Naoya didn’t answer; he was listening intently to the incessant whispering. Little by little, sounds that seemed to be words were emerging from the noise. —ck…he…meback… —he…back…came…ck… —ba…me…meback…hecame…hecameback. “Eh?” Another noise escaped Naoya. All of a sudden, as if someone was tuning a radio and found a working station, the whispering voices became crystal clear. —hecamebackhecamebackhecamebackhecamebackhecame back, he came back! In that moment, the loud buh-boom of a drum rang out. Naoya flinched in surprise and felt, in the very next second, his foot slipping off the edge of the stone step. He was falling. Flinging out an arm instinctively, he felt someone grab on tight. “Fukamachi!” Takatsuki’s voice. At the same time, the overwhelming sensation of falling came over Naoya. It was as if he were being flung into the void. Without so much as a moment to scream, Naoya’s consciousness gave way to darkness. Someone was shaking him forcefully by the shoulders. Naoya’s eyes opened in surprise. Both the narrowness of his field of vision and the white fox mask peering in at him from within that field caught him off guard. A scream nearly burst from his throat, but a hand pressed firmly against him, cutting off his cry. “Quiet. Don’t panic.” The hushed voice came from the white fox mask. It was Takatsuki’s voice. Until just moments ago, Naoya was pretty sure Takatsuki had been wearing his mask at an angle on his head, but now it was covering his face. It wasn’t just the professor’s mask, either; Naoya’s mask was the same. The narrowness of his field of vision was from the mask’s positioning. The boom of a drum startled Naoya once again. He appeared to have fallen on the ground. Takatsuki was leaning over the top of him, holding the mask against his mouth. Naoya tapped at his hand, and Takatsuki finally moved it away. Sitting up, Naoya looked at his surroundings from the ground. There were blue lanterns overhead. Why? he thought, feeling like he might cry. They were in the clearing—the one where that midnight festival was held. A wooden stage that hadn’t been there during the day was set up. Two adults stood atop it, beating festival drums. The boom, boom, buh-boom of the drums reverberated heavily in the air, making Naoya’s stomach churn. The clearing was full of people. Some wore yukata; others were in Western clothes. There were women in kimono with their obi neatly tied, men in blazoned hakama, people in monks’ working outfits and farmers’ clothes. All of them, surrounding the stage in rings two to three people deep, were doing the Obon dance. The only sound was the beating of the drums. Everyone was wearing some sort of mask. Demon masks, monkey masks, cat masks, round-faced woman masks. Everyone’s faces were hidden. Under the pale, cold light of the blue lanterns, the sight of them all dancing, arms swaying and feet stepping forward, was just like a bad dream. Tugging on Naoya’s arm, Takatsuki helped him to his feet. He thrust something into Naoya’s hand. It was his glasses. The professor had probably put Naoya’s mask over his face while he was unconscious. His glasses had likely gotten in the way, so Takatsuki had removed them. Naoya stuffed his glasses in his pocket. Quietly, he asked, “Professor, what in the world is going on? How is this happening…?” “I don’t know. You were about to fall down the stairs, so I grabbed your arm to stop you, but…I think I probably fell along with you. When I came to, we were both lying here.” “What about Mr. Sasakura?” “He’s not here. Kenji is probably still where we were before.” “Where we were before?” “—This isn’t the same clearing we saw during the day,” Takatsuki said, pointing subtly at a corner of the clearing. Sasakura’s car should have been parked there, but it was nowhere to be seen. “Anyway, it’s odd that we weren’t hurt after falling from that height. I think we’re probably not in the real world at the moment. This is the spirit world—or perhaps a liminal space between the spirit world and reality.” Oh, Naoya thought, covering his masked face with his hands. He remembered the whispers he had heard earlier while climbing down the stone steps. —He came back. The dead, who had let him slip through their clutches once, had been waiting for Naoya’s return. This time, they would finally make him one of their own. “Don’t give up hope, Fukamachi.” Takatsuki grabbed Naoya by the shoulders. “I said I would keep you safe if anything happens, didn’t I? We’re going back. To the world of the living.” “…But how…?” “First, we need to get away from this clearing before any of the dead notice us.” “Which way should we go? To the village? Or up the mountain?” “The mountain…doesn’t seem like a good idea. Let’s run to the village for now and wait until morning—” With a start, Takatsuki turned to look at the circle of dancers. At some point, the circle had begun to break up. They could see masked dead slowly approaching. Those who were still around the stage crooked their heads at impossible angles to stare fixedly at Naoya and Takatsuki. “—This is bad. They know we’re here.” Behind his white fox mask, Takatsuki clicked his tongue. Grabbing Naoya’s hand, he broke into a run. The shuffling crowd swarming toward them stretched out their arms like zombies. Takatsuki made for the clearing exit, dodging their grasping hands, but found that route already blocked by a row of the deceased. Clicking his tongue again, Takatsuki veered off diagonally toward the direction where the mass of dead people was thinner—toward the forest spread out at the foot of the mountain. But just then, someone grabbed hard onto the hem of Naoya’s T-shirt. He looked around to see a child in a yukata and cat mask clutching at his clothes. The child’s small hands gripped the fabric of his shirt as hard as they could, bunching it up in their grasp. Startled, Naoya shook the child off and, at the same moment, felt Takatsuki’s hand leave his. “—P-Professor!” “Fukamachi!” In the blink of an eye, Naoya was surrounded by the dead. Someone grabbed his shoulder from behind. Fingers as cold and hard as ice dug mercilessly into the flesh of his upper arm. He knocked them away frantically, but then someone was clutching at his arm from the other side. Screaming, Naoya shoved them away, too. Everywhere he looked, there were masked faces. Tengu masks. Demoness masks. Masks like the faces of old men and women. Naoya felt like he had seen this in a nightmare once. Maybe he was dreaming again. He wanted to be dreaming. But then someone grabbed his ankle and tugged, and the pain he felt upon crashing to the ground was real. Racked with despair, Naoya felt tears beginning to well up in his eyes. “Fukamachi!” He heard Takatsuki’s voice. Instinctively, Naoya reached his right arm out in that direction. A strong hand grabbed onto his. In one great pull, Naoya was heaved to his feet. He began running again, pulled along with just as much force. Holding Naoya’s hand in his own, Takatsuki finally broke through the throng of the dead and fled into the forest. The forest was the boundary between this village and its neighbor. They had been told there was no path, but if they could just get through it, they would end up in the other town. The one full of those friendly, breathing, living people. The forest at night, however, was unsparingly dark. The rows of trees stood tall, their reaching branches and leaves blocking out almost all the light from the stars. Their flashlights were long since lost. In darkness so absolute it should have made every step a peril, Takatsuki ran along at a considerable speed, undaunted. The professor’s eyes weren’t like those of an ordinary person, so perhaps he could see even in the inky blackness. He dodged skillfully between the trees, which Naoya could only make out by the depth of their shadowy forms, moving so quickly through the untracked woods that Naoya almost felt like he was running on air. He could sense their pursuers behind him. What would happen if they caught up? Just the thought was terrifying enough to nearly freeze his heart and lungs in his chest. But every time Naoya’s legs started to falter, a strong hand pulled him forward as if to say, “Don’t stop. Don’t give up.” Relying solely on the feeling of that hand in his, Naoya urged his exhausted legs to keep moving. He squinted into the darkness desperately, hoping to see any light from the neighboring village beyond the trees. It was so dark that he thought even the faintest light would be noticeable. The light of a house, even a streetlight would do. The merest twinkle of light could become a ray of hope. It was then— —a haze of white light appeared in the darkness. Takatsuki gripped Naoya’s hand even tighter. Without a word, he charged toward the light, which was growing too bright for Naoya, accustomed to the dark, to look at. Without thinking, he closed his eyes— —When he opened them again, Naoya was in the kitchen. Huh? he thought. At first, he couldn’t make sense of it. He had just been running through the forest a