by Fuyumi Ono
Mm, Munetaka nodded. "He was still little. It's not that I wouldn't care if he were bidder, but it's just so pitiful."
"I understand."
"But, maybe now he doesn't have anything to lose, it might be better that it was now. If he'd had a job, if he had a girlfriend, that might be even more pitiful."
That can't, Aoi started to say interrupted by a sob. To those left behind it didn't matter if they were an adult or a child. It still meant that a family member had died.
Tamotsu prodded her lightly. "Nee-san." Aoi blinked, quickly wiping her tears.
"I'm sorry. Even though I came to pay condolences to you."
"It's all right. I need to pay condolences to you. It really was a shame."
Yes, Aoi nodded.
"Uhm... Where is Masao-kun?"
Munetaka made a complicated expression, with a warped smile. "Upstairs. He said it was too much effort and he won't come down, holing up in his room."
"But that's... even though it's the night vigil?"
Munetaka smiled bitterly. "I didn't like Hiromi much. He doesn't enjoy everyone in the house's attention being turned towards Hiromi."
"That's..."
"Even now that he's died he doesn't make any expression over it," Munetaka said making an expression as if smelling something unpleasant somewhere. "Oh, is all he had to say. He looked like it was completely someone else's problem. Even if we tell him to come down, he says it has nothing to do with him." He's that kind of guy, Munetaka said as if spitting the words out.
"... I was upset over my older brother's death, and during the all night vigil, I ended up saying something cruel to Masao-kun. I thought that I must apologize for that."
"Masao did something rude before you did, didn't he? I'll have to apologize for him, too."
"Not at all."
"Masao won't come down. His room's on the second floor. Sorry, but could I have you go up by yourselves?"
Aoi nodded and urged Tamotsu on.
Weaving between condolence callers, they went up to the second floor. Tamotsu knew which room was Masao's. Tamotsu tried to open the door but it wouldn't open, as if locked. He tried knocking on the door.
"Oi, Masao," Tamotsu called out but there was no response from within. "You're in there, aren't you? Oi."
"Masao-kun, it's Aoi. Please, open the door."
For a while there was no sign of life from inside. After how many times knocking or calling out, there was the sound of movement and the door fiantly opened. The inside of the room was dark. As if trying to peep through the crevice, Masao's face faintly peered out.
"Uhm.... That is, I am sorry for your loss." Aoi said, Masao turning away.
"It's not nothin' to do with me."
That's terrible, Aoi started to say but her words stopped. Tonight she had come to apologize. She should not say anything to blame him.
"That is, I'm sorry about before. I think that what I said was mean."
Whatever, Masao said through a cracked voice.
"Sorry. We were a little upset, so."
".....Oh." Masao said lowly, closing the door. There was the clinking sound of a lock.
"---Masao." Tamotsu knocked on the door. Aoi called out to him too but there was once again no response from within.
They spent some time outside of the door calling to him but as Tamotsu breathed a sigh, Aoi stopped knocking. She wanted to cry something terrible.
Tamotsu gently nudged her, turning back saying it couldn't be helped. They thought they'd come to apologize another time.
Masao leaned heavily against the door frame for some time, listening to the sounds in the hallway.
Light footsteps carried far off down the hallway; when hearing them go downstairs he pulled away from the door, staggering to the bed. Without any power in his legs, he collapsed into a seated position as if his back gave out. His remaining strength gave out and he fell, the back of his head bumping the wall but Masao gave no particular response. His eyes were blank, open as he looked at the ceiling. Those eyes looked possessed. The conjunctiva had a strangely blueish hue to them. His face was white, with no color to his lips either. Those lips were licked by a tongue equally as devoid of color. His throat was inexplicably dry. He wanted water but movement was tiresome.
".....Water."
His mumbled voice did not reach past the door.
Masao just continued gazing at the ceiling, once again murmuring for water.
4
Again there was the presence of somebody outside the window.
Natsuno left his desk and tried opening the curtain a bit. For some reason or other the window was closed. So all that he could see out the window was his own reflection in the glass.
A pattering noise came from within the room; he turned to see in the light of the lamp that the English dictionary he had left open on the desk had just closed. ---Yes, there would be no sound unless something moved.
Natsuno wasn't sure whether it was something that could rightly be called a presence. Those may have been more things like the sounds of breathing, the sounds of clothes rustling, or the sound of one moving about, those such sounds, and it might not have been his hearing that sensed it so much as his sense of smell. He wasn't particularly into the occult nor did he think this was anything supernatural. It was the feeling that it was probably something so slight as to not even pull at one's conscious thoughts, that nothing could indicate anything to specifically say "this" was it.
(...Someone's stare.)
