Chapter 4.4

Thinking she heard a horn, Yano Tae opened her eyes. Maybe because of her age, sleep was shallow. The slightest thing would make her open her eyes. Even hearing the breaks on the highway or trucks' air horns had woken her up before but in tonight's case, she had a feeling more clearly like being awoken by someone. 

Looking at the clock on the tatami at her bedside, it was two in the morning. Again, the horn sounded. Realizing it was in front of the house--from the Drive-In parking lot, Tae rose. 

Tae's bedroom was at the back of the house. Rather than facing the highway, it was set aside a yard that was facing the paddy fields. Coming out of that bedroom and dragging herself down the hall, there was a tatami room that doubled as a family altar. Entering that room, Tae shielded her eyes.  There was a car in the front parking lot, its headlights shinning over the house. The high beams must have been on, and being summer the sliding storm shutter was left open, the bright light shining squarely into the room, and without much thought to it Tae was shaken up.

"....What's going on?" 

Bare feet walking down the hall behind Tae, her daughter Kanami spoke. She turned around, seeing Kanami shielding her eyes with her hand, paled by the stark light overher. 

"...I wonder."

At the same time that Tae answered, the horn honked again. Kanami crossed the room to the veranda. Her long, pitch black shadow fell over the room.

"What is this ruckus about?" Kanami called out from the sliding open doorway. Some person's voice or another called back but Tae couldn't pick up what was said. The truck was idling, loudly enough to drown out their voices.

"Hold on. Could you please turn off the light?" Kanami called out into the parking lot. "Chigusa"'s wide parking lot had one trailer, and what looked like a passenger car on the lot. The finer details couldn't be discerned. The light pouring in as if to scorch their eyes didn't help. 

They may have heard Kanami's objection; the light turned off. The act robbed her of her sight. All she could see in the pitch darkness were the specks of the afterimage of the headlights. As she blinked off the faint dizziness she felt, the frustrating idling sound ceased. It seemed the idea to cut the engine finally occurred to them. 

As her eyes adjusted to the light and it became quiet, she could see that there were three cars in the parking lot, illuminated by the street light. One was a jumbo trailer, two were passenger vehicles, one a sedan and the other a 1Box. 

"Pardon, I'm very sorry!" a shameful young voice said. It seemed to come from a young man by the 1Box car. 

"Just what is this ruckus about. What time do you think it is?"

"I am so very embarrassed. I don't know where I am and..."

Kanami narrowed her eyes and tilted her head. The young man came closer to Kanami. He was probably in his med-twenties or so, and didn't appear suspicious. 

"I've driven around here so many times but I don't know the road and... I'm completely at a loss, so."

"Where is it that you are going?"

The young man lowered his head, utterly apologetic. "It's a community called Sotoba, but."

Kanami sighed. "This is Sotoba."

With an 'eh?' the young man surveyed his surroundings.

"There's a road in to our left. Right when you turn onto that is the community of Sotoba. There's a blinking stop light, Sotoba is written beneath that isn't it?"

The young man hastily sprung back, looking towards the highway. His voice rung out, shrinking as he returned forward. "My apologies! I had overlooked it!"

"Well it is easy to overlook, but. Well, I'm glad I could be of use."

"I really offer my deepest apologies!" The young man bowed his head low. 

"You have business in Sotoba? At this hour?"

Yes, the young man smiled. "The truth is we should have arrived earlier but. I was careless, and it became a terrible affair. Really, how rude of me."

"By chance are you moving in? Are you the Kanemasa people, I wonder."

"Kanemasa?"

"Ah, it's the name of a place. In the northwest of the community of Sotoba is that mansion on the high grounds? The old western style house."

That is right, said the young man bowing again. "We are Kirishiki. I am so very sorry for being a nuisance to you with our change of residence."

Well, though Kanami. Then, Kanemasa really was going to have someone move in. ---That said, what a move-in it was. 

"If you're going to that house, that's the road that you want. Take the road allong the river straight up, and at the intersection between the bridge that leads to the Shrine, go the opposite direction of the shrine. That's the left."

"Take the left before the shrine."

"Right. Go straight that way, and you'll come to the mountain. It's right at the top of that slope.

"Thank you very much."

The young man bowed his head, gave another apology for waking them ad dashed back to the truck. He relayed something to the driver and once again lowered his head to Kanami before hurrying to the 1Box. Once again the engine reverberated. The truck and two cars turned about in the parking lot, heading out towards the highway. The last to leave was a white foreign car. In the driver's seat was a man and in the back seat could be seen two figures. One was a woman, and the other appeared to be a child. As the car passed in front of Kanami, she had the impression the woman nodded in salutation to her but it may have just seen something she had thought she'd seen due to the light. 

"....Well, that's a surprise." Tae poked her face out from behind Kanami, seeing the truck off.

"Tell me about it. What a move-in."

"What terrible sense of direction they must have, though."

So it seems, said Kanami with a forced smile. While the entrance to the village was easy to overlook, there was only one branch off of the highway that lead into the community. if one looked properly at a map, normally someone could figure it out. In the first place, they were going to move into a village, but they hadn't even tried to visit it once before?

Kanami felt something lurking in her chest. It wasn't as if she found it particularly suspicious but. Even so, weren't the group that came by just now acting strange, somehow? It was like they went out of their way to wake up Kanami and her mother. She had the feeling that was why they asked the way.

(....Oh, that couldn't be.)

Kanami watched the car turn down the village road. The white sedan looked like quite the luxury car. The young man seemed out of character for that mansion. He didn't have the air of its master. Rather, wasn't the master more likely to be the one driving the sedan? In that case, she wondered why the master himself didn't get out of the car and come out.

"Just like I thought."

Kanami mumbled, as Tae tilted her head. 

"About what?"

"It looks like they're pretty weird people."

They are, said Tae, looking still towards the village road.