Ch.25Chapter 4. Where People Live (4)

Kaneko effortlessly jumped over the closed school gate.

“…Looks like she’s really going through with it.”

When Yuuki spoke with disbelief, Ikeda put her hand to her forehead.

“She’s the type who really does what she says she’ll do. Whether it’s positive or negative. There’s no point trying to stop her. If not today, she’ll get in eventually. …But.”

Ikeda looked at us as she spoke.

“Are you two going to join her? You don’t really need to.”

Yuuki and I looked at each other.

So… Yuuki had said Kaneko “seemed to have spiritual sensitivity.”

I wasn’t sure what she based that on, but I guess Yuuki had her own way of recognizing these things.

Yuuki shrugged at me, and I nodded.

In stories like this, saying someone has spiritual sensitivity doesn’t just mean they can see ghosts. Seeing how calm Yuuki was, it didn’t seem like anything serious would happen, but since she came all this way, she must be preparing for any situation.

“There should be teachers inside anyway, so whatever.”

…

Ah, I hadn’t thought of that.

Of course there would be someone on duty or security.

“Haah…”

After hearing Yuuki’s words, Ikeda looked up at the sky and sighed deeply.

Yuuki approached the gate like Kaneko had,

Tap, clank, tap.

She too jumped up easily, grabbed the gate, and kicked once in the middle to get over. It was a smooth, natural movement. I wondered if she had experience with this sort of thing.

“Ugh!”

Ikeda ran toward the gate, but naturally couldn’t jump over it.

“…”

I didn’t bother trying and instead looked at the other side of the iron gate.

It wasn’t made entirely of solid metal; it had gaps like iron bars where you could clearly see through to the other side. Actually, it wasn’t that high. Someone over 170 centimeters could probably peek their face over the top.

The problem was that I was probably not even 160 centimeters tall. The same went for Ikeda.

Yuuki silently opened the gate from the other side. There was no padlock. Since people were inside, they just needed to unlock it from the inside at the right time.

After all, how many people would break into a prestigious high school in the middle of the night?

Ikeda pressed her lips together and entered through the opened gate. I followed behind her.

Fortunately, the area was generally dark, and by sheer luck, there was no one passing by.

Click.

After locking the gate again, we headed into the school.

Yuuki and Kaneko’s tops were already slightly wet. They must have briefly closed their umbrellas when jumping over.

We opened our umbrellas again and splashed through the puddles toward the school building.

No matter how you looked at it, we were walking too casually for people who had snuck into school, but what could we do? It’s not like we had come with some grand plan.

“Ugh… School in the middle of the night…”

Ikeda spoke with her shoulders hunched.

“We’ll definitely get in big trouble if we’re caught…”

Hmm, it seemed she wasn’t afraid of ghosts. Well, Ikeda apparently didn’t believe in ghosts at all.

“Don’t worry. That’s why I specifically suggested meeting on a rainy day. The person on duty is probably sleeping in the duty room, right? Who would want to come outside in this rain?”

Well, that’s true, but…

Surely this school has a security system.

“Besides, we’re not trying to get inside the building anyway. Ikeda, where did you meet Noboru?”

“Oh, ah.”

At Kaneko’s words, Ikeda seemed to realize something.

“Now that you mention it, I met him in the school courtyard.”

“I thought so. You wouldn’t approach a guy in front of others. And you couldn’t have just approached him anytime. You couldn’t have asked just anyone to join without some kind of pretext.”

“Y-you’re right. It was late April. During the club recruitment period.”

I stared in amazement at Kaneko, who was naturally piecing things together.

What’s this? Is she possessed? This isn’t like the usual Kaneko.

“Hehe.”

Receiving our stares, including Ikeda’s, Kaneko touched her forehead with her finger and said,

“Despite appearances, I do have some basic deductive skills as the Occult Club president. What do you think I was doing before coming here?”

Ah, I see.

Since we were supposed to meet at 9, there must have been plenty of time. Even Yuuki, who had to take a 20-minute subway ride, and Kaneko and Ikeda, who seemed to live nearby, must have had quite a bit of time left. Probably almost two hours.

Of course, being Kaneko, she probably thought about this even during class. So that would add another two hours or so of thinking time.

Come to think of it, this school is fairly prestigious. Given the setting that it’s “known for high deviation scores,” this person must have above-average academic abilities. She might be a sports scholarship student, but seeing as she quit her club, that’s probably not the case.

