Chapter 1.2

"Hello."

Aoi turned about from the TV she had been staring at as Natsuno called out from the porch. From the kitchen were sounds of Aoi's mother cleaning up after dinner.

"Where's Tamocchan?"

"I think he's upstairs. ----Did you go to Masao-kun's wake?"

"No," Natsuno answered. That evening he'd gotten the call from Tamotsu but he didn't have the gall to go to the wake. "Masao wouldn't have been happy even if I want to the funeral, right? More like he'd hate it."

"Because you're so cold like that..."

Maybe, was all Natsuno said as he let himself in and headed upstairs. As he was turning towards the stairway, Shizuko popped her face out of the kitchen.

"Oh my, Natsuno-kun."

"Sorry for intruding," he said without looking back, going towards Tamotsu's room. Tamotsu had thrown himself down over his bed. Unfittingly loud rock music flowed in the room.

"---Yo."

"Lemme watch a movie." Natsuno said, causing Tamotsu to sit up with an exasperated look.

"Hey you, what do you think our house is?"

"A refuge," Natsuno said as much meaning it sincerely but of course Tamotsu probably didn't realize that.

"What, you're fighting with your old man or something?"

"I came to console you. Lemme stay the night tonight. "

"Is that how you act when you're consoling someone?"

Tamotsu sighed but Natsuno didn't reply. He just gave a composed smile.

"So? ---Whassis about a video? You're not going to tell me it's one of those kind of "comfort" videos, are you?"

"If you can tell a joke like that, you don't need any consolation," Natsuno laughed. Tamotsu leaned near him, looking at the title of the rental video he pulled from Natsuno's paper bag.

"What the hell is this?" Tamotsu was annoyed. "Even though we've just had a death in the family, you're bringing a horror video of all things over to the house?"

"Would a comedy have been better?"

Tamotsu made a scowl and gave Natsuno a small poke. The truth was that even if he were watching a comedy he didn't feel like laughing, and just thinking about a long saga of love and tears made him feel like sighing. He wasn't really in the mood at all for watching a video with him. But while he thought that, somehow he also felt like being with someone. At any rate, he was thankful to have somebody there for him. They were a distraction for the time being.

If there wasn't something washing through his mind, he'd go nuts. His older brother was dead, Masao---was dead.

The awkward argument on the night of Tohru's wake never was ultimately resolved. And furthermore, Tamotsu thought. Masao's older brother Munetaka had some unpleasant things to say about Masao who didn't come out for Hiromi's wake. It seems his complaints of being unwell were taken as a feigned illness. To be honest, Tamotsu thought so too. Surely he was just sulking as usual. But Masao really was sick---the same as Tohru.

Thinking about it now, he felt bad for Masao. Even though he didn't do anything to deserve being ganged up on with such an abundance of cold thoughts, he couldn't help but think. And even without that, Tohru's death was heavy in his heart. Masao's death was another weight added to that.

If he didn't fill his head with something or other, he was going to be sick with regrets. So right then he was thankful for Natsuno's presence.

As for Natsuno, he watched with deep interest as Tamotsu inspected the titles. One about vampires, one about zombies. He wondered, how will Tamotsu react to this, but he didn't show any particular response. ---If so, well, that was fine.

"I'll go ahead and watch these, so don't mind me." Natsuno said, earning a frustrated sigh from Tamotsu.

"You really just do whatever the hell you want in life, don't you? If you're gonna watch them alone, do it at your own place, I'm telling you."

"At my own place I don't have a TV in my room."

"Watch it with you Dad and Mom."

"Good one."

"You had dinner yet?"

"I haven't. But, don't worry about it. I told your Mom that I'd already eaten."

"Well aren't you considerate. How adult," Tamotsu laughed and left the room. As he went down the stairs, he could hear him calling out to Shizuko.

Natsuno sighed lightly.

What he was sighing about, Natsuno himself didn't know. Was it vampires, was it zombies? "The Risen," calling them that would be most appropriate, he thought. It wasn't something as romantic as what they called a "vampire." The image of Megumi who should have died was outside his window was more savage than that. At the same time, it wasn't something as sinister as a zombie. It was something more prosaic in nature. That was the impression he had. A dead body that rose up from the grave, an intermediary between life and death. ---That line of thinking was more fitting.

The one outside the window was Megumi. Even though she died and was buried, she rose back up. The deaths continuing throughout the village were very likely connected to the bunch that were rising up. That might have been spreading. If you died by an attack by The Risen, that dead body would also rise.

A chain of death. Somehow it had to be stopped. At least, if he didn't, Natsuno himself would probably be in the chasm of death soon enough. To be honest, these last three days, it was a wonder he was able to stay safe. For tonight he could stay over at Tamotsu's house but it wasn't something he could do forever. He had to take measures to protect himself, and even setting that aside, somebody had to cut the chain.

(Tamocchan didn't have any reaction.)

He didn't show any reaction at all to depictions of vampires or zombies. Tamotsu didn't suspect a thing. He didn't find the series of deaths at all unusual. So Tamotsu probably wouldn't listen to him seriously if he talked about someone visiting his window or about what he was thinking now. In the first place---so Natsuno thought--there wasn't a single person who would listen to him seriously, was there?

(Of course there's not....)

If he didn't personally have somebody taking watch outside his window, he wouldn't be of a mind to take it seriously either.

He couldn't ask anyone for reinforcements. Nor for cooperation. Nobody would safeguard him, nobody would remove the threat. There was nobody who would take up the necessary action in Natsuno's place. And there probably wasn't even anybody who would help out as a sort of joke, half-believing half doubting. As far as people who would tag along just for fun even without believing it---the only one who came to mind was Tohru.

With that thought, Natsuno felt a sharp prickly pain stabbing through his chest. It might have been himself saying that if only Tohru were there. Even while accepting that he wouldn't believe him. That said, Tohru would put on a Big Brotherly face, a face like he was tagging along with his little brother on some idiotic outing, but he would help without a doubt. But---Tohru wasn't here. He was probably snatched away by them. That was why Natsuno had to stand and face this alone.

Losing Tohru got to him deeply. The feeling that he wasn't anywhere anymore. He felt that but at the same time, he felt a terrifying premonition.

(What am I, afraid?)

That might have been the face. Whether he was thinking that they did something to Tohru, or that that was why Tohru wasn't there anymore, realizing there was something fearful looming, he couldn't face it head on.

Essentially, he was alone. He couldn't hope for assistance. Natsuno had to do something by his own hands. But in reality, Natsuno himself didn't know what he should be doing. There was nobody to tell him what to do in such a situation. He had no idea at all how to deal with "The Risen."

What he did know was just that this was extremely abnormal. And by instinct he felt that every abnormality happening in the village was connected to this. If abnormality colored things, then the deaths, the moves, all of them had the same hue to them.

----And there was one more thing.

Natsuno half heartedly put the video in Tamotsu's VCR deck and turned his eyes towards the window. There was one more thing with that abnormal tint to it. That was that house transferred to the Kanemasa lot.

It was ever since that house---not its inhabitants--had come to the village that strange things were happening.

Death was spreading. There had to be a starting point somewhere. If so, he couldn't think of anything other than that house.The owner rarely made an appearance in town, and when he did it was only at night.

He couldn't say it would all be finished by returning Megumi to the grave. To really be safe---if he wanted to return things to normal, he had to do something about the lot of them.

Just trying to imagine it left him feeling like it was beyond his own abilities but Natsuno had no escape route. Natsuno wasn't naive enough to think the adults would do anything about it.