Disclosure Form, Room 302

IMPORTANT MATTERS EXPLANATION: SUPPLEMENTARY DISCLOSURE (PSYCHOLOGICAL DEFECT)

Property: Coop Kotobuki, Room 302. Studio (1R), 18.2 m², unit bath, balcony facing north.

Standard rent: ¥48,000. Rent offered: ¥24,000. Management fee: ¥3,000.

Matter to be disclosed: A previous resident (male, 60s) died of natural causes within the unit. The death was discovered late (approx. 3 weeks). Specialist cleaning and replacement of flooring and wallpaper have been carried out. No other incidents are known.

The lessee acknowledges that the above has been explained and that the reduced rent reflects it.

Explained by: Hattori (licensed agent). Lessee signature: 森本 健二

* * *

Notebook. 2 April.

Moved in. Took two trips in Daisuke’s van and one by bus with the rice cooker on my knee. The room is small but the window is good. You can see the roof of the old wooden house behind, with a persimmon tree in its yard and a stone lantern lying on its side.

Ms. Hattori was very proper about the form. She read every line aloud. When she got to “discovered late” she lowered her voice, the way people do when they say “cancer” in a restaurant. She said, if I had any concerns at any time, I should contact her personally. She gave me a card with a mobile number written on the back in pencil.

I told her I didn’t believe in that sort of thing. She said that was what most people said.

Half rent. I can send Mum an extra ¥20,000 a month now. I’m writing that down so I remember why I did this.

9 April.

Work all week. Night inspection shift at the plant, 22:00 to 06:00, so I sleep in the day with the curtain shut. Very quiet building. I have only seen one other resident, an old woman on the first floor who sweeps the entrance every morning at the same time. She bowed. I bowed. She looked at my door number for a while.

15 April.

Small thing. Took the towels off the rail this morning and they were folded in thirds. Lengthwise, then in three, then hung. I always fold mine in half. My mother folded them in half, everybody in our house did.

I must have done it half asleep. I came off the shift at six and showered.

16 April.

In thirds again. I watched myself do it this time. I took the towel off the rail to use it and when I put it back my hands folded it in three. Very neatly. Like a hotel.

It looks better that way, actually.

* * *

22 April.

Went to the supermarket on the way home from the plant and came back with a bag of Kaga bōcha. The roasted stem tea. I’ve never liked it. It tastes like a bonfire with a cold. Grandmother used to drink it and the whole house smelled of it, and I used to hold my nose.

I made a pot when I got home. It was all right. I drank three cups. Sitting by the window at seven in the morning in the grey light, watching the old woman sweep, with the bōcha. It seemed like the right thing for the room.

28 April.

Bathroom light was on when I got home. I’m sure I turned it off. I’m a quality inspector. Turning things off is my whole personality.

3 May.

Golden Week. No shifts. Daisuke asked if I wanted to go to the beach at Chirihama. I said I had things to do. I didn’t, really. I just didn’t want to leave the room. I sat here all day. I watched the weather on NHK and when the presenter said goodbye I said goodbye back. Out loud.

I’ve stopped turning the bathroom light off. I don’t know why. It’s comfortable. You wake up in the dark and there’s that thin line of light under the door, as if somebody’s in there. As if you’re not on your own.

6 May.

My sister phoned. I let it ring. I don’t know why I did that either.

* * *

14 May.

I found the other notebook today.

I was trying to get my winter futon into the top shelf of the closet, and the board at the back of the shelf was loose. Behind it, in the gap against the outer wall, there was a cheap notebook, B5, the kind you buy in a pack of five at a convenience store. It was dry and a bit warped. Nobody had found it when they did the cleaning, I suppose, because nobody cleans behind a closet board.

I’m copying some of it here because I don’t want to keep the thing in the room.

From the notebook in the closet:

Moved into 302. The agent was kind. A young woman, very correct. She read out the form. I told her I’m not a superstitious man. Half the rent.

