Ch.26Chapter 4. Where People Live (5)

“Kut-chan, talk to me.”

Kaoru’s face glaring at me was frightening.

“What were you trying to do just now?”

Normally, Kaoru doesn’t make this kind of expression toward me. No, not just toward me, but toward anyone. She’s always cheerfully smiling, running around, and showing disappointment when she’s disappointed.

Come to think of it, the only time she openly showed irritation was yesterday when she failed to summon Kokkuri-san.

And now too.

Grip.

As if trying to make me drop the knife from my hand with just the strength of her grip, Kaoru squeezed my right wrist tightly.

“…It’s not like that.”

“If it’s not like that? What other reason could there be for putting a knife to your wrist besides ‘that’?”

Um…

Thinking about it again, it was exactly like that.

It’s just that my goal wasn’t to die.

In reality, it’s very difficult to die from cutting your wrist horizontally, but people who see someone cutting their wrist don’t usually consider that. Self-harm alone isn’t something to be taken lightly.

“Where were you, senior?”

So I decided to change the subject.

“What?”

“Where were you all day today?”

“Where…?”

Kaoru looked a bit confused at my question. The grip on my wrist loosened slightly.

It wasn’t enough to twist free yet, so I decided to continue talking.

“…You skipped school today.”

“Skip school? Me?”

Kaoru said as if it was absurd.

“What are you talking about? We saw each other today. Even just earlier—”

Blink.

Kaoru’s eyes blinked.

“…No. You didn’t come, senior.”

“Huh.”

“So the teachers called Ikeda and us.”

“What do you mean?”

I took my phone out of my pocket.

…Actually, this was a really stupid thing to do. Without an umbrella, the phone could get damaged in the rain.

But… showing her directly would be more convincing.

I held up my phone screen. Although raindrops had formed on it, the phone didn’t immediately turn off.

I held the screen up to Kaoru’s eyes.

Wednesday, June 16, 2004.

“What…?”

Kaoru unconsciously let go of my wrist.

Then she took the phone from my hand with both hands and stared intently at the screen.

I tried to retract the knife blade and put it in my pocket without Kaoru noticing—

“Ah— that’s not happening.”

But before I could, Kaoru grabbed my wrist again. She must have quickly realized she didn’t need both hands to hold the phone.

She handed the phone back to me, then without much effort, pried open my tightly clenched fingers one by one and confiscated the cutter knife.

She put it in her skirt pocket and said,

“Did you think I’d let someone who was just trying to harm themselves keep a knife? No matter how forgetful I am, this is something I’ll never forget.”

“…”

Hmm…

I’m in trouble.

Should I take Kaoru with me like this?

I quickly concluded that it wouldn’t work.

After all, Kaoru had been missing for a day. Kamikakushi (spirited away), was it? After experiencing something like that, who knows what would happen if I just took her away from here.

I silently exhaled and slumped down on the bench. The bench was soaked with rain, but I didn’t care. My clothes were already soaked through to my underwear anyway.

There’s no point in using an umbrella now.

I removed the battery from my phone that had returned to my hand. That was one easy thing about old phones.

I think… well, if I dry it carefully, it shouldn’t break. At least the phone was still working until I removed the battery.

After putting it back in my pocket, Kaoru plopped down next to me in the same way. She was just as soaked, so she probably didn’t care either.

But isn’t she sitting too close? She sat right next to me, almost pressed against me, like some gold star trying to pick up a high school girl.

I wondered if I could retrieve the knife at this distance, but unfortunately, the pocket with the knife was on the opposite side from where she was sitting next to me.

She didn’t put her hand on my shoulder, but instead hung her arm over the back of the bench and said,

“Well, tell me.”

When I looked at Kaoru as if to ask what she meant, she stared at me and said,

“The reason you were trying to do that.”

“…”

Is this really the time to discuss that?

I sat on the bench because I realized there was no other option but to wait for Yuka. Digging into my wrist with my fingernails or biting to make a wound… isn’t that a bit unrealistic? Above all, it would hurt much more than just cutting with a knife.

