Shiki: Volume 2

by Fuyumi Ono

  It can't be, he thought. ...I never thought that a funeral's going to come from our place too.

  "...That is, is it something terribly bad?"

  With all the ease of a childhood friend, Munetaka peered into Toshio's eyes. He wanted to ask for the truth.

  "I really can't say anything at this stage. Just, there are several forms of anemia. Depending on the type it can fall into something worse, so I don't want us to take our eyes off of it. Hiromi-kun is still small and all."

  "Ah..... Mm."

  "It'd be good to keep an eye on how often he goes to the bathroom and the color of his urine. If there's blood in his urine, I don't care if it's in the middle of the night, bring him in. Even if it's something else, if his condition suddenly gets worse--for example, if it seems like he's suffocating, call me."

  Aa, Munetaka answered while feeling his hand shake. It can't be--this can't be happening.

  Picking up his son who had become much heavier he got into the car. Settled into the back seat, Chizuko who sat next to him held him as if protecting him from something terrifying. On the way home, for the very short drive, Munetaka and Chizuko said nothing.

  When they returned to the home, Munehide made a sour face. "Where have you been at this hour?"

  "I'm sorry," Chizuko apologized. "Hiromi is suck. So we went to the hospital."

  What, said Munehide looking at Hiromi's face.

  "I'll put him to bed," was all Chizuko said, taking Hiromi's hand and going to the second story. Munehide gave an unsatisfied look to Munetaka.

  "Even so was it something you both had to go for? What time do you think it is. When I came back from deliveries, there was no salesperson here. No signs of doing evening preparations either."

  "Masao came back from going out, though."

  "He closed himself up in his room and won't come out. You think you can leave just him behind at the empty shop and expect him to be useful? ---And? Is Hiromi all right?"

  About that, Munetaka hesitated. "It might be a complicated disease, he said. It seems to be anemia but there're different forms of anemia, so, he said."

  Munehide had visible confusion in his eyes.

  "But it looks like we don't know anything for certain yet. Anyway, he said to bring him in tomorrow too. He said if he gets any worse to call him, with a serious like face."

  Munehide kept silent.

  "What, Hiromi's really sick?"

  At that voice, they turned around to see Masao peering into the store. Aa, said Munetaka's voice, becoming naturally lower.

  Heh, said Masao. "So that's why Ane-san's face looked like that. Lately, there've been a lot of deaths and all."

  "Masao, this is no time to say such ill omened things."

  Being scolded by Munehide, a thin smile rose on Masao's face.

  "It's true isn't it? Lately, it's been nothing but funerals. Isn't it better not to think that we're special? Probability isn't concerned with emotions or personal feelings after all."

  "Masao!" Hidemasa's voice raised. "Is that any way to talk?!"

  Masao flinched but soon another thin smile rose. "But, isn't it true?"

  "Masao," Munetaka interposed. "Stop it. This isn't funny. Hiromi is really sick. It might be a complicated disease."

  Heh, Masao murmured. "Well, these things happen. There're no people who don't die after all. That you're making that face about it is proof that we've just been special until now."

  Before Munetaka could shout Masao's name, Munehide yelled. "You, what the hell are you talking like that for! Don't you have any feelings!"

  "What..." Masao took a step back. "I'm just saying."

  "Is that something you'll joke about lightly?!"

  "I'm not saying it, I'm just saying, someone could say it like that..."

  "Enough!" Munehide said as if spitting the words at, looking to Munetaka. "---Where's Chika?"

  "Next door. We left her there when we went out."

  "I'll go and get her."

  Seeing his father leave angrily, Munetaka then turned back to Masao. Masao had a wounded expression, likewise seeing their father off. Noticing Munetaka's stare, he made a face and hurried back upstairs.

  Chapter Nine

  1

  Mutou opened his eyes to the sound of his alarm clock. Monday, October 3rd.

  Rolling over in his bed and breathing a heavy sigh, the sounds of the lively household flooded into his ears. The flurried footsteps trailing around the house were probably Tamotsu's. In that direction, he could hear Aoi's voice saying something. The smell of the breakfast Shizuko made faintly wafted in.

  It wasn't bad waking up. Since last week, his wife Shizuko had been helping out at the office, so it was fun. The paperwork that had piled up over the weekend was able to be sorted for the time being too, with Shizuko and Towada's help. It felt like a weight off of his shoulders.

  On the other hand, he thought that that was all the exhaustion he had to handle. It was well and good that he could receive help but all the more it reconfirmed how weary Toshio whom nobody could help was by now.

  (The Junior Doctor has it hard....)

  It was in consideration for that that the nurses put forth the idea of working on the weekends. Yesterday the two nurses who commuted from outside the village moved into the village, and for the time being were staying in properties for rent the Ozaki family owned.

  (They're good girls....)