moment ago, after all. Now there were gleaming fluorescent lights. Cupboards stacked high with piles of plates and bowls. The microwave, the refrigerator. What was going on? Had it all just been a dream? The microwave beeped, and Naoya’s mother took a plate out of it. The sight of her shocked him for a moment, but then he realized there was no reason to be surprised. This was his parents’ kitchen. It was only natural for his mother to be there. “Naoya, you’re in the way; could you move, please? And dry your hair properly.” He stepped to the side as his mother had asked. Seeing water drip from his wet bangs, he remembered that he had just gotten out of the bath. Oh, that’s right, he thought. He was thirsty, so he had come to get something to drink. He took a bottle of barley tea from the refrigerator. His mother reached in from the side and grabbed a can of beer, which she took to the dining table along with the meal she had reheated. Naoya’s father, having come home from working overtime once again, was sitting at the table. “Oh, I forgot to mention,” his father said, turning on the television. “I’m leaving for a business trip tomorrow.” His voice distorted. Naoya frowned and covered his ears. Lately, his father had been lying a lot. What he said were business trips were just him leaving the house. Going off both his father’s and his mother’s behavior, Naoya was able to guess somehow. His father was having an affair. “…Liar.” That word tumbled unintentionally from his lips as he passed behind his father, a cup of barley tea in hand. In that moment, he felt two piercing stares fall upon him. Turning around with a jolt, Naoya saw his parents looking at him. His father’s face was pale and stiff. His mother’s eyes were so wide, they seemed about to pop out of her head. Seeing the animosity burning in their gazes, Naoya realized just then what he had done. The cup of tea slipped from his hand. The glass hit the floor and shattered with a shrill noise. No one moved, though. Everyone was still. The atmosphere between Naoya’s parents had already been quite strained for some time. Even what appeared to be normal conversations on the surface were loaded with an inescapable tension. His mother had long since found out about her husband’s unfaithfulness. His father, too, knew that his wife was aware of it. And yet they both continued pretending not to notice or know anything. In doing so, they were trying, somehow, to maintain their everyday lives, treading on thin ice. Most likely, they weren’t doing it for themselves, but for their family. They were doing it for none other than their son, Naoya, who was still in middle school. But with a single word—liar—Naoya had rendered all their efforts useless. Because by that point, both of his parents knew that Naoya’s ears could tell when someone was lying. If he said something was a lie, that was as good as indisputable proof that whoever said it wasn’t telling the truth. Turning a blind eye was no longer a valid excuse. The truth was absolute. Of course, Naoya’s cheating father was the one at fault. And his mother, who had noticed but done nothing about it, wasn’t without blame herself. Naoya found it extremely unreasonable that he was being made the target of their anger. And yet, at the same time, he thought— —maybe, if his ears hadn’t been like this, if he hadn’t had the ability to tell when people were lying, if he had just been normal— —perhaps his parents wouldn’t ever have glared at him like that. —Naoya’s head tipped forward for a moment, and he came to. He couldn’t believe it. He was running at full speed, and just now, it felt as though he had almost nodded off to sleep. He was in a forest. This wasn’t his parents’ house. At that second, he and Takatsuki were trying to get away from a horde of dead people. Maybe it was because they were sprinting through the dark without even knowing which way they were going. The scenery in front of Naoya’s eyes didn’t seem real at all. Perhaps that had thrown his brain for a loop momentarily. Why else, at a time like this, would he be remembering something that happened in middle school? The hazy white light from before had disappeared. Either that, or his seeing the light had itself been a dream. Takatsuki, still holding tight to Naoya’s hand, ran deeper and deeper into the forest. They had yet to outrun their pursuers. They had to get away. They had to get away. They had to get away. But then Naoya’s foot got caught on a protruding tree root or something, and his body lurched forward. Instead of his body hitting the ground, his consciousness once again left him for somewhere else. —All at once, Naoya found himself in an elementary school classroom. Huh? he thought. Unmoored, he looked around. The handwriting assignments on the walls had the words “Grade 5, Class 1” written before every name. Of course, this was Grade 5, Class 1’s homeroom. It was lunchtime. School rules dictated that they push their desks together into several groups to eat. When his food was served to him, Naoya put his hands together in thanks for the meal, thinking it was odd. Hadn’t he just been running through the woods? Or had that just been a dream? “Hey, doesn’t this dish have shrimp in it?” A girl in the group next to his spoke up, her tone anxious. The girl had only just moved to the area the week prior. She had big, round eyes and a sweet face. “I’m allergic to shrimp. I could die if I eat it.” The word die sent the class into an uproar. Their teacher stood up hurriedly and took the plate from the girl’s hands. The other girls in her group voiced their sympathies. “Mai, you have an allergy? That’s awful.” “Allergies are rough, huh? My cousin has one, too, and it seems like she’s always having a hard time with it.” The girl, Mai, nodded meekly, hunching her shoulders. Then, in a horribly distorted voice, she continued: “That’s right. It’s not just shrimp. I’m really allergic to peanuts. And soba, too. So I get really nervous every time I eat away from home. If it’s food my mama didn’t cook, I don’t know what’s in it. It makes me so anxious all the time.” “You have that many allergies? You poor thing!” “Teacher, I think we should tell the cafeteria about the foods Mai can’t eat!” Calls of support came from around the room. Mai thanked everyone quietly, tears in her eyes. “Thank you. Everyone is so nice. I’m so glad I moved here.” While the other kids all gathered around Mai and exchanged kind words with her, Naoya sat alone frowning with his hands over his ears. He wondered why this girl lied so much. Yes—Mai lied very, very often. On another morning, she had come into the classroom with tears in her eyes. The others had run up to her, asking what was wrong. She said she had seen an abandoned kitten in a box. The box had been floating down the nearby river. She said she had wanted to save the kitten but couldn’t, and the critter had died because of her, and what on earth should she do? Everyone took turns soothing the weeping Mai, telling her it wasn’t her fault, that she was too kindhearted. No one except Naoya was aware that such a kitten didn’t exist. Another day, following the report of a celebrity dying by suicide, everyone comforted Mai, who had told them about the relative of hers who had died by suicide some time ago. Of course, that relative didn’t exist, either. Naoya couldn’t help but wonder. He genuinely did not understand. And so one day, when he found himself alone with Mai in the front hallway after school, he asked her: “Hey…why do you lie all the time?” As Mai went to take her shoes out of her shoe cubby, her hand twitched slightly. She looked up at him, smiling awkwardly. Speaking exactly as though she was admonishing a child for getting a bad grade, she said, “What are you talking about? I don’t lie. ” “You do. You just did.” Pointing at her, Naoya went on. “I don’t really get it. Why do you always try to get people to feel bad for you? Do you get anything good out of it?” Naoya asked because he truly did not understand. But in that moment, Mai’s expression hardened. Glaring at Naoya with a look of loathing he had never seen her wear in class, Mai turned and stormed out of the building without a word. What was that all about? Naoya wondered as he walked outside as well, ready to go home. As soon as he stepped out the door, he felt something hit him hard on the forehead. He pressed his hand to it and felt, along with a jolt of pain, the feeling of something slippery on his fingertips. Bright-red blood fell to the ground like drops of rain at his feet. Near that was a bloody rock. Someone had thrown it right at him. Naoya looked in the direction he thought the rock had flown from, but there was no one there. Trembling at the blood dripping down his forehead, Naoya ran to the school nurse’s office. The nurse leaped to her feet the moment she saw his face. She tried to stop the bleeding with gauze but ultimately took Naoya to the hospital in her own car. He needed three stitches. The next day, when Naoya got to school, the