Chapter 5.2

"Hey, Tatsu-san. Yesterday, a young'un from Kanemasa appeared at the Ozaki Clinic, did you hear?" said Satou Oitarou as he approached.

Every day for ten years straight just like so, Tatsu sat at her shop front and gazed at the village road. The weather was the same as usual. The road top's reflection was dazzling. 

"The young'un from Kanemasa. ...I wonder if that wasn't the young'un who asked directions at Chigusa?"

"Wasn't it, I wonder. Going by the rumors, it looks like he's the only young man they have."

Oh, Tatsu gave a curt reply and returned to watching the village road. It wasn't that she had no interest in the move-ins. If she showed her interest candidly, Oitarou was the type to become stingy with information. Just the opposite, if she kept it short, he would just spit out everything that he knew, so she knew from experience.

As expected, Oitarou took up the seat nearest Tatsu, leaning his body forward. "So it seems, they have the man, his wife and their daughter, a three person family. They say the wife and daughter's bodies are weak. So that is why the ended up moving to the country, it sounds like. The young'un, a helper girl, and a doctor are there it sounds like. He's their personal family physician."

"Heeh..." 

Talk about extravagance. It made sense, they had enough to dismantle and rebuild a house like that one. But, Tatsu didn't like it. More than anything, in the first place, she wondered why they moved in in the middle of the night. And she heard it was a truck and two passenger vehicles. That was probably the lot that had come to move in during the mushiokuri. 

(but, if so I wonder why they turned back, then.)

She wasn't satisfied. That wasn't all. Now that they'd moved in, the owner hadn't shown himself, and she didn't like that either. There were rumors he'd been sighted but Tatsu herself and all of the old people who gathered there had never laid eyes on him. Moving in in the middle of the night was bad enough, as if trying to avoid her notice, which was plain boorish of them. If they had moved to their new house in the middle of the day, they would have had to enter the village by passing by her post before Takemura. And then, going out to the obvious house, someone out of the old folks who had too much time to spare would have met them. If that happened, that someone would come straight here and fork over the news, and yet..! Tatsu had always done like this, sitting here as she did and yet she was well informed about everything relating to the village. And yet when it came to the man of the house at Kanemasa, they managed to slip out beyond her line of sight.

(I don't like it....) 

Oitarou might have felt the same way, somehow making an unamused expression. 

"What's with them, the bunch from that house, being so sneaky, anyway."

"It isn't as if they're being particularly sneaky, really."

"You think? It sure feels like it, don't it? Voice unheard, sight unseen, doesn't it feel like that to you, Tatsu-san?"

It feels exactly like that, Tatsu thought but did not respond. With a sulking expression, Oitarou wiped at the sweat that rose up. As he did, a smile bearing ill will rose on his face. 

"Well, with this we know that Ikumi-san's weird predictions were off. That girl said that the master had some bad fortune and couldn't move in, or something like that, she was saying. Right about now there's probably no end to her embarassment, I bet she's regretting it."

Tatsu furrowed her brows. 

"She was just using guesswork to say whatever she wanted, to hear herself talk. To start with whatever comes out of her mouth is random anyway, so it was all incoherent enough to start with."

"Hahaa."

"She'll miss the mark and miss it again, then she'll make up some more as if she's not embarrassed at all, make with whatever weird connections to it all just pop into her head, that's how her mind works."

No mistaking it, Oitarou laughed. 

Natsuno was rummaging in the refrigerator when his mother and father returned from the workshop. Time for their break, Natsuno wondered, looking at the kitchen clock.

"What, having a between meal snack?" Azusa asked, poking her head into the kitchen. Not really, said Natsuno, taking out the bottle of barley tea.

"Bring us some, too."

Yeah, yeah, Natsuno mumbled. He took out three glasses from the cupboard and poured the tea. 

"While you're there, bring the grapes too. --Hey, Natsuno-kun, did you hear the talk about the move-in?"

"No. Someone moved in?"

"Looks like it. Before, one of the people I ran into passing through the neighborhood came to report about it."

Hnn, Natsuno murmured, washing the grapes and putting them on a plate. He set it out on the dinning table. His mother who sat waiting in her chair asked him to put ice in it, sending him back with the glass.

"You can do it yourself."

"You're up, aren't you? Please."

Breathing out one sigh, Natsuno put the ice in as his dad washed his hands beside him. 

"There's a big fuss in the village. Even though it's just someone moving in, I've got to wonder if it's worth all that big a deal."

