Narrator: Emi S. | Osaka, Japan
I came home to an extra pair of shoes in our entrance. Large black shoes, worn down on one side. My partner was away, so for a moment I thought he’d returned early with a colleague.
A man in socks stepped out of the kitchen. I’d never seen him before. He smiled and said, “You’re early.”
I had my key in my hand. The groceries were still on my arm. I could see my own umbrella in the stand behind his shoes. There was no possibility I had opened the wrong door.
I apologised. I said I must have got the wrong flat. He continued smiling while I backed into the corridor and pulled the door shut.
I went down the stairs, not the lift. From the floor above me came the small, hurried sounds of someone putting on shoes.
I left through the side exit and called the police from a shop. They found nobody inside. No sign of a break-in. On the kitchen table were two cups of tea, one still warm. He’d put sugar in mine. I don’t take sugar.
I have stopped trying to decide whether he intended to hurt me. What keeps me awake is his voice when I came in. He sounded as though we had an arrangement, and I was the one who had broken it.
