Ritsuko went to the break room and heard the announcement of his death.
"Yuuki---You mean Natsuno-kun from the workshop?"
Kiyomi nodded. "Seems like he died. I'd heard it was renal failure."
I see, Ritsuko murmured. When was the last time she had seen him? When she tried to remember, all that rose to mind was his form from far away at the national highway gazing southward.
The last time she had met and spoken to him was midsummer. That day, Ritsuko had made a decision. She wouldn't leave this village. She didn't want to live the way she had seen Natsuno, at the brink of dawn idle at the highway. On that day, Ritsuko called her lover and called the carpenters. Her lover said to take some time and talk it over, but in the meantime Ritsuko herself had become busy and that had been that. It'd been some time since there had been any contact, so he must have given up on them too. As for the contractors, they had been many times now and they had said they had wanted to wait until winter to do the reconstruction but the designer had quit, and in the meantime Ritsuko herself had lost any free time she may have had, and with the misfortunes falling on the contractors the entire idea had to be put on hold for now.
Why did it end like this, Ritsuko thought again. On that day she had met Natsuno, she couldn't have imagined this situation developing. Ritsuko had realized that Natsuno had been walking south to depart, and she realized that now he was like one dying and being buried in a foreign land. Even though on that day she had seen it as the starting point of their respective futures, stretching out in obvious and different directions, since then not a single thing had moved in that supposedly obvious direction. Even though only two months had passed since then, it felt like it was already ten years ago now. There was a cut off in there somewhere that would allow that time to be spoken of as "once long ago."
(In the end he couldn't go...)
Ritsuko ended up thinking that to herself. She was in a very sentimental mood. Though he looked so longingly towards the south, he died without being able to take off for it.
"And the doctor? He isn't back yet?" Ritsuko heard Kiyomi asking.
"On the second floor." The one who answered was Yasuyo. Yasuyo's gaze was up towards the ceiling. "In the recovery room. Constantly at his wife's side."
"His wife... How is she?"
Kiyomi had only heard that Kyouko had collapsed, she hadn't actually seen Kyouko herself. Brought into the recovery room, Toshio was tending to every last detail for her. Yasuyo was the only one called to be present, and that was when Kyouko had first collapsed.
Yasuyo shook her head. "She's in the latter stages after all. When I'd seen her she was having respiratory failure but it also looked like there was blood in her lungs. She was jaundiced and it looked like DIC, and once it comes to that point, I don't think there's much that can be done for it really."
"Oh..."
"If she weren't his wife, she probably would have been transferred to the hospital in Mizobe. The only reason he hasn't done that is possibly because he wants to hold onto her and hold it off as long as he can himself, don't you think?"
"He's a human being too. Isn't it unexpectedly sentimental of him? Yesterday during examination hours he went up to the second floor to check on her a number of times too. Though he really just doesn't want to be away from her side, I'd wager."
"It must be hard on him. He didn't even realize anything until she had gotten to that stage."
Ritsuko hung her head as the two talked. They didn't look like a married couple who got on that well but this was the sort of thing that couldn't be understood by outsiders. That it was hard on him, as Yasuyo said, did explain some things. The reason Toshio was so on edge was because he was blaming himself, asking why he didn't realize someone in his own family had gotten to that point, why he didn't bring her sooner, as he watched over her.
The man in question, Toshio, came back downstairs at last, long after the front desk had opened. Even once examination hours began, Toshio was often leaving his seat to go check on things on the second story. Kiyomi was the one to suggest that one of the female nurses should go to tend to her. Today there were fewer patients than usual. There was the spare time for them to care for her but Toshio shook his head. Don't fuss over her, please don't worry over her, he'd answered.
Even as noon drew closer, the number of patients didn't increase. Yesterday they said that Itou Ikumi from Mizuguchi had stormed Kanemasa. It had ended in a simple riot but because of that the villager's vague unease had dispersed hadn't it, was Kiyomi's view of the situation. It wasn't just that there were simply fewer patients either. Also unusual was that today there were no patients who had the disease in question. There wasn't a single patient presenting with anemia.
"I wonder if this is what they'd call a lull perhaps? We've passed one peak, this might just be the lull before we enter the next one. "
Yasuyo had said as much but once the lunch break had past they knew that wasn't all it was. The Ebuchi Clinic had opened for business they said. While the external construction hadn't finished yet, they had started taking patients as of yesterday.