atmosphere in class was strange. The look in everyone’s eyes as they took in the gauze on Naoya’s forehead was curiously cold. Later, he learned that Mai had gone around spreading a story as soon as she had arrived in class. —I saw something after school yesterday. It might be a little hard to believe, though. —Fukamachi hit himself on the head with a rock. He hurt himself on purpose. —I don’t know why he would do something like that. But what if— —What if he thought that everyone would be nice to him if he was hurt? Naoya hadn’t understood why all his classmates had believed her. But everyone was aware that Naoya had been acting oddly since the year before. Something would happen, and his hands would fly to his ears, and he would look upset, or he’d say he felt unwell and collapse. Or he’d turn right around and declare that someone was a liar. Now he understood. He, the classroom nuisance, had never stood a chance against poor, kind, commendable Mai. Even if all her popularity was built on lies, the other kids didn’t know that. Naoya was the liar. Mai was everyone’s friend. Things continued like that until Mai moved away again at the end of the semester—and in that time, Naoya lost everyone he had called a friend. —Again, Naoya’s head rocked forward. At the same time, he felt a burst of pain shoot through his forehead. He was in the forest again. Was it possible to dream while running? He didn’t know. But he definitely felt as though he had just been dreaming. He was sprinting through the dark woods with Takatsuki, but for what seemed like only a moment, he had lost consciousness. Still running, Naoya touched the ache on his forehead with his left hand. The demon mask he had been wearing had been lost somewhere along the way. The fingers he touched directly to the skin of his forehead felt something slippery. He was bleeding. Shocked as blood trickled into one of his eyes, Naoya shouted without thinking. What was going on? Had he hit a tree while running in his sleep or something? He remembered being injured in that location before, though. When he was in elementary school, someone had thrown a rock at him. There was probably still a faint scar from the stitches. But there was no way that injury would be bleeding now. “P…Professor.” Something was wrong. Something very, very wrong was happening, Naoya felt. “Professor, um—” Still clutching Naoya’s hand, Takatsuki ran deeper and deeper into the forest. As if he hadn’t even heard Naoya calling out to him, he made no reply. There wasn’t time for that now. They had to get away from the dead who were chasing them. And yet, still—something was wrong. Rather, everything was wrong. No matter how far they ran, they never got anywhere in the darkness of the woods. Despite seeming completely unreal, Naoya got the sense that he had seen this exact view before. Takatsuki’s unturning back. Where had he seen it? He couldn’t remember. …But then, was this really even Takatsuki at all? That question came unbidden into Naoya’s mind. A horrible feeling—like icy fingers brushing against the inside of his ribs—spread through him. He stared at Takatsuki’s back. Naoya thought it was Takatsuki. He couldn’t see his face like this, though, and it was so dark, he could barely see the back of the man’s head. But it had to be Takatsuki. After all, who else would reach out to save him in such a situation? He was sure it was Takatsuki. Aware that his confidence was gradually failing him, Naoya looked at Takatsuki’s hand, clasped tightly in his as they ran. That was when it hit him—a wicked sense of incongruity. Why was Takatsuki’s hand so cold when they were running so hard? And then— —he heard it. A voice. “…Fukamachi, no! Stop!” It was coming from behind him. “Don’t go any farther down that hill, Fukamachi!” —Hill? What was the voice talking about? They were in the middle of a forest. The terrain was a bit uneven, but there weren’t any— Just as he thought that, Naoya realized for the first time that the ground beneath his feet was slanted. It was a fairly steep downward slope. Naoya almost tripped, but Takatsuki, running ahead of him, helped him regain his footing. …No, that wasn’t right. The voice he had heard from behind him just moments ago—it had sounded like Takatsuki’s voice. But in that case, who was the person in front of him? “W-wait! Please stop!” Naoya yelled, digging his heels into the ground. The man kept running, trying to pull Naoya along with him, but Naoya forced them to a halt. “Could you look at me, please?” The man, hand still in Naoya’s, turned to look at him. Naoya could tell the man was still wearing his white fox mask, even in the dark. The difference in their heights, with the other man looking down at him, felt like what he was used to. “Professor,” Naoya said, pleading. “You are Professor Takatsuki…aren’t you?” “—Of course I am.” The man’s voice distorted wildly. Naoya’s eyes opened wide. He flung the man’s hand away from his with all his strength. Trying to back away, he stumbled over a tree root or something and fell backward, flat onto his rear end. In the same moment, the figure who had been standing right there in front of him disappeared as if melting into the darkness. The surrounding blackness grew thicker. Before, Naoya had been able to see the vague outlines of the trees, at least, but now he could see nothing. In a total panic, he groped desperately around but felt only the hard, rough, mysteriously sand-covered ground. He thought he was in the forest, but the grass and trees had disappeared, too. Naoya had no idea what was happening. “Professor!” he shouted into the darkness. “Professor Takatsuki, where are you?!” There was no reply. His ears were met with utter silence. Feeling as though he would go insane if he just kept sitting there, Naoya got up. He began walking blindly in the direction he thought he had come from. He’d gone down a hill, so surely, he could go back by going up a hill. He hoped as much, but when he realized the ground underfoot had returned to being entirely flat, he nearly burst into tears. No matter how much he walked, he couldn’t see anything. There was no one around. His forehead hurt. Lifting his hand to it without thinking, Naoya accidentally brushed the wound directly with his fingers and let out a small cry. He fumbled around in his pocket for his handkerchief and pressed it gently to the injury. He felt the cloth dampening almost immediately. Naoya stopped walking, telling himself it was because he was in pain. The impenetrable darkness spread out before him was so frightening. He didn’t know if it was safe to keep going. What was he supposed to do if something worse happened while he was stumbling his way through the dark? Again, he called out into the emptiness. “Professor? Mr. Sasakura? Where are you?” No one answered. Naoya could feel his face twisting into an expression that was part laughter, part tears. His knees shook. He couldn’t take another step forward. He couldn’t find the strength within to keep walking. The darkness was surely endless. He wouldn’t get anywhere continuing like this. There was nowhere to get to. After all—he’d made a mistake. “You must not be mistaken in whose hand you take…not ever.” Sae had warned him. Naoya had failed the test. He had reached for the wrong hand, and as punishment, he would be imprisoned in this darkness for eternity. All alone. —You will be lonely. That curse was well and truly in effect now. That’s it, then, Naoya thought. If that was how things were, what was the point in fighting it? It would only be an exercise in futility. And besides, in the event that he did return to the real world, he was sure his ears would be the same, which meant that even if he went back, he would just end up alone anyway. The things Naoya had seen before weren’t just dreams. They were his actual memories—things that had all genuinely happened. For destroying the family dynamics his parents had tried to hold up with lies, he was hated. For exposing the dishonesty of a liar, he himself was treated as a liar. And those weren’t the only bad memories he had; there were countless more. There were people who lied with a smile on their faces like it was nothing. Voices that spoke of friendship and murmured affection sounded so discordant that he couldn’t stand to listen to them. There were people who surveyed him with disgust. Everyone lied as easily as they breathed, but they also abhorred having their lies exposed. The same things were bound to happen again and again in the future. It was too late for anything to change. There was no going back to the way things once were. Wasn’t it better to just be alone in the darkness, then? Wouldn’t that mean he wouldn’t have to hurt anymore? At the very least, if he stayed where he was, no one would hate him, be creeped out by him, or throw stones at him anymore. He’d had enough. Crouching down in the dark, Naoya hugged his knees. Since he couldn’t see anything anyway, he closed his eyes. If he simply melted into the darkness, so what? But then— —behind his closed eyelids, golden sparks erupted with a pop. A sparkler. “See, like this, you can create much bigger sparks.” Their humble fireworks display after the Night of One Hundred Horrors ritual. Takatsuki, smiling proudly as he forced the ends of their sparklers together. Ruiko and Yui crying out with laughter. Pop, pop, pop! More golden sparks erupted. “Aw, come on. This is what people are supposed to do for each other.” Nanba, scratching bashfully at the tip of his nose. Pop! Pop! Pop! More sparks burst, dazzling in the darkness. “It’s okay to ask for help when you need it. Don’t forget that—understood?” Those gentle words spoken as a large hand patted Naoya’s head. The sound of water boiling. Someone else in his studio apartment, making him a hot meal. There were more popping noises, yet more scattered golden flashes of light. “If something bad happens, call me. Doesn’t matter what time.” A business card, casually given, with a handwritten number on the back. Pop! Pop, pop! The sparklers in Naoya’s memory kept bursting. Each time, a gleaming fragment of recollection rose up from within his mind. Slowly, warmth seeped in through the spaces of his closed eyes. “I’m saying you need to find lots of things you love. Something you like, something that’s fun, something you can think of as precious—we have to have a lot of those things. They are what keep us connected to this world…” A voice, clear and unmuddied. Oh, Naoya thought. Without his realizing it, a plethora of such things had already accumulated within him. He wasn’t lonely. He wasn’t lonely at all. There were so many shining, golden memories in his heart. Naoya opened his eyes. In the pitch-black darkness, it made no difference. Nevertheless, he stood up. Unsteadily, he began to walk. As he stepped forward, he called out to the darkness once again. “Professor.” He has to be here, he thought. After all, he had only just heard his voice. Naoya was certain that Takatsuki was there, too, alone in the dark. Sure that he was right, Naoya started to shout. “Professor Takatsuki! Where are you, Professor?!” “…Fukamachi?” It was Takatsuki’s voice. Overwhelmed, Naoya made a strangled cry and broke into a run toward that voice. The ground beneath his feet felt like it was falling away, as though he were running in a dream, but Naoya pushed forward desperately. “—Professor!” Slightly further ahead, he saw Takatsuki slumped over on his knees. He was looking at Naoya, astonished. Takatsuki’s left cheek was somewhat swollen, like someone had hit him. His lip was cut and bleeding. Barreling up to him, Naoya grabbed the other man by the shoulders. “Professor! Professor, are you okay?!” “What about you, Fukamachi?! How did you get that injury?!” Takatsuki’s eyes had widened at the wound on Naoya’s forehead. Naoya shook his head. “This is nothing. But, Professor, your face… Did the dead do this to you?” “No, this was my father…” “Your father?” “—Never mind. It was like I was having some sort of weird hallucination.” Takatsuki lightly touched a finger to his split lip. “With every vision I saw, it was like some past injury reappeared…” Suddenly, Takatsuki’s face contorted, and he bowed his head. He was breathing heavily, as though he was enduring intense pain. Alarmed, Naoya put a hand to Takatsuki’s back. The professor let out a small shriek, and Naoya felt something sticky cling to his fingers. He looked at Takatsuki’s back, horrified to find two massive blood stains spreading through his shirt. The stains filled in gradually as if someone were drawing two deep-red wings right before Naoya’s eyes. Giving Takatsuki a simple “sorry” and not waiting for a response, Naoya lifted up the back of his shirt. Takatsuki had an old scar on his back. Naoya had seen it once before—a scar where the skin had been peeled from his back, like someone had clipped his wings. That scar was bleeding. It looked fresh, as if it had only just been inflicted. “Professor, this is… Are you okay?!” “…Sorry, there’s no point in lying to you, so I’ll just say it… It hurts. A lot.” Hunched over, Takatsuki spoke in a hoarse voice. Shaken, Naoya stared down at him. He knew Takatsuki needed medical attention, but he didn’t know what to do. “I know it’s bleeding a lot,” Takatsuki said. “But…it’s not life-threatening. It wasn’t at the time, either.” “A-at the time?” “Besides, these wounds probably aren’t real. I think they’re illusions, too.” Putting both hands on the ground, Takatsuki forced himself upright. Naoya could see his arms shaking. He was in pain. Of course he was, with wounds that big. “What makes you think they aren’t real?” “I mean, Fukamachi, don’t you think it’s strange…? It’s this dark, but you and I? We can see each other.” “…Oh.” The moment he said that, it made sense. Despite the total lack of light, despite not being able to see a single thing in the surrounding darkness, Naoya could see Takatsuki, and Takatsuki could see him. “It’s like we’re in a dream. Not that I’ve had a lot of dreams where I can feel pain… But this probably isn’t real. Although, I also get the feeling that if we die here, it’ll stick, so we have to be careful.” “Please don’t say such ominous things. Anyway—why are we even here to begin with?” “I don’t know. You started running really quickly all of a sudden, so I rushed after you. Somewhere along the way, the ground became a really steep slope, but you just kept thundering down it, and I didn’t know what to do.” “…I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t stopped.” “In folklore, a hill is one way of symbolizing a boundary between the real world and the spirit world. Think of Yomotsu Hirasaka.” “Please don’t say terrifying things, either.” “I don’t think I’m wrong, necessarily… After all, we were told there’s an entrance to the underworld beneath the mountain.” A profound chill swept through Naoya at those words. “L-let’s go back right now! Back to the world of the living!” “Yeah, you’re right… Sorry, could you help me stand up?” With Naoya supporting some of Takatsuki’s weight, the two of them got to their feet. That movement alone made Takatsuki’s face twist in pain. “Professor, can you walk?” “I have to, or we can’t go home. You can’t carry me, right?” “I…I will be able to, someday! I decided I’m going to get stronger! That way, I’ll be able to carry you by myself, even if you faint!” “I wonder how long that will take, though… I mean, there’s the height difference, for one thing.” “Well, there’s nothing I can do about that, so why bring it up?!” Carefully avoiding touching Takatsuki’s back, Naoya somehow managed to get them moving. But just as before, other than the professor, he couldn’t see anything. Once more walking through the darkness, Naoya began to get anxious again. “…I know I said ‘Let’s go back,’ but I don’t even know which way to go.” “Ah, about that—try listening very, very carefully.” “Huh?” “Humor me.” Putting a hand to his ear, Takatsuki smiled a little. Following his lead, Naoya lifted a hand to his ear, too. At first, he didn’t hear anything. But then, before long— “—Oh.” —he could hear it. Sasakura’s voice. He was calling to them. Looking for them. “Ahh, I’m so glad KenKen came with us after all… We can get out of here safe and sound.” “That’s right.” One step at a time, the two of them walked toward that voice. The path, which had seemed completely flat, quickly turned into an uphill slope. “Listen, Fukamachi,” Takatsuki said, grimacing through his pain. “You must not, under any circumstances, look back while climbing this hill. Never, in all of time and space, has there ever been a case of someone looking back from the hill leading out of the underworld that ended well.” “I understand.” Yes, Naoya knew. The voice calling for them was coming from the top of the hill. That voice belonged to the person keeping himself and Takatsuki tethered to the real world. Eventually, the ground evened out again, and the two of them found themselves back at the festival. They were at the bottom of the stone stairs. The stalls that had been set up when Naoya had wandered in the festival years before were no longer there. Instead, at the base of the steps, a crowd of the dead moved to encircle them. “…Right, I suppose they can’t let us go back to the land of the living that easily,” Takatsuki muttered. They could hear Sasakura’s voice coming from the top of the stairs. If they could just climb the staircase, there was a chance they could go back to reality, but such a feat wasn’t looking so simple with all the dead people blocking their path. Naoya was determined to do it anyway. They were going to get up those stairs, even if he had to fight their way out. At that moment, two figures stepped out from the crowd of deceased—one in a fire-breathing jester mask, and the other in a round-faced woman mask. “—Naoya.” The jester spoke in his grandfather’s voice. Which meant, possibly, that the round-faced woman figure at his side was Naoya’s grandmother. “Naoya. Why did you come back to this village? I told you before that you mustn’t