I Never Invited Them
In the West, there is something called a Ouija board.
Letters and numbers are arranged on a board. People rest their fingers on a small pointer and ask questions of something they cannot see.
Japan has something similar.
Kokkuri-san.
A sheet of paper, a ten-yen coin, and a few fingertips. The coin moves from one character to another, apparently answering questions no one in the room should know the answers to.
The name is sometimes written with three Japanese characters: fox, dog, and raccoon dog.
Despite its distinctly Japanese appearance, the practice is said to have roots in the table-turning séances that reached Japan from the West during the Meiji era.
Somewhere along the way, something that crossed the sea acquired the face of a fox.
I first encountered a version of it in junior high school.
We didn’t call it Kokkuri-san, though.
A rather sweet name for something that was supposed to communicate with spirits.
One afternoon after school, a group of girls were gathered around a sheet of paper.
I knew exactly what they were doing.
I had always loved horror stories, and anything involving ghosts was bound to catch my attention.
That didn’t mean I wanted to participate.
Watching from a safe distance suited me just fine.
Unlike Kokkuri-san, which uses a coin, Cupid-sama was played with a pencil or mechanical pencil. I believe it was a mechanical pencil that day. By then, we hardly used ordinary pencils anymore.
The paper had letters and a drawing of a torii, the traditional Japanese gateway associated with Shinto shrines.
It also had several little souvenir shops.
Yes, souvenir shops.
Apparently, Cupid-sama was supposed to choose a souvenir before leaving.
We invited an invisible visitor, asked a few questions, and then sent our guest home with a gift.
It was a surprisingly considerate arrangement.
Except that afternoon, our guest refused to leave.
When the girls asked whether Cupid-sama would go home, the answer was no.
They asked again.
No.
By then, the girls were making quite a commotion.
They had provided a gateway. They had provided souvenirs.
What more could a spirit possibly want?
Someone asked whether Cupid-sama was angry.
Apparently, yes.
Then came the obvious question.
With whom?
The pencil pointed to me.
Me.
The person who hadn’t even joined the game.
The girls seemed relieved, or at least that is how I remember it. Perhaps knowing the reason for the trouble was comforting enough.
I, on the other hand, was thoroughly unconvinced.
I hadn’t summoned anyone.
I hadn’t asked a single question.
I hadn’t even chosen the souvenirs.
Yet somehow, I was the one being blamed.
I no longer remember whether Cupid-sama eventually agreed to leave.
I only remember the absurdity of being singled out by something I hadn’t invited.
A few years later, when I was in high school, I met a spiritual medium through a family connection.
Before I had mentioned the incident, the medium asked whether I had ever been involved with something like Kokkuri-san.
That caught me off guard.
How did this person know to ask about that afternoon?
According to the medium, fox spirits had attached themselves to me.
I underwent a purification ritual.
I was also instructed to leave inarizushi -rice wrapped in sweet, seasoned tofu-at the back gate of my old junior high school.
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There was no shrine there.
No little altar.
No sacred fox statue.
Just an ordinary school gate.
We left an entire large platter of inarizushi there in the evening.
Early the following morning, my older sister passed by the gate.
The sushi was gone.
All of it.
The platter was still there.
Now, I know there are perfectly ordinary explanations.
Someone might have taken the food. An animal might have eaten it.
But an entire platter, between evening and early morning?
And how would anyone have known it was there?
This was long before social media could spread the news of a mysterious free sushi buffet outside a school gate.
Perhaps someone simply happened upon it.
Perhaps several hungry creatures had a very good night.
I have no idea.
But I couldn’t help remembering those little souvenir shops drawn on a piece of paper years earlier.
Back then, an invisible guest had been offered an imaginary gift.
Now, someone-or something-had apparently accepted a very real one.
At least the second offering seemed to have been appreciated.
The story should probably have ended there.
It didn’t.
By the time I was at university, I had left Fukuoka and was living in Tokyo.
I no longer remember exactly how the next encounter with a medium came about.
But I remember being told that around sixteen spirits, human and animal, were attached to me.
Sixteen.
Quite a crowd for someone with absolutely no psychic sensitivity.
When my parents heard, they warned me not to go to strange places.
Once again, I found myself on the receiving end of an accusation I couldn’t understand.
In junior high school, I had been blamed for upsetting a spirit without taking part in the game.
Now I was being warned about visiting places I had never visited.
I loved horror.
I still do.
But I have never been brave enough to visit a supposedly haunted location.
Ghosts in books and films are one thing.
Meeting one in person is quite another.
Besides, how was I supposed to avoid spirits when I had no idea where they were?
They don’t exactly put up warning signs.
I was being asked to take precautions against something I couldn’t see, couldn’t feel, and had never knowingly approached.
And apparently, there were sixteen of them.
Years have passed since then.
I still don’t know who moved that pencil.
I don’t know why the medium asked about Kokkuri-san.
I don’t know who ate the inarizushi.
And I don’t know whether Cupid-sama ever went home.
Perhaps everything had an ordinary explanation.
Perhaps the human mind is simply very good at finding connections between unrelated things.
I can accept that.
But one small complaint remains.
I never invited any of them.
Yet somehow, I was the one who got blamed, purified, warned, and made to provide the food.
So if something really is still following me around, I have just one request.
Next time, please bring your own souvenir. AI Disclosure This essay was written in collaboration with AI, based on the author’s personal memories, experiences, and reflections. AI assisted with language, structure, and editing. The experiences and perspectives expressed here belong to the author.
Originally published at https://fromquietjapan.substack.com on October 27, 2026.