"Somehow, it seems that they're only in business at night," Yuki said she had caught wind of such a rumor. "From five in the evening until ten o'clock, they said."
"Heh? I wonder if it's one of those night time clinics. In the city is one thing, but I wonder if such a place can do business here in the country."
"That's right, isn't it? In the city there may at least been salary men commuting or passing through, but."
Ritsuko and the others tilted their head curiously.
And then, that day, the part-timer Sekiguchi Miki neither called nor showed up for work.
Miwako couldn't forget about Ikumi's accusations. There were just too many oddities. Is it really a disease? Some thought along those lines had Miwako thinking that there was something strange beyond the abnormalities she was aware of already.
"Say... Katsue-san?" Miwako called out to Tadagoro Katsue who was scrubbing a saucepan in the temple kitchen. "Please don't think strange of me for asking this?" With such a preface made, Miwako carefully spoke. "That is... Before, Katsue-san, you had said that you know what is happening in the village, yes? Whatever IS happening?"
Katsue fleetingly looked to Miwako. "It isn't something a person should say out loud."
"Yesterday, somebody whose name I can't recall had come, hadn't she? One who lived in Mizuguchi."
"Itou Ikumi."
"Yes. That guest had said that it was The Risen. ... What do you think of that?"
Katsue's hand stopped, looking seriously at Miwako. Quickly she lowered her eyes and continued to polish the pot. "...Isn't Ikumi-san correct? That is what I think."
That's ridiculous, she thought while at the same time, I thought so, she felt. Miwako looked at her own hands smeared with detergent.
"Mitsuo's thinking that it's a plague it looks like but has there ever been such a plague? To begin with, if there really are no such things as Oni, why are there Oni, why are there legends of them left behind?"
"That is true, but."
"It will be all right."
Miwako held her breath as she stared at Katsue.
"After all, the temple will be all right. Since it's Oni, as long as you adhere to Buddhism and remain chaste, there is nothing to worry about. It would be one matter for an unpolished monk who couldn't even read scripture, but there is no one so impure here."
"That's---true, isn't it?"
Miwako smiled faintly. Yes, Oni were a ridiculous concept. But because there were folk tales and legends, it wouldn't be strange for them to in fact be real. On the contrary, they were such a ridiculous idea that nobody would tell the tales again if they weren't. If this were a case of Oni, the temple would be safe. Her husband and her son would be passed over by them. If it were a plague, the temple would not be spared, but if it were Oni...
(That's right, it's Oni. It must be.)
Miwako persueded herself as she washed.
Ikebe stood in the kitchen doorway, looking at the floor in confusion. Ikebe couldn't see Miwako nor Katsue from where he was standing but as hushed as their conversation was, in the wide kitchen it echoed enough to be well heard.
(That's ridiculous....)
Oni or The Risen or whatever. Things like that didn't exist in this world.
(But, all these deaths are...)
There were many dead this year. It was no ordinary number. They said it was an epidemic but if it were an epidemic, it'd be on the news, the Administration would step in, there would be something of that nature going on he would think. There wasn't a single concrete story anywhere affirming it as an epidemic. The only thing spreading was the rumor that a disease was.
(But, even so, Oni?)
That couldn't be it. Monsters like that were put away with the toy chests. He believed in them as a child, enough to be scared out of his wits, but he wasn't of an age to fear something that ridiculous any longer.
(It can't be.)
Ikebe quietly turned back. He went down the hallway to the temple office. The hallway back was long, and darkness coiled about its length. The floorboards creaked. It was like someone was following behind his footsteps. But turning around to confirm there was nobody behind him would be a child's action.
Forcing himself with great effort not to be aware of what was behind him, Ikebe returned to the temple office. There, Mitsuo was peering at Tsurumi's face.
"I'm serious, are you all right? Your expression doesn't look very good?"
Tsurumi was limp in the chair he sat in. It might have been general weariness, the season being what it was he might have caught a cold or something. He'd seemed spaced out since that morning, somehow.
Ikebe looked into Tsurumi's eyes that seemed to be drifting as if with fever when a sudden fearful chill struck him.