“Hmm… I guess it’s hard to talk about it? People usually don’t talk about these things.”

“…That kind of talk doesn’t matter—”

“No.”

Kaoru stared straight ahead and said,

“It does matter.”

“…”

“Because I’ve already failed to listen once before.”

Kaoru crossed her legs, thought for a moment, and then spoke again.

“Let’s do this. I’ll tell you my reason first. Then you can tell me yours.”

No, I don’t think I can tell her my reason no matter what.

How could I say, “I was trying to offer blood to the magic circle drawn on my left wrist to summon an outer god and have a conversation”?

Well, it might be an interesting story for Kaoru, but a senior who just saw her junior trying to cut her wrist with a knife wouldn’t take that at face value.

Besides, she seemed quite serious about it. Not just surprised.

She must have some trauma related to this.

“I… the reason I was trying to find a ghost was, well, I have something to ask.”

So, is it something like that? Like if you look in a mirror with a kitchen knife in your mouth, you’ll see the face of the person you’ll marry in the future?

But what Kaoru said was completely different from what I was thinking.

“Have you heard of ikiryō?”

“Ikiryō?”

“Yes. Not the soul of a dead person that you typically see, but the soul of a living person. The soul of someone in a brain-dead state or in a coma.”

“…”

I didn’t know such a thing existed.

I’m sorry, but in my previous life, I had a job where anyone with a beating heart was considered alive, so I don’t know about soul classifications. I like ghost stories, but I don’t particularly like systematic explanations. It takes away the eerie feeling unique to ghost stories.

But this was a light novel setting. It’s not strange for such classifications to exist.

Rather, this is probably closer to a real story than a ghost story.

Seeing that I wasn’t responding, Kaoru must have thought I was seriously listening, so she continued.

“I’ve seen one before. Actually, I’ve had weak ki since childhood. Whenever I went to places like cemeteries, I would always see strange people and faint. So my parents made me exercise diligently… and I also thought I was seeing things. So I really ran hard. Eventually, I became good enough to join the track team.”

“…”

“But you know what, I don’t really like running. I just did it because it made my parents feel better. Neither I nor my parents thought I would become a track athlete, but it’s better for everyone if I stay healthy, right? And after I became healthier, I hardly ever saw anything.”

The rain continued to fall without stopping. The rainfall had decreased a bit since I tried to cut my wrist, but the drizzling rain still kept our bodies wet. It felt like being in a swimming pool. Despite it being mid-June, I didn’t feel hot at all.

“How much did you hear?”

“…How much?”

“You said you had a meeting with the teachers yesterday. Ikeda wouldn’t have just sat still. Did she go to the track team?”

Childhood friends are amazing.

Well, I suppose if you’ve known someone for several years, you might be able to predict how they would move around school.

“…She said you fought with her and quit…”

“So you did hear.”

Kaoru smiled bitterly and said,

“I had a junior too. Right? I’m a second-year now. She was a girl about your size. She also didn’t seem interested in running, like me, but it seemed her parents forced her to join. I did it because I thought it was necessary for myself too, but she… well, wasn’t like that.”

“…”

“She seemed to have talent. Both her parents were runners or something. But she herself didn’t like it. She tried to join briefly and then leave, but that didn’t work out. You might not know, but our school’s track team is quite famous, for both boys and girls.”

It seems that junior soon became a victim of bullying.

“I… didn’t know.”

And Kaoru said,

“Everyone knew that she and I were close. Plus, though it’s not something to brag about, my parents are quite successful. And as I said, my skills were decent too.”

In my opinion, this is probably Kaoru’s way of being modest. She was likely the “ace” in reality. Otherwise, there would be no reason for everyone to be cautious around Kaoru.

“But that girl… she was trying to tell me all along. Not directly, but through her actions or verbal hints.”

“…”

“It was a suicide attempt. It failed, and she’s in the hospital now. They say she hasn’t regained consciousness.”

“…What about her parents?”

“They seemed to know she was being bullied. But they thought she could endure it with mental strength. Like they did when they were young. They thought that even if she disliked it at first, she would eventually run.”