We followed Kaneko, who was walking confidently ahead.

And then, we entered the dimly lit courtyard.

Assuming it was designed for students to use only during the day, there were very few streetlights. The spaces between the distant streetlights were completely dark and barely visible.

I took out a flashlight from my pocket.

Except for Ikeda, the rest of us had brought flashlights like me, anticipating this situation. Thanks to that, even Ikeda could walk without much discomfort.

“Hmm… around here?”

“S-so?”

“Good, everyone turn off your flashlights.”

Following Kaneko’s instruction after hearing Ikeda’s response, we all turned off our flashlights.

“Ugh.”

As our surroundings were completely enveloped in darkness, Ikeda let out a trembling voice.

“If we keep them on, we might get caught by a teacher patrolling inside, right?”

Kaneko said to Ikeda. Her voice had a hint of excitement in it.

“…S-so. Now that we’re here, what are we going to do?”

Ikeda asked Kaneko, perhaps trying to forget her fear.

“Hmph. Of course I came prepared.”

Kaneko said as she rustled through her pocket to take something out.

What she pulled out was—

“Kokkuri-san.”

A Kokkuri-san paper sealed tightly in a ziplock bag to protect it from the rain.

Ikeda slapped her forehead.

I was also making a somewhat incredulous expression—

“That should work fine.”

Yuuki said with a nonchalant expression.

Ikeda and I turned to look at her.

“It’s the simplest form of spirit summoning, right? It’s not like we’re using blood or hair. It’s probably not dangerous.”

Ikeda and I gaped in astonishment.

“What… are you talking about?”

“I live at a shrine. My grandfather and father do related work, and I sometimes work as a shrine maiden when needed.”

At Yuuki’s words, Ikeda’s mouth opened wider.

“You’re quite an impressive junior! How about creating an Occult Club with me? I’ll make you the vice president.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t particularly want to make a hobby out of something I already do as a job.”

“Is that so? That’s a shame.”

Kaneko shrugged and placed the paper on a nearby bench. The ziplock bag kept the paper from getting wet. How thoughtful.

“Alright…”

Then she took out a coin and placed it on the plastic bag.

The human eye is truly a mysterious organ; even in the middle of such darkness, I could easily see what Kaneko was doing.

From the school building, they probably couldn’t see us clearly. It was raining, and no one would be looking this way in detail anyway.

“So, who wants to join me?”

Kaneko, crouching in front of the bench, turned to look at the three of us.

I shook my head.

If I participated, an outer god would probably talk to me instead of a ghost. That would defeat the purpose of the séance.

Ikeda was vigorously shaking her head, clearly scared.

“I’ll do it.”

Yuuki said that and handed her umbrella to me.

Then she joined Kaneko under her umbrella, crouching down.

“Alright, then…”

Kaneko placed her finger on the coin. Yuuki did the same.

The two closed their eyes—

“Kokkuri-san, Kokkuri-san, please come to us~”

—and chanted the spell.

…

“D-did it come…?”

Ikeda muttered.

“…Nakano-san?”

…

No response.

“Huh?”

“It seems to have failed.”

“R-right? There’s no way ghosts exist.”

“But it worked in the Literature Club room.”

“That was… probably a magnet or something like that.”

“Who would set up a magnet?”

Kaneko asked with a slightly irritated voice, then let out a long sigh.

She seemed much more disappointed than I expected. Maybe she’s not just playing around? Perhaps Kaneko is genuinely serious about the Occult Club in her own way.

After that, Kaneko tried the ritual several more times with Yuuki, but—

Neither Kokkuri-san nor Nakano Noboru responded.

*

In the end, our hour-long excursion ended without any results.

Ikeda apologized to us and then led the disappointed Kaneko back to their neighborhood.

I found myself sitting in a family restaurant, having fallen for Yuuki’s persuasion.

Yuuki’s persuasion consisted of vanilla shakes and french fries.

Tsk, luring people with food, how underhanded.

Still, the vanilla shake and french fries were delicious.

“Of course. We missed the most important condition.”

Yuuki evaluated today’s séance that way.

“Condition?”

“With these things, the intention of the entity being called is more important than the caller. Magic circles, summoning circles, spirit calling—they’re all about gathering ‘things the ghost likes.’ Conversely, when driving them away or preventing them from coming, you gather ‘things they dislike.’ You know, like drawing a circle with salt?”