  The clinic's staff were a blessing. This had to make it easier on Toshio, didn't it? And even during ordinary times, Toshio cherished his staff, and thinking of that made him feel good. Having Shizuko come as a part timer, Mutou was energized bit it too. Now they could be together on weekends. Towada said he would help too---.

  While lingering in his futon, thinking of such things, Shizuko's footsteps came before the bedroom door. He was grateful for the help but it must have been hard on his wife too, he thought. She came to work part time, but other than that was also doing the usual household tasks and cleaning. The reason he thought about that might have been because he's always heard Yasuyo and Kiyomi's idle complaints about such at the hospital.

  "Tohru, that's enough already."

  He could hear Shizuko's voice traveling up to the second floor. Tohru's not waking up again, he thought. Even after turning twenty he wouldn't make it to work unless his mom woke him up to go? he thought, finding it at once pathetic and worth a smile.

  "Tohru, come on. You're going to be late."

  Mutou at last got himself up.

  "Hey, are you going to skip today, too?"

  While listening to Shizuko's voice as she climbed the staircase, Mutou thought, that's right. Tohru skipped the day before yesterday, Saturday. He remembered Shizuko saying to him as if frustrated; "He says he's skipping because he caught a cold." Shizuko's tone suggested she thought he was just blowing it off.

  Sharply, a small something could be felt lodged in his chest but Mutou didn't know why. Just as his ears took in the sounds of the house without particularly meaning to, his head was remembering something he didn't particularly intend to scrutinize.

  "---Tohru!"

  He could hear Shizuko's loud voice from directly above him. At the same time Mutou stretched hugely, wondering what it was, sensing his own nonchalance in his movements. He had the feeling he was doing something unsuitable. What he was being 'unsuitable' towards he himself didn't know.

  Tohru, Shizuko's voice loudly cried out again. Her voice sounded shrill. What's this, he thought while looking up at the ceiling at the same time as, once again, Shizuko's grief stricken voice sounded.

  "Dad! Dad!"

  Mutou pushed aside his futon and rose. He quickly felt a bad premonition coming on. Ridiculous, he thought. Nothing bad's happened. While thinking that, he flew from the room. He met with Tamotsu looking blankly towards the stairway. What happened, came that carefree feel again from Aoi this time as she poked her face out of the bathroom.

  Mutou ran up to the second story, towards Tohru's
bedroom right above his own. Shizuko was crumpled down at the entrance of the room. "---Dad, Tohru is!"

  "What is it?"

  He had come flying to the room but with Shizuko there clinging to the knees of his pajamas, he couldn't make it in. In Tohru's six tatami mat room the futon was laid out, Tohru lying out in it. The inside of the room was dark due to the curtain being drawn but there was a slim crack in the opening, wavering with the breeze that blew in, at times letting in a clear lay of light.

  At one point that light fell over Tohru's sleeping face. Tohru's eyes were half open, looking in the other direction.

  "---Tohru."

  Mutou tore off Shizuko who was clinging to him, approaching the futon with long strides. Kneeling down, he peered at his son's face, looking into his half opened hollow like eyes, realizing they were indeed opaque. They looked in different directions, unmoving. Not only that, he wasn't blinking. Once more he cried his name while putting a hand to his son's face, feeling the cool temperature against his fingertips.

  He had no body head. He was already cold. Far from having the power to turn towards him, his eyes looking in different directions couldn't move, Tohru's body having become hard.

  "Tohru... oi!"

  It can't be, he thought. This can't be happening. This is some kind of mistake. If he didn't hurry and find where the mistake was, he wouldn't be able to take it back.

  "Mom, what's wrong?"

  He heard Aoi's voice. Footsteps coming up the stairs. She can't come, Mutou thought turning around. Shizuko sitting in the doorway turned at the same time towards Aoi who was coming up the stairs, and following after was Tamotsu's voice saying something from below.

  (Don't come.)

  Nobody could see it. If nobody knew, it wouldn't be true; the absurd throught rose to mind, and at the same time the sense of danger that they shouldn't come closer to something unsafe arose.

  "What's wrong?" Aoi asked peering into the room dubiously. "What's wrong with Onii-chan?"

  Nothing, Mutou wanted to say. It's nothing, so go back downstairs. But, Mutou heard his own low voice. He didn't realize he was the one speaking.

  "....Call the hospital for me."

  "Eh?"

  "I'm saying to call the hospital and tell the Junior Doctor to come. Hurry."

  "What's wrong with Onii-chan?"

  Mutou didn't answer. From behind Aoi, Tamotsu peered in dubiously.

  "Is he sick?" He could see Aoi's face stiffen with unease. "Should I, call an ambulance? Would that be..."

  "It's fine. Go and call the Junior Doctor."

  "But."

  "......Onii-chan is dead."