Azusa laughed. "What, don't you think it's kind of cute, in a childish way. I'm sure when we moved in, it was like this too, I bet."

"I bet," Yuuki sighed. "Even so, until just a little while ago, they were making a fuss about the incident in Yamairi. Now that someone's moved in, that's all there is."

"They's just simpleminded. Isn't it more charming like this? It's less of a crime than talking about Yamairi."

Well yeah, Yuuki said sitting in a chair. "It was a freak, it was a forced double suicide, the theories were flying, just how big of an incident did they expect to have happened?"

"And in the end it was a natural death wasn't it,at Yamairi."

"Sounds like that's what the doctor of the Ozaki's is saying. That man did stand in on the autopsies."

"Then there's no doubt about it is there. Finding three dead bodies at once would whip everyone up, I understand that but it wasn't worth that much of a fuss, was it."

"Well they did think it was a major incident. Three people found dead isn't something you'd call ordinary. Yamairi was isolated in the mountains. The three inhabitants were all elderly. Those old people were decimated and nobody noticed. The bodies were never even discovered until things got to that point. I mean, a villager tried to go by to report on the death of another family member when the body was found, but if that hadn't happened, just when would they have been found?"

"That's true..."

"Even in a village with as many old people as this one, this is the extent of their preparations. I think this is a problem, don't you? I think that there should be more of a network to protect the elderly. Even in a village full of nothing but old people, the elderly are still isolated. Seen as unnecessary, their relationship to the people around them dwindles gradually, and they end up alone. If you don't take part in society, you won't be reached by its protections."

"There is something like that. An elderly association or some network of lonely old folks."

"This proves that it was insufficient."

That's true, Azusa nodded. 

"I think that what happened in Yamairi is something, is several somethings to think about. Well, for the villagers, it's something already done and over though. Despite being a collective community, things are unexpectedly flippant."

"That's true. I thought it'd be more----should I say substantial, the connections between people."

"Well, Yamairi has geographic factors to it as well. Even so, I'm not sure what to think about it being passed over just because people are moving in."

"Doesn't it depend on who it is moving in? At any rate, they did reconstruct a house like that, they moved in in the dead of night, they're quite showy. They were made to be talked about."

"That said, I haven't heard anything about them showing themselves."

"Oh but it sounds like there are people who have seen them. I've heard little rumors that someone had."

"I wonder about that, too." Yuuki once again sighed. "Now that they've finally moved in, I'd think they would want to at least greet the people nearby, but. They did take the trouble to move all the way out into a small collective like this. I don't know what I think about that kind of behavior, cloistering themselves up as if to ignore their own surroundings."

"That's true..."

 Listening to Azusa's murmur, Natsuno washed out the glass he had used. Just as he'd quietly started out of the kitchen, his father's voice called to him, asking if he was going out. 

Yeah, replied Natsuno without turning arond. "I'm going to the Mutous'."

As usual, outside the weather was annoyingly sunny. Walking while being awash in the sun's rays, a disconcerted Natsuno thought to himself, what the hell? 

The old people of Yamairi were isolated. It was true enough that they were cut off from any network. There was nobody left in regular contact with them, nor anyone who visited them. That was just why three people, three dead people, weren't found until they were already dead.

But, the old people had to consent to being isolated themselves. They must have understood that they had ended up in a condition of isolation, and they must have been only all too aware that they were also geographically isolated. They should have also understood what might have happened being in advanced age. In spite of all that, they decided to stay in Yamairi. 

If they were afraid of isolation, they should have taken steps so as not to be isolated. Just as Azusa was saying, there was an organization for the elderly in town, and a network so that the old people living alone could watch over each other in their daily lives. If they feared solitude, they could have proactively been a member of that, and in not doing as much, the old people in Yamairi knowingly choose their isolation. If the people themselves didn't wish for isolation, regardless of whether they were trying to make contact with society or not, then if they couldn't, it'd be a problem. But that was only one possibility. The other was that this was the old people's will.

He understood his father's ideals but he didn't understand the reason why other people should have to embrace and worry about people who had no personal desire to escape isolation. Overall, his disagreements with his father were of that nature. If the person themselves chose a lonely life, the results, as inconvenient as they may be, were consented to and accepted. Shouldn't they have known, Natsuno thought. It wasn't as if the old people didn't know themselves that they were isolated, and if perhaps they never realized the dangers inherent to it, regardless, they didn't make any moves to sweep away that isolation or its dangers, --or possibly in the one in a million chance they just never really thought about it, then it would still mean that those people themselves were just fools. He couldn't understand why others should have to swarm them and worry about them.

