Chapter 10.5

While fighting with a strange sense of intimidation, Natsuno quietly filled his notebook. He'd long since given up studying vocab or tangling with math drills. With that something outside the window putting a strange pressure of sorts on him, he couldn't focus on his work. Like this with his attention focused outside the window, he had just been absently transcribing the names of historical words and names. 

It his hand were able to remember what it was writing that'd be fine. He thought that while moving his hand, suddenly noticing that in the sidelines of his notebook the words "Tohru" and "Shimizu" appeared. He erased them each time but the name that appeared more frequently was overwhelmingly "Shimizu." And as time stretched on, the difference grew more pronounced.

He remembered feeling like this---like he currently did, like he was under a bizarre surveillance.  He also thought he knew the source of it. But, Megumi should have been dead. That she was sealed away in a coffin wasn't something Natsuno confirmed with his own eyes but she should have been made up like Tohru and buried in the ground. 

But, someone was outside the window. From the darkness they were looking at the window---at Natsuno. Through the curtain, at Natsuno's shadow, fixedly staring at that. 

After erasing "Shimizu" who knew how many times, he gave up on that and took out the post card from his holder case. Natsuno had an emotion he couldn't understand. The letters and the picture, all of it looked like it was trying not to be self-serving while contrastingly overflowing with self-appeal. It looked to maintain an appropriately formal distance but it was blatantly getting closer. There was nothing written aside from words about the lingering summer heat. Nonetheless, there was an all too clear intent of the sender there even if unwrit, so clear that it betrayed her true feelings. ---That defined Megumi, he realized.

It was the same now. Obvious surveillance. But the observer hid themselves, it was clear they were trying to hide themselves. That much was just too obvious, so instead it only made him more certain he was being watched.

(...Shimizu.)

But, there was no way.

Natsuno stood up. He opened the curtain and the window. The light from within the room flowed outside but the darkness between the tree trunks and thickets only grew darker. And an obvious gaze. Someone was in that darkness---and he was confident he was being watched from somewhere not far off.

Natsuno surveyed the darkness. He couldn't see anyone. It's not that no one was there but just that he couldn't see them. The other could see Natsuno. Without a doubt they were watching. 

He didn't turn towards the darkness and demand who they were, nor did he have a mind to. Staying silent, Natsuno held out the post card in one hand. To be sure it was visible in the light, he slowly turned it over with his fingertips several times. He had the feeling he could hear someone nearby gasping for breath. And, the faint sound of someone moving about. 

The gaze was strong. He had such a feeling. Thinking such he moved the post card from the right hand holding it to the left. Slowly, doing it so that his observer could see, he tore at the corner of it. Again, a faint noise.

With both hands he tore the postcard a second time and a third. Once it was in tiny scraps, he threw them outside of the window. The white scraps of paper danced, literal confetti, raining down in the darkness. 

Surveying the darkness--their hiding place, Natsuno closed the window. Closing the curtain he returned to his desk and listened intently. There was a faint noise. This time it was too obvious. The sound of underbrush swaying, someone's footsteps. They were coming directly closer to the window.

---Here.

Someone was there outside the window, and that somebody let out a soft voice. The voice that didn't convey any meaning sounded both like a very faint wail, and like a muffled outburst of a sob.

The soft sounds continued. Almost like a small animal was scurrying about on the earth. Right now if he stood up, if he opened the curtain, he had the feeling he would see them. They wouldn't be able to hide themselves fast enough, he felt. Natsuno bore out the temptation to do it. He didn't know why. He had a feeling he must not see it. He must not peek outside.

That may have been because he thought there was something forbidden that existed outside of that window, or possibliy that he was just plain afraid of what he would see. He had the feeling if he saw it he couldn't go back, and at the same time if he saw it he would be disappointed. And in his depths, what Natsuno truly feared was that he wouldn't see anything at all.

And if he were to throw open the curtain so quickly they would have no chance to hide? He didn't think that it would have any immediate impact. What was scary was being suspended between recognizing that there was something there he couldn't see and the recognizing it as something merely hiding.

He listened closely and bore it. The presence outside of the window crept about in the area and at last passed. Natsuno returned to the tasks in his notebook but as expected his hand kept bringing about the word "Shimizu" when he wasn't attentive.

The next morning, not having gotten much sleep, Natsuno went out into the back yard. In the faint blue light, the earth with sparse weeds was black. There there were two or three white droppings. When he picked them up, they were pieces of the psotcard.

He could only find three fragments. Any fragments beyond that were nowhere to be seen.