---He didn't think this was a sickness. Even so, Oni, that was just too stupid.
"Wouldn't it be better to go home already and get some rest?"
"That's right," Ikebe interposed. "There are no more services or appointments today, please head home and rest."
"...No," Tsurumi said, his voice breathless.
"Don't say that," Ikebe said, forcefully. "It's definitely a cold. It's plain on your face. Go home, warm up and sleep, please."
"Hey, have you heard?"
The one shouting that out in an excited voice while rushing to the Takemura store front was Ohtsuka Yaeko. The ones at the folding chairs were the usuals, Ooitarou and Takeko and this time Ohkawa Namie.
"You're late. It's about Ikumi-san, isn't it?" The one to say that was the one who had first brought the news, Namie.
"Oh my, you'd heard?"
"Heard nothing! She was standing at the corner of our shop shouting out and carrying on for so long!"
"Well dear me."
"Now her, she's a certified lunatic. I always thoguht she was dangerous to begin with, myself."
"She really is," Yaeko nodded. "Oni of all things, too. It's one thing to say that and mean it, but to even take it to the Kanemasa's doorstep, storming on them, really now!"
Takeko laughed. "What's this coming from you? You believed it a little! I know, you know. You bought an ofuda charm from Ikumi-san didn't you?"
Dear, Yaeko said drawing back. "I didn't really believe it. I was humoring her, humoring. --How could anyone believe that, Oni of all things. It's too stupid to come to anything."
"Is it?"
"It is! I mean, what she'd said about this year being no good, that the dead this year have been making for a terrible feeling is true, but. Even so, there's no such things as Oni now are there?"
Takeko gave an exaggerated nod.
"Really. In the first place, there's this fuss about how many have died but don't things like this happen? Summer was harsh this year, and it was a long and hot summer heat too. It's a village of old people to begin with."
"That's right."
Ooitarou laughed. "With that, she threw a big fuss, calling it Oni and all. Even stormed on Kanemasa, the master of the house told her off right good, now she's the butt of a joke all over town."
Really, the elderly gathered around laughed aloud. Tatsu listened to that laughter with a scowl.
---Things like this happen? What bull!
Something strange was happening in the village. These deaths weren't normal. They tended to come in waves, but it was clearly beyond that now. Even if they were elderly, it shouldn't have passed a hundred.
(...This is going to be bad.)
Tatsu thought to herself. Earlier they were gathering here with their uncertainties, harboring doubts about the situation and today they were saying "There aren't any Oni" and lept from that to "this isn't anything unusual" in one bound. When faced with an abnormal situation, presented with an answer that defied common sense, it looked like they were now just denying that the situation appeared abnormal at all anymore.
But this situation was definitely abnormal. Whether it was Oni or not, there was no mistaking that something abnormal was happening in the village.
(If everyone in the village is acting like this.....)
Tatsu faintly drew her shoulders inward. She felt like shehad caught a fleeting glimpse of something that there was no being saved from.
Toshio finished the day's examinations while having left his seat several times. The reception desk closed at six o'clock. While Ritsuko was cleaning up after closing, Sekiguchi Miki had called. Just as everyone had been vaguely suspecting, Miki said she was quitting. One by one they were becoming a more lonely lot. Ritsuko though chilling thoughts as she changed out of her uniform.
".....Nagata-san?" As she left the hospital, she called out to Kiyomi seeing her walking a different path than usual. Kiyomi turned about and smiled.
"I'm just going to see how Miki-san is doing."
"But..."
"She really is free to quit and all, but she's already getting on in years isn't she? I'm worried about how she's going to make a living from now on, things like that."
That's true, Ritsuko said, giving a wave to Kiyomi. Kiyomi also waved to Ritsuko, then hurried down the road as the sun was already mostly set. The darkness was falling and cold settling in. It was almost as if the midsummer heatwave were a lie.
Fall had suddenly set in. While being pressured by patients, while rushing about with the business at work, Kiyomi realized just how much time had passed. She pulled up the collar on her coat. She would need to adjust her wardrobe. With no time to breathe, just taking out what she needed as she needed, October had already half passed.
Different from her usual path, Kiyomi took the turn towards Naka-Sotoba. On the way she passed before the hill that lead up to Kanemasa and for only a short instant, she looked up the hill.