"...It's not any of your damn business."

That was how Natsuno felt. If you wanted to live like a fool and die like a fool, have at it. That was the person in question's freedom of choice. To say nothing of the fact that the old folks may have been fully aware all of that, and that still they may have chosen as they did, so he thought. Three isolated old people's bodies were destroyed, and it may have been strange that they didn't seek any outside assistance but, as mysterious as it was that the old people sought no help---the reason may have been that the old folks already felt as if the people living in the village called Sotoba were like complete strangers---that was a view he'd never heard uttered. 

(Even that house.)

Natsuno's feet stopped. He turned around and looked at the majesty of the Kanemasa mansion in the middle of the green slope. 

Whether he wanted to give his greetings or not, wasn't that up to the inhabitants too, he felt. If one had the freedom to move out into the country seeking territorial bonds and proactively mingling with the villagers, then one also had the freedom to move only seeking a quiet environment, the freedom to refuse annoying and troublesome assistance. 

(How to put it...)

He was convinced justice and good sense were always on his side, that was the impression Natsuno always had from his father. While calling himself an advocate and protector of freedom and human rights, his father was indifferent towards his son's free will. Natsuno had no such privileges as taking to any conduct his father deemed a "folly." Natsuno had to wonder if his father at least had an understanding of the way he himself invalidated Natsuno's own free will so forcefully. 

With a heavy sigh he stepped onto the Mutou family property. Before he could peek inside from the veranda, a voice came down from above.

"Yo."

From the second story window, Mutou Tamotsu waved his hand. With a nod he let himself in and went up the steps. Tamotsu's room was boiling with hot air hanging heavy in the room, and with Tohru and even Murasako Masao there, the population density was high. All of them had stripped the upper half of their bodies, dripping with sweat; it was indeed sultry.

"What is this, a sauna."

Tamotsu laughed at Natsuno's complaint. 

"Hygienic, isn't it? Be thankful, you. In the city, they pay good money to go to the sauna."

"Is there anyone who'd pay to come to a run down sauna like this? The competition's stiff out there."

"Punk," Tamotsu said giving Natsuno a light kick. "That reminds me, you heard?"

Seeing Tamotsu's excitement, Natsuno sighed. "Kanemasa, right. Looks like they moved in."

How old a story is that, Tamotsho laughed. "That's two day old talk now, isn't it? Your news isn't the freshest. ---Not that, yesterday, they came to Masao's place."

"They came?"

Masao looked somehow triumphant as he smiled. "The younger one from Kanemasa. He showed his face in our shop. He came to ask if we do deliveries."

Natsuno let out a faint sigh. Masao's house was a rice shop. It wasn't strange that someone who'd moved in would come to ask that. 

"You're so grateful they came in that you're bragging about it?"

Masao's expression became sullen. "It's not like I was bragging about it."

"Really?" Natsuno took a spot by the window, resting his chin on the window still. "You're really starved for a topic. Like the fuss over Yamairi. People getting old and kicking the bucket, people who just moved in showing their faces, are those that unusual?"

Masao's mouth twisted at Natsuno's irritated tone.

"Well sorry. For being so country." 

Masao's words were turned back at him.

"That you've got a complex like that about it is proof you're country."

Masao fell further into a sulk but Tamotsu waved his hand laughing that there was no doubt about it. What are you laughing about, you're being made fun off, why aren't you mad, Masao said with a glare at Tamotsu's happy go lucky face. Tohru and Tamotsu were always like this. That's why Natsuno could be so arrogant. He was a person of Sotoba now too, so he should be educated in how things went in Sotoba, but no. 

"You act like you're older than me or something."

You're impertinent for being younger than me, was what Masao had meant to imply but, Natsuno's response was curt.

"It's just that you're a bratty kid."

Masao glared at Natsuno. He somehow repressed his desire to yell. Because he was like this, because he was so unpleasant, Masao thought secretly clutching his fist as he stood. Tamotsu looked up at him, still with a happy go lucky expression. "What's up? Going to the bathroom?"

"I'm going home. The air's gone bad."

Masao glanced at Natsuno. He took his shirt and headed out of his room with loud footsteps. Natsuno watched his back as he left.

