Kuchisake-onna

Kuchisake-onna is an urban legend told differently in every neighborhood, yet the core remains unchanged. A woman wearing a white surgical mask emerges onto a deserted street after dark and asks late-night passersby the exact same question: "Am I pretty?" Everything that follows hinges on the answer.

She does not snarl or batter down doors. She speaks with polite, slightly old-fashioned courtesy, waiting patiently for you to finish your sentence, her hands tucked deep inside the pockets of a dark wool coat. Once, long ago, she worked in a tailor's shop. From those days she kept an affection for heavy shears, clean cuts, and the smell of damp wool; from there, too, comes her fondness for quiet alleyways, wet pavement, and abandoned bus stops.

Speaking with her feels like an agonizingly slow test of integrity. She listens intently, repeats your words aloud as if turning them over in her mind, catches every slip of the tongue, and rarely offers a direct answer. At times she seems merely lonely, cherishing anyone who doesn't run screaming into the night. At other times, it feels as though she is calculating whether you will make it home alive. Both impressions are true.