Phenomeno Page 12

  I don't remember how I was even breathing.

  Sound disappeared, and the world was covered with white fog–

  I just continued sitting next to that.

  “Nice weather.”

  I heard a voice as what felt like an eternity passed.

  I snapped my head up, and saw Ishikawa, who attended the same language class as me, smiling.

  He was a pretty typical university student for this fairly well-to-do university.

  “You okay?”

  ”… Uh, yeah.”

  My body was able to move again. When I glanced to the side, there was no one sitting there anymore. I opened my fist, closed it. It moved. However, my palms were covered with sweat.

  “Just off work?”

  “No.”

  “It looks like you haven't gotten enough sleep.”

  Hahahah, Ishikawa laughed. He was incredibly capable at getting good work, good company, and good connections, so when I looked at him, I felt a bit ashamed at how silly my worries were.

  “Hey, Nagito, listen.”

  He put a moment's break before saying.

  “That's edible.”

  Those words made me intestinal juice churn. It felt like dirty factory liquid had been poured into my stomach. Overcome by a feeling of vomiting that was rising from my gut, I ran from there.

  When I stood up and looked at Ishikawa's face, it looked different. Like a pure, black, inhuman thing. I was going nuts. In any case, I was at my limit, I thought.

  That moment, the sky became cloudy. I thought the clouds had come out and looked up, but it was still bright and sunny. The clear sky stretched on forever. But it was dark. Just the area around me was dark. I kept running, pressed by that sensation. I ran through campus, heading toward the west wing.

  Having broken off ties with Yoishi, there was only one person I could rely on.

  “Krishna!”

  I arrived in front of the room and banged on the steel door, but there was no response. I peered through the foggy glass, and listened, but I didn't sense anyone inside. I leaned against the wall and pulled out my cell phone. And then I called Krishna's cellphone, the number that had been written on the business card. The time it took until she picked up felt like forever, and I waited, gathering my breath.

  ”… Hello?”

  I became teary at the voice I heard.

  “Krishna, I'm in trouble.”

  I felt like I was about to scream.

  “What? What happened?”

  “I think someone's possessing me.”

  This time I definitely told her everything.

  That I took the notebook from the hospital. That I'd kept silent about it. That Yoishi was going to throw it away, but I brought it back home. And that my life was crumbling apart.

  I told her everything, and begged.

  “Save me, please.”

  On the other side of the phone, Krishna went silent.

  I was prepared to hear her, “you're hopeless.” I didn't care how much she scolded me. I didn't care if she insulted me. Even then, she should be able to come up with something.

  “Well, what I can say.”

  I heard Krishna's voice.

  “Is that I can't help you.”

  “Huh? Why?”

  “I'm in Aomori.”

  ”– Huh?”

  Come to think of it, her voice did sound distant.

  “Wait… why'd you go to Aomori?”

  “To correct my spine.”

  “Why'd you go to Aomori to correct your spine–”

  “The spine is an air duct. Well, it'd be a long explanation, so whatever. Anyways my teacher's going to talk.”

  – Teacher?

  Ahh, Krishna did mention having a teacher… is she with that person?

  As I was sorting things out in my head.

  “Yo! G'day.”

  I heard a bright male voice. I heard Aomori, so I expected some stoic voice, imagining a grandmother-like teacher, so this took some air out of me.

  “Well, first I want to check your situation. Is there water nearby?”

  “Water.”

  I looked around, and saw a sink at the end of the hall.

  “Yes.”

  “Alright, wash your hands. And the back of your neck.”

  I dashed over and did as he told.

  “Done.”

  “Good. Now when you've washed yourself well, put out your left arm.”

  I did that, too.

  “Lightly close your fist, and then repeat the sutra I'm about to tell you seven times.”

  I frantically nodded, and repeated the sutra he whispered seven times.

  “Done? Now write '鬼の字' (letter of ogre) with a finger from your right-hand on each of your fingers, then blow hard on them, and as you do that, listen carefully.”

  I didn't understand. I didn't understand, but I listened.

  My opened hand was drenched in sweat, and my fingers twitched from stress.

  ”– now.”

  His voice suddenly became lower.

  “Which finger is trembling?”

  … Umm.

  My middle finger was trembling a lot, and my medicine finger was trembling with it.

  I told him my middle finger, and the man on the other side of the line went silent.

  “Um… hello?”

  … Don't suddenly go silent, man, it's scary.

  “Hey. Can you hear me? Is it bad if it's the middle finger?”

  I shouted, and from the other side of the phone came a stupidly bright voice.

  “OUT!”

  … Hey.

  ”… Hello? Um, Nagi!”

  ”… Ah, Krishna.”

  “Can you hear me? Are you ok?”

  I had lost consciousness for a moment from that OUT! shout, apparently.

  I'd slumped over the sink.

  ”… Where'd that bastard go?”

  I felt anger bubbling forth and asked.

  “Teacher's using spiritual vision on you right now.”

  Krishna said from the other side of the phone.

  “Well, we don't have a photo so all we're doing is gathering information and thinking of a direction. We can't figure out what's possessing you and why.”

