ALL NOVEL Chapter 16.2: Return II
At dawn―
Under the futon, I was gazing at the filthy ceiling of my rundown apartment.
Even with my eyelids half-closed, sleepiness did not set in. In spite of being worn out from working the night shift, my body denied me to drift off to sleep.
Since a few days ago, no more dreams of Hyuga jumping off the rooftop had haunted me. To be more precise, I tried not to see it.
The sheer terror and resistance to the dream led to an exceedingly shallow sleep, so much so that even when I was asleep, I was constantly half-conscious. Even the slightest noise would rouse me in a heartbeat. This way of sleeping struck me as dexterous, but of course, I didn’t feel like I had slept, or rather, I didn’t actually sleep at all.
It was like an herbivore on the lookout for a predator.
Fear of being in deep sleep, dread of nightmares, my brain was sending signals to refrain from a good night’s sleep. Yeah… no good. If I kept up this lifestyle, I would collapse another time in the near future…
A sickening slumber eventually followed, tempting me to plunge into oblivion, only to be awaited by a nightmare. To divert my mind from the horror of the nightmare, I shifted my attention to something else.
The wood grain on the ceiling, and then onto the stains.
These days, through this process, it became noticeable that the grains and stains on the wooden paneling inexplicably resembled a person’s crying face.
Never had I noticed it before but it was right above my futon.
The wood grains were the eyes, and the stains were the wide-open mouth. The longer I looked at it, the more miserable the face became.
Was I likewise making a face like this now?
…The hands of the clock ticking. It was silent…
I cast a glance at the clock before returning my gaze to the ceiling once more.
“It’s your fault.”
A thick voice reverberated in my brain. The face on the ceiling spoke.
“The one who murdered her was you.”
Its eyes were as narrow as a kokeshi doll as it glared at me.
“You murdered her, you were the one… you were the one…”
The same words were spewed from the pitch-black mouth.
You killed her. Don’t think you can escape. She will be coming for you soon. To put you through the same ordeal
My body bounced up and down and the next thing I realized, I was wide awake. The hands of the clock had advanced for approximately thirty minutes.
With trepidation, I peered at the ceiling. Above me was nothing on the scale of what I had witnessed earlier. Merely wood grains and stains that had the appearance of a human face. I wiped my forehead with my perspiration-drenched arm. Was I half-awake?
I got up from the futon and scanned the whole room. Nothing out of the ordinary, only a filthy shabby room. Creaks sounded when I walked on the floor, and the stove was covered in burnt grease. Packing tape was applied to reinforce the window panes. A hole was made in the closet door.
Nothing, nothing was supposed to be different. So why were my eyes swirling so much since earlier?
What was I searching for? Searching? …No, that wasn’t the case.
Somebody was peeking at me from somewhere. I couldn’t help feeling that way.
It was all in my mind. Contrary to what I wished to believe, my heartbeat was progressively racing.
“Hyugaー”
The wind chimes made a sound in the absence of wind.
“Is that you?”
Stifling my breath, I braced myself. Blood-drenched body, bones of the neck, legs, arms, and whatever messed-up things, I was prepared for her to appear in front of me.
―The following second.
Instead of what I had envisioned taking place, I was assaulted from the side by an unexpected impact.
Under my pillow, my cell phone rang and vibrated violently.
After all my bracing and heart-thumping, why on earth would you ring at this moment of all time!?
Without any regard, I grasped the cell phone, which continued to ring in a steady rhythm, and opened it roughly. In the event that this was a mail magazine or the like, I might as well just shatter it.
My stress level may have reached its peak as a result of my ongoing mental instability; if indeed the incoming call had been a mail magazine, I would have reduced my cell phone to a worthless object in less than two seconds.
The familiar name displayed in bold letters on the screen cooled me down, only for it to bubble me up all over again. Inhaling deeply, I pressed the call button and connected to the person on the other end of the line.
“Youuuuuuu bastard! I’ll kill you!!”
That was the worst opening line I ever had to say.
It was 8:30 in the morning. Anyone would be in a foul mood and want to hang up the phone after being told “I’ll kill you!” out of the blue, yet the caller was laughing on the other end of the line instead of being upset.
The way this laughter transformed from a normal laugh to a coughing laugh. I could picture the face of the carefree, naturally curly hair guy.
“Kinoshita…”
[Hey, Masa, have you been grumpy since this morning?]
“I’m not in a grumpy mood, what time do you think it is?”
[What time… it’s 8:30 in the morning? Good morning?]
“Right. Good night.”