Yes, even if 'presence' was understood as something like that, he didn't know how you could tel someone as staring at you. He certainly had had the feeling that he was being watched by someone, and turned around to in fact meet someone's gaze. He had the feeling from experience that a gaze was something that could be sensed but he didn't know why one could feel it. But certainly, he thought he could. And now that was what he was feeling.
Someone was watching. Possibly outside the window, lurking in the darkness, in the underbrush.
(......But, who is it?)
It isn't Tohru, he felt. If Tohru had come to say his farewells, then in that case, the someone watching Natsuno now wouldn't be Tohru. He had the feeling that coming by just once to say farewell was a very Tohru-like action. But coming twice to visit wasn't like Tohru. To always be so lingeringly regretful and full of lingering affection was completely out of character for Tohru.
(Then, who is it?)
What ended up floating to mind was Megumi after all. If it was once it wouldn't be Megumi. But if it was two or more times in a row, he had the feeling it was Megumi. If it wasn't Megumi herself it was someone like Megumi.
He put his face to the window but as expected he couldn't see any human shapes in the darkness. He moved away from the window, closed the curtain and breathed a sigh. He felt that something that was like a gaze being blocked off. That was a relief but it was terribly reminiscent of when he'd felt Megumi.
(But, Shimizu's dead...)
There was no Tohru, nor Megumi. There was no way they could come to see him. Returning to his desk, by chance he ended up looking at the disorganized box he had thrown a random assortment of things into. The dictionary's box. He had stuck it between his books to serve as a filing case.
Natsuno took out a single post card from within that. While thinking to throw it away, some how or another it ended up placed inhere.
Yuuki Natsuno-sama
The addressee's name was written with mindless pretension. An out-of-season late summer greeting card. Something that shouldn't have been delivered delivered right to Natsuno's hand.
Natsuno stared at that and moved to throw it into the trash when stopped by something. He returned it into its prior box carelessly. It wasn't like he had any intent to hold onto it. It was just that on the otherhand he didn't have any particular intent to throw it away either.
Natsuno perked up his ears, took a breath and opened up the closed dictionary once again. He still hadn't gotten through today's
itinerary yet. To Natsuno this wasn't an act called "studying" it was a "price" he had to pay in order to get out of the village. If he didn't do it, then his wish would become all the more far off.
Closing off his awareness of anything outside the window, Natsuno began with his dictionary.
5
On the afternoon of October 6th, when Yuuki went to creole a sign saying they were not open for business was hung. While he turned to head back, somehow he didn't feel like returning home, so with no other choice he wandered the neighborhood absently. After making a lap he ended up in front of creole again to see that the sign saying they weren't open was taken down. While thinking Oh? he pushed on the door, which opened.
"Welcome," Hasegawa smiled from the counter.
"Just a bit ago you were closed for business. I thought for sure that you were closed today."
Aa, said Hasegawa with a wry smile. "Sorry about that, yes? We were just out for a bit. There was a funeral."
"---Funeral?"
"Yes. In the shopping district there is the rice shop, yes? Their child has died. I am not personally familiar with them but as I do know them from around the shopping district, I went to pay my regrets."
Again, Yuuki thought. Looking slightly down, he became caught up in his thoughts.
"Is there something the matter?"
"No---this is definitely strange. Again, is the only thing I can say. Mutou-san's place's son had just died. There's something to it if this many people are dying. Don't you think so?"
"That is..." Hasegawa was visibly dismayed. "That certainly seems it maybe the case, but."
"This is just how it is in the country, I had heard. That might be the case. However, that would only be if there were half as many deaths as this. No matter what common sense you try to shine over this, I think it's strange." Yuuki said, looking at Hasegawa's face."Do you think it might be an epidemic?"
Hasegawa sunk into silence as if unable to find his words. Hanging his head with that face, it was clear to Yuuki that Hasegawa had suspected as much himself.
"But, the town hall has not said anything...."
"Haven't you thought that they're keeping it quiet? That they fear the village going into a panic."
".......That may be the case."
There were only Yuuki and Hasegawa in the shop, where unfitting, bright piano music echoed. As they remained in that silence, the door of the shop opened. Perhaps Tashiro entering into the shop could sense the strange mood in the air; he looked between Yuuki and Hasegawa.
"Something----wrong?"
Yuuki repeated his assertions. He could tell by his expression that Tashiro had suspected it himself too after all. Everyone thought that it was strange. Nobody said anything about it.
"Would it not be better to make sure, I wonder?" Yuuki said, Tashiro thinking for a bit. Yuuki continued. "Of course, they might be keeping it quiet because they don't know how to handle it. If so then that's fine, I'll cooperate too. But, I can't just stay quiet like this. Even though we know it's strange, I for one cannot just remain uneasy without confirming anything."
"There is that, huh," Tashiro nodded with a pensive expression. "That would be better, huh?"
