Chapter 7.3

On the 28th, the end of Higan during which he couldn't tear himself from the constant memorial services, Seishin visited the household commonly known as San'Yasu---the Yasumiris. It was because he couldn't help wondering about the daughter who had suddenly gone missing. 

The San'Yasu's place was at the furthest southern point of Naka-Sotoba, in the vicinity of the bridge that spammed the small driver from the western mountain. Surrounded by concrete, it was more appropriate to call it a canal than a river. On the other side of that was Shimo-Sotoba.

Seishin entered the San'Yasu property going straight towards the entryway but while approaching he noticed the sliding storm door shutters were closed. The time was approximately 2:00, it wasn't a time when the members of the household would be asleep, was it? It made him remember the Murasako household in Yamairi. Seishin stood before the glass door of the entryway with some feeling of premonition. 

As expected, the glass door wasn't open. Even pressing the door bell there was no asnwer. Just in case he went around to the other side but all of the windows were closed tightly, the storm doors were shut, the home was shut up completely. 

If someone were just walking out somewhere, nobody would close up. The only time one would close up the house like this would be if going out to somewhere far away. 

Confused, he returned to the front, looking across the road at the house facing this one. There was nothing but country land all around, the San'Yasus had no neighbors. The nearest house was just the Tamos across the way. They were one of two Tamo households in Naka-Sotoba. This one had the same house layout typical of a farming family like the San'Yasus, so he was able to see from the porch through the storm doors which were all open that there were people inside and to call out to them. 

"Excuse me."

A middle aged woman whom he had seen inside, likely watching TV, turned to face Seishin who had gone as far as the front porch and called out to her. It was Tamo Yukiko. 

"Well my, it's the Junior Monk." Yukiko said as she stood, coming out to the front porch. 

"The heat is beginning to give, isn't it? How may I help you today?"

"Pardon me. This is about the Yasumori's next door, but."

Ah, said Yukiko. "You have business with the San'Yasus? Them, they moved, just the day before yesterday."

Eh, Seishin's voice raised.

"Well, do come on in. We don't have much, but there is at least tea." Yukiko encouraged enthusiastically, so Seishin gratefully accepted. The television lit up the living room, children's toys spread through the area, though there were no signs of children. As Yukiko returned from preparing the tea she hurriedly gathered them up as she said her grandchild was at the peak age of mischief. "He's finally old enough to walk, we can't take our eyes off of him. He's spreading his toys all over, crying out in a loud voice all day long, and a lot of trouble. His mother and grandmother have taken him out shopping, so I've just finally gotten a break," Yukiko said with a squinting smile. 

"Is his grandmother doing well?"

"Well, thank you for asking. She's even healthier than I am! Grandfather died early, she she intends to live all that much longer, so she says, but it seems like she's really going to do it."

"That is most wonderful to hear," said Seishin with a smile, continuing with by the way. "About the Yasumori's."

Ah, Yukiko said looking towards the front of the house opening a bad of sweets. "They moved. The day before yesterday, or rather, that night."

"They were moving about to move in the middle of the night?"

Yes, Yukiko nodded. "Did they not go by the Junior Monk's place to give word. No, they didn't come to say their goodbyes here either. Anyway, we heard the car, and as it was time for going to bed, we looked wondering what it could have been to see a moving truck across the road."

"Was it... Takasago Movers?"

With a surprised beat, Yukuko nodded, Aa. "Come to think of it, there was a pine symbol on it. Was it such an ostentatiously named moving company? You're well informed."

Well, Seishin dismissed, dodging the matter. 

With that moving truck in place, looking to be carrying out their luggage like, I was surprised and went over. When I did, they'd said they had moved. ---It was bizarre." Yukiko lowered her voice and hunched forward. "Junior Monk, did yo know that the wife over there had gone missing?"

"I have heard a rumor about as much, but."

