Pathway to Japanese Literature

(1)

Mitsugi was Monto Temple’s fourth son.

Even though it was called Monto Temple, there was not a single parishioner household; equivalent in status to a branch temple of the West Honganji Sect and located in Kyoto’s Okazaki, it was commonly known as Okazaki Gobō.
While its status as a First-Class Honza granted considerable influence among fellow Buddhist sects, the temple’s income—despite the expenses required for social engagements—amounted to nothing.
Both the Main Hall and temple kitchen had become terribly aged—no one could tell when they were built—with crossbeams warping and walls shedding their plaster.
The vast grounds surrounding it—spanning a square *chō*—had become mulberry fields and daikon patches, with farmers occasionally coming to plant or weed. Yet the path stretching half a *chō* from the temple’s entrance—where foundation stones marked where a grand gate once stood—straight to the Main Hall lay choked with weeds, untended by anyone.

The poverty of this temple, which lacked even a single parishioner household, was only natural.
However, successive abbots—scholars skilled in Buddhist sermons—would come to serve as head priests, travel around the provinces several times a year, and use the alms accumulated through their sermons to sustain their livelihoods and fund repairs to the Main Hall and temple kitchen.
Furthermore, Monto Temple stood on the abandoned grounds of what was once Gansen-ji Temple of the Shingon sect. West Honganji purchased this land and erected a new temple here because Okazaki held historical significance as the site where Shinran Shōnin—after being sentenced to exile in Echigo—had briefly built a thatched hermitage before departing from Okazaki itself.
At that time, the local villagers found it displeasing to have a meat-eating, married Monto priest occupy the former Shingon training ground; while they approved of the temple’s construction, they negotiated to request that a celibate monk—one who would not take a wife—be appointed as head priest.
Honganji also agreed to the villagers’ request as they wished.
Thus generations of celibate monks became head priests, transforming it into a refined large temple akin to a Zen institution—moreover, lacking parishioners meant freedom from the hassles of sutra recitations or funerals.

Now, the former head priest Dōchin—said to be from Noto Province—had become head priest at twenty-three. Though less scholarly, he was exceptionally skilled in Buddhist sermons. On days when this priest preached, crowds would gather to such an extent that the veranda of the Rokujō Assembly Hall risked collapse or people sustained injuries—such was his renown.
Moreover, as he was also a remarkably handsome priest, there were quite a few widows and young maidens who found themselves drawn to him.
The village elders muttered among themselves, “If only the giant serpent—the master of the swamp in the bamboo grove behind the temple, said to have been sealed long ago by Gansen-ji Temple’s founder through Shingon’s mystic power—wouldn’t curse us…”
“The arrival of such a young and handsome priest was dangerous,” they whispered.
They had been gossiping thus, but among the devotees who revered the priest was a long-established Kyoto clothier couple from Muromachi Nishikikōji—ardent followers of the Dharma—who proposed that they absolutely wished to offer their seventeen-year-old eldest daughter, a girl of fine appearance, to become Priest Dōchin’s wife.
Even the upright priest, perhaps due to his youth and still-weak spiritual power, forgot the resolve he had upon entering the temple and decided to take the daughter as his wife.

Around that time, a villager who had entered Monto Temple’s bamboo grove to gather bamboo shoots spotted a white snake.
Just then, news of the priest’s marriage arrangement reached them, causing all the village elders to furrow their brows—but by some twist of fate, three days before the clothier’s daughter was to enter in her bridal procession, he suddenly died amidst a crowd of scroll-mounting artisans and tatami craftsmen who had come from Kyoto.

The temple remained without a resident priest for a short period, but after the first anniversary memorial service for Priest Dōchin was held in August of the following year under the sponsorship of the clothier couple, a new head priest was appointed.
This was Mitsugi’s father.
This head priest was the second son of a Tanba country samurai family that had served as village headmen. Having gone to Kyoto for scholarly pursuits—making his parents weep profusely in the process—he took tonsure at thirteen, graduated from Rokujō’s main temple seminary, ventured to Edo to study national texts, and associated with loyalist activists from various provinces to promote imperial loyalist doctrine.
At that time, he had rented a room in Kurodani Temple near Okazaki, living self-sufficiently while commuting from there to serve as chief officiant monk at Rokujō’s main temple; he had also been acquainted with the late Priest Dōchin, and since the clothier couple earnestly entreated that inviting such an erudite priest—one who held considerable influence even at the main temple—to Okazaki Gobō would be most desirable, it came to pass that Mitsugi’s father, Rōzen, entered the temple.

