Chapter 5.3

Shimizu Megumi hurried down the small pathway as the crickets chirped.

It was a narrow path that followed the western mountain ridges from Shimo-Sotoba passing through Sotoba towards Monzen. There were fewer people she knew that way, so while she thought nobody would talk to her, in the end she did end up meeting someone, and she ended up caught by them again. She'd pass on having to talk to some old person with too much free time. She basically knew what they were going to say. Seems sometime they moved in, they'd say, or if not that, they'd make her listen about how someone died in Yamairi, and they'd finish it off by butting into her affairs like their talk was a cautionary tale.

(Who even cares?)

All humans died. And there were tons of old people in the village. People dying was something happening all the time every day. ---It was just something that usually happened somewhere they weren't seeing, that's all.

The adults were saying the community of Yamairi was gone now, making a big fuss over that but the likes of Yamairi were already gone a long time ago. Even now everyone seemed to have forgotten it again. It wasn't anything to make a fuss over now, she thought.

Even Megumi had the feeling something huge had happened when the dead people were found in Yamairi. It was in the papers and on TV, she had the feeling an extravagant change was going to take place but, nothing like that happened after all, and once she thought about it, even if it was in the papers or on TV, it was the local edition, the local news, so from the start it really wasn't that big of a thing at all.

(In the end, weren't we just happy something unusual happened!)

Even while their eyes glistened with rumors of something greater, they paid lip service to it as sad, as if they had compassion or something. Even though nobody at all really thought it was sad at all. Yet if Megumi just honestly said she wasn't interested, they made a face as if looking down on her.

(Stupid town!)

It was so totally stupid. If something didn't have anything to do with you, that's what you'd call unrelated to you. Those unrelated people made a face as if the dead were once long time friends of theirs or something. She wanted to tell off the people making too much of a fuss over it. That they didn't have anything to do with them.

(And it's got nothing to do with me!)

It had nothing to do with Megumi. As for what did have something to do with her, on the other hand----.

Megumi rounded the corner and looked up at the slope. Yesterday in the middle of the night, someone saw a truck go in, so went a rumor already rushing through the village. All the same, nobody had set sights on the owners. At least, Megumi had only heard rumors that someone had been seen, she didn't know of anyone who'd actually met with anyone yet. Giving the expected greetings to the neighborhood, coming down to see the state of the village for the time being, it seemed they hadn't done either. There was the possibility that they were simply busy finishing up with moving but, it may have been all to certain that the master didn't have much of a mind to proactively mingle with the village. Thus, Megumi had yet to hear any details of the inhabitants.

In the village full of nothing but stupid things, only that house held any meaning to Megumi. At the end of the day, she was nothing but another one of the masses to that house, Megumi knew as much and yet until that was firmly determined and left her dejected, she couldn't help but hold expectations.

She didn't want to feel dejected. She didn't even want to imagine that the people who moved in wouldn't be interesting to her, that they themselves would hold no interest in her, that she would be shut out.

(That shouldn't happen....)

Looking up at the hill as if it would bite into her, Megumi coached herself. If you love this house this much, then you should definitely come to like the people in that house just the same. The owners definitely won't think the worst of someone like you, Megumi!

(Isn't that right?)

Caught up in her thoughts as she gazed upwards, when a voice suddenly called out to her, Megumi jumped.

"Megumi-chan!"

When she turned around, Kaori was coming, bringing her dog. As Megumi cast her eyes on her, Kaori waved her hand hugely. The dog Kaori brought was a stupid-faced looking mutt. It had a joke of a name like Love or something.

(If that house keeps a dog, I'm sure it's a foreign breed! An intrepid-like one."

Megumi gave a longing look to the house.

"Today's hot again, isn't it? --Taking a walk?" Kaori said, following Megumi's gaze up the hill. "What's wrong, did you have some kind of business with that house?"

"There's no way I could, right?"

Embarrassed by something somehow, Megumi quickly turned from the hill. Kaori hurried to follow along, earning a sidelong glance from Megumi.

(What a dopy braid. At least use more than a rubber band, you could do a ribbon or something! And she just threw on a T-shirt!)

Kaori was one year younger than Megumi, and her house was nearby. Their mothers were friends too. Until last year they went to the same middle school. This year, Megumi started high school, and though Kaori was left with her last year of middle school, she came every morning to invite her to go to school together. Even though it wasn't like Megumi ever said anything like let's go together, she loyally came every morning like it was only natural. As Megumi took her time slowly getting ready, even while saying "I'm going to leave you behind!" and the like, she waited. At times like that, Kaori's face looked a lot like a dog's.

It was already set in stone that she would go to school together with Megumi. Going to the high school, even by bus, took thirty minutes, so for Kaori who went to the middle school in the village, there shouldn't have been any need to hurry out of the house so early. That she could just say to that: "It's fine, don't worry about it! It's perfect for me because I can prepare for class!" or something and expect her to be grateful was, in a word, stunning.