"What the hell is with that guy."

Tohru forced a smile. "It's because you wouldn't get on board with Masao's bragging."

"It's just talk about how he saw the move-ins, so why should I have to listen to him like it's a treat to hear it?"

"That's what they call getting along. Even if you're not interested, you pretend like you are at least. If you're like that from here on, when you're out in the world it's going to be a hard time."

"It's my hard time so leave it alone. And? The guy who glares and makes an exit when someone won't get on board with his boasting won't have a hard time?"

Tohru pushed against his forehead, giving an inappropriate laugh. "Well, he'll have problems, too. Masao's got something spoiled about him. Any time something not too fun happens, he gets like that."

"...Hn."

"He's the youngest of his siblings. And his older brother has a pretty big age difference on him. He's what you'd call a Child of Shame."

[TL/N: Child of Shame - Hajikakikko - A child born late to parents (say, in their late 30s or 40s), which is shameful because it's proof they're having sex at that age]

"How old was Munetaka-san again? Isn't he already in his mid thirties? There's not too much of a difference between him and the second brother, so it's about a fifteen year difference, isn't there?"

"It's sixteen," Tamotsu interjected. "So he was always coddled by his mom. Though, his mother's died. But that's why he doesn't like it when things don't go his way."

"How stupid can you get?"

"Yeah, well." Tohru forced a smile. "In the first place things are distorted when you compare him to them. The first two sons of that house turned out great. If you compare them, he comes off pretty menial, doesn't he? And on top of that, Masao was raised spoiled, he doesn't have the magnanimity to accept that comparison head-on."

"No, I meant the excuses Tohru-chan's giving for him are idiotic."

"Oi, oi."

"He's selfish because he's an only child or he was spoiled because he was the youngest or whatever, those're the prevailing explanations. Are you saying anyone raised in the same circumstances would definitely turn out like him? Humans are individuals, you know. Cutting that to as minimal as you want and ignoring the individual to wrap them up in some image is stupid, is what I'm saying."

Now come on, you, Tamotsu sighed. "Aren't we always backing you up? While we casually follow Masao's lead, we're also supporting you. That's what they call tact." 

"You sure you don't mean 'talking behind someone's back'? I don't need such a petty ally."

".....Hey, you, keep up that attitude and one of these days someone's going to knife you."

"If there's somebody with the guts to do it, bring it on."

Honestly, Tohru laughed. Putting aside whether Natsuno's  was right or wrong,  the fact that he could casually fire off things like that was what made Natsuno Natsuno. 

Natsuno looked to the window, disinterested. His line of sight fell ahead to the Kanemasa mansion. "What did they move out here for, anyway. ...Just curious."

He said it as if talking to himself.

"Something like the wife and the daughter have health problems, it seems like. So they moved out into the country, Masao was saying before."

So that's it, Natsuno said with a sigh.  "If it weren't for that, who'd come here."

While he one-sidedly understood their reason, he felt a hint of loneliness. Natsuno didn't have any reason like that. There were neither territorial nor blood ties, there was no reason at all that he had to enter into the village's social sphere. But, his parents decided, and that was that. There was not one single reason for Natsuno to be here. Yet he was caught in Sotoba, and its curse grew stronger with time. Somewhere in him he harbored the feeling that if he didn't shake it off, he would never get out of Sotoba. 

"Too bad huh, that they won't be your allies."

As if he'd been seen through, Natsuno wore a severe scowl. "It's not like I wanted friends in particular. ---Tohru-chan, you're pretty calm. Guess it's to be expected of an adult?"

"That's not really it or anything. I just mean it's got nothing to do with me, that house."

"Hnn?"

"Living in a house like that and all, they're probably eccentrics. I can't picture being able to get on with them like easy going neighbors, and in the first place I don't really think I'd want to mingle with them either. It'd be one thing if they had a girl the right age, but they say the daughter's about thirteen or somewhere around there."

"That's your real goal, huh."

Tohru laughed. "It doesn't seem like they've got any interest in knowing us either, and I don't really want to know them especially.  In the future there probably won't be anything we'll meet over. So, they don't have anything to do with me at all."

Natsuno laughed. "That's true enough."

"Say, the one who saw the person from Kanemasa first, wasn't that you, Kanami-san?" 

Kanami sighed and wondered how many customers had come through the entrance saying that. Tanaka Sachiko and Shimizu Tsuruko who had entered took their places at the counter, eyes expectant as they stared at Kanami.  She understood their expectations but since yesterday she'd told the same story how many times? Enough already, Kanami was fed up.