“…”

“So, I think Senior Ikeda saw that ghost because… certain ‘conditions’ were met. Today, those conditions weren’t met.”

“Conditions… Should we have done it during the day?”

“If that ghost prefers daytime, then yes. But I think there’s something more important.”

Yuuki took a long sip through her straw and said,

“The most important thing is emotion. Have you heard that people who are possessed by vengeful spirits often find themselves in similar situations or share similar emotions with those spirits? It’s the same here. So… we probably need to evoke the same emotions that Senior Ikeda felt at that time.”

Yuuki tapped her fingers on the table, thought for a moment, and then,

“Hmm, maybe loneliness? You said all the seniors who were close to Ikeda graduated last year, right? So she must have felt lonely. And there would have been desperation too. The Literature Club that she enjoyed with her seniors might have been in danger of closing. With those feelings overlapping, and by chance passing through the courtyard when no one was around—she coincidentally encountered that ghost.”

That’s a lot of coincidences.

“Most supernatural phenomena are encountered by chance. People killed by yokai just happened to run into them, and encountering a murderer is also ultimately a coincidence, right?”

Yuuki seemed to read my expression and explained while picking up a french fry.

“And actually, the chances of encountering supernatural phenomena at school are higher. There’s a strong sense of community, and emotions are heightened. It’s an age when all sorts of feelings are felt intensely.”

She talks like a grown adult.

I thought as I sipped my vanilla shake.

“…So that’s why you were so relaxed.”

“Yes. And usually, if something big is going to happen, there are signs.”

Yuuki shrugged once after saying that, then put a french fry in her mouth.

*

I have to go to work tomorrow.

That thought crossed my mind as I entered the school entrance, cutting through the rain.

After school ends, I’ll take the subway and walk through the rainy streets to get to the maid café. There, I’ll change into my maid uniform and work.

Hmm, when I first started, I thought it was a pretty good job, but it’s really tiring to work consistently without weekends.

But it’s not like finding another job would be any better. I’d still be working on weekends anyway.

Sighing deeply, I took off my socks, dried my feet, and changed into indoor shoes.

I walked sluggishly to the classroom, still feeling sleepy despite having been up for an hour and a half during my commute.

If I wait a bit, Miura, Fukuda, and Yamashita will arrive together, and I’ll wave to greet them.

Yuuki passes by in the corridor, looks through the window, makes eye contact with me, and I wave to her again.

If I wait a little longer, Ms. Suzuki will come for homeroom, then classes will start—

—yes, it was a day no different from usual.

Until lunchtime.

“Kurosawa?”

Just as I was about to get up and head to the cafeteria, Ms. Suzuki entered the classroom.

With a somewhat pale expression, she approached me and said,

“Do you have a moment? I’d like to talk to you about something.”

I could feel Miura, sitting behind me, looking at me with very concerned eyes.

“…Yes.”

Well, what could I, as a student, do but accept a teacher’s request?

At least Ms. Suzuki wouldn’t harm me.

Feeling Miura’s worry seemingly soaking into my clothes, I stood up.

*

When I followed Ms. Suzuki to the faculty office, Ikeda and Yuuki were already there. Each seemed to be accompanied by what looked like their homeroom teachers.

And I realized.

Ah, we’ve been caught.

But strangely, Kaneko wasn’t there. As far as I knew, she should be in the same class as Ikeda.

“Is this the student?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Ms. Suzuki nodded in response to the man in gym clothes standing behind Ikeda.

“Were you also at this school last night?”

Despite his intimidating appearance, his voice was somewhat gentle. Perhaps he had heard about my situation from Ms. Suzuki.

I looked at Ikeda. She gave a slight nod. Her face was pale.

“…Yes.”

“I see.”

The male teacher closed his eyes, exhaled deeply, and then said,

“I won’t ask what you were trying to do at school last night. Nothing’s missing, so that’s fine. But there’s something you need to know.”

The male teacher spoke as if forcing the words out.

“Today, Kaneko didn’t come to school.”

…

Huh?

“We called her home and found out she hasn’t returned since she went out last night.”

What?

I looked at Yuuki.

Yuuki also looked at me with a slightly stiff expression.

“Did you notice anything unusual about Kaneko when you saw her yesterday?”

Ms. Suzuki asked me.

I thought for a moment and then shook my head.