It was Tashiro who called the Ozaki Clinic. He called Toshio and broached it by saying there was something he wanted to talk with him about a bit. With that, Toshio could guess what the topic of the conversation was. He only replied "Got it," in a low voice without asking about what. He said he would come to creole. He had to be back before the afternoon examinations began but when he asked if that was all right, Tashiro agreed. Once again Hasegawa hanged the closed for business sign.
Toshio really did come without delay. Yuuki had seen him at the hospital, or even here, a few times so it wasn't their first meeting. As soon as Toshio came in, he very casually ordered a coffee from Hasegawa, sat down at the counter and lit a cigarette.
The one to spark the talk off was Tashiro. Out of everyone there he'd known Toshio the longest.
"So, uhm... The Murasako's Hiromi-kun died, huh."
Yeah, Toshio nodded without a hint of shyness, but somewhere, some unease rose up in him.
"Mutou-san's place's oldest son died too. Somehow, you know? It's like there's the feeling there are too many deaths continuing."
"And?"
"We were talking about it here, but---it's not an epidemic or anything, is it?" Toshio exhaled smoke while looking directly at Tashiro. Tashiro hastily added on. "No, I mean, if there are circumstances making you keep it quiet, we'll cooperate. It's just between us, so if that's how it is could you just tell us? It feels very strange, it's kind of like, without an answer---"
Toshio crushed out his cigarette and sighed lightly. "It's not an epidemic. At least, none of those who've died to this point died of a disease classified as an epidemic."
"---Really?"
"I'll bet my medical license on it. Tests've all turned up nill. At least of those I've overseen, not a single patient was suffering from an infectious disease."
The one to push the topic further was Yuuki. "Then, that this many have died is all a coincidence?"
"I'll acknowledge that it's been too many to be a coincidence."
"But it isn't an epidemic? There's no way that it is communicable?"
"Epidemics and infectious illnesses aren't something you can talk about as two separate things. But, there isn't any proof that it's communicable either."
"There's---no proof?"
Toshio propped his chin in his hands. He looked quietly into the coffee Hasegawa had put out for him and lit a new cigarette. "I can't say anything. I'm sure that it's not an epidemic, and there's no proof that it's spreading either. I don't want to say something careless and set the village into an uproar, so that's as much as I can say."
"But, Toshio." Tashiro interrupted, Toshio falling into silence. He seemed to be hesitating over something, thinking, before he opened his mouth.
"I can't say anything but---How about this? If my family died, I'd cremate them."
Yuuki gazed at Toshio's profile for a moment, then met Hasegawa and Tashiro's gaze with a nod. --As they thought.
"....Understood," Yuuki gave an exhale. It became a heavy sigh. "Then, in other words, it's not an epidemic, is it."
"It's not an epidemic. You can trust me on that."
"This is just something I'm asking as idle chit-chat but, there have been a lot of deaths. And sudden deaths at that. That's why---well, I'm feeling concerned about my health. Is there anything I should be careful about?"
Toshio didn't look at Yuuki. "Let me see. I'd be careful of anemia, if it were me. Poor complexion, looking sluggish, no appetite, shortness of breath---if you're feeling like that, it'd be best to see a doctor."
"What are the subjective symptoms?"
"There aren't," Toshio said as if throwing the words down. "If the person themselves complained to the people around them that they were feeling sick, they wouldn't be dying without warning, would they? The person themselves doesn't have any awareness of it. Lately, there've been a lot of patients like that too. The person themselves doesn't have the slightest awareness of being sick, it's the people around them who get worried and bring them in. Those kind of patients are a hassle. Even if you talk to them they're absent minded. I'm not sure whether they're listening to what I say ot not, if you ask them a question, they're slow to answer. It's hard to make communication with them. It's like you're talking to a doll or something. They make a face like it's somebody else's problem."
".....Is there any preventative method?"
"Who knows? It's pretty banal but be sure to rest and eat, I guess. It'd be better not to drink the groundwater. Probably better to handle dead bodies and waste with gloves, too. Also be sure to exterminate pests. Especially ticks."
Is that so, murmured Yuuki. They probably didn't know the infection route. And it also meant there was a chance that ticks or something were the carriers.
"And... if they're seen by a doctor quickl
y, they'll be cured?"
Toshio glanced fleetingly at Yuuki then breathed his smoke in the opposite direction. "-----Nope. If it's plain anemia, it'll cure but if not, it's tough, to be honest."
Yuuki held his breath. At last Toshio turned to face him. "I trust the customers at this shop. Not to be particularly stupid, I mean. I assume you won't take rash actions, won't to go into a frenzy of discrimination."
Yuuki nodded. "And, we will not spread irresponsible gossip. Please trust us in this."