With that decision made, he aligned his hands together on his lap, looked Shino in the face, and cleared his throat.
“You know what, Shino?”
Masamichi wasn’t as shy as he usually was. Instead, the look on his conveyed his enthusiasm, and even Shino subtly corrected his posture, as if a little surprised.
“What is it?”
“I know you only think of me as a half-wit servant or as food with legs that can add a bit of power to your magical abilities, but I’ve gotten to know you a little over these past six months. Of course, I do about eighty percent of the talking, but still!”
“…You’re taking too long to get to the point.”
“Sorry! What I’m trying to say is that this is a big change from when we first met, but my feelings for you are—”
At that moment, music rang in their ears, seemingly coming from quite far away.
The tone was powerful, and it resonated well into the distance.
Masamichi’s shoulders slumped as he was interrupted at the last minute from saying what he had worked up his nerve to say. He turned his attention in the direction of the sound.
It seemed to be coming from upstream.
“What was that? A flute?”
Shino scowled and said, “A hichiriki. A double-reed instrument. That’s a strange tune, and the performance isn’t good.”
“Isn’t it? I can’t tell… A hichiriki is an instrument used in gagaku, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. It’s the sound of the earth, used to play the main melody in gagaku,” Shino said as he nodded, and that was when he and Masamichi heard the sounds of people’s voices and footsteps clattering down the riverbed in their direction.
“Didn’t someone say Kagiroi was here in Kyoto?!”
“What?! You’re kidding. Was that Kagiroi playing?”
“He’s performing at a concert tomorrow.”
“Huh?! Really? Is he really here?”
“I heard it’s a secret concert! Isn’t that him playing over there? Let’s go check it out!”
“Oh my God, I couldn’t get a ticket to his concert. I’ll be super lucky if I get to hear him play for free.”
“I like his music, but I would do anything to see his face!
“So you’re a fan of his looks, huh?!”
People were running upstream, breathing unevenly and chatting about the star.
A deep, crease appeared between Shino’s eyebrows.
“Kagiroi?”
“Oh!” Masamichi said, and he tried to explain, full of confidence, to his master. “I overheard people talking about him at that inn. This Kagiroi seems to be a really popular gagaku musician. I saw a poster of him at Kyoto Station. It was a great-looking photo of him.”
“A gagaku…musician? I don’t like his name. The sound of that hichiriki is also very irritating,” Shino said grumpily.
Masamichi cocked his head inquisitively.
“I can’t tell if he’s good or bad, but wouldn’t he have to be good with the hichiriki if he’s that popular?”
“People of this era don’t know quality gagaku. This is as bad as Tokifuyu’s playing.”
“You’re dissing Tokifuyu’s skill at the flute while you’re at it…? Okay, but this man still looks cool. I heard last night that people pass out when they see him at his concerts.”
The crease between Shino’s brows deepened. He could probably hold three or four thin sheets of paper in those creases.
“They do? Do you mean the audience, or does the musician pass out?”
“I wondered about that, too, but I checked, and it’s the people in the audience. It seems people who go to Kagiroi’s concerts get so excited that they pass out while listening to him perform. I’ve never heard of gagaku music getting people that excited.”
“I haven’t, either. Who is this individual who sounds so utterly suspicious?”
Masamichi sensed that Shino’s grumpy meter was spiking before his eyes.
It was a shame that the conclusion of an enjoyable dinner was disturbed in this way. Still, he couldn’t exactly tell Shino not to worry about it after giving him so much detail about the gagaku performer.
“I don’t know much about him, either… Oh, just a minute.”
Masamichi pulled out his phone, searched, enlarged the photo that he found to fill the screen, and showed it to Shino.
“Here he is! This is the musician. It’s also my first time seeing his face, but he’s good-looking, isn’t he? In a different way from your handsome appearance…”
“…!”
A sharp sound came from Shino’s throat, as if something was cutting the wind.
“Huh?! Shino? What’s wrong?”
Don’t tell me he’s mad because I praised someone else’s looks…? No, that couldn’t be. But I’ve never seen him look like that.
Shino’s handsome face was clearly tense. Masamichi knew blood didn’t flow to the specter’s face, since his body was a temporary vessel, but for some reason, it looked like the blood had drained from his face.
It appeared that Shino had unwittingly been greatly shocked by the publicity photo of gagaku musician Kagiroi that Masamichi showed him.
“Ka-gi-roi…”
“Yeah, Kagiroi. It’s an unusual name. I wonder if he has roots in a foreign country.”
“I know where he comes from. He comes from darkness.”
“Huh?!”
Shino’s almond-shaped eyes narrowed until they resembled a Japanese sword, and his low, subdued voice sent shivers down Masamichi’s spine. It was frigid yet seething with furious anger.