The towels. I find them folded in three. I fold in half. Always have. Must be tired.

Bought bōcha by mistake. Can’t stand the stuff. Drank it anyway.

Left the bathroom light on again. I like the line under the door.

Didn’t answer when Keiko called. Haven’t spoken to anyone in eight days except the checkout girl.

I think the man before me folded towels in three. I think he drank this tea. I think I’m becoming the way he was. That’s a mad thing to write down. I’m writing it down so it’s somewhere outside my head.

The handwriting is an old man’s handwriting. Careful, square, a little shaky. There are no dates in it at all. The last few pages are only the weather, copied off the television each day, and then just numbers that I think are temperatures, and then nothing.

* * *

15 May.

I keep reading it. The thing that bothers me, I mean really bothers me, isn’t the towels. It’s the first page.

The agent was kind. A young woman, very correct.

The previous tenant was in his sixties and died three weeks before anybody found him. Ms. Hattori can’t be more than thirty. If he moved in, say, ten years ago, she would have been at school. I looked at the agency’s website. It says established 1971. There’s a photograph of the staff. She’s at the front, smiling. Nobody else in the picture is young.

So it was somebody else. Another young woman. It’s an agency, they hire young women. That’s what I told myself, standing in the kitchen at four in the morning with the light on in the bathroom.

17 May.

I have counted the nails on the inside of the closet door. There are eleven. Some are newer than others. Above some of them the paint is a different white, as if a calendar hung there for a long time and was taken down.

I don’t know why I counted them. It was something to do.

19 May.

Didn’t go to work. Phoned in sick. Didn’t phone in sick, actually, I just didn’t go. The plant called four times. I watched the screen light up on the table and it seemed very far away, like a ship’s light at sea. The bōcha’s nearly gone. I’ll need more. The old woman downstairs swept the entrance and then stood looking up at my balcony for a long time with the broom in both hands.

I feel all right. That’s what I want to put down. I feel calm. The room is very calm. Everything is in its place. The towels are in thirds. The light is on. I am not lonely at all, which is strange, because I don’t think I have spoken to another person in eleven days.

Tomorrow I’m going to the agency to end the lease. I’m writing it down so it’s outside my head.

* * *

20 May.

I went.

I want to put down exactly what happened.

It took me a long time to leave. I folded the towels. I made the bed. I turned the bathroom light off and stood there and turned it back on, because it felt wrong to leave the room in the dark, like leaving a guest alone. It was nearly noon when I got to the agency. The bus was crowded. I felt like I had been away from people for years.

Ms. Hattori was at her desk. She stood up when she saw me and bowed, and I saw her face change, very slightly, before she made it polite again. She said, Morimoto-san, are you well? You’ve lost weight.

I said I wanted to end the lease.

She said of course, of course, there was a form for that, one moment, and she went into the back office. While I waited I looked at the counter. There was a printer at the end of it, the big office kind, and on the tray there was a small stack of paper, still warm when I touched it. On top was a property flyer for Coop Kotobuki, Room 302, studio, north-facing balcony, very quiet, ideal for a single working person, rent ¥22,000.

Under that was this.

* * *

IMPORTANT MATTERS EXPLANATION: SUPPLEMENTARY DISCLOSURE (PSYCHOLOGICAL DEFECT)

Property: Coop Kotobuki, Room 302. Studio (1R), 18.2 m², unit bath, balcony facing north.

Standard rent: ¥48,000. Rent offered: ¥22,000. Management fee: ¥3,000.

Matter to be disclosed: A previous resident (male, 30s, Morimoto) died of natural causes within the unit. The death was discovered late (approx. 19 days). Specialist cleaning and replacement of flooring and wallpaper have been carried out. No other incidents are known.

Remarks: At the time of discovery the bathroom light was on. Towels found folded. Notebook found in unit; disposed of with effects.

The lessee acknowledges that the above has been explained and that the reduced rent reflects it.

Explained by: Hattori (licensed agent). Lessee signature: