“Come on. Let’s drink,” Uzui said, pouring saké into his colleague’s cup. Tomioka nodded and went back to drinking in silence.
Kanae’s welcome party continued until well past midnight. The next morning, several of the teachers at Kimetsu Academy wobbled unsteadily at their podiums.
And then, at last, night fell.
“So cold! Feels like fall’s come early.” Uzui hunched over as the night wind blew over him. As far as he could tell, he was the first to arrive. The cold bit at him, but the previous night’s drinks still warmed his system. He was tired. Chomping on some gum to wake himself up, he fiddled with his phone.
“Hey, buddy!” Tomioka’s voice echoed down the deserted street. “Sorry I’m late!”
Uzui turned to the figure racing toward him. “What took ya so—” At the sight of the approaching teacher’s dazzling smile, the bubble he was blowing popped.
Tomioka skidded to a stop in front of Uzui and let out a sigh of relief. “The others haven’t made it yet, huh? Great! It’s cold for June, and I’d hate to make Kanae wait out here.”
Uzui stared in shock.
“Sorry, are you cold?” Tomioka asked. “If you want, I can lend you my sweater.”
Uzui shook himself. “Who are you?”
Tomioka blinked. “Um, Giyu Tomioka? From school?”
“Don’t give me that. The Tomioka I know is no ball of sunshine. He’s a loner, cranky as hell, barely says a word, no clue what he’s thinking—you get the idea.”
“Wow.” Tomioka winced. “Is that the way you see me, buddy?”
“You’ve never once called me ‘buddy.’” Uzui shivered. Goosebumps rose on his arms. This was giving him the creeps.
Now that he thought about it, there’d been some dubious mushrooms in that stewed salmon Tomioka had put away at the party. The restaurant had apologized, claiming they’d been added by mistake. Maybe they’d done a number on his colleague.
“Hey!” a voice called from behind him. “Am I late?”
“Nah, Rengoku. Perfect timing—” Uzui turned in the direction of the voice, but stopped short at the sight of the absurdly huge hiking backpack Rengoku wore on his back. “You … do understand where we’re going, right? What’s with the kit?”
“Senjuro was worried about me,” Rengoku said. “He made me bring all the salt in the house to ward off evil spirits.”
“That whole thing’s filled with salt? How much salt do you have in your house, anyway?”
“Oh...unrefined salt, table salt, rock salt, the usual,” Rengoku said, opening the pack to show him. “Oh, and salted crackers.”
“What’re you going to do with crackers? Have a snack with the ghosts?” Uzui groaned. “And that chunk of rock salt is the size of a baby!”
“It really is. Where did you find something like that?” Tomioka peered into the pack, grinning. “Still, it’s awfully nice of Senjuro to think of his big brother. I just have an older sister, but I always thought it’d be fun to have little siblings.”
His cheery voice made Uzui shudder again. He put a hand on Rengoku’s shoulder. “Rengoku? Tomioka’s being weird.”
Rengoku looked baffled. “How so?”
“Still on that?” Tomioka made a show of being put out, goofing around like an ornery kid. “Tomioka’s the same as ever. You tell him, Rengoku, buddy.”
Uzui’s jaw dropped. He’s talking about himself in the third person now? He gestured helplessly at Rengoku.
But his colleague showed no sign of understanding. “Weird how?”
“How? Just...I mean...huh?” Uzui was at a loss for words. His friends looked mildly confused.
“You said Tomioka was being weird, right?” Rengoku said. “What did he do?”
A baffled grunt escaped through Uzui’s gritted teeth. This couldn’t seem normal to Rengoku, could it? The surly gym teacher suddenly turning cheerful and charming?
How is he weird? How is he not weird? Everything about this is uncanny.
Uzui wished Shinazugawa could have made it. Rengoku wasn’t the sharpest crayon in the box, but Shinazugawa would have understood the problem.
Or would he have? Maybe Uzui was the one who didn’t get it.
Do I really know what Tomioka is like?
Uzui started to doubt himself. Could he be sure he was seeing Tomioka as he really was? Who was Tomioka, anyway?
Tomioka... Tomioka... Tomioka...ka...ka...
Tomioka’s name and face repeated in his mind until he felt ready to snap. Why did he even care? Why was he wasting so much mental energy thinking about Tomioka?
It’s all in my head. Just my imagination.
In the nick of time, before Uzui could make a complete fool of himself, Kanae arrived. Together, the teachers slipped through the school gates and into the shadows of the building, so unfamiliar at night.
The night watch began.
“Man, it’s dark,” said Uzui, leading the way with his phone flashlight.
“It feels kind of wrong,” said Rengoku, following with an actual flashlight. “Exciting, like a childhood dare.”
“Watch your step, Ms. Kanae.”
“Thank you, Mr. Tomioka.”
Kanae and Tomioka followed Uzui and Rengoku down the dark hallway.
“First we’ll check out that pot in the biology lab,” said Uzui.
No one seemed to know in which hallway the old man was supposed to appear. They decided they might as well start with the spirit whose location had been pinpointed.
Rengoku nodded. “An old man jumps out of the pot and crawls around the lab, right?”
Uzui rolled his eyes. “You’re mixing the two stories up.” Actually, Rengoku’s version was even creepier.
As they walked, Uzui tried to untangle the stories he and the other teachers had collected from students. The spirit in the biology lab:
• had three mouths, one eye, and a large but unknown number of hands.
• subjected anyone it saw to endless taunting and insults.
• tickled (with all its hands) anyone who refused to listen to its incomprehensible boasting.
• was definitely single (this tidbit came from an oddball student with a passion for automata).
• was very proud of its pot. If anyone pointed out flaws in its workmanship, it became enraged and exploded into curses.
• fancied itself an artist and laughed smugly.
And the ghost in the hallway:
• crawled around the school weeping.
• muttered resentfully.
• appeared at first glance to be an old man in a kimono but, on closer inspection, had two horns on its head and did not appear entirely human.
• attacked smaller students and stole their belongings.
• had a prominent bump on its head from an axe kick Tokito gave it when it tried to attack him in junior high.
Uzui sighed. “When I say it out loud, it sounds like a whole lot of nothing.”
The teasing, the tickling, the stealing—all perfectly ordinary human behavior. Except for the spirits’ supposedly eerie appearances, both stories were basically descriptions of common school aggravations. On top of that, apparently the crawling guy could be beaten up by a junior high kid. As he continued down the hall, Uzui began to feel deflated, not that he’d ever been enthusiastic about this expedition.
In contrast …
“This has to end!” Rengoku burned with righteous indignation. “How dare these manifestations harass our students?”
“Sure, of course, but—”
“I won’t let anything hurt them! I don’t care what it is! Kyojuro Rengoku will dish out justice!”
As if in response to this declaration, a grating sound drifted from the darkness ahead of them.
Zssh zsh zsh … Zssh zsh zsh …
Something was crawling down the hallway. And weeping.