Masamichi timidly put away his phone.
“Don’t tell me you know Kagiroi? Have you…had some type of trouble with him…?”
“Trouble?”
Shino stood up with a grim look on his face. He rose with such force that his chair fell back. The guests around them turned to look in surprise, but he seemed unconcerned. Or perhaps he simply didn’t have the capacity to care.
“Shino? Seriously, what’s the matter?” Masamichi asked, also getting to his feet. Without answering him, Shino gestured with his hand, as if to shake off the somewhat melancholy tune of the hichiriki that they continued to hear.
“Kagiroi… This face… I see. It’s him.”
“Shino? Are you okay?”
Slapping away Masamichi’s hand as he tried to touch his arm, Shino said in a grave voice, “Kagiroi. He’s the one who killed Tokifuyu.”
“…!”
This time, it was Masamichi’s turn to gasp.
“Shino, what are you saying…?”
Masamichi was shocked, and Shino replied curtly, with a stern look on his face, “Exactly what I said. He killed Tokifuyu. You said earlier…that people passed out at his concerts, didn’t you?”
Masamichi nodded repeatedly, totally lost.
“Yeah, though it’s just a rumor.”
“And what did you say he was doing…upstream?”
“People running along the riverbed were saying it was a secret concert. The hichiriki is all I could make out, so maybe he really is suddenly putting on a spur-of-the-moment performance.”
“…Let’s go!”
Shino ran out of the restaurant. Hurtling forward like a bullet, he startled not only the other people on the nouryou yuka but also the restaurant staff and patrons inside, who gazed at him, their mouths hanging open.
“Shino?! H-hey, we have to settle the check…! Oh, right, Henri already paid for it. But it isn’t right to leave without saying anything… Aaahh…!”
Whatever it was, it was too dangerous to let Shino take off alone at this point. However, a member of the restaurant staff came running out, concerned about what was happening. Masamichi explained that something urgent had come up, quickly apologized, and left. There was a narrow alley in front of the restaurant, still swarming with tourists, although it was already past nine PM.
Masamichi looked left and right, but Shino was no longer in sight. But he was sure the specter was sprinting down to the riverbed toward Kagiroi, who was upstream.
I could never catch up if Shino ran at full speed, but I have to go as fast as I can…!
Masamichi hurried through the crowd toward the upper part of the river, attempting to reach the riverbed.
Many people were out on the promenade, heading toward the direction from which the hichiriki was coming. They all rushed along the dark path, attempting to catch a glimpse of the secret performance.
Shino… Shino, please, don’t do anything rash. What in the world did he mean when he said…Kagiroi killed Tokifuyu? He said a bee caused the bull pulling the ox cart to go berserk…
It was hard to think straight while running as fast as he could.
But anyway, Masamichi kept running frantically through the crowd, trying to spot Shino and catch up with him.
Soon, a crowd entered his field of vision.
Probably around one hundred people.
Everyone was pushing and shoving, holding out their phones and tablets with arms outstretched, trying to capture a photo or video of Kagiroi, whom Masamichi expected was playing his hichiriki beyond them but who he couldn’t see because of his height.
Still, judging by the sound, Kagiroi seemed closer now.
Oh, God, this is bad. I’m surrounded by people all around, and I can’t see beyond them at all. I can’t find Shino, either. It’s a little dark here, too… Huh?
Masamichi had nervously been going around in circles, trying to find a way to break into the crowd, but he suddenly felt a shiver run down his spine and turned around.
“What was that…?”
He felt a presence right behind him and turned around again, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. Just people dashing toward him, one after the other.
This isn’t good. If this keeps up, there will be more and more people out here, and I won’t be able to find Shino.
Panicking wasn’t going to do any good, but he couldn’t help it, as he suddenly realized that something strange was happening.
People who had been rushing in the direction of Kagiroi’s hichiriki suddenly came to a halt, paused absently for a moment, inclined their heads with vacant eyes…and plodded away from the area.
“Huh?! Why are they heading back after coming all the way out here?”
Masamichi was stunned.
Indeed, with this crowd, maybe it was hard to see Kagiroi performing.
He wouldn’t have been surprised if people who had planned to take photos of his secret concert and sell them to the media had given up and left.
But it was strange that even the women who looked to be Kagiroi’s fans were also stopping and leaving with strange looks on their faces instead of staying and listening to him play.
Masamichi listened closely to what they were saying and was horrified by the eeriness of the situation.
“Why did I come running out here?”
“I don’t know. Were we racing?”
“Don’t be silly. But…I really wonder what got into us. Oh, well, let’s go.”
“Yeah. Let’s go for a drink at Kiyamachi or thereabouts.”
“Good idea!”
That was the type of thing the women near him said as they left. People who came later all turned on their heels almost amusingly and walked away.