Chapter 7.2

"Thank you very much."

Takemura Genichi bowed his head to Seishin. Genichi ran a hardware shop in Sotoba's shopping district. Today was the thirteenth anniversary of his wife's passing.

In heading from the main temple building to the tatami mourning room, Genichi expressed his clear gratitude, and then charged that lately the village had quite a few misfortunes. 

"It makes you wonder what's happened. A few days ago, the Shimizu's lost their son, yes?"

Seishin looked at Genichi's face. "Shimizu? Which Shimizu-san?"

"The gardener Shimizus. Masaji-san's."

"But Shimizu Ryuuji-san was this summer---" he started to say, but Genichi raised his hand saying no, no. 

"The grandson. What was he called again? Uhm... Yuu-kun."

"His grandson has died?"

"That's right, he has. The funeral was just yesterday. With his son, that's two. Old man Masaji, of course, is pretty down over it, yeah? It's just him and the son's wife there alone in the house now. And then last night, the wife went back to her family too. Masaji-san figured she might be going back to live with her family himself, but who'd have thought the night the funeral was finished? That's low, that lack of empathy."

Is that right, Seishin said lowering his eyes. Masaji didn't have any connection to him but the Shimizus weren't of the temple. Before when following up on Shimizu Ryuuji's case, he'd felt sympathy for the wife and grandson left behind, he'd wondered what the wife would do when the grandson went off to college and left the village he'd been saying but it turned out that grandson died without even going off to college. 

(And even more so, last evening....)

This might have been just as Genichi had said, simply returning to her own family. But there were a lot of people disappearing in the night---abnormally often. 

There was a pain deep in his heart. Seishin still couldn't seize the determination to hunt the Shiki. He couldn't get past the fact that it would be rekilling those who had returned to life. But while he was idling like this, the calamity was growing. When he thought of the dead Ryuuji and Yuu, Masaji left behind, Ryuuji's wife who returned to her family, what he felt was not a bizarre sense of care, he realized then, but guilt for his own hesitation.

"Well, it can't be helped that things turned out like this but. Still, I just can't get on board with using a funeral home."

Seishin tilted his head. Did he mishear him while caught up in his own thoughts? He didn't understand what Genichi had said. Feeling Seishin's stare on him, Genichi murmured. "Ah. The Junior Monk isn't aware yet. They've made a funeral home. ---They've finished it, right? Hey, that's right, isn't it, Auntie?"

Right behind him as Genichi turned around was the Takemura Stationary shop's Tatsu. Tatsu was Genichi's aunt.

"They've finished it. That's what I heard but that was a while ago, so it might even be opened now." Tatsu said bluntly, turning sharply. She turned her eyes to the courtyard.

 "At the furthest bottom point of Kami-Sotoba, where Hirokane used to be at? There's quite a big building there. Though once the old lady was the only one left, she closed up the carpentry shop."

"Ah..."

"That old woman, she moved out with everything still in it and it became an abandoned house. But then lately there, it seems construction's started up in the area. They've put up a sign board. It says they're the Sotoba Funeral Home, it seems. ---Isn't that right, Auntie?"

Genichi again turned to look to Tatsu. Tatsu nodded with a face looking largely disinterested. 

"Auntie knows all about it already, see," Genichi laughed. "But, huh. So the Junior Monk was not aware of it. If they were going to run a funeral home, it would seem like they would need to give word, to say something to the temple about it, for something like that."

"That wouldn't be necessary," Seishin prevaricated. It wasn't as if everything and anything had to go through the temple first by any means. But---Seishin had a strange feeling. There were too many who'd left the village to count. Because of that, like teeth falling out of an old and still aging comb, the number of abandoned houses in the village were increasing. So somebody moved into one. Somehow that it was a funeral home pulled at his consciousness for reasons he couldn't say.

Seeing off Genichi and Tatsu from the tatami room, Seishin returned to the temple office. With the pressure of work to be done, he would also have to pass on the meal with the parishioners. 