"She went missing. At the end of August, it was. Was it perhaps that evening when Meiko-san from next door came to ask if I'd seen her, and when I asked what was happening, she hadn't been there since that morning. When they awoke she was gone, and while they thought she had gone out, she still hadn't come back. I suggested they hurry and tell the resident officer. Lately, we just can't know what's going on in the village, after all."

You know what I mean don't you, was all Yukuko said exchanging looks with him. Seishin gave a vague nod. 

"That's when she said that she would surely return once it turned to night, though. In the end, she didn't come back the next day.  When I asked Meiko-san the story, she said that Hinako-san's travel case was gone, along with some of her clothes. She ran out, Meiko-san said, and my was she mad. ---But, this might not be appropriate to say, but, I had a feeling it would come to that some day. Their relationship with the wife of the household was poor, after all."

Yes, Seishin offered as sheer back channeling. 

"Back before, you know? When Hinata-chan and Kouji-kun were getting together, there was quite the fuss. Meiko-san did not take to Hinata-chan. But she was a good girl, very social---of should I say, she was a modern, energetic girl who went all out! And it was decided that Kou-chan was going to be married to her. When talk of the marriage came about, they had already decided on the ceremony. The two of them were going to go off somewhere abroad by themselves to have the ceremony. That had Meiko-san and Seiichirou-san mad, didn't it! How terrible doing it abroad, and to decide on something like that all on their own, they said. To start with they hadn't even heard that the two were going to be married, there's no way they could allow it, they said. Well, if it had been my own son, I'd have had a row, too, you know. I absolutely won't allow you to marry her, she's said, terribly threatening but the truth was by that time, Hinata-chan already had a bun in the oven, didn't she? It wasn't a matter of allowing or not allowing it."

"She was with child?"

"In the end, she miscarried, though. But since she was having a child, it couldn't be helped, Hinata-chan's parents couldn't keep quiet. Somewhere in there, everyone was making a stand, but somehow it calmed itself out and the ceremony was held in Mizobe. And once that was done, next time there was the dispute with Hinata-chan's own parents. I mean, the San'Yasu's oldest son left the home, didn't he? He was well put together ever since high school, and in the end he went to a good college in the city, and got hired a bit metropolitan bank. Never the less, Hinata-chan's parents said that since he would become like a second son to them they'd allow the marriage. But that doesn't mean living with them, that's another matter. Kou-chan tried to be slick like that, didn't he? Both families fought but all the while Hinata-chan's stomach was getting bigger, and Kou-chan, being Kou-chan, was as stuck on Meiko-san as ever. Ever since he was little, if his mother wasn't in sight that child would go around looking for her while crying, wouldn't he! In the end, while they said they weren't happy about it, they said fine to it, and in the end it was Hinata-chan's parents who had to fold, though."

Ha, Seishin nodded. 

"Through this and that they got together but with it being like that before the marriage, there was no way it could have gone well. Anyway, the fighting had never died out. Meiko-san and Seiichirou-san were both cold to Hinata-chan, and at those sorts of times Kou-chan would back his mother, and with losing a child on top of that, and Meiko-san and her husband blamed Hinata-chan for that, well, for Hinata-chan and Hinata-chan's parents, that was just a terrible story. She couldn't bear being blamed after she'd lost a child, even though it was a dangerous situation for the mother herself! When it came to talking about whether she'd return to her home family or not, well, even we advised Meiko-san on what to do. You can't have that happen, we said. And so this time it was Meiko-san and their turn to bow their heads and apologize, somehow bringing peace about, but as expected the fights didn't die out with that, did they?"

"Ah.... Is that right."

"In things like this, it's a husband's job to stand in the middle and somehow make things work out, but after all Kou-chan is a Mother-con or has an Oedipus complex is it called? He always had his own parent's back. So it looks like the fights with Hinata-chan never tapered out. Hinata-chan wasn't a bad girl but she wasn't the type who could stay quiet if there was something to be said. ---Well, I'd thought when I'f heard that Hinata-chan was gone that she'd returned to her home family at last too, but. Go to check with them, I'd said to even Kou-chan but Kou-chan and Meiko-san and her husband all said that if she wants to leave let her do what she wants. But, when these things happen, that isn't what you do, is it? If you're breaking up, break up properly, we tried to advice them. And so when they finally contacted her home family, the home family said she hadn't returned. It was her parents whose color went pale!"  