  Shizuko remained seating but looked as if she were to spring up. Her expression changed, and like that she crept towards him. They knew Aoi would, Tamotsu would come flying into the room.

  "Anyway, make the call!"

  He couldn't let them get near Tohru.

  "Leave it like it is here and have the doctor come. Tamotsu, bring Mom downstairs."

  But, Tamotsu tread in. He kept back Shizuko who screamed, crawleing towards Tohru with all his might. "Go downstairs. Tamotsu, takeher with you.

  "But."

  "Just do it!"

  He forced Shizuko, nails clawing at the tatami mats, out of the room. Forcing Tamotsu out he slid the door shut. He couldn't let them get close. ---He had to isolate him.

  Thinking that, Mutou collapsed on the spot.

  It was that. If not then was there any other way his son would pass away so suddenly like this?

  "Why....."

  He didn't notice it, he should have been faster. Yes, Tohru skipped work on Saturday. He was saying it was a cold. How terrifying were those words? But Mutou didn't realize that. The answer was because Mutou and the others were avoiding realizing it.

  They were thinking it was all right. The answer as to why, Mutou knew. Nevermind if he didn't know about the plague, Mutou did know of its existance. So, it couldn't come sneaking up to attack him from the shadows, so he had gotten himself to thinking.

  "....How?"

  How did he come to such a misunderstanding? Why couldn't he have understood it? Without realizing his son's peril, his son died before his eyes. Whether Mutou realized that or whether he didn't, it could not have changed the result.

  He tried to tell himself that but he absolutely could not make himself believe it. If I'd realized it, couldn't I have saved him, he thought. If not for some mistake of his at some point in time, there should have been a chance to fix things. Even now it wasn't too late. There should have been a proper way. Some way to put everything back in order.

  But, it was clear no such way existed.

  ".....Sorry." Mutou prostrated himself over the tatami floor. "I'm so sorry.... Tohru."

  2

  The one to tell Seishin of Mutou Tohru's death was Naka-Sotoba's manager old man Koike.

  "The Office's Manager's place's oldest son died," Koike came all the way to the temple to say.

  "The office manager---Mutou-san, is it? Tohru-kun?"

  "That's right. Junior Monk, what on earth is happening in this village?" Asked by Koike, Seishin was at a loss for a response. "I'm thinking aren't there too many deaths. Not just deaths. Even my son---" At that, Koike's mouth closed. "I, in all my years of living, hadn't seen anything as strange as this before now. Too many people are dying, too many people are going. This strangeness has been going on too long to think of as normal. Until now, the village had been the same as ever. What's happening to the village these days? Doesn't the Junior Monk think so too?"

  "....That is true."

  "The Junior Monk must know that there are rumors it's an epidemic."

  "I have heard."

  "As for whether it's true or what, what do you think?"

  "I cannot know."

  "They say there's something wrong with the Kanemasa's wife and daughter, don't they? We can't go thinking that that's spread to the folks in the village, eh?"

  Seishin's brows furrowed. "That is not possible. Kirishiki-san's wife and daughter have a collagen disease called SLE. A collagen disease is not contagious."

  "Then, the story that Kanemasa's doing something." Seishin stared back at old man Koike's openly angry face. "It's the people of Kanemasa. It's been weird since they moved in. It's not just me, everyone's saying it."

  "That is... unrelated, isn't it? Since they had moved in, so it is said but in truth the deaths had been occurring since before Kirishiki-san had moved in."

  "I'm not just talking about the deaths. I'm talking about what's strange in this village. This village has started being out of sorts since that house was built up on the Kanemasa property in the first place."

  "Koike-san," Seishin looked into old man Koike's eyes. "When you say out of sorts what, concretely, are you refering to?"

  Koike was silent.

  "I too will acknowledge that the village is strange. It is certainly true that there have been too many deaths, and that there may be a cause. But it is not related to Kirishiki-san is it? The family had moved in after the string of deaths had begun. I will also acknowledge that there are many moves. And an exceeding number of incomplete transfers. I cannot say what is strange or how, but they are not ordinary moves, and they are continuing is certain, I believe. And with Koike-san's case being the tip of the brush, it is certain that something is strange. I will even acknowledge that the Kanemasa's house is strange. I will even acknowledge that Kirishiki-san and his family are eccentrics. However, what connection are you saying there is between Kirishiki-san living in a strange house and deaths and moves?"

  "No... that's."

  "How are you saying that they are connected? What are you saying that Kirishiki-san can do? Those who are gone were not by any means killed by anybody. It is clearly a disease. Kirishiki-san's wife and daughter are indeed afflicted with a disease but it is not one that can spread to others. It is futile to seek a connection. Even those people who had moves were by no means kidnapped by anybod
y."

  "That's, it's true, but."

  "I am begging with you to please think rationally. I understand that you are despondent but if Koike-san speaks of things thusly, the people of the village will end up believing it."