As he returned to the temple office, there was a nemo from Mitsuo on top of the desk. From Toshio, huh, Seishin thought with a bit of guilt, peering over the note and furrowing his brows. Yasumori Tokujiro was showing symptoms---.

Seishin picked up the phone and called the Ozaki Clinic, subconsciously checking his surroundings. There was no sign of anybody in or around the temple office. 

The one to answer the phone was the nurse Satoko. Saying he wanted to speak to Toshio, after a short wait, Toshio came on.

"Toshio, Tokujirou-san is..."

"It's that. Without a doubt. Probably on the second or third day. It sounds like Tokujirou-san's had a dream about Nao-san coming back too."

Seishin was silent. What Toshio was saying was clear. Seishin looked back over his shoulder. Tokujirou had just been at the all night vigil and the funeral. By then, had he already been showing signs of the illness? With things what they were, it was normal to be depressed, taciturn, it was seen as basically only normal to be in that kind of shocked daze. Looking back at it, those were indeed the preliminary symptoms but it wasn't distinct. Once again Seishin breathed a sigh at the difficulty this disease presented. 

"For the time being I'm trying to treat him but he himself says he doesn't want to be hospitalized. He insists he doesn't want to leave the house. But I don't know if that's Tokujirou-san's own will or if he's got detailed instructions from somebody to answer like that. For a patient at that stage, his consciousness's too clear. But in spite of how he is all the rest of the time, he's strangely clear when he's saying no, so the odds of it being the latter are high."

"Yes..."

"Sorry, but can I have you try and stress it to him too? Can I have you talk to him for me? If that doesn't work, can you take some steps to make sure he doesn't have any strange dreams?"

Seishin nodded. "...I'll try it."

"Also, there's a little something I wanna talk about. What time'll you be free today?"

"It'll be in the evening. I'll also have Tokujirou-san to see to, so I'll be by in the night."

"Counting on it," Toshio said, hanging up the phone. Seishin also hung up and looked at the schedule. Today was relatively open. There was another service at three o'clock but in the mean time he could go to see about Tokujirou's condition, he planned. 

Changing into his casual clothes in the storage closet, he searched for Miwako and Mitsuo to give them notice he was going out. As he heated further in to the house, Mitsuo himself was running up with an unusual expression.

"Ah, Junior Monk."

"What's happened?"

"The Head Monk has,"

At the sound of Mitsuo's voice, Seishin felt the blood drain out of himself in an instant. It couldn't be, something had happened to his father. As Seishin stiffened his posture, Mitsuo beckoned him. 

"The Head Monk is saying he wishes to set out no matter what. Please, do stop him."

At Mitsuo's words, Seishin found himself letting out a relieved breath without thinking. "----Set out?"

"Yes. When I brought him in lunch, I'd told him at the time that it seems Tokujirou-san's health was failing him. Junior Monk, did you also see the memo I'd left for you?"

"Yes. That was why I thought I would go to visit him now, but."

Mitsuo nodded. 

"And then, he said that he wanted to go pay a get well visit to Tokujirou-san no matter what. That's, I know that he's known Tokujirou-san for a long time now but even with that said. How about wishing him well by phone, I said to him but he said if I wouldn't bring him, he would crawl there!"

That's, Seishin started, his eyes wide. That behavior was completely unlike Shinmei. He had never heard of Shinmei being so persistent on having his own way against other's wills. 

At any rate for the time being he went on past Mitsuo in that direction. 

"Please stop," Miwako's troubled voice could be heard. "Mitsuo-san is calling on Seishin as we speak, so please, just wait a bit."

When he came into the room, Shinmei was trying to get out of the bed and Miwako was struggling with him to stop him. Miwako looked to Seishin and breathed a sigh of relief. 

"Father, what is wrong?"

"I'm going to, Tokujiro-san's, for a sick visit." Shinmei's words were spoken resolutely. 

"What is this about, so suddenly?"

"It isn't, about anything. He is sick, so I am, going to, see him,"

"It's well and good to pay a get well visit but are you already better?"

It had seemed like he'd had a cold---it really did just seem like a cold---as he'd been coughing hard until just yesterday. He'd had a fever too though not much of one.

