Chapter Six: Kotogami: Tomohito Yagyou
THE following day dawned with Akari’s fever still high. Probably because she’d pushed herself yesterday. In the end, she had to admit defeat and allow Tomohito to call in sick for the next few days for her.
Mayoi made rice porridge for Akari and brought her books. She seemed determined to care for her mistress, despite her ongoing internal conflict over Akari’s inevitable and impending abandonment of her.
As a final rebellion, perhaps, Mayoi seemed to have selected only fiction novels and books on Kotogami for Akari to read. Feeling tested, Akari nonetheless read each volume. She was nervous about it at first, but soon found herself absorbed in her reading.
Oops. All that time she’d avoided stories, and now here she was, spending almost the entire day with her nose in a book.
“I never realized the West had so many yokai of their own.”
Akari closed the book on yokai tales from overseas that she was reading and exhaled through her nose.
Regardless of the truth behind them, yokai tales tended to pass into legend after centuries, and this seemed to be the case for both the East and the West. And then, inspired by these old “tales,” new ones sprung up. It was truly fascinating comparing similar spirits from both Eastern and Western folklore.
Munakata even came to visit her, which astounded Akari.
She planned to return to work tomorrow. At her bedside, after only a little small talk, Munakata asked her outright if she was really going to quit as custodian. When she nodded, he looked somewhat disappointed.
“I wanted you to stay on just a bit longer. With you here, it’s one less task for me to handle.”
“How self-serving of you. So you’re not going to try to stop me?”
“There’s no point pushing the issue. Kotogami are divine spirits. Dealing closely with them takes a certain level of preparedness and shouldn’t be undertaken lightly. I’m not here to coerce you into anything.”
Akari narrowed her eyes, suspicious.
“What? You look like you’ve got a hair stuck in your throat.”
“I’m just surprised to see you take something seriously for once.”
“You don’t know the first thing about me.”
I know you’re a military man, and I know you know far more than you let on. But Akari didn’t say that. She just smiled blandly. Munakata sighed. He could probably tell what she was thinking.
“Well, never mind. If you want to leave, I won’t stand in your way. But I warn you, sometimes the Association is forced to bring in people against their will. If we call for you in the future, you should be prepared.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
His pithy little speech had Akari immediately suspicious, but Munakata changed the subject.
“Just agree to wait until the end of the month to move out. Right now’s risky. I don’t want this Bookhouse going unmanned.”
“What do you mean, right now’s risky? Do you mean all the recent yokai disturbances?”
“Something like that. But we’ve got a lead. We should be able to crack the case soon.”
Munakata seemed as unmotivated as ever, but that was kind of his default state. Akari shrugged. She’d even brought up her suspicions about Sumimata Corporation to him, but from his lackluster reaction, Akari figured she must have been overthinking things.
They agreed that Akari would wait until the first day of the following month to move. She would be going back to work as usual until then.
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AFTER a good rest, Akari was feeling much better. She spent the first day back at work catching up on her own tasks and going around helping out the other employees.
She was wearing her favorite red-brown kimono with the colorful butterfly pattern on it and a red kimono sash. She was feeling pretty good, in fact.
“Miss Akari, shouldn’t you slow down? You only just got back from sick leave.”
Mitsuko, dressed in a mellow orange kimono with a pattern of yellow roses, peered meekly at her. Akari kept on handling the work she’d been tasked with as she responded.
“I’m fine. Actually, I’m glad to be here. Kind of an awkward situation at home…”
“Why, what’s happened? Did you have a quarrel with the…man you live with?”
Akari looked up at Mitsuko’s curious expression and groaned internally. She hadn’t meant to say anything about what was going on at the Bookhouse. Darn it.
“Well, not exactly. Actually, they took care of me while I was sick. But I made the announcement that I’m moving out, and there’s been a lot of sulking from the little girl who also lives there…”
Bringing up Mayoi would help to deflect things.
She didn’t want to talk about Tomohito, whom she could still barely look in the face. He’d mopped her brow during her feverish nights, and she also recalled that she’d opened up to him about some deeply personal things…
She must have been crazy to act so vulnerable in front of him, but the fever had clouded her judgment.
Her scar was a huge source of shame for her, and one of her secret reasons for never seriously considering marriage. She couldn’t believe she’d shown it to a man, even if he was a spirit. She’d made a huge effort to try to act normal around him since then, but it didn’t come easy.
Looking back on it now, she couldn’t understand why she’d been feeling so emotionally vulnerable. At least the bad dreams had stopped after that.
She was sure she’d be back to her normal self entirely after another day or two. She just wanted a grace period. That wasn’t too much to ask, surely.
Mitsuko watched Akari, who was blushing as she continued busily shuffling papers. Twisting her hands together, Mitsuko cleared her throat.
“Miss Akari, can I ask for your help with something?”
“You want my help? Really? Well, I know my taking time off inconvenienced everyone. I’ll do anything I can to help out.”
Mitsuko gave Akari a strained smile.
“There are rats or something in the gramophone clock warehouse. I’ve been told to go and check that the goods aren’t damaged and then to also catch the rats.”
“What? That’s a big problem. Who gave you the order? And why can’t they catch the rats by themselves?!”
“I…I just couldn’t say no…but I can’t do it by myself. Please help me…”
Mitsuko seemed to shrink in on herself, and Akari regretted her tone.
She knew better than anyone that questioning a male employee’s order never turned out well for the women.
Anyway, this was a good opportunity. Akari had been planning to probe Mitsuko for more info on the project she was working on.
“Of course I’ll help. Anything for you, Mitsuko.”
“Oh…thank you.”
Akari’s plans for the afternoon were made. Mitsuko smiled weakly at her, her hands shaking just a little.