Strange Buildings

Strange Buildings is the second book in a series following Strange Houses. The narrator, a Japanese writer whose first book investigated mysterious floor plans, explains that the earlier book's success prompted readers to send him stories about their own strange buildings. He compiles eleven case files and brings them to his friend Kurihara, an architectural draughtsman, to find how they connect.

Each file centers on a building with an architectural oddity or dark history. In File 1, Yayoi Negishi, a reader who contacted the narrator after reading Strange Houses, shows him the floor plan of her childhood home, which contains a dead-end hallway serving no purpose. Research reveals a construction truck killed a child on the street outside while the house was being built, and Negishi's mother had the front door relocated to avoid the accident site, leaving the hallway as a corridor to nowhere. The mystery deepens when the narrator learns that, years later, Mrs. Negishi asked about having her daughter's bedroom entirely removed from the house but abandoned the plan after hearing the price.

File 2 examines a house in Shizuoka Prefecture where a teenage boy killed three family members. A forensic cleaner named Tatsuyuki Iimura reveals the house was a mass-produced model built by Hikura Homes, a construction company that prioritizes low cost over livability and sells the identical design nationwide. The narrator speculates the layout nurtured the family's violence.

File 3 presents an excerpt from a rare 1940 book by Uki Mizunashi, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist. In 1938, while staying at her uncle and aunt's house in rural Nagano Prefecture, Uki discovered a watermill in the nearby woods with a waterwheel but no water source. Inside, she found a bare room with a large square alcove and inferred a hidden room alongside it. Turning the waterwheel moved an interior wall to reveal this hidden room, where Uki found the decomposing body of what she identified as a female egret with one wing tip missing. She later theorized the structure was a penance chamber. File 5 traces a house in Shimojo, Nagano Prefecture, back to this watermill. The narrator's editor argues the "egret" was a metaphor for a woman's corpse, and local history reveals a maid named Okinu fled into those woods in 1938 after her affair with a local lord was discovered. The narrator finds the house was built around the watermill's original structure.

File 4 recounts how businesswoman Shiori Hayasaka stayed overnight at the mansion of her school friend Mitsuko Hikura, the daughter of the Hikura Homes president. The house was built for Mitsuko and her grandmother, who wore a floor-length skirt and long white gloves. The morning after, the grandmother fell down the stairs and later died. Hayasaka believes the staircase was deliberately designed without adequate support, and that Mitsuko hid her grandmother's walking aid at her father's instruction.

File 6 reproduces an undercover magazine article about the Rebirth Congregation, a cult in western Nagano. A journalist describes the Hall of Rebirth, where Masahiko Hikura, president of Hikura Homes, delivers sermons about sin. The cult's leader, the Holy Mother, is a woman missing her left arm and right leg. The ritual consists of members sleeping overnight in a large room; the next morning, men in white vestments discuss floor plans with members at outdoor tables. During the visit, a man accosts the Holy Mother, screaming that she promised his son would be saved. The narrator assembles the journalist's sketches and realizes the building is shaped like the Holy Mother's body.

File 7 presents the journal of Naruki Mitsuhashi, a nine-year-old boy neglected and abused by his mother and her boyfriend. His entries describe visits to a kind man he calls Uncle, who feeds him and shows him a room containing a doll, calling it "the heart of my house." Naruki is taken away and dies from neglect. Files 8 and 9 investigate a house fire that killed both parents of the Matsue family. Chie Kasahara, who grew up next door to the Matsues, suspects her father committed murder in their house while speaking to her through a homemade string phone as an alibi; Hiroki Matsue, the surviving Matsue son, suspects his own father. Kasahara reveals her father later killed himself in a house where a room had been removed and a doll lay beside his body, and that among his belongings was a photograph of Naruki.

File 10 recounts how Akemi Nishiharu was imprisoned with her young son Mitsuru in an okito, a secret yakuza-run brothel disguised as an apartment building. Her neighbor Yaeko, a woman missing her left arm who had been adopted after being found as a baby in a hut in the woods, lost her right leg saving Mitsuru from oncoming traffic. A man named Hikura paid Yaeko's debt and took her and her daughter away. In File 11, the narrator helps Ren Iruma, a designer and acquaintance, find a hidden room in his childhood home containing a doll matching the Holy Mother's form. The house's floor plan also matches the shape of the Hall of Rebirth.

Kurihara maps the files' locations and identifies the Hall of Rebirth as the geographic and narrative center. He deduces that the building mirrors the Holy Mother's body: Members sleep in the "womb" to undergo symbolic rebirth. The expensive product the cult sells is house remodeling by Hikura Homes, reshaping believers' homes to match the Hall. All members are parents of children born from affairs, and the cult exploits their guilt.

Kurihara connects the files. Mr. Kasahara, Naruki's Uncle, and the man who accosted the Holy Mother are the same person. Kasahara was having an affair with Mrs. Matsue, Hiroki's mother, who became pregnant and killed herself, unable to hide the pregnancy from her devoutly Catholic husband. Mr. Matsue burned the house to destroy the evidence and died in the fire. Kasahara joined the cult, remodeled his house, and tried to save Naruki, his illegitimate son. When Naruki died, Kasahara killed himself. Mrs. Negishi also had a child from an affair; her efforts to reshape her house reflect the cult's doctrine. Kurihara traces the Holy Mother to the watermill: Yaeko was the baby born to Okinu, whose arm was injured in the desperate circumstances of her birth. Masahiko Hikura later founded the cult with Yaeko as its figurehead. After the cult disbanded, the Hikura family concealed Yaeko in the Gunma mansion, where her fatal fall was engineered.

The narrator then uncovers a darker truth. He realizes Akemi lied: The okito sexually exploited the children, not the mothers. Mitsuru confirms this, revealing his walk into traffic was a suicide attempt. Masahiko was a pedophile client who purchased Yaeko's young daughter, later marrying her. The narrator theorizes the daughter created the cult as revenge, forcing Yaeko to publicly display the body she was ashamed of and endure accusations from desperate believers. Kurihara also revises Okinu's death, suggesting Uki's uncle and aunt found Okinu alive and took the baby by force, severing Okinu's hand when she would not let go.

In the final chapter, the narrator finds Mitsuko Hikura, now an elderly care worker estranged from her family. She describes a childhood of manipulation in which any defiance was met with punishment. She confirms her father asked her to hide the prosthetic leg of her grandmother Yaeko, the cult's former Holy Mother. Terrified of her mother's retaliation, Mitsuko complied. That night, she believed she changed her mind and returned the leg, but after Yaeko's death she found it still locked in her bookcase. The return had been a dream her mind constructed to shield her from the truth. Mitsuko speculates that Yaeko overheard the plan through the thin wall and chose to fall deliberately, sacrificing herself to protect her granddaughter. Mitsuko confesses responsibility for Yaeko's death and acknowledges her career in care work as an attempt at atonement.