Losing to Sachiko and Tsuruko's stares, Kanami summed up that the inhabitants of Kanemasa asked her for directions. At her side as she spoke was Motoko, who she knew was tensing up. Motoko was uneasy. The feeling that outsiders had come made her cower into herself. 

When did Motoko start showing such worry for her children that bordered on neurosis? She had a feeling she hadn't always been this way. At least, when she'd left the village, when she'd seen her off to live the maried life in town, Motoko hadn't been like this. Since they had only talked on the phone now and then, not seeing each other as constantly as they did now, maybe it just didn't show on the surface. But, when she'd first divorced and returned to the village, she couldn't help thinking she hadn't been like that, either. When did that start, and through the years didn't it seem like it was becoming more serious?

While Sachiko and Tsuruko were goading and teasing out more details with no small effort, Motoko finished her washing and looked up to the clock. She quickly removed her apron and folded it up. "Well then... I have dinner preparations to make."

Kanami smiled and nodded, calling out see you later. Motoko's face was implacably stiff, and she only returned the nod. 

Watching Motoko leave the store, Kanami turned back to Sachiko and Tsuruko. "Don't talk so much about Kanemasa around her! Motoko gets anxious about them."

Oh my, Tsuruko said, her eyes widening. "Anxious about them---what do you mean?"

Kanami hesitated. Explaining Motoko's unease was going to take time and effort. 

"Because," Kanami smiled. "Just a while back, Motoko's child was in a hit and run, you remember. It wasn't a big deal but there were rumors that that car was the Kanemasa car, you know."

"Well, dear me."

"Of course it's just a rumor, and they didn't move into Kanemasa around that time. But, if he'd been hit worse, it could have become something much more serious. It probably wasn't Kanemasa but, we don't really have any proof of that. Just the fact that the culprit got away means that of course Motoko can't help worrying about it."

"This is the first I'd heard of it! My, how terrible."

Yeah, well, Kanami said, hazily. 

"That isn't good for Kanemasa," Sachiko said. "If there are rumors like that, it won't do for them not to come out more."

"The people at Kanemasa probably haven't even thought in their dreams that there'd be a rumor like that."

"Even so! Didn't they move in and then burrow up in there without a word of greeting? Well, I just don't know what to think of that. Someone ought to have a word with them, to tell them that that's no good!"

Tsuruko laughed. "Who would possibly tell them something like that? Nobody even knows them, much less is their friend, and they're supposed to visit their house and say that to them?"

"Oh, just call it a courtesy call. Say that it's the neighbor's association contacting them, just make up something. If you say you were just dropping by to say hello, why, who could get mad at that."

Tsuruko looked as if her curiosity had been sparked. "That might just work, that might."

I don't think we need to go that far, Kanami thought, but choose not to interrupt. She understood Sachiko and Tsuruko's curiosity. To start with they rebuilt a strange house, they were the ones to stir the flames of curiosity around themselves, so what choice did they have but to put up with some meddling from the people like this.

"They have a daughter too don't they? Perhaps we could get someone from the Naka-Sotoba PTA to talk to them. She will be going to the village's primary school or middle school, won't she?"

"Oh, but I heard she's frail and may not go to school."

Heeh, Kanami said, looking to Tsuruko. "Is that so?"

"Yup. They said that a young man who was like a servant of the house showed up at the Murasako rice shop. That's what that person said, it sounds like. A while ago when I was shopping, Chizuko-san told me so. She has some kind of illness, and they have a doctor in the house who looks over her. It's incurable, it sounds like. The mother and daughter, both of them have it."

"Oh my... That's just terrible. That's why they moved out here to the countryside."

"That's what it looks like."

Seemingly caught up in her thoughts for a moment, Sachiko clapped her hands. "All the more reason, we could say we'd heard about that, and make an offer. The PTA will offer to help out in getting their daughter to go to school just as much as she is able."

"Ah, that's right," Tsuruko nodded. "That really might be better to ask them about. If she is going to school, she may need some assistance after all."

"Mightn't she? Maybe I should ask Koike-san from Naka-Sotoba to try talking to them!"

Nodding while looking at Tsuruko, in her mind Kanami sighed. It might have been an inflammatory thought but, she was developing some sympathies for the move-ins. It was clear that things were going to be made difficult for them for a while.