Chapter 3.6

"Smells good."

Ritsuko turned to face the voice behind her. Her sister Midori was in the kitchen doorway, poking her head through the string beaded curtain. "What're you making at this hour? A late night snack?"

"Yup," Ritsuko answered while cutting off the crust of the sandwiches. "But since it's not for you or me, no picking away at it with your fingers."

Ritsuko swatted at Midori's hand that was already stretched out to do so.

"Cheapskate."

"It's for the doctor, he's staying over night at work. The contractors' madamde's been hospitalized, and she has been for a while. So, I'll make something up."

"The madame's sick too now? What's wrong with that family? One after another."

Mm, Ritsuko nodded. Would Yasumori Setsuko die too, then? If that happened then the only one left would be Yasumori Tokujiro. What a bleak prospect.

"But making up something for him, you're dedicated, too, Onee-chan."

"There isn't anybody in charge of meals there. His wife isn't the type to do something like this and all."

"The Junior Wife? So she's back."

"Seems so."

"How nice for her. Just coming and going when she feels like me. I want a husband as understanding as that too." By her tone Midori's words weren't too serious. "But at least the Big Madame would feed him something simple wouldn't she? Since it is her own son. There's not really a reason for Onee-chan to have to go that far."

"That might be the case," Ritsuko said with a smile, sure that that wouldn't be so this time. It'd be one thing if Toshio were just staying overnight, but Seishin was with him. Takae would probably pretend not to notice as usual. "Well, it's fine isn't it? It'll at least be a midnight snack."

Midori wore a coquettish expression as she peered at Ritsuko's face. "Onee-chan, you sure are nice to the doctor, aren't you?"

"Well of course I am. It affects things like advancement and bonuses," Ritsuko said, her voice lowering. "Mom can hear, can't she? Stop it."

"Got it," Midori said sticking out her tongue.

Ritsuko turned to look back but didn't see any sign of her mother peeking into the kitchen. There was the sound of the television, and light snoring heard during its lulls. She must have been dozing. Making sure of as much, Ritsuko quickly wrapped the sandwiches in aluminium foil. Putting soup into a pot would be a bit much, so he'd just have to suffer with instant.

"I'll be getting into the bath when I get back so leave the water in for me."

"Right, right. Take care."

Nodding to Midori who waved her off, putting the wrapped up lunches in another paper bag, Ritsuko left the house through the kitchen door. Tarou poked his face out from the dog house door.

"You want to come for a walk too?" She spoke to him but Tarou curled his rail and drew back, fleeing inside his dog house. She could hear a short weak, pathetic whining voice through his nose.

She was heading out at night and her thin jacket wasn't quite enough. It was the time of year when at dawn and dusk there was a distinct chill in the air. The way the heat was drawn out from one's body was similar to the sensation of losing something, and so the deeper they went into the Fall season, the more a forlorn feeling overtook her.

(It feels hopeless...)

Trying to put it into words in her mind, it felt all the more like she was being pursued. Her jacket was a bit thin. There was no sign of anyone's presence nor shadow on the night roads of the sleeping village. If only she'd thought of it a little sooner. If she had, she wouldn't have had to walk this road in the middle of the night. No, maybe instead it'd have been better if she had Midori or Tarou along with her.

Ritsuko suddenly realized that her eyes had been scanning her surroundings, unintentionally alert.

---Why are the roadways so scary at night lately?

No, the question was why was it that were people afraid of the darkness of the night to begin with. It wasn't known that dangers lurked in darkness. But if that was said to be scary then behind one's self in the daytime should have been just as scary. Behind one's self, behind cover, there were countless places that one couldn't see. None the less they weren't thought of as scary. People feared the night. Right--"As if in the ancient past, man had a natural predator, as if it were nocturnal, as if it were a remnant of that time."

She realized her pace was quickening. She could feel something hot on the back of her neck and her feet hurried as if fleeing that.

(There's no reason for this... It isn't that far at all!)

The road she was used to walking was only about a fifteen minute walk. There shouldn't have been anything scary about it. This was in the village, not some back alleyway in the city.

Going past the front of the temple she approached the hill road to the Maruyasu sawmill. There was a street light at the top of the hill, in front of the sawmill's office front, and beyond that the light in front of the hospital's entryway was lit. Ritsuko jogged up the hill, taking a breath beneath the street light. The Ozaki Hospital was right before her eyes. There was a light on in one room of the second floor but it was leaking out from the closed blinds. It was from the second story corner room--the nurse station. Confirming that she took in a deep breath.

(What's the matter with me?)

Even now Ritsuko gave herself a bitter smile. It was strange for her to be so fearful like a child. Gripping the paper bag in her hand, Ritsuko walked out along the remaining path. It was then that she saw something white just within her field of view.

Despite feeling just a moment ago so much as if she would run into something, in an instant as short as that breath she had taken, with the familiar hospital building there before her eyes, strangely it floated to her consciousness as something that might have been something ordinary. Ritsuko thought, as if it were incredibly natural, that somebody was there.

(At this hour.)

How unusual it was, to see a shadow walking through the Maruyasu Sawmill's lumberyard. Who could it be, likely Junko, right? --Though Junko came to mind there was no particular reason. It was just that since that was the Maruyasu Sawmill lot, thinking it must have been somebody from the Maruyasu Sawmill, Junko happened to be the one who most easily came to her mind from that group.

When she stopped to look more closely, it was indeed a young woman. As she wondered why Junko was walking in the lumberyard at this hour, in the next moment she realized it wasn't Junko. Junko had short hair. If nothing else could be told, that person had long hair.

The figure went out past the lumberyard drawing closer towards the hospital, going around towards the back of the building. Was it Ozaki Kyouko then? she thought.

As Ritsuko tilted her head, what's this? she thought.

(If it isn't the young madame. It is.)

It's Nao-san, Ritsuko thought while at the same having an uncomfortable feeling. The figure disappeared behind the back of the building.

(But.... The Yasumori's Nao-san is...)

She'd suddenly felt as if her spine were stroked by ice.

(Nao-san is...)

She couldn't move her legs. Her knees were shaking. (That's stupid.) That couldn't be. It was just a person who looked like her. (Surely, yes.)

But Ritsuko did not want to move from that place. Just a little bit further ahead of her was the Ozaki Clinic's entryway light. She wanted to try racing to its refuge in one breath but the front entrance was locked. With only the key to the side entrance, she would have no choice but to walk the dark, narrow path with no signs of people at the bank of the building or to across the parking lot, walking the roadway between the building and the hedges filled with obstacles, to get to the back of the building. Towards where that person who looked like Nao but no doubt had to be a completely different person had disappeared to.

Ritsuko had tried twice to direct her feet in that direction.

---It's no good, I can't.

No matter what she could not set foot on that causeway. Countless times unconsciously changing her grip on the paper sack, she retreated. (This can't be.) Taking refuge beneath the Sawmill's lamp light, gazing towards the causeway, she then turned her body and rushed down the hill. (...But.) she thought while determining that she would never again go out walking in the middle of the night like this.