(The Risen, huh...)
She shrugged with a wry smile. With that she continued towards the community of Naka-Sotoba, following the line of houses by vague memory looking for Sekiguchi Miki's house. Miki lived alone. Her heavy drinker of a husband suffered liver failure about ten years ago, and ever since she'd been loitering around the house. Miki managed the bills with part time work but then two years ago her husband had died of cirrhosis of the liver. Kiyomi and the other nurses helped with the funeral. She had children but they hated their layabout of a father, and all of them had left the village. All of the children, who did attend the funeral, seemed sympathetic enough towards their mother but at the same time they seemed to be abandoning their mother who never could take a resolute stance against their father.
She understood the feeling but still, Kiyomi said to herself in her mind. She knew what it was like to fear the hospital. But still, what was Miki going to do from now on? If she remembered, it was a financially tight household. There was nothing of value in the home to put any value in, and their savings had been drank away by her husband until he'd died. They'd sold off the mountain and paddy field land they'd owned long ago, and the man of the house now deceased had been shuffled from post to post so much between jobs that there wasn't enough of a pension to live off of.
Going by memory, she followed the alleyway to a small house deep within. She put a hand to the glass entryway door but it was locked. Kiyomi lightly knocked on the door and called out.
"Miki-san, it's Nagata."
A person appeared in the entryway. Through the glass door she could see a human shape in the faint light. The person who opened the door was a middle aged woman she didn't recognize.
"Who might you be?"
"Uhm... This is Sekiguchi Miki-san's house, isn't it?"
"It is, but?"
"I'm Nagata from the hospital, but. Is Miki-san---"
"Right now she's in the bath."
"Uhm, I'm sorry, but who are you?"
"I'm her niece."
Kiyomi tilted her head. Any relatives she had Kiyomi should have met at the funeral but she didn't remember ever seeing this woman. Just past the entryway in the living room she heard a TV. She could see what looked like a single middle aged man from behind.
"So, what do you need?"
The woman's tone was certainly not warm. It definitely seemed Kiyomi was an uninvited guest.
"Well... Miki-san said she's quitting her part time job, so I came to see what might be the matter, and..."
Ah, the woman said casually. "Quit your job, I told her. My aunt is getting on in years too, so I've moved in with her. I told her we'd look after her, so she doesn't need to force herself to work anymore."
"My... Is that right?"
Despite being so apparently close with Miki, she hadn't seen her at the funeral had she, Kiyomi had a mind to say but of course she didn't actually say it aloud. For a time, Kiyomi peeked into the house but the woman asked "Is that all?" in her stiff, formal tone, and so she had to give up on meeting with her.
"Thank you.... I'm sorry for interrupting. Give my regards to Miki-san, please."
The woman gave a courtesy nod and then slammed the door shut. There was the sound of the lock being turned within.
Somehow, Kiyomi found it hard to leave the place she was standing. There was an unease she couldn't place.
Maybe it was because she didn't seem like she had strong enough sentiments towards Miki to believe she would look after the old woman. She had the feeling she hadn't seen her face at the funeral though that didn't seem to be all; the woman's attitude towards Kiyomi was lacking in the warmth one might expect from a coworker of one's beloved aunt. The man kept his back turned the full time without looking back. Normally wouldn't one at least want to peek at a visitor, she thought. ---And, there was something else, an unease with a more placeable form.
Tilting her head in bewilderment as she went back along the alleyway, she came before the row of houses as she realized the source of her unease. There was the smell of soy sauce and baking fish wafting from a nearby house. ---That's right, despite it being about dinner time, there was no smell at all of dinner from Miki's house.
Kiyomi turned to look behind her. Looking for just a moment at Miki's house, she took in a breath and shook her head. And what would you say about that, she convinced herself as she hurried along to her own home.
From within Miki's house, the woman saw Kiyomi leave. Peering through an opening in the glass door, she confirmed that Kiyomi had taken her leave. Returning to the living room, the lone man wordlessly watched the TV. The family altar further in the living room had a futon laid out before it. There was an older woman laid out, breathing in wheezes. The family altar beside the futon was empty. No centerpiece nor Buddhist tool remained. The emptiness gaped down upon Miki.