come here anymore.” “I’m sorry, Grandpa,” Naoya said to the fire-breathing jester mask. “But I wanted to know. I wanted to know what that festival was—I wanted to know what was happening here in this village.” “Now that you know, are you satisfied?” “…I’m not sure. But I think it’s better than not knowing.” The jester and the woman exchanged glances. Then the round-faced woman spoke. “Nao…I wish it weren’t so, but we cannot send you back to where you came from like this.” It was his grandmother’s voice, just as he had suspected. “This festival is for the dead. If the living come here, they must pay a price to the mountain god.” “…Again?” “That’s the rule.” Naoya wondered what it would be this time. What sort of curse would be cast upon him? As he recalled, there had been three sweets to choose from when he was young. The candy apple made you lose the ability to walk. The candied plum made you lose your words. The amber-colored lollipop made you lonely. Naoya had chosen the lollipop once already. He didn’t expect they would allow him to pick it again. If so, what was worse? To not walk, or to not speak? What his grandmother said next, however, was none of those things. “The mountain god commands it—you must leave half of your lifespan behind.” “…What…?” For a moment, Naoya didn’t understand what he was hearing and stared, befuddled, at the round-faced woman mask. His grandmother repeated herself. “Half of your lifespan. That is what the mountain god demands.” “Wh-why…?! That’s not what it was last time!” But Naoya’s grandmother had stopped answering and was simply staring at him from behind her mask. She was telling him to give up half of his life. Just then, Takatsuki staggered forward in front of Naoya. “‘Half of your lifespan’ is rather vague phrasing. How would that be calculated? After all, we don’t know how old we’ll be when we die.” Neither of the masked figures responded. Takatsuki looked at them for a little while, then back at Naoya over his shoulder. “Fukamachi, how long do you plan to live?” “H-how would I know that?! Don’t tell me you’re seriously trying to figure out an answer?!” “Let’s see, the average life expectancy of Japanese men is eighty-one years, and I’m thirty-five now, so I have forty-six years of life left. Half of that is twenty-three. Fukamachi, you’re twenty at the moment, which means you have sixty-one years left, and half of that is thirty years and six months. Adding those up, you get fifty-three and a half years.” For a moment, Naoya thought he had missed a step in the calculation. He looked at Takatsuki, expression sober. “…Wait a minute,” Naoya whispered, glaring at the professor’s bloodstained back. “Why did you add them together?” Takatsuki ignored him and continued standing so that Naoya was blocked from view as he addressed the round-faced woman. “So why don’t we call it fifty-three years, and you can take it all from me?” The two masked figures looked at each other again. Naoya stepped out hurriedly from behind Takatsuki. “What the hell are you talking about?! That equation doesn’t balance out! You only have forty-six years left! Isn’t the cost a bit more than you can afford?!” “Well, I’m sure they’ll figure out some way to settle the difference between the average lifespan and my actual one. You know, my grandfather should be turning ninety this year, but he still seems to be going strong.” “That’s not the point—” Naoya started to argue, but Takatsuki slapped a hand over his mouth. “Fukamachi, be quiet.” Peering into Naoya’s face, Takatsuki’s eyes were the most serious Naoya had ever seen them. “Don’t say anything else… You mustn’t speak carelessly when making a contract with a kami.” That’s exactly why! Naoya thought. Why should you have to pay the price all by yourself? With his mouth covered, he could only plead through his eyes. In response to his efforts, the corners of Takatsuki’s eyes suddenly turned up in his usual smile. “Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? Because I’m your teacher.” That’s no excuse. What sort of reasoning is that? Don’t think you can just wave all this away with some self-sacrifice. If you’re not careful, you could die the moment they take those years from you. They could hear Sasakura’s voice calling from the top of the stone steps. “Akira,” he yelled again and again. Turning toward the voice, Takatsuki smiled a little embarrassedly. Seeing that expression, Naoya felt his chest ache. Takatsuki had to go back to whom that voice was coming from. And it wasn’t just Sasakura—if anything was to happen to Takatsuki, Wataru would be beside himself, too. So would Ruiko and Yui. You have so many people waiting for you there. Do you not realize that? “…Mmmm, you know, I feel like you’re saying a whole lot with your eyes, but… Listen, Fukamachi.” This time, the wry smile spread across Takatsuki’s whole face. “This is how it should be—because I’m the one who dragged you into this.” Tooyama had said something similar once. That’s not true, Naoya thought, glaring at Takatsuki, who stooped down a little to look him in the eye. “I have to take responsibility. I’m the one who suggested we come here. I invited you. I’m the one who put you in danger. So…I alone should be the one to pay the price.” “…!” Naoya grabbed at the hand over his mouth, trying somehow to throw it off, but Takatsuki wouldn’t let him. Childishly using his height, strength, and adeptness to his advantage, he blocked every one of Naoya’s movements. “And anyway…the truth is, I actually sort of predicted this might happen.” Naoya’s eyes widened at Takatsuki’s words. “Back when you told me what Kazuya said about being ‘taken by the mountain god.’ That night, in bed, I thought about it long and hard. I wondered whether I shouldn’t just send you back to Tokyo. But I figured you would get pretty angry again—and besides, I really wanted to see into the spirit world. I wanted to know if such a thing genuinely existed. And so I concluded that since you were already twenty years old, it should be okay, and I chose to bring you along. I prioritized my own desires over your safety. It was unconscionable… So, you see, this really is my fault, right?” “…!” Unable to speak, Naoya screamed at him through his gaze. What are you saying?! Are you kidding me, you damn idiot?! Naoya was the one the mountain god had taken. When the dead had called out as they were climbing down that stone staircase, it ought to have been Naoya alone that they’d beckoned. And yet, as Naoya started falling down the steps, Takatsuki had reached a hand out to him. That was why he ended up here. By all rights, Naoya should have found himself at this festival for the dead all by himself. And besides, Takatsuki would never have come to this village if Naoya hadn’t told him about what happened here in the first place. Everything began with one report Naoya wrote about something he had gone through in the past. If anyone had been dragged into this mess, it was Takatsuki, and Naoya had been the one to do it. Despite that, Takatsuki was bound and determined to shoulder the entire burden alone. And if that meant dying alone, he thought that was just par for the course. You liar, Naoya thought. I’m not letting you get away with that. I’ll never forgive you for it. Once, Takatsuki had even said he wasn’t going to let go of Naoya, and yet— And yet he had the nerve to try giving up his own life as if it were nothing? “…Ahh, I’m starting to feel like I should cover your eyes, too, not just your mouth. Maybe I should just knock you unconscious.” Dangerous words started slipping from Takatsuki’s mouth. For a guy with such a sweet face, he was surprisingly willing to resort to violence to get his way. Not wanting to just stand there and let the professor knock him out, Naoya started to struggle against his hold harder than ever. But just as a genuinely dangerous light began to form in Takatsuki’s eyes— “—Pardon, excuuuse me. Please let me through.” —a leisurely voice, sounding entirely out of place, called out. Someone was walking toward them, pushing through the rows of the dead. It was a woman wearing a tree peony–patterned yukata. On her face, she wore a mask made to look like a young woman. It was a Noh mask called “Koomote,” Naoya was fairly sure. The woman stepped briskly out in front of Naoya and Takatsuki, who stood frozen, mid-struggle with each other. “Boo,” she said, whipping her mask off in a flourish. It was Sae. “How…? Miss Sae?!” “Why are you here?!” Naoya cried. He had torn Takatsuki’s hand from his mouth the moment he felt it loosen in shock. Holding her mask in front of her chest with both hands, Sae squirmed from side to side. “Well, putting on a mask and dancing sounded, like, soooo fun, you know? And, like, I wanted to wear a yukata?” “Stop talking all weird like you’re trying to seem younger!” “Yow. That hurts, glasses boy! You shouldn’t talk to a woman like that!” Sae looked indignant. Takatsuki grabbed ahold of her hand. “Miss Sae! How in the world—?” “Yikes, Professor. You can’t just hold my hand