Masamichi jolted in surprise at the sudden confession.
“Huh?! Oops, sorry, that was too loud. But…here?!”
He’d jumped to his feet, so Masamichi sat down again and looked around in horror.
All he could see was concrete, soil, and grass. Nothing seemed tied to a person’s death.
Well, more than a thousand years have gone by, so that’s no surprise. But…
Fearfully, Masamichi asked Shino, whose eyes were still glued to the river’s current, “What happened? Did someone attack him?”
“It was an accident. Ostensibly, that is.”
“Ostensibly?”
Shino finally raised his head and looked at the bridge where many people were coming and going.
“That bridge was rebuilt, but there was one in almost the same spot at the time.”
“…Okay.”
Masamichi looked up at the magnificent concrete bridge, trying to imagine what it may have been like before.
“That evening, Tokifuyu received an invitation from a certain aristocratic acquaintance.”
“You mean for dinner?”
“Food and drinks, basically. There was a full moon out that night. Perhaps it was a moon viewing party.”
“Oh, okay.”
Without looking at Masamichi, who was nodding, Shino continued speaking in a distant tone, as if he were talking about some stranger.
“He usually liked to walk, but that night, he rode in an ox-driven cart that had come for him. And…he died.”
“Hey, you’ve left out too much. Why? What happened? Was there an accident with the cart? A traffic accident?”
Instead of nodding, Shino lowered his gaze.
“The ox pulling the cart suddenly ran amok when they were halfway across the bridge. The person operating the cart ran away in fear, and the ox cart lost control and hit the bridge parapet so hard that…Tokifuyu was thrown out and fell headfirst into the riverbank.”
“…!”
Masamichi swallowed.
Shino spoke matter-of-factly, allowing him to visualize the scene clearly.
A big bull, snorting and rampaging, a cart rocking violently like a ship tossed around in rough seas, and Tokifuyu being thrown out, his sleeves spread like wings, falling in slow motion…
“His body flew through the air like a paper doll and slammed helplessly to the ground…and he stopped moving.”
“Shino, wait. You could have saved him if you were around… Oh! You were already trapped in that jar, weren’t you?”
Shino nodded. His expression was cold, like a Noh mask that was devoid of emotion.
“Yeah. I sent my consciousness out of the jar and witnessed my master’s death. If only I had been with him, he wouldn’t have died so tragically. It served him right.”
“What a thing to say…! But why did the bull suddenly go berserk?”
“It was a bee.”
“A bee?”
Shino finally looked at his wide-eyed servant and nodded.
“A frighteningly large bee came and stung the cow on the nose. The pain caused it to panic.”
“Oh, a bee. I was stung by a bee once, too. It got very swollen and was painful. It was probably a hornet if it was huge. But wait. This was in the evening, right? Bees aren’t active at night, are they?”
“It’s sharp of you to notice that.”
For just a moment, Shino smirked, then his straight face returned as he said, “That was no normal bee. It was a spirit, taking on the form of a bee.”
“A spirit? You mean a specter?”
“That’s right. A spiritual medium who had a history with Tokifuyu sent the spirit to attack him after he lost his escort—me. No other spiritual medium would have defeated Tokifuyu if they had fought with their spiritual techniques. But…with an accident, there is nothing a vulnerable human can do.”
“Oh, no…! Didn’t anyone besides you notice that? How about Tokifuyu’s colleagues or other spiritual mediums?”
“Tokifuyu was known as the odd man out. No colleague was willing to make the effort to discover the truth for him. His only friend buried his corpse in Toribeno, as he had wished before his death.”
“That’s… That isn’t good, but that’s a consolation. So they mourned him properly. Is that where his grave is? Do you want to go there?”
Shino answered “no” with a small shake of his head.
“Even if we went there, no grave exists.”
“Huh?! But…”
“Toribeno was a burial site. The remains of the poor and those without family were abandoned there, left out in the open to rot.”
“Oh no…!”
“I couldn’t get out of the jar. I just watched that night as thieves peeled the clothes off his corpse and then watched as his body rotted…and eventually turned to white bones, and even those bones crumbled back into the earth.”
“Shino…”
“I wanted to kick his skull, at least, and crush it.”
“Shino!”
Masamichi raised his voice accusingly, and Shino glared at him, making the younger man shrug his small shoulders.
“S-sorry. I know I have no right to say anything about that. But…Shino, didn’t you come here to mourn your master?”
Shino clucked his tongue in disapproval.
“Don’t try to measure a specter by human standards. I have no intention of doing that.”
“But…”
“All I wanted was to see with my own eyes and step on this spot that I could only see from inside a jar before.”
“Ngh…”
Masamichi wanted to say there had to be more to it than that, but he didn’t dare to argue with Shino any further. As he timidly backed off, Shino said in a rough tone, “I’m going to stay here for a while. You go and roam around as you please.”
Contrary to the harshness of his tone, it was a generous offer to give his servant free time.
But Masamichi shook his head.
“I’ll go somewhere if I’m in your way, but if I’m not, then let me stay with you. If Tokifuyu doesn’t have a grave, I’d like to express my gratitude to him at this place where he lost his life…”
“Your gratitude? You have no business feeling gratitude toward Tokifuyu.”
Startled by the sharp sound of Shino’s voice that came out like a whip, Masamichi retorted quietly, “That’s not true. I wouldn’t have met you if you hadn’t been his shikigami—his apparition—and I would have died that night in that hit-and-run.”
Shino’s eyes widened in surprise, but he didn’t attempt to say anything back. All he did was shrug slightly, as if to say, “Do as you please.”
“…Thanks. I’ll be quiet.”
With that, Masamichi went back to watching the river as Shino had been doing.
Shino lay on his back in the grass, unconcerned about dirtying his clothes.
The two sat quietly, lost in their own thoughts, at the site where Tokifuyu, Shino’s master, tragically lost his life over a millennium ago…