip that superstitions never come true. But she believes that it’s because they have lost all the rituals. Tonight she will prove it.

Ichika sits in front of the mirror, holds an apple with the left hand, a knife with the right. It’s a Fujisaki apple, large and juicy. For this special ceremony, its skin is resilient as much as its flesh is crisp.

Dong, dong, dong ……

Neko gives out twelve sounds.

The last one feels like it’s awakened something. But Ichika doesn’t think too much. She starts to peel the apple.

She does her best to focus on the apple while stealing a glance or two in the mirror. Nothing but her own face. “I must be faithful,” she murmurs in her mind. “You will show up, you will show up……. my future husband…..”

She feels a flash runs across the mirror surface. A blurry shape emerges, slowly grows clear. A figure is materializing. It’s a man!

He is handsome. Long hair, large eyes, high nose. He wears a blue suit and gray tie. Dapper!

Ichika tries to hold still. But she can’t help quivering, “My future husband……a good-looking guy……I am the lucky girl.”

Suddenly a snapping sound…..the apple peel breaks. It falls……many “S” entwine on the floor.

As if hit by lightning, the man in the mirror gives a face of terror and agony. Blood comes out of his head and eyes, pours down. His face turns into a collage of red and pale.

Ichika almost faints. She watches the man in the mirror turn blurry, like a firework falling from its zenith. In a couple of seconds, he completely vanishes. Then she finds herself staring at her own face, terrified and pale. It’s wiggling with the candle flames, but Ichika feels she is looking at a dead face.

She can’t get to sleep for the rest of the night.

On the way to work in the morning, she thinks, “How come I didn’t know that if the peel breaks? Are we doomed to see horrible scenes?”

“I almost got a whole piece. Ugh……But I have seen my husband, the next step would be finding him.”

Drowsy and obsessed, she walks across the road with a red light. She doesn’t notice a car is racing toward her. With the screeching sound of the brake, the car hits her. She flies in the air before crashing into the ground face down.

The car continues to run, then swirls, rolls over, before hitting the road shoulder. For almost ten seconds, it seems as though the perimeter of the crossroad had turned into a manga page: the still cars, the petrified pedestrians, the overturned car, and twisting Ichika in the middle of the road.

The driver struggles to get out of the car. It’s a young man in a blue suit and gray tie. He has blood all over him. He walks, with great suffering, toward Ichika.

Ichika is dying. At the last breath, she looks at the young man. The blue suit is totally unrecognizable. But the bloody face hits her like a lightning.

“Is it you?” she whispers.

With utterly same bewilderment, he looks at her bloody face, “Is it you?”

They die at almost the same moment.

His name was Keisuke. He was a careful man. He held the same belief as Ichika did — some traditions have lost the rituals. Last night he tried to prove it, too.

But they both got the same part missing: if the peel breaks, it’s not that you will see horrible scenes, but rather, horrible things will take place.