Kaneko… wasn’t much different from usual. She became a bit sharp after the failed séance, but she quickly returned to normal.

Blink.

I blinked.

…No way.

“…I see.”

The male teacher nodded and said,

“Kaneko returned home around nine last night and left again a little over an hour later. You probably went home around that time too. But Kaneko left the house again afterward. The police are currently investigating Kaneko’s whereabouts, but I thought it was important to hear your stories too. Anything, no matter how trivial. Is there anything that comes to mind?”

“…”

I looked at Ikeda and Yuuki one by one.

Neither of them seemed to have mentioned what we did yesterday.

I slowly shook my head.

Ms. Suzuki and the homeroom teachers of Yuuki and Ikeda looked at each other with worried expressions.

*

“Nothing bad happened to Kaoru, right?”

“Senior Ikeda.”

Yuuki tried to calm Ikeda, who was pacing frantically around the club room without even sitting down, but Ikeda just trembled, biting her nails.

“Is it my fault? Because I showed her that…”

“No, it’s probably just a coincidence.”

Yuuki said with a serious expression.

“Maybe she just wanted to clear her head—”

“Kaoru isn’t that kind of person!”

Ikeda shouted at Yuuki.

“Despite how she looks, she’s someone who puts her all into everything she does! Really, she even suddenly quit the track team she loved so much—”

The expression suddenly drained from Ikeda’s face as she was speaking.

After a moment of blank expression, Ikeda immediately turned around, opened the club room door, and ran out.

“Wait, Senior!”

Yuuki was startled and followed after her. I couldn’t just stay still either, so I quickly got up and chased after Ikeda and Yuuki.

Ikeda headed to the school gymnasium.

Since the rainy season wasn’t completely over, most sports clubs were conducting their activities indoors.

Of course, that included the track team.

“Kaneko?”

The third-year girl who seemed to be the captain immediately snorted at the mention of Kaneko’s name.

“You mean the troublemaker who quit? The one who hit her senior.”

As the captain turned around, voices criticizing Kaneko could be heard from various places.

“She thought she was so great just because she had some skill, and when we gave her a few words of advice, she couldn’t handle it and quit right away. She barely lasted a year.”

The captain looked like she wanted to spit.

“We have no reason to care whether she runs away from home or not. She’s probably just out having fun somewhere.”

“Kaoru is…!”

“Senior.”

As Ikeda was about to exclaim in indignation, Yuuki grabbed her arm.

Yuuki shook her head at Ikeda, who turned to look at her, and then led Ikeda out of the gymnasium, still holding her arm.

“Senior Ikeda.”

Yuuki placed her hands on both of Ikeda’s shoulders and looked directly at her face.

“It’s okay. Senior Kaneko will be back soon.”

“How can you—”

“I know.”

Yuuki said. There was no particular persuasion, no concrete evidence shown, but her firm attitude seemed to shake Ikeda’s heart a little.

“Will she really come back?”

Yuuki nodded at Ikeda’s words.

“Definitely.”

“…”

Ikeda’s hands went limp.

With her arms hanging down and her head lowered, Ikeda said,

“Kaoru… is my friend.”

“I know.”

“When I had no friends in elementary school, Kaoru was the one who approached me…”

“I see.”

“…”

“Don’t worry. She will definitely return. Kaoru Kaneko will.”

Only after Yuuki said that did Ikeda seem to calm down a bit.

*

“…Any guesses?”

“I do have some.”

On the way home.

Yuuki said with a furrowed brow.

“Senior Kaneko went out again, right? She definitely came back to school.”

“…Loneliness and desperation.”

“Yes. This is… my mistake. I didn’t accurately gauge Senior Kaneko’s emotions. Even though I was right there.”

I shook my head.

“No one could have imagined it.”

Despite my response, Yuuki’s expression darkened further.

“And I think timing is also an issue. Senior Kaneko went out again after ten, but… if she didn’t give up and kept trying, she might have reached the Hour of the Ox.”

The Hour of the Ox.

This appeared in light novels too. The second character in the Chinese zodiac. Located in the northeast when arranged clockwise.

This time, from 1 AM to 3 AM, is known as when the demon gate opens and ghosts pass through.

However, it wasn’t emphasized much in the novel. It was just used as material for a ghost story Yuuki told in a summer episode. The reason I know about this time, which was only briefly mentioned in a novel I read 20 years ago, is because the novel didn’t explain the Hour of the Ox in detail, so I looked it up myself at the time.