  “Is that teacher someone trustworthy?”

  I asked, and Krishna laughed a bit.

  “Who knows, he's an oddball. But his opinions are never wrong. I can guarantee that.”

  I didn't really get it, but the way she said that annoyed me. Was it jealousy of the trust she showed? Or maybe it was because that bastard shouted OUT! like it was not his business. I didn't get it, but I decided not to trust that guy.

  “So, what was with the trembling finger?”

  “That was a Japanese type of curse for Shisoushikibetsunodaiji. It lets him figure out what type of ghost is possessing you.”

  “What did he mean by out?”

  “Teacher said he didn't really believe it, but – the middle finger isn't a normal ghost.”

  “Not a normal ghost… then what?”

  “If I had to give a word, a god.”

  ”… Huh?”

  “A high god or a demonic god – whatever the case, it's not a normal aimless ghost.”

  Wait. Why's that possessing me – I thought, but then I remembered.

  Come to think of it, Yoishi and I had snuck into a shrine at night and cut off a shimenawa. But wait, I wasn't the one that cut it, and I apologized plenty. I understand it's not a forgivable offense, but this is pretty over the top.

  “In any case, we'll come back to Tokyo immediately. It'll be night by the time we arrive I think, so take a memo of what what we're going to tell you.”

  I checked my pockets but there was no paper, so I bowed to a female student that was passing by, and borrowed a paper and pen.

  And I said go on, to Krishna on the other side of the phone.

  “First, throw away that notebook.”

  She said.

  “The loc
ation should be somewhere people don't go. The waste dump that you and Yoishi went to should be fine.”

  But I still had some resistance.

  “Do I really have to do that?”

  “I sort of understand how you feel. But that's the root of everything.”

  “Why? What did that child–”

  “Probably, the clump of countless souls are stuck to that notebook.”

  I felt like a lot of scattered things were becoming connected by those words.

  “I told you ghosts that have lost their purpose seek purpose? I don't know who wrote the words onto the wall. But together, they gave ghosts purpose, and it's probable that that's what's causing everything.”

  – I see. So that's how it was.

  That's why Yoishi said to throw that away.

  And Krishna said the words were bad.

  Still, I had to swallow my refusal that was just at the tip of my tongue.

  He was, me. He was just suffering. He just wanted help. He just wanted to jump around and laugh with everyone.

  “Nagi, listen. That kid's already dead.”

  She boomed.

  “He's not in this world anymore. As long as you keep acting compassionate to that kid, you're never going to be able to shed the ghosts.”

  I.

  I.

  I–

  I was about to say something back, when I noticed. I opened my trembling left hand. And the medicine finger was beginning to tremble even more than the middle finger.

  “Um, Krishna.”

  I said with a trembling voice.

  “Um, my medicine finger is trembling really hard, too.”

  ”– Huh?”

  “Is this.”

  And then the cell phone became filled with static.

  Suddenly, I could hear something that sounded like bubbling on the surface of water.

  “Huh…? Hello?”

  “H… hello…?”

  Somewhere far away, I could hear Krishna's voice. But it was no longer a conversation.

  Static, then bubbles. And mixed in, I heard a low voice. Countless human voices combined–

  “Don't listen!”

  Krishna suddenly shouted.

  “D- don't listen, then what should I do?”

  And then the phone cut out.

  “K- Krishna?”

  I tried calling back a number of times, but the phone never connected.

  2013/01/23 21:38 · admin

  5

  … What should I do?

  The sun was setting, and I'd been desperately clinging to sunlight, but I was about to run out of places to go.

  Anyways, to where people are – to a noisy place with lots of people–

  All of a sudden, I'd dragged myself to the lecture hall across from the courtyard.

  However–

  My feet stopped in front of the glass door to the lecture hall.

  Inside the classroom, a hundred-some odd students were seated, and a professor was writing on the blackboard on the podium. I could hear the sounds of notes being taken. I could hear the sound of chalk against the blackboard. The lecture hall was filled with the silent fervor of people doing what they're supposed to be doing.

  I couldn't go in.

  I felt ashamed. I was shamed toward my parents. I clawed at my hair. I was in Tokyo against the will of my parents, and was even indebted to my sister. It wasn't easy for my household to pay for tuition. And yet, what was I doing? I'd been mesmerized by the occult, gone to a place I wasn't supposed to go, abandoned everything in a half-assed way, and gotten possessed. An idiot was just being an idiot and living an idiotic life.

  Could I still return?

  Could I still return to where I belonged?

  As Yoishi said, as Krishna said, I should just throw away the notebook. But the immaturity inside me refused. It shouted that it still didn't feel like the right thing to do. Part of me wanted to throw it away, and another part wanted to hang on, and it was also me that stood here dumbfounded. It was me that was tormented by those complex feelings, and it was me bothering lots of people, and it was me that stepped further and further away from the path I should be taken. Many of me killed each other inside my head, punching each other, stabbing each other, tearing at each other, tearing them apart. A vicious war continued, and all of me died. At the end, I stopped. I stopped thinking, and the me that was no longer anything stared at the classroom – and saw the me I didn't know.