"Did you hear the rumors, that they'd moved in?" Kaori said, Megumi nodding. Kaori turned to look up the slope as she walked. From where the two were walking, they could no longer see the gate. What they could see were only the second story and the roof. Still, Megumi had the small sense that something about it had been ruined.

"They say they have a daughter, huh?"

As Kaori spoke, Megumi came to a stop. "A daughter? They have one?"

Uh huh, Kaori nodded. "That's what I heard. But, she's younger than us. She's in sixth grade or in middle school--somewhere around there."

Megumi's feelings were complicated. While she was happy that they had a daughter but, if she was younger then she had the feeling that she was out of luck. And that Kaori knew about it when she didn't wasn't even funny.

".....Oh."

"A husband, a wife and a daughter. A three person family. The old ladies in the neighborhood were talking about it."

"Hnnn.... And?"

"And?"

"So, what kind of people are they?"

I don't know, Kaori shook her head. "I mean, I only overheard what they were standing around talking about. I'm not really that interested, I was just passing by."

"Not interested?" Megumi asked in shock, shocking Kaori herself.

"Megumi-chan, you're interested?"

"That's... Of course I am!"

"Even though they're so weird."

"Weird? Why would you say that!"

Kaori tilted her head at Megumi's cross-examination. Megumi, one year older, had been her friend since kindergarten but, at times she could be cold. Like now.

"Because... Didn't they move in in the middle of the night? Normally you wouldn't move in at that time of night."

"They could have a perfectly good reason for that."

I guess they could, Kaori murmured. "...But their house is weird."

"And I'm asking why you'd say that."

"It doesn't fit, does it, that house, this place."

"That's Sotoba's fault for being so country, isn't it."

But building a house like that out in this county is in itself was weird, Kaori had thought that, but it seemed Megumi didn't see it that way.

"It's kind of oppressive and dark and all..." Kaori said, earning a severely sharp glare for Megumi, her stare turning towards her scornfully. "....If I lived in that house, I'd get depressed."

"It's not like it's your house, so who cares!" Megumi's voice spoke as if thrusting at her as she turned about storming back.

"What's wrong? Did you have another fight with your mom?"

Megumi only gave a single look back at Kaori, without an answer. She promptly returned to the hill, and with only that fleeting look back to Kaori she ascended the slope. Kaori watched her, flabbergasted. They really had known each other a long time, but sometimes she just couldn't make sense of her.

Kaori spoke with a sigh to Love who had stopped at her feet with her. "I wonder if something happened to Megumi?"

The dog let out a disinterested yawn.

Megumi furiously stormed the hill. That country hick, she thought, the world swirling in her chest.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Uncouth inhabitants in an uncouth village. They didn't feel any embarrassment about themselves. No, not just that, they thought they were fine as they were!

That house was too good for this village. And yet the people weren't embarrassed before it, they blamed the house for being weird! Just like how they laughed at Megumi for changing her clothes even when just going out to the shops around town.

(It's not that house that's weird, it's you all that are weird!)

Taking her dog out on a walk in just whatever house clothes she threw on. If she didn't care about her appearances, it was because the village was an extension of her house. The whole village was thought of like one's yard, like extended family. People went into other's houses as if it were natural, telling other people how to live their lives as if they were family.

"I haaate this village!"

But Megumi was a prisoner of this village. Even though she wanted out she couldn't leave. Just like this she'd find a job in the village, marry somebody from the village, and become a part of it. --That was the one thing she'd pass on.

She wanted to go to college, wanted to work in the city. But her family and the neighbors around preached unanimously that girls were best off at home.

(It's the worst!)

Hunched in anger as she climbed the slope, Megumi raised her face up. Looking up at the house, she let it all out with a breath.

(The gate is...)

The hill pathway curved in front of the house, the gate positioned facing the front as if to cut off the road. A white wall with brick gate piers, the black metal fixtures over the amber boards of the gate, standing int he way of the road, that blocked off one's view, was slightly ajar.

The gap was only about five centimeters. Through that narrow opening, the grounds, flooded with light of the setting sun, could be seen. There was the stone paving that continued past the gate and the tips of tree branches that remained of the garden trees, and beyond that a dark stone wall.

Megumi had bit by bit climbed the hill. Her heart beat just a little faster. While peering through the doors of the gate, she quietly eased closer. The gap open to the outside world was tantalizingly narrow. The door on the first story window on the stone wall was opened, and white curtains could be seen, but just barely. Within the house there were lights on. From the inner walls to the furniture, whatever it was, it could be seen by looking into the house, that much was clear.

Without realizing it, Megumi's breath caught. As she had approached the front of the gate, the gate doors moved as if swaying, perhaps blown by the evening breeze. One of the doors moved inward, swaying open. Picking up momentem, the gate slid open without a single sound, along the arced rail on the stone pacement.

Megumi held her breath, and as if being lured in by it opening, neared that gate.