And I’ve always liked ghost stories. Though I liked them under the assumption that they were all fake.

Haah, Yuuki let out a deep sigh.

“This… I’ll try to handle it somehow. It’s my specialty.”

“…Me too.”

“No.”

Yuuki looked at me with stern eyes and said,

“You go home.”

“…I agreed to do this together.”

“No. What you agreed to was hunting yokai, not exorcising spirits. This is about ghosts, not yokai.”

“…”

Put that way, I had nothing to say.

“Don’t worry.”

Yuuki smiled at me and said,

“As I said, this is my specialty. I told you, right? I exorcised the one in my seat too. There’s no need to worry too much.”

How could I not worry?

Besides, I heard directly from Yuuki.

While ghosts rarely harm people, there are extremely rare dangerous cases.

Kaneko has disappeared.

If this isn’t dangerous, what is?

But if I insist on going, Yuuki will definitely stop me.

So, for now, all I can do is nod.

*

And of course, I didn’t just go home.

Going home and coming back would take a full three hours round trip.

So first, I got on the train to deceive Yuuki. Yuuki, being cautious, stood nearby watching me until I boarded the train.

But she wasn’t waiting for me when I returned after riding the train for about 10 minutes and then taking another train back to Omiya Station.

After making sure Yuuki wasn’t around and carefully checking my surroundings, I headed back to school.

Thinking about what Yuuki said, she would definitely come to the school before the Hour of the Ox to prepare for the exorcism.

So, I just needed to hide at the school until that time.

Since it wasn’t yet time for students to go home, getting back into the school itself wasn’t much of a problem.

But—

…

Where do I hide until 1 AM?

*

Today, Ikeda left early too. It seemed difficult for her to stay in the Literature Club room without Kaneko.

Sorry to Ikeda, but thanks to that, I was able to hide in the Literature Club room until 1 AM.

There’s not much of value in the Literature Club room. Just books and snacks, so we didn’t bother locking the door. If someone had locked it from the outside, I would have been trapped in the Literature Club room, but fortunately, that didn’t happen.

After confirming by sound that no one was in the corridor, I carefully bent down and left the Literature Club room.

…The atmosphere is incredibly eerie.

If I were still the person who didn’t believe in ghosts, I would have just walked without much concern, but now… at least I know that things like ghosts and yokai exist in this world.

And thinking about that made it really, really scary.

Looking at my watch, it was 45 minutes past the hour.

The Hour of the Ox would begin soon.

While things probably wouldn’t really start happening until a bit later, I decided to move.

Stealthily, anxiously moving to avoid encountering any teachers, I headed to the first floor.

And only then did I think about the school possibly having a security system.

…It’s too late now anyway.

Fortunately, I hadn’t triggered anything, as no alarms went off.

The door leading outside from the school building was locked, so I opened a window and went out.

I debated whether to open my umbrella, but I thought it might just get in the way.

And as I got soaked in the rain, I quickly realized that was a bad idea.

Lamenting my own choice, I walked through the dimly lit school grounds to the courtyard where Kaneko had called Kokkuri-san last time.

It was still incredibly dark.

By the way, I don’t understand why everyone calls it the “inner courtyard” when it’s not inside but behind the school. It’s a space between the building and the fence that’s been set up like a small park—well, that’s not really relevant right now.

Fortunately, or perhaps not, Yuuki wasn’t there.

…Alright.

I went to the bench and stood there.

Standing in the rain made me feel incredibly miserable.

I searched my school uniform pocket and took out a box cutter.

Well, having come this far, what other option did I have?

First, talk to Jabguras. Ask about the method in as much detail as possible and seek a solution.

Then, join up with Yuuki when she arrives and solve the problem.

The reason I came all the way here is that anemia sets in quickly when blood is lost. I need to save time, don’t I?

I took out the blade from the box cutter and brought it to my left wrist—

Suddenly, someone grabbed my arm.

I almost screamed in shock—

“…Senior Kaneko?”

I saw Kaneko’s face, glaring at me with wide eyes while firmly gripping my right hand holding the knife.

“What are you doing right now?”

Kaneko, soaked in rain like me, asked.

“…Uh.”

I was… about to cut my wrist. Um.

Yeah, no matter how you look at it, the situation was definitely like that.