Seishin blinked. "The parents from the other family were not aware of it?"

"That's right, they weren't! Her parents turned it around, asking what they were thinking not making contact until now, what would it come to if something happened to their daughter, with a fighting, threatening attitude. In the end, it was the other family who filed the missing person's report. Mieko-san and her group being them said they were sure it was probably a man, that she ran away with him without a doubt, and such outrageous things. But no, our own wife here talked with Hinata-chan a good amount yes? So that's why I can say this, but Hinata-chan was a more solid kid than you'd think, in spite of her all-out looks. She wasn't that kind of girl but when you first see her, her hair is red, and she dresses flashy so it's an easy mistake to make, that she was just playing around. That's, she did go out to Mizobe often, walking around until late at night it seems but with her husband's family being like that, she was returning to her home family to complain, meeting with girl friends to be comforted and the like. Mieko-san and them thought that she was playing out at night a lot, they were so sure that there was a man, though, yes?"

"...Is that so. "

As Seishin wondered what he did to deserve getting stuck listening to these endless family circumstances, Yukiko said: "And despite everything being like that, they said Hinata-chan called them."

"----Eh?"

"Like I said," Yukiko said as if convincing him to listen. "A call came from Hinata-chan, and they said they were going to live with her, you know. But, isn't that a bizarre story? If Hinata-chan came back, I'd understand that, don't you know. But living together, there's no way that could mean the San'Yasus moving, could it? Kou-chan had a job and all. Do you think there's any chance that Kou-chan would quit that job, that they'd abandon the mountains and their fields, to move into their wife's place?"

Seishin tilted his head. 

It was impossible. Even taking the story with a grain of salt, she left due to so much antagonism---Even setting aside that it had been the same thing with Sakai-Matsu's son, he couldn't think that if the wife had called, the family wouldn't throw away their plots of land to go.

"That can't be, I said to them. Something like that, you can't expect me to believe it, I said. But you know? Mieko-san said that either way that's how it is, persistently. She was like... her eyes were glazed over. Like she was possessed, would you call it? She wouldn't say where she was going, what they were going to do. In the end, without saying where she was moving to, they moved away. And that's leaving behind their furniture and family goods. I saw the truck's loading tray after all. They really took the bare minimums. Packing up enough to barely call moving, they left their house in the night. I just find it so creepy I can't stand it!"

That was abnormal, Seishin thought. That move was strange no matter how he thought about it. He could only think that Mieko saying it was in order to live together with Hinako was a lie. Yet all the same, why would she have to tell such a life and leave the village? They had a house and land. They had jobs and lives. To cast all of that off into the wind, never mind that they quietly fled away, to go so far as to use such a transparent lie, why could the family absolutely have to pull out of the village so badly?

Yukiko breathed a sigh. 

"And even still, my son's been saying some scary things, it feels so creepy."

"Scary things?"

Yes, Yukiko lowered her voice. "You don't think Hinata-chan's buried in the yard behind the house, do you, like."

It can't be, Seishin started to say when he realized he couldn't necessarily deny that. ---No, that wasn't it. It wasn't a matter of the probability not being the possibility. It was that there was a shadow from the undeniably ominous thoughts looming after the San'Yasu's move. 

On the road home, Seishin couldn't help but become caught up in his thoughts. The problem was supposed to be a plague. Since summer, a continuing string of inexplicable deaths. That was supposed to be what Seishin was investigating. Certainly since summer the number of dead had not been normal. But all the same, thinking of Sakai-Matsu and San'Yasu, what was truly strange was not a matter of who was dead, he thought. 

Something was advancing on the village. Wasn't the sickness but one part of that, was the impression he had. But, what was advancing? Incomplete moves and dead people, what significance was there that he was trying to say was between them----.