  The seat I was always sitting in – the far right seat on the fifth row from the front.

  I was sitting there.

  With a carefree look, looking bored, I was attending the lecture.

  That moment, it felt like something inside me crumbled.

  – Was it reversed?

  – Was I the ghost, and he the real thing?

  I could no longer see things as reality. I felt like something that had been created after the movie had been completed. My reality was just connected to the world through a thin strand. It was that simple to cut it off. Like Zippo's friend, the strand was cut one day, and you could never go back.

  I wobbled away from the lecture hall, and sat down on a bench.

  I clutched my hair with both hands. I could hear the sound of cars, like white noise, and the dark trees and bulletin boards and flower pots in front of me, they all looked like giant, made-up tools.

  The normalcy of this place was suddenly extinguished.

  I finally understood how terrifying that was. My values shook. I didn't know where I stood. I realized I was completely pointless. That moment, I didn't even have any tears. Because it was pointless. What was the point of a pointless thing doing something pointless? Emptiness only gave birth to emptiness.

  – How does it feel to be scared?

  Yoishi had asked me.

  Yoishi, I get it.

  This is fear. To lose your place.

  – This.

  I raised my head, and in front of me was a white face.

  Mitsurugi Yoishi's long, black hair was flowing in the wind, and her big eyes were looking at me.

  “At this rate, you're going to die.”

  The high school girl in a uniform stood out on the evening university campus.

  The university students walking by glanced in our direction as they went.

  “Why do you wish to carry that person's darkness – to the point of suffering this much?”

  Yoishi's glass bead-like eyes lacked the usual hollowness.

  Instead, there was light that wanted to know something other than “fear.”

  “Why…”

  Why? I didn't know. I didn't know, that's why I was suffering. I couldn't answer that question now. So I just talked, not knowing why.

  ”… isn't that normal?”

  ”– what?”

  “If someone's carrying something that heavy… don't you usually help?”

  “Even if it's beyond your control?”

  The words left me speechless.

  I didn't know. That's why I'd been sticking my hand in so many things and then leaving them half-assed. Then should I not have stuck my hand in them? Is that it?

  “Beyond my control – eh, shit.”

  I clawed through my hair.

  “It's not like I'm sticking my hand into everything I see. There's a basis–”

  “Basis?”

  “Because, if I were to do that naturally – it'd only be for friends.”

  I said that word, and was surprised.

  To be honest, the death boy wasn't a friend. I don't know how he looks and I'd never talked to him, of course. But I shared his pain. I was in the same state of suffering. As a kid, to have felt death nearby, his wish wasn't someone else's business. Please fix my sickness. When I first saw those words, I had felt that in my soul.

  – I can't do anything, but I can be with you.

  That's why I took the notebook with me. The way my mother had stayed with me, holding my hand until the seizure had passed for hours. It was the onl
y port for me in the middle of a sea of fear. Just by having one person by your side, people can overcome things, I wanted to teach him.

  ”– I'm an idiot.”

  I'd started crying.

  “An idiot,” I was repeating.

  “Indeed, it's not logical.”

  Yoishi silently whispered, and then she suddenly pulled a cell phone from her pocket.

  I thought she was going to call someone, but suddenly she began moving her fingers at a frenetic pace.

  I thought she was sending someone a message, but her finger speed was unthinkable. Without blinking, Yoishi continued pounding away with her thumb, like a broken automated doll that was repeating the same motion. A drop of sweat appeared on her forehead, then stuck to her hair, and she stood there without moving, standing with her legs slightly apart. Only her thumb roared at a high speed.

  I stared, jaw agape–

  And it continued for almost an hour.

  Our surroundings had become entirely covered in darkness, and sometimes a patrolling security guard came by, and I would bow my head, saying, “Wait a bit for her please.” That's how much urgency her fingertips seemed to have.

  The typing that seemed to go on forever suddenly stopped.

  And Yoishi's limbs immediately lost strength, having cut off the immense level of concentration. Yoishi crumbled to the ground – and I quickly caught her. For the first time, I found out she was extremely light.

  “Hey, are you okay?”

  I asked, and she nodded slightly.

  ”…What were you doing?”

  But she didn't answer, instead saying an inexplicable, “How comfortable.”

  “But, this should solve everything.”

  And with that–

  Yoishi's eyes rolled up and she lost consciousness.

  Late at night that same day.

  “Are you alright?”

  Krishna shouted, jumping into my room, and when she saw Yoishi lying in my blanket, she began opening and closing her mouth.

  “Ah… oh… you.”

  ”… Yes?”

  “You, a high school girl… are you serious! What're you doing bringing a high school girl into your room! And sh- sh- she's sleeping in your blanket!”

  She began blushing and shouting.

  Maybe this person was extremely weak to that type of topic?

  “Well well, Krishna, calm down.”

  Karasu arrived then.

  Changing the wet towel on Yoishi's forehead, she explained for me.

  “When I'd come to pick up my belongings, Nagi was carrying this girl on his back and crying 'she collapsed she collapsed.' And when I looked, she had quite a fever. My room's a warehouse and has no blankets, so we gave her medicine and lay her down here.”