Chapter 2.4

"Fuki-san, good evening."

Yano Tae directed at the person in the brightly lit living room, carrying a small bowl in hand. Gotouda Fuki turned around as if surprised.

"Oh my, it's Tae-chan," she said as she went out towards the veranda. The reason her feet drug as she walked was because Fuki suffered from arthritis. She opened the screen door and with a light grimace, she knelt.

"I made too much of this side dish. I thought you might like some, Fuki-san."

"Thank you so much, as always."

"My daughter has dinner at the shop, so I'm alone, you know. But, it's hard to only make enough for one, isn't it? But even so, I don't feel like going to the shop and eating something greasy."

"Once you get old, western style food is just..." Fuki said, gratefully receiving the offered bowl. With her hand on her knee, she stood, though it appeared to be a struggle. "Well, do come in and sit down."

Watching as Fuki drug her feet along into the house, Tae took a seat on the veranda. The living room was quiet and still. How unusual that the television wasn't on. There was no sign of Fuki's son Shuuji.

He'd gone out somewhere then, had he? How unusual. Shuuji was thirty eight, no, had he turned thirty nine now? He was Fuki's youngest child. He failed to get married and still remained in the home. It seemed he went drinking frequently at the drive-in where her daughter worked but he didn't have any friends to invite to go drinking with him. Kanami said that the counter would become gloomy when Shuuji came to the shop and that he didn't seem well received.

Tae sat on the veranda, thinking about Shuuji's whereabouts. She wasn't that terribly interested. Just, when she peeked into the living room from outside, sitting in the brightly lit room was Fuki all alone. When she saw such a sight, it was like something got caught in her throat. Just seeing an old person sitting there in isolation made her feel lonely herself. Without a doubt, she whose daughter was away at the shop as she ate alone was seen in the same way, which made it all the more lonesome.

"We're fresh out of everything, so I can't offer anything." Fuki returned with a tray.

"Don't fuss over me," said Tae before moving on. "By the way, Fuki-san, do you know if the people in the Kanemasa house have moved in?"

"I haven't heard anything, but have they moved in?"

"They must have. This morning when I got up to wash my hands, I saw a light on."

"Are you sure you didn't make a mistake?"

"I'm sure. I'd seen it before. I thought then that maybe I was mistaking what I saw so this time I paid good, good attention when I saw it. What I saw was definitely Kanemasa. If it wasn't Kanemasa, then since there aren't any street lights there and such, there isn't anyone else who could be coming and going at night."

"That is certainly true."

"That house, though, there's something creepy about it, isn't there. I'm really without a doubt there was a light on. But, a light being on even when there shouldn't be anyone there, what do you think that's about?"

"Who knows," Fuki returned to Tae who sat on the veranda. She herself recognized it as a curt response. It'd be nice if you recognized that I don't care about this conversation, but, she thought. And if you won't think too poorly of me for it, that would also be good, but.

"Moving here when they have no ties here in itself seems like there should be some pretext. I hope they're not too strange of people, but."

"Uh huh...." Her voice was still curt. As if Tae suddenly realized it, she made a bewildered face.

"It seems I've interrupted something."

Because you have, Fuki hesitated to say back. "Right now, Shuuji is ill in bed."

"Oh my, a summer cold?"

"I don't think that's what it is but, I mean, for someone who's never been sick once to be bedridden, I don't know what to think."

"That's true. I'm so sorry, barging in when you're preoccupied."

"Oh no, nothing of the sort."

"It's fine, please, think nothing of it. Even if it's one summer cold, you're worried and distracted, so be sure to take care."

Fuki nodded and Tae stood. With a 'later', she started down the dusk-lit path.

I wonder if I'd done something wrong, Fuki thought. Tae lived with her daughter Kanami who worked at the drive-in, and Kanami didn't leave the shop until late, so Tae was lonely in her home. She tried to find some reason for coming all the way across the village to visit.

"....Sorry about this, Tae-chan."

With a murmured apology, Fuki turned her gaze to Kanemasa. That slope that was supposed to have a home was nothing but darkness. Turning away as she had no interest, Fuki went back into her living room, past the wide open sliding door to the corridor. "Nee, Shuuji. Tae-chan brought some boiled goods, won't you eat?"