out of nowhere like that when it’s been so long since we’ve seen each other. Relationships between men and women move one step at a time, and the first step is a shared diary that we trade back and forth, right? Don’t be so impatient.” “This is no time for jokes. Do you have any idea where you are?” “I came here to save you because I do, obviously,” Sae said in a low murmur. “Making a deal with a god is tough. Human logic doesn’t work on them.” Startled, Takatsuki slackened his grip. Sae flapped the sleeve of her yukata to shake him off and turned to the figures in the fire-breathing jester and round-faced woman masks. The jester, in Naoya’s grandfather’s voice, said, “You—you’re one of the living, too.” “Yep, I’m alive,” Sae declared, waving her sleeves prettily. “Which, I guess, means I have to follow the ‘half your lifespan’ rule, too, and pay up for the mountain god.” The jester nodded. “That’s right. You must leave half of your lifespan behind.” “That adding-up thing the professor did before—shall we stick with it?” “…Fine. It applies.” “Okay! But you know, I’m not very good at math… Well, whatever. Then for the three of us together, go ahead and take one or two hundred years from me. Ah, why don’t we just round it up to three hundred? How’s that?” Sae smiled brightly. Naoya couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Three hundred years? This was a bad time for sloppy bookkeeping. The jester nodded calmly, however. “Fine.” As if taking his answer as a signal, the dead opened up a path to the stone staircase. Sae put her mask on her head at an angle and shoved her way between Naoya and Takatsuki. Reaching out, she used both of her own hands to grab one each of theirs, clasping them tightly. “Well then, let’s go home. Thanks for the hospitality—please excuse us.” After bowing a few times to the jester and the round-faced woman, Sae started walking at a brisk pace. She was quite strong. “Wait, Miss Sae,” Naoya said as she dragged him along. “Three hundred years?! What are you thinking, saying a number like that?! What are you gonna do if you just shrivel up and die?!” “Geez, you sure say some funny things, glasses boy. I’m not going to shrivel up. My beauty is eternal, like the shine of a diamond.” “Stop messing around!” “I’m not messing around.” Suddenly, Sae turned to look at Naoya. Her eyes were jet-black. The color of the deep, dark sea where no light could penetrate. “The kanji that make up the Yao in Yao Bikuni don’t mean ‘eight hundred’ in the literal sense. They’re a combination of the character for eight, which spreads out like an open fan and symbolizes prosperity, and one hundred, which means ‘many.’ In other words—eternity.” “Huh…?” Naoya’s eyes widened. Takatsuki, too, stared at Sae with his eyes wide. Shrugging a little, Sae started walking again, pulling them both along by the hand. Partway up the stone staircase, Takatsuki suddenly gasped and whirled around to face the fire-breathing jester. “—That’s right! There’s one more question I want to ask you!” “Come on, Professor, cut it out! Just when I got everything settled all nice and neat for you…” Sae made to stop him, but Takatsuki interrupted her with a shout. “Before! Those…those visions! Were they just dreams, or—were they memories of the past?!” It was a peculiar question. But the jester looked straight at Takatsuki and nodded once. In that moment, the expression on Takatsuki’s face was—indescribable. He looked all at once as though he would burst into tears, break into triumphant laughter, or explode in a white-hot rage. Still, he opened his mouth to speak again. At that exact second, however, the ground beneath their feet shifted. For a moment, Naoya thought it was an earthquake. But it wasn’t. It was as though the mountain itself was shifting. A strange oscillating motion spread up Naoya’s body from underneath. Suddenly, he was hit with a wave of vertigo. His field of vision was turned on its head. Just then, he heard Sae whisper in his ear. “Professor. Glasses boy. You owe me one—’kay?” That was the last thing Naoya heard before his consciousness was once more swallowed up in the darkness. “…Hey! Hey, wake up! Wake up, Fukamachi!” Someone was yelling. Naoya’s eyes sprang open. Sasakura’s face was right there in front of him. It was the same scary face he always wore, except that it was scarier than usual at the moment. There were distinct dark circles under his eyes. When he saw that Naoya had opened his eyes, he let out a sigh of relief. “Good, you’re awake. Hey, don’t try too hard to get up. Does anything hurt? Are you nauseous?” “…No, I’m fine, but… Eh?” Noticing a blue lantern hanging above Sasakura’s head, Naoya jolted in shock. Instinctively, he sat up and looked around. It was morning. Dawn was still breaking, so it didn’t seem like all that much time had passed. There were blue lanterns strung overhead. They were in the festival clearing. But it wasn’t the same clearing he and Takatsuki had just been in. There was no wooden stage. The stage atop which a large drum had been played, surrounded by several rings of dead people, was nowhere in sight. Instead, there was a wooden pedestal in the center of the clearing. A big, somewhat misshapen drum had been placed on top of it. There were no signs of the dead anywhere in the area. In the morning light, there were some blue lanterns that still shone, but it was clear that they were faded and old. Some were stained and moth-eaten, and they were completely bereft of the mysterious air they had possessed in the darkness of the night. Naoya looked to the corner of the clearing and saw, despite the fact that it hadn’t been there last night, that Sasakura’s car was parked where they had left it. “…Wh-where’s Professor Takatsuki?!” “I’m right here.” Not spotting the professor anywhere, Naoya had begun to panic, but a voice called from his other side. Takatsuki was there, sitting on the ground just like Naoya was, looking at him with a somewhat tired smile. “Professor, your injuries?! The wounds on your back need to be treated right away…!” “Calm down, Fukamachi. They’ve healed already.” “Huh?” “The wound on your forehead has, too.” Takatsuki pointed to Naoya, who touched a hand to his head. He expected to feel a fair amount of blood, but there was no wound there at all. He found nothing more than the faint remnant of a scar left from the stitches he’d received at the hospital all those years ago. “I’m glad we were both able to come back safely. Apparently, we’d collapsed right here.” “Seriously, where the hell were you guys…? I searched around here so many times, but I never found you until morning.” Sasakura, sounding utterly exhausted, heaved a big sigh. The nightmare started, from Sasakura’s point of view, when Naoya suddenly lost his footing as the three of them were going down the stone steps. Takatsuki had reached out at once to stop him from falling, but unable to keep his balance, he also began to pitch forward. Just as Sasakura moved to grab the professor’s hand, Takatsuki and Naoya vanished into thin air. Apparently, Sasakura hadn’t been able to make heads or tails of it. With identical thuds, the flashlights that the two of them had been carrying began tumbling down the stairs. Naoya’s bag and Takatsuki’s backpack were just lying in the middle of the steps. Despite that, they themselves were nowhere to be seen. It was as though they had just been spirited away. After that, Sasakura searched for them all night but wasn’t able to find them. And yet, when morning arrived, there they were, in the corner of the clearing, piled on top of each other, in a spot nowhere near the base of the stairs. “You know…if I hadn’t found you guys by morning, I was seriously thinking about calling in someone who I really don’t want to owe a favor to…!” Sasakura’s tone was really nasty for some reason. Wondering who it was that the detective was dead set against owing anything to, Naoya apologized. He had really been worried about them, it seemed. Naoya reached into his pocket and took out the glasses he had shoved into it the night before. He put them on; the frames were a little bent. “Oh yeah,” he said, looking at Takatsuki again. “Professor, where’s Miss Sae? Where did she go?” “I don’t know. She was already gone when I woke up. This is all she left.” Takatsuki picked up the small Noh mask from the ground by his side. Sae remained a mystery no matter how many times they crossed paths. She was cheerful and kind—and utterly unknowable. Naoya stared at the mask. What would have happened to them if Sae hadn’t shown up? She had saved them. Both of them. “…She said she was Yao Bikuni, didn’t she?” The legend of Yao Bikuni described a woman who was said to have eaten the flesh of a mermaid and stayed young for eight hundred years. But it wasn’t eight hundred years, Sae had said. It was eternity. She said that was why it didn’t matter how much of her life was taken. Had the mountain god really taken half of Sae’s lifespan? The mountain was sitting just as it had been the previous