Seiji didn’t understand the detailed reasoning behind it. However, if Odoro had somehow realized that someone was lurking in the house, guessed their hiding place, then sent Seiji to them…
Then he’d gone outside in order to let Seiji get killed. To make sure he died where he couldn’t see him, so that it wouldn’t violate his agreement with Takamura.
Damn that bastard!
For a moment, anger nearly dyed Seiji’s vision red, but now wasn’t the time. Unless he did something, he was going to die. That was a fact. He absolutely couldn’t let that happen.
This is the second time somebody’s almost killed me.
The first was when Serina chased him around with a carving knife.
But back then, frankly, somewhere in his mind, he’d been resigned to it. He hadn’t wanted to feel pain or suffer or go through something awful, so he hadn’t wanted to die. That said, he’d figured that if this was the end, then it was the end, and there wasn’t much he could do about it.
He hadn’t lived seriously enough that he’d be left with regrets if his life was abruptly cut short.
In fact, that hadn’t even been the half of it.
I had nothing.
No house, no money, no job, no friends, not even a place to belong or anywhere to go.
Nothing.
He’d really had nothing at all.
Well, he still had practically nothing. That part was the same.
But now…
…he had Shiroshi. At the very least, he had someone who said he needed him.
And right now, he didn’t know whether Shiroshi was dead or alive.
No regret could possibly be bigger than that.
Groping around, Seiji found his phone in his back pocket and slammed it into the other guy’s face as hard as he could. He’d managed to score a direct hit on his nose, and for a second, the fingers around his throat went limp.
Seiji grabbed the chance to crawl out from under his attacker. As the guy got to his feet, holding his nose, Seiji body-slammed him, and they tumbled into the tub, tangling together.
The other guy had ended up on the bottom, and he started kicking like mad. As Seiji desperately reached for the rim of the bathtub, his hand happened to connect with the faucet. Taking a gamble, he turned it. It had been switched to the shower, and a jet of water erupted from the showerhead, hitting his attacker in the face.
The guy had almost managed to stand, but the force of the water made his feet slip and sent him back to the bottom of the tub. He hastily tried to get up, but the running water made it hard for him to get any traction.
Grabbing his chance, Seiji bolted out of the tub.
He tumbled through the open sliding door into the washroom, then tripped over something and crashed to the floor.
Meanwhile, in the bathroom…
Finally managing to find the tap, the guy shut off the shower. He heard a thud from the washroom, then a rattle as someone ran through the bead curtain. His opponent had fled into the living room.
Swearing, the guy hit the faucet in a fit of anger. A trickle of blood dribbled from his nose. He wiped it off with the back of his hand, as if it irritated him, then climbed out of the tub, staggering a little.
He stood in the washroom, peeking out into the hall.
There were no sounds, no sign that anyone was there. His opponent seemed to have escaped outside.
When he looked through the open door toward the living room, the bead curtain that separated it from the hall was still swaying slightly.
There was no other movement. So he really did run for it?
Exhaling in relief, he stepped out into the hall, starting toward the living room, and then…
…he heard something whistle through the air.
Before the guy could turn around, Seiji brought a big four-kilogram bottle of laundry detergent down on the back of his head.
There was a whunk, and the guy crumpled to the floor at Seiji’s feet. His eyes rolled back so far that their whites showed. He was out cold.
The trick had been a very simple one.
When Seiji fled into the washroom, he’d tripped over that big bottle of detergent. He’d grabbed it and bolted out into the hall, smacked the bead curtain to make it rattle as loudly as possible, then flattened himself against the wall by the door and waited for the other guy to come out.
Seiji might not look it, but he’d learned a thing or two after coming through so many ugly situations.
After all, when he took a part-time job, four times out of ten, it ended with him getting run off and told not to come back. Some of those times had ended in violence, and once—when he’d worked at a sketchy bar—he’d ended up in a hellish game of chase with its golf club–brandishing proprietor. He was going to have to take the reason for that one to his grave, however.
Still, this is the first time I’ve ever hit back.
Gritting his teeth against the pain in his joints, he looked down at the other guy. The man looked like a beached dolphin or whale; he wasn’t even twitching.
Don’t tell me he’s dead…
Seiji carefully put his ear next to the guy’s mouth and was relieved to hear surprisingly steady breathing.
But who the heck was this?
Considering the circumstances, he’d definitely been lurking in the house before Seiji and Odoro got there. Suzu had said she lived alone, though. There was only one toothbrush by the sink, and he didn’t see a razor anywhere. The guy probably wasn’t a family member who lived with her.
He might have something to do with the dog corpses under the floor, though.
Still…for some reason, he reminds me of somebody.
The collar of his jacket was black with grime, and the heels of his sneakers were worn down so far that they’d developed holes. His hollow cheeks were pale, and the circles under his eyes were as dark as soot. His face looked as if he was tired of living altogether.
Oh, I see… He looked exactly like Seiji had ten months ago, when he’d been wandering between net cafés, pursued by loan sharks.
Um… For now, I guess I’ll tie him up.
It was just a chance resemblance, after all. There was no guarantee the other guy wouldn’t try to strangle him again. Restraining him now was probably the best move.
On that thought, Seiji hooked his hands under the guy’s armpits and dragged him into the living room. As he was wondering, Should I look for some packing twine or use an extension cord as a rope?…
“Oh.”
…he made eye contact with Odoro. At some point, the man had come back, and he was standing glumly in the living room. He crossed his arms with a loud, irritated tch. “You’re unexpectedly stubborn.”
Seiji’s resentment peaked. Okay, that does it. I’m done willing him to go bald. Someday, I swear I’ll rip his hair out myself. As he was making that private resolution…
“And?”
“Excuse me?”
“What sort of yokai did he resemble?”
Like I’d tell you, dumbass. The words were on the tip of his tongue, but then he thought of Suzu and the dogs and choked them back down. After he’d grudgingly explained…
“I see. Himamushi nyuudou, hm?” Odoro said, surprisingly quickly. “‘When one squanders his time and spends his life in idleness, upon his death, his spirit becomes a himamushi nyuudou.’ It’s a yokai depicted in Toriyama Sekien’s More of the Demon Horde from Past and Present. As the word ‘nyuudou’ indicates, it takes the shape of a man with a shaved head. However, it’s actually a cockroach in human form.”
In the Chinese Compendium of Materia Medica, male cockroaches were called “himushi” or “hitorimushi,” “fire” or “lantern” bugs.