This alone would have been unobjectionable, but the clothier couple—who had originally intended their daughter to marry Priest Dōchin—now sought to offer her to Priest Rōzen instead, determined to have her reside at Okazaki Gobō. They believed that dedicating their beloved daughter to an eminent priest would serve as supreme gratitude to the Tathagata and also as an offering to the late Priest Dōchin.
When they told their daughter of this matter, she wept and prostrated herself, saying, “Since the day Lord Dōchin passed away, I have resolved to live as a nun.” But as the marriage arrangement between Priest Rōzen and herself had already been settled, she ultimately obeyed her parents’ wishes. That same November, the daughter entered Okazaki Gobō as a bride with fifteen loads of bridal trousseau.
The daughter was eighteen, Priest Rōzen thirty-four—a difference of sixteen years.

Because the villagers spread ominous rumors about this marriage by citing the former head priest’s example, the bold new priest cleared away the temple’s gloomy bamboo grove and turned it into mulberry fields.

About ten years passed before Madame Kazue gave birth to her third son.
It had been an unprecedented difficult labor—three days after her pains began, under the blazing midday sun of the sixth lunar month, emerged a terrifying breech-born child with double pupils named Akira.
At the very moment he released his first piercing cry, what was carried into the entrance hall on a wooden plank was none other than Abbot Rōzen—still clad in priestly robes, his forehead slashed by an Aizu loyalist’s blade on Sanjō Bridge—who had infiltrated the Satsuma encampment half a year prior and never returned.

The wound was stitched by the Konoe family’s court physician through arrangements made at the Satsuma residence.
The villagers spoke of Abbot Rōzen’s misfortune with grim satisfaction and spread rumors—linking Madame’s difficult childbirth to curses from both the swamp deity and former abbots.
Abbot Rōzen had always viewed the entire nation as his household domain and held no regard for local matters like Okazaki’s land; he had no doubt maintained an imperious demeanor toward the villagers.
Moreover, as societal turbulence grew in recent years, people began speaking of Abbot Rōzen in varied ways.
The most chillingly absurd rumor among them claimed that while preaching imperial loyalty, he associated with rōnin from across the provinces—that he would soon lend out the temple’s Main Hall as their base and turn Okazaki into a battleground between Tokugawa loyalists and insurgents.
Thus on every occasion they hated Abbot Rōzen—yet since he was no parishioner temple priest, they could not drive him from Okazaki.

The relationship between Abbot Rōzen and Madame Kazue had not been harmonious since their wedding.
The age difference was one factor, but fundamentally, Abbot Rōzen possessed a scholar’s bold temperament unburdened by poverty, while Madame Kazue—a merchant family’s cherished daughter—had a lavish disposition: when free, she would cheerfully play Ōtsu-e paintings on her shamisen, dress their children in finery, and insist on taking each one to plays with a nursemaid in tow; though the Abbot frequently scorned her merchant-class sensibilities out of filial pride, Madame Kazue endured without returning to her parents’ home, masking her wounded heart with lighthearted banter until she bore their third son.

After this difficult childbirth, Madame Kazue’s body wasted away, her hearing grew slightly dull, and even her temperament transformed into gloom.
The Abbot’s wound had healed in two months, but it was not only the ashen-faced Madame Kazue who shuddered upon seeing the scar—its appearance likened to a snake rearing its head.

At that time, a lullaby like this became popular in the village.

“On the priest’s forehead dwells a snake.”

“From the snake sprang forth the infant’s eye.”