afternoon. Naoya could not forget what he had felt in the very last moments before losing consciousness: a motion that felt like the entire mountain was shifting. What they had been through that night, Naoya thought, was no dream. That he and Takatsuki had seen the same thing was proof of that. Plus—there was Sae’s mask. But then, where was it that they had been? At that moment, they heard a voice calling from far off. It was Mr. Nakamura. He was racing toward them on his scooter, waving one hand. “Ah, someone who might be able to explain things to some extent is coming.” Takatsuki stood and brushed the dirt off his clothes. Naoya did the same. Coming to a stop in front of them, Mr. Nakamura hopped off the scooter and grabbed Naoya by both of his arms—for a moment, at least. Then as though trying to ascertain that all of Naoya was accounted for, he began patting his whole body from head to toe. “Oh, oh my, Nao, good, you’re safe. You’re safe, I’m so glad. I’m so—” The old man repeated those words again and again, tears welling up in his eyes, and Naoya, at a loss for words, said nothing. Takatsuki opened his mouth instead. “Mr. Nakamura…since you’re so happy that Fukamachi is safe, I dare say you have some idea as to what happened to him last night?” Sniffling, Mr. Nakamura looked up at Takatsuki, who smiled brightly down at him. “Last night, Fukamachi and I experienced something incredibly strange and, moreover, dangerous… I don’t suppose you could tell us about that festival of the dead? We won’t let anyone else know. We just want to understand.” “…You were called to that festival, too?” “I wasn’t, no. I arrived there attached to Fukamachi.” “…I’m glad you made it back safely, as well.” “It was certainly a close call,” Takatsuki said, his eyes narrowing slightly. Mr. Nakamura finally let go of Naoya and looked up at the blue lanterns decorating the clearing. He stared at the faded blue paper in the morning sun for a while before turning his gaze to the mountain. Then the old man scratched roughly at his head and plopped down onto the ground with his legs crossed. He took out his lighter and cigarettes and lit one. “…I told you yesterday that there’s an entrance to the underworld beneath the mountain, didn’t I?” “Yes. The dead—they really do return to this village, don’t they? During Obon.” “…Yes,” Mr. Nakamura said. “I’ve never seen them, though. Most of the villagers haven’t. But sometimes, there would be those who said they saw them. They said old women, old men, and children who should have been dead appear from the mountain on the night of the festival and join in the celebration.” Apparently, it had been that way for a long time. Around Obon in the summer, the dead appeared on this side of the mountain. Such a legend had been passed down for generations. Fearing that, the village on the opposite side of the mountain cut off all contact with this side. Mr. Nakamura and the other villagers believed that the legend had probably said the entrance to the underworld only opened up on this side of the mountain. And if the dead were going to return, they had to be met with hospitality. “According to legend, it started as just a regular Obon dance…but children who stayed out late the night of the festival kept going missing. Or often, they would come back, but they wouldn’t quite be the same, and they would die. Our ancestors believed this was because they were taken by the mountain god. The mountain god controls the dead. At times, the mountain god might mistake a living person for a dead one and try to take them away. That’s why our ancestors set up two different Obon dances.” One for the living, the public one. Red lanterns were hung, as was tradition. And one for the dead, the secret festival, where blue lanterns became the custom. The lanterns were changed at a predetermined time. It was decided that children could only attend the red lantern festival. The blue lantern festival was kept a secret from the children. After all, if they heard about a festival happening, children couldn’t help but want to see it, and that was how they would end up being taken. And so the ancestors decided no one would be allowed to learn about the mere existence of the blue lantern festival or the mountain god until they were grown. Their village was small as it was. If they kept losing children, the village’s survival would be threatened. Someone was always chosen to be on duty for the blue lantern festival. “Festival duty meant it was your turn on the drum. The children would find out about the secret festival if a real drum was played, so a big papier-mâché one was prepared. If you were on duty, you’d stand on the stage and pretend to beat the drum for two or three hours, then you’d be allowed to go home. Sometimes, after someone had their turn standing on top of the stage in the deserted clearing, wearing a mask and pretending to play a drum—sometimes, they would say they saw the dead. They’d say they saw the dead dancing in a circle, two to three people deep, around the stage. Like they were hallucinating, they’d say. They were frightened. After someone was done with festival duty, they’d cleanse their body with salt before going home. To wash away the impurity of the dead, you see.” But despite everything that was done to keep it a secret from the children, every once in a great while, there would be a child who claimed to have seen the blue lantern festival. Children like that most often came back with strange hearing. They said it sounded odd when someone told a lie. Other children would suddenly stop talking. Some would lose all strength in their legs and no longer have the ability to walk. The majority of those children, tormented by the abnormalities in their ears or voices or legs, chose to end their own lives. Not many of them made it to adulthood. Even when they did, they often ended up being called back to the blue lantern festival, and they never returned a second time. They were taken by the mountain god—their lives, and their souls. “…That’s why, in this village, even if those children came back here as adults, they were chased away from here without being told about the mountain god. Those who have been called there once are likely to be called again, as if they bear the mountain god’s mark. And if they’re called a second time, there’s usually no hope for them. The dead seem eager to make the living their own.” Eventually, however, the village reached its limit with continuing to hold both festivals. The village’s population declined steadily, and it became difficult just to maintain the public festival. These days, most of the village’s young people left the village once they were adults. Some went away as early as high school, but even among those who didn’t, the majority went to the city for college. After all, they had no interest in taking over the fields and rice paddies. Once they left the village behind, they were no different than outsiders—people to whom the village’s secrets could not be revealed. “That was the case for Midori. She had no sons, and both her daughters lived in the city once they began college. So I doubt she ever told them—about the festival or the mountain god… That’s why I couldn’t believe it when you said Kazu heard about the mountain god from Midori while she was in the hospital. It’s something that shouldn’t have been shared outside this place; it’s a village secret.” And so, with the population dwindling, a discussion was finally held about the festivals. A decision to stop holding the red lantern festival was reached quickly. Talks about the blue lantern festival, however, were rough going. Quite a lot of people wanted to stop doing that festival, too, but if they did, who would appease the returning dead? What if the mountain god became angry? Ultimately, they chose to simplify the event. The blue lanterns would continue to be hung as they had before, so that the returning dead could have a place to hold their own festival. Since building a stage was hard work, they decided to set up just a pedestal for the papier-mâché drum, which the person on festival duty would pretend to play. Only for an hour, however. The villagers’ strength was declining as well. “Who knows if that will be kept up even when the village is down to its last resident, but…as long as we’re able, we’re going to hang the blue lanterns, at least. That’s what we decided. I’ve never seen any of the dead…but I still thought it was important to make such a resolution. To think you went to that festival, Nao—I didn’t know. Midori must have kept it a secret from the whole village… You didn’t live here, after all.” Mr. Nakamura bowed his head. His body, already so much smaller than it had once been, seemed to shrink even more. He looked like he was apologizing to Naoya. Believing the legend that the dead would return, the people of this village had been holding a festival for the dead for many, many years. At first, the living and the dead shared one festival. Later on, separate festivals were