Aoyama opened the office door to hear a groaning. He looked around for Rumi and spotted her lying on the sofa. She was moaning horribly.
“Rumi.”
He shook her lightly, and her arm fell from in front of her face. Her glasses were askew. There were traces of tears around her eyes.
“Rumi! Are you okay?” he called out more forcefully this time.
“Mommy!”
Rumi suddenly woke up and grasped his arm.
“I’m…sorry, Mommy…”
Taken aback to suddenly find Rumi burying her tearstained face into him, Aoyama gently wiped her eyes.
“Rumi, what happened? Are you all right?”
Their eyes met. Rumi’s widened in surprise, and she fell prostrate on the sofa with enough force to send Aoyama flying. She was so adorable when she was embarrassed. He let out a little chuckle.
“You call your mother ‘Mommy’ when you’re at home?”
Rumi slowly looked up from the sofa and readjusted her glasses. She didn’t answer Aoyama’s question. Did she think he was making fun of her? He hastened to clarify.
“I was just surprised; you usually say ‘Mom’ or ‘my mother’ when I’m around. It’s a nice contrast to how you usually are.”
“Maybe I should call you Mommy from now on, too?”
Her last syllable seemed to trail off, probably from embarrassment.
“Oh, come on, knock it off. Besides, I’m a man. Obviously.”
The panic he’d been feeling a short while ago had dissipated. He made Rumi a latte with lots of milk and told her about what he’d learned from Miki. He also recounted how Haruko Kadowaki had gone to the Pádraig Aoba Church, and that the person spreading the story about her curse might be her son, Yuuki Sayama. Finally, he told her about the strange lady he and Miki had seen in the park. Rumi drank her hot latte down in one gulp.
“Did you have the dream?”
“The dream?”
“The Haruko dream. The one that starts off in the church.”
She looked at him with a deadly serious expression.
“No, I didn’t. I guess I wouldn’t. I’m a grown-up, and I don’t have anything to do with the school. Maybe I had the encounter while I was awake instead.”
The moment the words were out of his mouth, he remembered. “Asleep, awake, it’s all the same,” Mononobe had said. Was this what the shaman had been talking about all along? That Haruko could appear anywhere, anytime? That Haruko existed as more than just a presence in people’s dreams?
“We should hurry. We don’t have much time,” Rumi said curtly.
“You’re right… I’m worried about Toshihiko, too.”
Yuuki Sayama’s efforts had borne fruit. The kids at the school all knew Haruko’s name now, and in spreading her story, they had made her more powerful. Gods expanded their influence by gathering more followers, more faith. This was basically the same principle.
“So, then…what should we do?” Rumi asked.
For a moment, Aoyama doubted his ears. Normally, once they knew the culprit’s identity, Rumi took instant action, regardless of the strength of the person they were up against. Sometimes, Rumi would perform an exorcism herself, while other times, she’d call in another practitioner like Mononobe. She might have asked Aoyama’s opinion before, but she’d never looked as lost and uncertain as she did now.
“I wish I’d never found out the truth.”
Rumi choked out the words. That was strange, too. This wasn’t like her at all. Curiosity was the fire that fueled her. In college, she’d always been so full of life, shining with an inner light. Whether as a tutor in Professor Saitou’s seminars or outside college in her later years, she gave her studies everything she had. She threw herself into understanding any unknown quantity that presented itself. Not wanting to know something was completely alien to her.
There was very little life in Rumi’s eyes now. Her tears had dried, leaving patches of salt on her cheeks.
“Rumi…”
“How am I supposed to know what to do here? What do I say to some poor kid who’s being controlled by their mother when I still need a mother myself?”
He couldn’t come up with a reply. He wasn’t even sure he understood what Rumi was trying to say. He was silent for a while, then Rumi muttered an apology, her voice barely louder than a whisper.
“Sorry.”
“You can call me Mommy if you really want to.”
The words came spilling out before he even knew what he was saying. Rumi looked just as surprised as he was.
“Honestly, I don’t really get what’s going on here, but I’m fine with anything if it makes you feel better. And if you still don’t know what to do…if getting involved in this case is too much for you, I’ll figure something out myself. Because the thing is…I care more about you than I do Toshihiko.”
Aoyama finally ran out of steam and fell quiet. But he’d told her how he honestly felt. He didn’t know what Rumi was trying to say, really. He could at least surmise that the prominence of a mother figure in this case was causing her distress. He thought of the kind, somewhat plump middle-aged lady whom Rumi called her mother.
From an outside perspective, the two of them appeared to be on good terms. Her mom was nice to him whenever he saw her, too. But there was only ever so much you could tell about other people’s relationships. Sometimes, even good people didn’t gel with others for whatever reason. Either way, Rumi’s unusual behavior had Aoyama worried, and even if Haruko had great power or if Toshihiko was in serious danger, getting her back to her old self was his first priority.
Rumi moved her lips a few times without forming any words. Her eyes drifted around idly. Aoyama didn’t really grasp the full significance of what he’d said and felt a little embarrassed. “You can call me Mommy”? Really? She’d probably just been having a bad dream that involved her mother and called him that while she was still half asleep.
“…Thank you.”
After a few more moments passed, Rumi uttered some simple words of gratitude. She slowly got up from the sofa. At the same time, Aoyama felt an unpleasant sensation crawling up from his feet, and his face distorted in pain. He looked at Rumi and saw that she was feeling it, too.
“She’s here. You can feel it, can’t you? It’s probably because you’ve met her before.”
Aoyama nodded. He hadn’t yet told Rumi that his link with Mononobe had sharpened his spiritual senses.
“It’s Haruko, isn’t it? She’s close.”
“Yes.”
Rumi stretched out, took off her slippers, and changed into her outdoor sneakers.
“You’re going? Will you…be okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” Rumi replied without turning around. “Please, forget everything I said just now.”
“If that’s what you want…”
Aoyama clammed up and followed her out the door.