“The infant’s eye” referred to the third son with double pupils. Madame Kazue began to think what a deeply sinful person she was. Feeling that relying solely on the Amida Buddha in the Main Hall would not remove this strange and dreadful karmic burden, she defied the Monto Sect’s strict prohibitions against miscellaneous practices, visiting shrines and temples both within and outside Kyoto whenever possible while carrying her third son. What had been a difference in temperament now extended to matters of faith, making Abbot Rōzen find Madame Kazue increasingly disagreeable. From about three months before the Fushimi War began, he had gone again to the Satsuma residence and did not return even once for six years until Meiji 5. Letters had arrived periodically—some stating he received an imperial command to accompany the Imperial Prince General Subjugator on pacification campaigns along the Hokurikudō highway immediately after the Fushimi War, others reporting he temporarily returned to secular life to assume a councilor post in Iwate Prefecture—but with no financial support forthcoming, Madame Kazue sustained herself by selling the clothes and hair ornaments from her bridal trousseau. Her parents had since passed away, and the adopted son—married to her younger sister’s clerk—after becoming obsessed with jōruri sold the shop and moved to Osaka, leaving the family practically extinct. With the villagers shunning her and no one else to rely on, Kazue—to reduce mouths to feed—followed a nun’s advice and sent her eldest and second sons to become acolytes at Ōhara’s Shingon temple. In her heart, she believed molding them into strictly disciplined celibate monks might lift Gansen-ji Temple’s ancient curse and appease the swamp deity; thus upon learning it was a Shingon temple—the founder’s sect—she tearfully relinquished her beloved boys with sacrificial resolve.

In the summer of Meiji 5 (1872), Abbot Rōzen resigned from government service and casually returned home.
The sight of him wearing a frock coat and top hat shocked the narrow-minded villagers.
He did don his priestly robes again, but showed no concern for our temple’s condition—left to ruin during his long absence—and made no particular effort to repair it.
Every day, he would put on Western clothes, tuck a cloth bundle containing documents under his arm, and trudge around Kyoto Prefecture with a Western-style cane to visit wealthy households and temples.
It was to distribute prospectuses for establishing a school for the blind and deaf in Shishigatani, a neighboring village, and solicit appropriate donations.

The following year, Mitsugi was born.

(2)

Since today was Sunday, Mother let Mitsugi sleep without waking him and kept him lying quietly.
Mitsugi woke up around nine in the morning.
Ten-year-old Mitsugi changed his clothes by himself and came out to the kitchen.

“Good morning, Mother.”

Mother had already finished both wiping down the tatami rooms and tidying the kitchen, and while carrying her three-year-old daughter on her back, was now doing laundry in the spacious earthen-floored area with a washbasin.

“It’s hardly a good morning.”
“You slept soundly.”
“Last night…”

“Hmph, I overslept.”
“Where’s Father?”

“He said he’d go out while it’s still cool.”

“Mother, yesterday the principal said that Father is going to open a shop selling Western medicines and liquor in Kyoto. Is it true?”
“Is he really opening such a shop?”

“Given that it’s Father, there’s no telling what he might do.”
“He’s always made ‘for the people’ his constant refrain.”

“Where did he go today?”

“To the foreigner in Kobe.”
“He doesn’t deign to tell me details, but apparently they’re staging Japan’s first exhibition.”

“Hmm.”

“What will you do about the meal?”

“I’ll have it with lunch.”

“Very well then. After that, I’ll wash one more thing. Today I’ll go to Ōhara to deliver your elder brothers’ white robes, so keep a good watch on the house for me. For your meal, there’s salmon in the cupboard, so start a fire, grill it, and eat. As a souvenir, I’ll buy Yamahana manju and bring them back.”

“Please come back before the sun sets.”

Mitsugi descended to the wellside, drew water himself, and washed his face. Then he passed through two sitting rooms—their tatami patched with newspaper, their pillars warped—and slid open a large, faded sliding door painted with Kōrin’s plum blossoms on its flank. Beyond lay the sanctuary’s wooden floor, about ten tatami mats wide, polished smooth over the years and now shining like flowing water under the light streaming through the opposite window’s paper screens. The decades-old scent of five-incense blend, burned every morning, struck his face with stifling intensity. Because Mother would sometimes shut herself away here for an hour at a time without emerging, within the entire house, this sanctuary alone felt somehow warm and familiar. Mitsugi sat on the round cushion before the black-lacquered sutra desk and bowed his head three times.

"Namu, namu, namu Amida Butsu."