As Fuki called out, she headed deeper down the corridor. She peered into her son's room. With the sliding screen door left open, there was no light on. The smell of the mosquito coil Fuki had lit thinly stagnated.

"Shuuji?"

Fuki's son lied in the futon gazing at the ceiling. His wide open eyes looked as if they were not looking at this world but peering into another one.

Fuki breathed a sigh. Her one and only youngest son was ultimately left in her care. He was fresh on the verge of forty but he had neither a wife nor children. If Tae was all alone with her daughter, Fuki was all alone with her son. That son's condition, ever since he returned from the community north of the village, Yamairi, had been strange.

"Are you all right? You haven't eaten all day."

Fuki placed her hand on her son's forehead but the skin beneath her hand was almost pleasantly cool to the touch. Even that got no reaction from her son. Blinking as if remembering something, he stared at the ceiling.

North of the village, located on the other side of the northern mountain, the community of Yamairi was isolated. It was originally a settlement at the entrance to the mountains but as forestry became obsolete the number of inhabitants dwindled and presently there were no more than three old people living there. One of those elders was Fuki's own older brother. Shuuji went to visit his uncle Hidemasa in Yamairi five days ago, after calling about the time she was thinking of going to bed to say he was going to Yamairi, that son who always went drinking after work.

Fuki thought it was because of the alcohol at first but Shuuji had heard at Chigusa that Hidemasa wasn't doing well, he'd said. It seemed that her sister-in-law Mieko had come down to the village to do some shopping and said as much to him. He said he was worried so he was going to pay him a visit and Fuki herself didn't feel it too necessary to stop him, so she said take care and hung up the phone. He came back much later that night and since then had been like this. The next day he seemed languid but the day after that he was bedridden. He had neither a fever nor a cough. Looking as if his soul had been spirited away, his face pale, he lied there and all day today. Even if Fuki called out to him, he wouldn't even turn to look at her.

"Shuuji, hey."

As expected, no response. Pouring his gaze up into the ceiling, he was heavily muddled.

She thought to call the doctor. Doctor Ozaki, unlike his predecessor, didn't mind house calls. But she wondered if she should really call him.

Fuki's son had been acting strange ever since he had returned from Yamairi while she slept. The next day, when Fuki came to wake him, Fuki found Shuuji's summer bedding sullied. It looked like blood. In surprise she pulled back the futon blanket to see Shuuji sleeping in his clothes, his hand and those clothes stained deep brown and giving off a stench. She quickly examined her sleeping son's body but he didn't seem to be especially injured.

Even if she asked him what on earth happened, her son didn't give any response. She tried to call her brother to see if he'd known anything but there was no answer. She had a very bad feeling. For some reason her brother and his wife weren't answering the phone and her son was in that condition. If Fuki could drive either a car or a motorcycle, she would by all means to go see how her brother and his wife were doing but---even while thinking that, Fuki understood that it was nothing but an excuse. She couldn't say why, but she was somehow afraid.

"Nee, Shuuji.... Did something happen?"

Fuki asked of him, when he let out a grumbling voice. Shuuji groaned from deep in his throat. It was certain he was giving a response but, what he wanted to say wasn't conveyed.

"----Shuuji?"

But he gave no further response. Shuuji closed his eyes as if in annoyance, and the beginnings of the shallow breath of sleep could be heard. Fuki came to a decision as she stood. If tomorrow he was still like this then tomorrow for sure she would call the Junior Doctor to pay a visit, she thought. Yes, she could just stay quiet about the blood. Surely it had nothing to do with a medical examination.

She returned to the living room through the hallway, thinking 'something might have happened to my son'. The sound of her footsteps followed her every step echoing thoughts that "something did happen." Something---something to stain Shuuji in blood, something to keep her older brother and his wife from answering the phone.

(It couldn't be. What am I thinking?)

She scolded herself but still her unease didn't depart. Her introverted son. Fuki was well familiar with that son's unexpectedly easily enraged side. Furthermore her son and Hidemasa had gotten into a big fight over something at work just the day before. Her son was a mild man but once he'd been drinking, if he snapped, it was bad. Especially towards family.

(What am I thinking? There's no reason to call to mind something like this, no reason at all.)

Fuki hung her head and returned once again to the living room with no trace of any others, where she was for a long while caught in thought.

--The next morning, Fuki looked within the futon to find her son dead.