“Hey there, it’s been a while.”
A little way off the main business district of Iidabashi was a general-use office building. On the third floor were the headquarters of the Sasaki Agency. The agency head, Rumi Sasaki, greeted Toshihiko with a donut in one hand and crumbs scattered around her mouth.
“It’s not been that long, has it?”
“Oh, but it has. It’s been six months since the last time I saw you.”
“Huh. I guess you’re right.”
“Time flies when you’re an adult, huh?”
She beckoned Toshihiko to the sofa and offered him a choice of tea or coffee.
Rumi Sasaki was someone he’d known since his high school days, some fifteen years ago. When they first met, her age and gender had been pretty ambiguous. If you looked at her closely, her small nose and mouth were feminine enough. Her skin was in good condition, too, but her shabby gray sweater and her hair, which was as messy as a bird’s nest, along with her outdated, thick glasses, had made it hard for him be sure of anything.
Things were a little better now. She looked like a woman who didn’t care too much about grooming or presentation, but a woman nonetheless. She still wore the sweater, a little threadbare around the neck, though it didn’t appear as unhygienic these days. She’d also traded her glasses in for a pair with a modern plastic frame and thinner lenses. Her hair was tied up in the back, making it look less messy. Toshihiko suspected this was all due to the influence of her assistant, Kouki Aoyama. He was happy for her.
Toshihiko had met Rumi through their mutual interest in the paranormal. She ran a website that looked at contemporary incidents in the news through an occult lens. There was also a message board where readers could discuss their interests. After Toshihiko made a few posts there, the two of them had eventually met up in person.
Back then, Rumi had been a lot more unkempt. She spoke like a teenager posting on an online forum and lacked awareness of more common courtesies. Toshihiko had always considered himself someone who didn’t care what other people thought of him, but Rumi took that to a whole new level.
Regardless of her appearance and attitude, she’d helped him on a number of occasions. She might have only been acting out of curiosity, but the result was the same. She’d lent her aid when Toshihiko’s childhood friend Eiko got caught up in an incident, and she had also saved his life at least once. They’d worked together on several cases, and he knew that her problem-solving skills were second to none.
Rumi could not only see supernatural presences but also exorcise them. Toshihiko had some measure of enhanced perception, but he couldn’t do anything about the things he saw. The occult was something that he indulged in as a hobby, for fun. He didn’t study it seriously like she did.
When it came to paranormal issues, she was the only person he could turn to for help. She had a record of past successes and more than enough time on her hands. After all, when encountering the supernatural, most people—if they even accepted the supernatural was at work—would go to a shrine, temple, or church, not a shady agency like this. Plus, due to a number of grudges they’d incurred, the agency’s reputation had been stained with a lot of slander and abuse.
Many of the bad rumors were completely unfounded, but others were likely based on actual encounters with Rumi. Knowing her, she probably turned away any clients who didn’t sufficiently pique her interest. Their lack of work seemed so pronounced that Toshihiko had once asked Aoyama if they needed any help covering their operating costs.
“Thanks, but we’re fine,” Aoyama had said with a mild smile. “Rumi has followers of her own.”
Being the son of a Protestant minister, that was probably Aoyama’s way of making a joke. Toshihiko assumed he meant Rumi had genuinely helped enough people that they could keep the agency afloat despite her faults.
Unsurprisingly, nobody else was in the office today. Even Rumi’s assistant, who usually stuck by her side like a puppy, wasn’t there.
“Hey, where’s Aoyama?”
“He’s been busy helping out his family a lot more recently.”
Toshihiko nodded and took a sip of his coffee. It was dreadfully bitter and didn’t even compare to the kind Aoyama usually served. Rumi ignored the way Toshihiko winced when he tasted it and continued chomping through her donut. She was a weird lady, but that meant Toshihiko could be himself around her. He was actually quite fond of her. She may have lacked more traditional feminine charms, but she was cute like a hamster with its cheeks stuffed full of food.
“So, are you possessed by another demon, or what?”
Rumi pointed at Toshihiko, her mouth still full of half-eaten donut.
“You should probably be used to that by now.”
Although her words were more or less the same as what that rude detective Kamemura had said to him, it didn’t sound so bad coming from her.
“This isn’t the kind of thing you get used to, no matter how many times it happens. I’m not completely sure I’m possessed yet, either.”