It was a tiresome mentality.

“I told you, right? I basically have the constitution to see spirits. I hadn’t seen anything since entering high school. But then—”

She saw it.

One day while cleaning the storage room, she saw that junior curled up on the floor. It was just for a moment.

A child lying on her side, clutching her stomach as if someone had hit her, curled up in a ball.

“She looked similar to how I remembered her.”

“…”

“That’s when I could have known. I could have known if I wanted to. But…”

She has skill, but doesn’t want to do it. She doesn’t feel attached to the club. She does everything halfheartedly and skips whenever she can. The only reason she became close with her junior in the club was because of the single feeling of “not really wanting to do it.”

So… she didn’t know.

“Why are you interfering? After subtly ignoring me all this time! When others were running sincerely, you were just going through the motions! Yet the coaches and teachers only focused on you! After all that, now you say it’s your business!?”

Kaoru shouted.

Wouldn’t the teacher hear? But there was no sign of that for now.

“…That’s what she said, yes.”

“…”

“I couldn’t refute it, but I couldn’t control my anger either, so I hit her.”

So… that’s what happened.

There was a reason why her expression turned bad when I first asked if she was in the track team.

“…So, this is how it is.”

“Right. So, this is how it turned out. I have talent in other areas too, right? Since I have the constitution for spirits to attach to me, I thought maybe I could find that girl’s ikiryō and save her somehow.”

But if she enters the gym, she gets looks from the track team. Even if she sneaks in at night, the storage rooms are usually locked tight. If you’re not in the track team, opportunities to enter the gym storage and perform a séance don’t come often.

So Kaoru tried to find other methods in her own way.

“…In the end, I ended up using you all. I’m sorry. But I’m glad I was alone there.”

“…”

“Well, that’s the end of my story. Now it’s your turn.”

…Hmm.

After thinking about how to respond, I opened my hand and showed it to Kaoru.

“Give me the knife, please.”

“What? No way.”

Kaoru was serious.

When Kaoru was serious, she had quite a frightening impression. The usual smooth atmosphere disappeared instantly, and her face looked like she was ready to fight. Now that I look at her, her eyes were quite fierce. Perhaps she usually neutralizes it with a smiling face.

“…I won’t harm myself.”

“But you were trying to cut your wrist.”

“…”

I closed my eyes and thought for a moment.

Haah, alright.

I can’t hide it anymore at this point. This person caught me in the moment I was trying to cut my wrist.

I raised my left arm.

Kaoru might not have noticed properly, but the hair tie I usually wore was already gone. I was planning to cut it anyway.

When I showed her my wrist, Kaoru’s eyes widened.

“What is this…?”

“…A tattoo.”

I answered.

“…A tattoo for summoning gods. What I need is my blood.”

Kaoru opened and closed her mouth repeatedly, then suddenly exclaimed “Ah!” as if realizing something and jumped up from her seat.

“Don’t tell me, when you asked me to summon Kokkuri-san!”

“That’s right. Because you could summon it. Without seeing blood.”

“Was that why the coin moved then?”

I nodded.

Kaoru’s face instantly brightened.

Then she turned serious again.

“Still, no.”

“…”

“In the end, you’re still making yourself bleed by injuring your body.”

Hmm…

I couldn’t refute that.

“Besides, can’t you summon it without this? If you just have the Kokkuri-san paper…”

“No.”

I said firmly.

“I need much more than that.”

At the very least, I wanted to hold a knife.

I’m not sure if I can cut a ghost or not, but I can just ask about that.

But would the blood of an avatar created by an outer god not be able to do even that?

“…You—”

As Kaoru was about to continue speaking.

Whee— Ho—

That kind of whistling-like sound.

And at that sound, I shuddered for a moment.

It wasn’t simply because I was cold from the rain. This eerie feeling crawling up my spine was similar to the feeling I had in the “nest.”

Whee— Ho—

Again, a strange sound that could be a bird call, a whistle, or perhaps a flute sound.

“Toratsugumi?”