"I'm fine," he said while his voice was still weathered as if from coughing. 

"Father. What is this? Tokujirou-san is in poor health. If you go to see him there while you yourself have a cold, it would not be impossible for it to transfer to Tokujiro-san, and it may be bad for you as well. Can it not wait at least until you have recovered from your cold?"

"It can't. I'm going."

The helplessness in his voice was probably due to the fact that he had already had difficulty with wrods, but none the less his voice was wrought with helplessness. This was the first time he had seen his father with his nerves so driven. Seishin breathed a small sigh.

"Then, I will bring you, so please stay warm. I had just been thinking of going to pay Tokujirou-san a visit myself."

At Seishin's words at last Shinmei's expression calmed and he nodded. With a nod to the bewildered looking Miwako, he had her prepare his wheelchair. 

Shinmei and Tokujirou had had a deep connection since some time back. It didn't particularly seem like intimacy or friendship but there might have been a certain fellowship. Maybe he was therefore so wrought with worry he couldn't stand it. All the same, Seishin couldn't help thinking that it was frustration with his limbs for not allowing him to move freely. 

--But, in truth, it couldn't be denied that the times Shinmei and Tokujirou had met face to face had become fewer and fewer. Tokujirou himself had lost much of his color. The "making a face like it's somebody else's problem" Toshio had spoke about was strikingly obvious. Even though a former friend from old times had come by wheelchair to see him, he neither acted delighted nor troubled to see him. When Seishin had said "Father said he'd wanted to come no matter what," even then Tokujirou only responded with a short "Oh." On the other hand, when Shinmei looked down on Tokujirou's expression, he didn't say anything in particular either. That was why this somehow looked to be a farewell. It was possible his father had realized he was in his final hour and had come to say farewell to him.

"That's enough," Shinmei had said, and so Seishin brought his father to the car and returned briefly alone to Tokujirou's side.

"Tokujirou-san, how would you feel about accepting hospitalization after all?"

When he spoke to him, Tokujirou who had this entire time given nothing but inattentive answers as if uninvolved himself answered with a strangely distinct: "I don't want to."

"However, your state of health is not well. It must be difficult for you to even sip water on your own?"

"I'll pass. I won't be hospitalized. I won't go anywhere. Because I've got to watch over the family altar."

"However,"

"Hospitalization didn't save Setsuko, I've got the altar and work, so I can't leave the house. Please leave me be."

Seishin grimaced. Tokujirou's way of speaking and tone certainly gave the feel of lines being read in monotone. 

"Very well then," Seishin said peering into Tokujirou's expression. "We should likely at least move you to the family altar, then. Setsuko-san and Mikiyasu-kun, wouldn't they surely be happier that way?"

Tokujirou stared dubiously at Seishin.

"You are overseeing the altar, aren't you? Then at least moving you nearer to it would be good."

"Aa... Yeah, it would."

Seishin nodded and called to Yasumori Atsuko who was doing a bit of tidying up. He had her assistance in moving Tokujirou to the heart of it. It was probably due to Atsuko's work that the altar was cleaned and tidy, with fresh flowers blossoming. 

Seishin gently folded his hands and lit incense at the altar. He didn't know if this would have an effect or not but he wrapped up the incense in paper and hid it beneath the pillow and set juzu prayer beads in Tokujirou's hand. In the study that opened to the garden he placed a volume of the Heart Sutra, and at the opening a guardian deity was set in place.

"Please be of strong will. I believe that you must be quite lonely, but you must not become disinterested in and abandon yourself."

Leaving behind Tokujirou who only could and only did nod, he said his goodbyes to Atsuko and returned to the car. Shinmei was oddly quiet as he waited for Seishin.

"Were Setsuko-san and Mikiyasu-kun both like that?" 

His father stared fixedly at him in the rearview mirror from the backseat. 

"...Yes."

"That, is spreading, through the village?"

"...I believe that it is."

I see, Shinmei murmured. 

"What of it?"

Nothing, Shinmei answered shortly. With a deep nod as if assenting to something, he closed his eyes.