This wasn’t the first time a supernatural presence had attached itself to Toshihiko or attacked him. Whenever he worked with Rumi, whatever evil spirit they were dealing with always seemed to target him. According to her, evil was drawn to beauty, and if that was true, it was only natural that he would attract their attention.
“You don’t say.” Rumi drained her glass of water in one gulp. “Now that you mention it, I don’t see any spirits on or around you right now.”
“Really?”
Rumi’s power to see the unseen was stronger than Toshihiko’s. If she couldn’t spot anything, then maybe he wasn’t possessed after all. Had it just been a coincidence that Kawahara’s choice of words had been so evocative of the stalker’s gaze?
“You do have a mark on you, though. Looks like it’s clinging on real tight.”
He reflexively looked up and stared into Rumi’s eyes. Clinging on tight. It was like she’d read his mind. His pulse quickened.
“If you keep staring at me like that, even I might get the wrong idea,” Rumi said.
“Oh, sorry…”
“You must have it hard. Someone as beautiful as you probably attracts just as many unwanted looks as messy folks like me at the other end of the spectrum.”
Rumi’s expression stayed neutral, so he had no idea if she was serious or not. While he was searching for an appropriate reply, she spoke up again.
“Your current state is what laymen refer to as being cursed.”
Without waiting for permission, she upended the paper bag he’d brought with him. The letters inside all came tumbling out.
“Hmm… You don’t see power like this very often these days. We must be dealing with quite the accomplished hexer here.”
She grabbed one of the letters and tore it into pieces. Before Toshihiko could ask what she was doing, she cried out in pain.
“Yowch!”
“Are you okay?”
Rumi’s hand was dripping with blood. There was nothing on the table but scraps of paper. It didn’t look like a blade had been hidden in the letter.
“Sorry for being so loud—I was just surprised. Nothing to worry about. You’ve been saddled with something real rough, though, Mr. Katayama. It’s like it won’t forgive anyone who dares to have anything to do with you.”
She carefully wrapped her bleeding hand in a towel.
“Is it from somebody with a grudge against me?”
“I can’t say for sure. There’s no real point speculating without more information.”
Rumi had a faraway look in her eyes.
“Maybe this person dislikes you and is harassing you. Or maybe they like you a little too much and this is the form their affection is taking. The result is still the same, and harassment is harassment. You have been wronged, Mr. Katayama. Regardless of the perpetrator’s intent, we still have to treat this as an attack.”
She swept her uninjured hand across her lap, scattering donut crumbs onto the floor. When did she start calling him “Mr. Katayama”? he wondered. For as long as he could remember, he’d been “Sir Toshihiko” to her. He felt a little sad to think he might have outgrown that mode of address.
“If the culprit is an evil spirit, there’d be value in determining their motives. But this is a curse cast by a human…”
Rumi glared at the remaining letters.
“A woman… In her thirties… Long black hair. Slim and rather tall.”
An image of Midori flashed into Toshihiko’s mind. She had all the characteristics Rumi had just described.
“Does that ring any bells?”
“Yeah…”
Toshihiko nodded. Rumi smiled.
“And she has a child. Could it be yours?”
“What? No.”
Toshihiko responded with flat denial. Had Rumi got it wrong? Feeling something like relief, he went on.
“I’ve never been in that kind of relationship with her.”
That was the truth. Midori had been pretty persistent about going out to dinner with him for a while, and he’d eventually agreed. He had no real reason to refuse, after all. Toshihiko didn’t drink alcohol. He didn’t see any point in purposely dulling his wits to have a good time. This policy did have some perks. People tended to be less careful about what they said or did while drunk, and being able to rebuff them with a totally clear head carried more weight.
At any rate, Toshihiko had no romantic feelings for Midori, so nothing ever happened between them. Sayama had said that it might be kinder to reject her outright, but it wasn’t like she’d asked him out on a date. It would have been weird to start talking romance out of the blue. In the end, the whole thing had just fizzled out.
“The person I’m thinking of is single and doesn’t have any kids. She lives with her mom in a little apartment. I can’t imagine there’d be room to raise a kid there, too.”
“I know you wouldn’t lie to me…but that’s what I’m seeing. A woman holding a little boy.”
While Toshihiko wondered if this could be a mistake, Rumi continued to gaze at the letters.
“Well, that doesn’t matter right now. If you’ve been cursed, there’s only one thing to do.”
“And that is?”
“Curse reversal.”
“Excuse me?”