“…”

When I turned my head, Kaoru looked at me.

“This is a bird sound. A sound like ‘hyo, hyo.’ It’s the sound of a toratsugumi.”

Hyo, hyo?

No, this wasn’t the time to nitpick personal opinions.

“It came from over there.”

Before I could act, Kaoru moved.

Grabbing my hand firmly, Kaoru ran with all her might. I followed… or rather, was half-dragged along. I could somewhat understand Ikeda’s feelings in that moment.

*

The direction of the sound was the playground.

And when we headed there—

“Yuka!”

Yuka was there, dressed in shrine maiden clothes.

Yuka was holding a wooden stick in her hand. At the end of the stick was a white paper that seemed to be folded in a specific way. It was that stick with white paper attached that shrine maidens often carry in Japanese manga and light novels.

Yuka wasn’t surprised to see us. She sighed lightly and pointed in one direction.

Seven o’clock direction from Yuka’s perspective. There was a white circle drawn there. It was large enough for two or three people to stand in comfortably.

As we approached, it seemed the circle was drawn with salt.

“I was a bit bothered by this school anyway.”

I could hear Yuka muttering.

Whee— Ho—

“Usually, ghost stories don’t materialize like this. Well, it’s a school, many people gather, and dead people are often wrapped in grudges. But two appearing in such a short time is a bit much.”

“That sound…?”

To my question, Yuka said,

“It’s the sound of opening the netherworld.”

Yuka was standing in the center of the playground.

Around Yuka, talismans were placed on the ground in 12 directions. The direction Yuka was facing seemed to be north, and we were inside the salt circle drawn at the 7 o’clock direction from Yuka.

The inner courtyard where we had been was beyond the building, about in the 3 o’clock direction from here.

At the hour of the ox, in the direction of the ox.

…Yuka was opening the demon gate.

Understanding this, my mouth fell open.

“What are you trying to do by opening that…?”

“Opening it isn’t what’s important.”

Yuka said.

“What’s important is ‘keeping it open.'”

Yuka stuck the stick she was holding into a container she had prepared in front of her.

Then she picked up the “Muname” that she had placed in front of her.

After drawing the sword from its scabbard, Yuka slightly turned her body to face the northeast.

From there—

I heard Kaoru inhale sharply.

Whee— Ho—

Yes, come to think of it, that sound was coming from “here.” Not from where we had been standing.

Yuka’s window seat wasn’t really a place to specify as the 3 o’clock direction or whatever.

Ah, so… it seems “such” places don’t matter.

What’s important is the place where “the incident occurred.” The place where grudges remain. The “place” where ghosts cannot leave.

And a being that holds open the gap so that such souls can come and go.

“Kurosawa.”

“Yes?”

“Take care of the senior. Just in case.”

“…Understood.”

“Yuka? Kut-chan?”

Kaoru looked back and forth between me and Yuka, not fully grasping the situation.

Whee— Ho—

The crying sound was heard again, and something black was dripping from the air in the direction Yuka was looking.

“You’ve been hiding well all this time. With such a nest.”

Yuka said.

“Have you been feeding on loneliness? On resentment and envy too? Well, a school would be the best place to feed on such things.”

Something black was coming out of the “demon gate.” As the air split more and more, the chills I felt in my body intensified.

The first thing that emerged was a tiger-striped foot. It looked like what you might get if you forcibly stretched a feline animal’s paw to make it like a human hand. Sharp claws were attached at the ends.

The next thing that emerged was a monkey’s head.

That monkey head was whistling.

Whee— Ho—

Like that.

“You’ve been imitating a messenger of the netherworld.”

Yuka said.

“And hiding in the netherworld itself.”

…

No, isn’t there too big a difference between this and what came right after the hungry ghost?

That’s not just a yokai, but something that could appear in mythology, right?

“…Nue.”

Kaoru, who was gripping my shoulder tightly, muttered.

Yes, that’s what it looks like to me too.

It’s similar to a chimera, so it often appears in subculture.

What was emerging from the opening in the air was the yokai Nue (鵺).