held. Perhaps, Naoya thought, it was that demarcation of the festivals that had exacerbated the blurring between this world and the spirit world. The villagers hung up blue lanterns and provided a place for the dead to have their own celebration. And eventually, that festival site gave rise to another world. In the real world, they made do with pretending to play papier-mâché drums, but the dead in the underworld were not satisfied with that. And so, in their own world, they beat real drums. Beneath the cold glow of the blue lanterns, the place for the festival of the dead was built practically on top of its position in reality, as if the two worlds were being layered one over the other. The boundary between them was vague, and that sometimes led to children getting lost. Children like Naoya and Tooyama. But no matter how near to reality the festival site was, it was still a world under the rule of the mountain god. It was a place that led directly to the underworld. “I see… It all makes sense now,” Takatsuki said. “Thank you for telling me. So then when someone who has participated once before in the festival is called back to it, they are taken straight to the underworld, it would seem. That’s what happened to Fukamachi last night.” Mr. Nakamura’s eyes almost popped out of his head at Takatsuki’s words. Sasakura, too, looked at Naoya in shock. Naoya glanced down at his right hand. The hand that had been taken by a dead person the night before. Had that steep slope been the path to the underworld? “Yes, I see. If that’s the case—then I’m convinced.” At that moment, Takatsuki laughed. As if he simply could not contain himself, he kept laughing, a long stream of snickering from deep in his throat. “P-Professor?” “Hey, Akira. What’s wrong?” Concerned, Naoya and Sasakura called out to him. Still laughing, Takatsuki looked at Naoya. “Fukamachi. Do you remember? When we were going down that slope. You were bleeding from your forehead… Before that, do you remember what you saw?” “Huh…?” “When we were leaving that festival, I asked if those were just illusions—or if they were memories of the past. Your grandfather—at the end, he nodded.” Another little burst of somewhat unhinged laughter escaped him. “If that hill was Yomotsu Hirasaka, then it makes sense. What we saw were undoubtedly real memories. A kaleidoscopic montage. They say that people remember their entire lives before they face death.” “Um, Professor? I don’t quite…” “Ah, yes, I’m sorry. Of course you don’t understand. But at that time, you must have remembered the incident in which you got that scar on your forehead. I remembered, too—the time I got these scars on my back.” “Eh…?” That was a memory that, until now, Takatsuki had never successfully recovered. The kamikakushi incident that occurred when he was twelve. When he was found after a month of being missing, Takatsuki’s back had been cut open. At Yomotsu Hirasaka, his wounds had once again opened. Within the ever-shifting scenes of the montage, he had relived that time. “I saw a big hand,” Takatsuki said, smiling maniacally. “I was crying so much and saying I wanted to go home, and I was told—‘If you want to go home that badly, I’ll send you back.’ Then that person patted my head with that big hand, and then, to my back—” Suddenly, Takatsuki’s mouth snapped shut. His expression froze. The smile that had been plastered to his face melted away, and he stared blankly into space. “…Akira?” Sasakura called his name in a dubious tone. All at once, one of Takatsuki’s hands shot up and clutched at his face. His head bowed. He hunched over as though fighting an unbearable headache, his back rounded. Naoya peered anxiously into his face from the side. “Professor? Are you okay?” “—No.” His answer came with such a peculiar firmness that, for a moment, Naoya thought he was admitting honestly to not being all right. But he was wrong. That wasn’t it at all. “You mustn’t, Akira,” Takatsuki said, his head still hanging. That oddly clear resonance was undoubtedly Takatsuki’s voice. But it sounded like someone else entirely was speaking. That voice was frighteningly calm and flat, as though all emotion had been drained from it. “You mustn’t. You must not remember. That would be violating our agreement, Akira.” Alarm written all over his face, Sasakura grabbed Takatsuki by the shoulders and forced his bowed head up. Mr. Nakamura stifled a shriek. Takatsuki’s eyes were indigo. They were shining brighter than usual, brightly enough that they seemed to be emitting their own faint glow. His handsome face was utterly without emotion; Takatsuki looked like a life-size doll. Within the depths of those eyes, the shine of countless stars only made his gaze more brilliant. Suddenly, Takatsuki’s head fell back. “Hey?!” Sasakura grabbed his shoulders again. The professor’s knees hit the ground with a thud, but Sasakura managed to support his collapsing frame. Naoya leaned in to help from beside him, and together, they laid Takatsuki down on the ground. He was completely unconscious. His night-sky eyes were hidden behind his lids and long lashes, and his cheeks were alarmingly pale. If not for the slight rising and falling of his chest as he breathed, Naoya might have thought he was dead. It was the first time he had seen the professor faint when there wasn’t a bird around. It was also the first time he had heard the other Takatsuki speak. After that, they put Takatsuki in the car and left the village. They reiterated to Mr. Nakamura that they wouldn’t tell anyone about the mountain god or the festival. The old man, looking somewhat fearfully at Takatsuki’s form—laid down across the back seat—and nodded vaguely. They returned to the hotel, which they had failed to go back to the night before, packed their bags, and checked out of their room, but Takatsuki still remained unconscious. They left Nagano with the professor still passed out in the back of the car. Traffic on the highway to Nagano had been bad, but it was even worse on the way home to Tokyo. The Obon holiday was over. From the passenger seat, Naoya peeked at Sasakura, who was gripping the wheel in silence. “Mr. Sasakura…are you okay? You didn’t get any sleep, right?” “Please, I’m a detective. Going without sleep for one night is nothing.” Naoya’s mouth snapped shut at his low reply. They puttered along far below highway speeds. Sasakura tapped his fingers against the wheel impatiently. “—Hey.” This time, it was Sasakura who spoke up. “What did he mean? About a montage.” “Oh… Um, last night, we might have almost gone to the underworld… In other words, we almost died.” “Almost died?!” Sasakura glared sidelong at him, and Naoya stiffened at the fierceness in his gaze. “And so, at the time, both Professor Takatsuki and I—we remembered various things from our pasts. I think he probably remembered getting the injuries on his back, and that made his memories return…from the time he was spirited away.” And yet, at that moment, the one that Wataru called the “other” Takatsuki had appeared. Naoya had met him once before, when the professor fell off a waterfall in the demon village in Yamanashi. But on that occasion, Takatsuki had lost consciousness on his own. Naoya hadn’t known it was possible for it to happen like this—for the “other” one to appear while the usual Takatsuki was in the middle of just talking. And anyway—what in the world was that “other” Takatsuki to begin with? Just then, they heard a faint groan from the back seat. Naoya whipped his head around to look. Sasakura even glanced over his shoulder for a moment. Takatsuki had opened his eyes. He sat up slowly, seeming a bit vacant, and pressed a hand to his downturned face. “P-Professor? You’re awake. Are you okay?” “Hm? Umm… Did I fall asleep? Don’t tell me I saw a bird somewhere and collapsed? I can’t really recall… Right as we’re on our way to Nagano, too. I’m sorry for causing you trouble from the start.” “…Professor?” Not quite able to believe what he had just heard, Naoya turned around a bit more in the passenger seat to look at Takatsuki. The professor, still somewhat dazed, looked out the car window. Something must have caught his eye, because Takatsuki’s expression turned curious. He leaned closer to the window, staring at the road signs outside. “Hey…,” he murmured, dumbfounded. “We’re going back to Tokyo? Did something happen?” “Professor.” This can’t be happening, Naoya thought. How could something so ridiculous—? “Akira. Answer me.” Gripping the wheel, Sasakura looked at Takatsuki in the rearview mirror. “What is today’s date?” Takatsuki returned his gaze, bewildered. “The date? It’s August fourteenth—isn’t it?” The date was August sixteenth. After that, Sasakura parked the car at the nearest service station, and the three of them had a discussion that felt like a waking nightmare. Takatsuki’s memory had vanished starting from the morning of August fourteenth. Everything that had happened since—all the things that had occurred in Nagano—Takatsuki had entirely forgotten them.
Chapter 15
64 min read