Chapter 9 : Rabbit's foot

She looked at Eiji for a moment before she sighed.

"The suicide of a student is not really good for the image of a school like ours, I won't answer your questions because you are employed by the Tomiju family but because I also think that the death of this kid is not normal."

"Ask me your questions and let's get this over with, but I hope you get out of here afterwards."

"Can you tell me about Iwamoto."

"What can I tell you, he was a bright boy, son of a wealthy family, he was very good at sports, calm and always had a smile on his face, he was the calmest student I had in my short teaching career."

"But he was behaving strangely before his death, according to some teachers, sometimes he jumped in the middle of classes as if he had just seen something frightening, he slept in class more and more often and he had also started not to come to class shortly before his death, we had warned his older sister several times, she assured us that it was only a passing teenage crisis and that he would come back to class soon".

"You know everything."

Eiji looked pensively at Sawada's face, who was silent before he nodded his head.

"Thank you for your help, but can I ask you, was there another strange case like Iwamoto's before?"

Sawada made a hesitant expression for a moment before putting out the cigarette she had lit before heading for the stairs.

"The discussion is over, leave this school before I call the police or security."

Then she went upstairs, leaving Eiji standing under the stairs.

Eiji without saying a word left the school through the main gate surprising the guards at the door who asked him questions, but after he lied and said he was coming to give Miss Sawada an urgent errand, Sawada confirming this, the guards let him pass.

Eiji walked down the street looking lazy and yawning before he stopped and picked up his ringing phone.

"Did you find out anything about the monster I described to you?"

"No, but we have another customer! Two customers in one day! Haha come quick!"

Eiji sighed tiredly before she cut the call and walked to their office.

At this time of day the streets were crowded, Eiji walking among the crowd quickly arrived at their office, once inside he saw Dewa and a skinny, bald man with a pale complexion and simple clothes somewhat tarnished by the weather.

Both sitting and chatting, Dewa saw Eiji and stood up with a smile on his face and showed Eiji with his hands like a scammer trying to sell a product.

"This is my colleague, he's an outstanding exorcist with a 200% success rate."

The man looked at Eiji for a moment as if trying to evaluate him before saying.

"You're sure he's an exorcist, he looks very young to me."

Dewa with a professional smile began to praise Eiji's exorcism qualities, telling all kinds of lies, like that Eiji had already exorcised a thousand ghosts in one night or that he had already killed a monster with pens, he told such lies with such a serious face, that Eiji even doubted if he had really done all that.

'Only an idiot will believe you.' he thought.

But suddenly the man threw himself to the ground and knelt down before Eiji with tears in his eyes.

"The idiot! He really believed!" Dewa and Eiji cried out in their thoughts.

"My name is Ito Manzo, please, Mr. Exorcist help me get rid of my curse."

Dewa helped the man get up and made him sit on the couch before explaining the situation to Eiji.

Ito Manzo would be an ordinary wage earner, except that his wife left him a few years ago for another man, leaving him with their two children to raise. His life was normal, not to say banal, but six weeks ago he had an extraordinary encounter.

He met the CEO of his company in the elevator, but he didn't know at the time that he was his boss.

After he and his boss had talked, the boss invited him for drinks several times during the week, after that, his boss said that he liked him, and gave him an unexpected promotion the next day, explaining that he needed brave men like him in the company.

But the day after his promotion, on leaving home he found a rabbit's foot tied with human hair and pierced by several bloody needles at his door, disgusted he threw the rabbit's foot, but arriving at the office he found that the rabbit's foot was in his pocket, a little disconcertedhe threw the rabbit's foot again, but the next day the rabbit's foot reappeared this time on his bed when he woke up.

Since that terrified day, he couldn't get rid of the rabbit's foot, but the worst was that he felt his luck had completely disappeared, he was walking on dog droppings at almost every step while the Japanese streets were one of the cleanest in the world, he kept making mistakes at work.

He stumbled on every step of the stairs, the company in which he had invested all his savings had gone bankrupt, his clothes were tearing with every sudden movement from him, birds were shitting on him every day, he almost got run over by cars almost 53 times in two weeks, lightning almost hit him on the day before when it wasn't even raining!

Dewa who had listened to his explanations was rather in a cold sweat as he listened to his story..

"It's all because of that damn rabbit's foot, I'm sure my promotion made one of the co-workers jealous, one of them had to put that rabbit's foot in front of my door and put a curse on me!"

Eiji approached him and sat down on the sofa in front of him.

"Can I see that rabbit's foot?"