There is a small Japanese-style washoku restaurant I sometimes go to. It is an old place with a wooden sign and a sliding door. Inside the floor is covered with tatami, the tables are low, and the smell of grilled fish and dashi hangs in the air. The menu is fixed, with set meals of rice, miso soup, simmered vegetables, pickles, and fish.
People in the neighborhood have spoken about the place for years. They say that if you stay there too late, unusual things begin to happen. I never believed it until one night I went there with my friend.
It was close to closing time. The dining room was empty except for us. The waitress came to take our orders, bowed politely, and walked quickly down the corridor toward the kitchen. Her footsteps echoed unnaturally against the floor.
While we waited, the light above our table flickered. We both looked up, then shrugged it off. A few minutes later, a clatter broke the silence. A pair of chopsticks had fallen onto the tatami from the table next to ours. The strange thing was that no one had been sitting there.
Not long after, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was light, like the touch of a waiter. I turned, but no one was there. When I looked forward again, the waitress was just then coming out of the kitchen, carrying our trays with both hands.
We ate quietly. The food was the same as always, but the silence of the room pressed down on us. After the last orders were served, the kitchen lights went out. I heard the faint sound of pans being stacked, and then there was nothing.
Suddenly a loud crash echoed from the kitchen. A pan had fallen to the floor. No one moved and no one spoke. The kitchen remained dark.
When the waitress returned with the bill, she said nothing about it. She bowed as usual, but I noticed her hand shaking slightly.
We paid quickly and left. As the sliding door closed behind us, the light above the entrance flickered once.
Later I tried to learn more about the rumors. I discovered that about fifty years ago, the owner of the restaurant had a violent quarrel with his wife. He struck her, not realizing she was pregnant. The baby was lost. The woman's mind gave way after that. Some time later she killed him in the restaurant's kitchen.
It is said that the man still lingers in the dining room, and the woman remains in the kitchen, waiting for the one who took her child.
When I think back to the tap on my shoulder and the chopsticks falling from the empty table, I cannot help wondering which one of them it was...
Perhaps it was the man?
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