I attempted to forcibly end the call with a single yawn. In any event, the majority of the time he phoned me was spent chit-chatting over nothing essential, and he had a propensity to ramble on for as long as an elderly woman, so there was no harm in hanging up the phone early. From the other end of the line, Kinoshita abruptly halted me, perhaps anticipating my next move.
[Hey, hey, hey! Hold on, hold on! Stop!!]
“What the hell?”
The night shift had taken its toll on me.
“Oh, I see. Good work. So, Masa, are you free today?]
Hey, were you not listening to me? I was just coming off the night shift. I was extremely sleepy, though I couldn’t sleep.
[If you’re free, I’d like you to hang out with me for a little while.]
“I’m not free, so I can’t accompany you.”
[Why? You’re done with your night shift, right?]
That was why you were… Not good. I was type A and I couldn’t read the AB guy’s thoughts at all.
“My bad, but I don’t even want to step out of my house.”
[Heh. You quit your job as a freeter and became a shut-in at last.]
“Why don’t you come over to my place right now, and I’ll give you a good beating.”
[Better yet, Masa, come to the station.]
“Like I said…”
I didn’t want to leave the house… Besides, I was completely nocturnal, and I didn’t want to walk around the city exposed to the sun when I was already in bad shape. No matter what Kinoshita said, I wouldn’t move, not even by force.
Just tell me what you want, and another time I’ll do it. I was about to say that when Kinoshita released the hook.
[I’ll buy you breakfast, a terra muffin set, plus apple pie.]
….Hmmm… So that was how it turned out.
In this way, I was caught by a not-so-large fish hook and ended up being the only catch.
As promised, we met up in front of the station and bought breakfast at a fast food restaurant.
So Kinoshita gave me a ticket when I asked him what he wanted me to do.
“A change of mood.”
No, no, no, what? A ticket for the train?
“Where are we going?”
Hey―
When I asked one more time, Kinoshita quickly went through the turnstile and down to the platform, still holding the paper bag of my breakfast.
“What’s up, man, calling me out all of a sudden? Where are you taking me?”
Several minutes had passed since the train departed. I extended out my hand to Kinoshita to offer me the paper bag while we were seated across from one another with the window ajar and Kinoshita was in a somewhat positive mood.
“Thank goodness you have an appetite.”
“Huh?”
The muffin package he had just purchased was placed in my palm while Kinoshita discreetly opened the bag and set his own iced coffee on the side table.
“You know, these are good to eat once in a while.”
“Right… That’s not the point.”
“Yeah?”
“Explain it to me, the sequence is all over the place.”
Kinoshita responded by playing with his own hair, curling it around his fingers, “Well, Masa, since then, I’ve been wondering what has happened to you.”
His speech was always distinctive and he always used a lot of inverted phrases. Of all the people in our tight relationship, he was by far the most intelligent, but something about him was a bit loose.
“I felt like you didn’t seem well, so I called you.”
Nevertheless, he was able to accurately predict what was on people’s minds to the point of being unnerving. What on earth did you sense in me when you didn’t even see my face?
“Intuition?”
Even if it was intuition, you were way too spot-on.
“Did I guess right?”
At this point, lying was not going to work with this guy.
“I see, well, I thought so, and your complexion doesn’t look so good either… Have you been sleeping lately?”
“I don’t feel like I’ve slept.”
“After all, you’re still seeing those things.”
“Well…”NotSharedOnAggregatorSite
“What do you want now?”
“…”Translator:MadHatter
I focused on the seat at the rear of the train car. Leaning against the window, a large man was wearing a Walkman and dozing off with his mouth wide open. An elderly, frail-looking woman with her hands clasped behind her back was eyeing the man through the window pane as he rested his cheek on the glass.
As I watched, she slowly shifted her eyeballs to meet my eyes. Her half-open mouth moved marginally and she blurted out something.
Right away, I averted my eyes and feigned not having seen her.
Kinoshita seemed to have grasped the gist of what I was doing and drank his iced coffee with a troubled expression on his face.
“I wonder if you can get rid of it somehow.”
“That’s impossible, not as it is now.”
“You’re not going to resign from the convenience store?”
“At the moment… if I quit now, I’m sure that guy will never forgive me.”
“That guy… Hyuga?”
“Yeah… she’s been showing up in front of me lately. Nothing has changed. Still in the same appearance she was in when she died.”
Even Kinoshita seemed startled by this and was at a loss for words.
“…Really?”
“Yeah, I saw her…”
The things that I didn’t discuss with him the other night when we were having a drink, the events up to now, the incidents that kept arising, the convenience store, Takenaka, Hyuga, etc. I told Kinoshita everything.