The face of the principal image, Amida Buddha, was too dark to discern; only the right hand, formed in the gesture of summoning, emanated a faint golden light.
Mitsugi exited the sanctuary and entered his four-and-a-half-mat room.
On the desk lay the school bundle he had brought home yesterday, still wrapped in its black furoshiki cloth, left untied.
Seeing that, he remembered his promise to go play at Lord Rikiishi’s Miss Ohama’s place.

"I'm late, I'm late."
"I should go."

After muttering to himself and standing up in surprise, he found a large oil cicada shrilling oppressively on the persimmon tree in the study’s garden. Intending to catch it as a souvenir for Miss Ohama, he crept along the engawa toward the study while muffling his footsteps—but when he gripped the door casing and glanced up at the tree, the cicada fled.

“Oil cicada.”

When he turned around after saying this loudly, the shoji of the study’s ten-mat room stood open about five inches.
It was his elder brother Akira’s living quarters.
From the gap, Akira’s imported summer hat hanging on the wall rail caught his eye.
He peered inside, but Elder Brother Akira was nowhere to be seen.
Mitsugi—who had come running to the kitchen only to find Mother absent—slipped on his sandals and circled around from the back entrance to the storehouse’s rear.
Mother stood hanging laundry on the clothesline.

“Mother, Elder Brother Akira has returned.”

Mother turned around briefly to look at Mitsugi but, without saying a word, looked up and straightened the wet swaddling cloth.

“Elder Brother Akira’s hat was hanging there.”

He said politely and pressed for an answer once more.
Mother remained silent.
When he looked, Mother was crying, still gripping the hem of Elder Brother Akira’s white-ground Satsuma kasuri single-layer garment with both hands.
Mitsugi, thinking he had upset Mother’s mood, slowly turned his back and retreated four or five steps.

“Mitsugi.” Mother’s voice was thick with tears.

“Yes.”

“You must listen well to what Mother says.”
“No matter how poor a life you live, you must keep your heart honest.”

“Yes.”

“It would be disastrous if you turned out like Elder Brother Akira—taking my clothes and hair accessories out time and again to sell them off, all just to dress himself splendidly.”
“He buys clothes, shoes, and watches that even Father wouldn’t wear.”
“If he’s going to pursue learning, he quits studying English under Mr. Fulbetsuki in less than three months, and all he wants is to idly fool around with young girls—such behavior is unbecoming of an eighteen-year-old putting on airs.”
“The one laying the curse may be causing this, but if this continues, he’ll soon lay hands on others’ belongings and end up in jail—it might bring shame upon his own decent parents.”
“This time he took a large sum of money from Father’s purse—funds meant for the teachers’ salaries at the School for the Blind and Deaf—and hasn’t returned home for two months.”
“Father says he’ll turn him over to the police if found, but that would expose our shame to the world.”
“I want to ask the Lawyer of Ōhara to send him to some temple like your elder brothers, have his head shaved, and make him learn proper sutras. You see, Mitsugi—the only ones Mother and this Momoe I carry on my back can rely on are you.”
“Father is that sort of person, so he doesn’t concern himself with household matters.”
“The rise or fall of this Shimote household rests entirely on your judgment.”
“Moreover, given Mother’s current physical condition, she cannot expect to live much longer. So please do your best, Mitsugi.”

“Yes, I understand.”
“Mother.”

Hot tears streamed down Mitsugi’s cheeks.
Mother entered the temple kitchen while wiping her tears with a pale green apron.
Though it was a story Mitsugi had always heard from Mother, today it felt as though he were being made to listen at the very bottom of a cold swamp’s depths, and a helpless, sunken sorrow filled his child’s heart.
And so, like an earthworm writhing on scorching sand after emerging from soil, he walked beneath the blazing sun, wanting to sear his drenched and chilled body and heart aflame—then stepped onto the study garden’s drought-cracked earth, its fissures patterned like tortoiseshell, and sat upon the large white Shirakawa stone bridge spanning the empty pond, where sunlight reflected so fiercely it blinded the eyes.

"I wonder if Mother might pass away."

The thought surfaced abruptly in his chest.
Today especially,Mother’s body beneath her iron-gray Chōshi crepe underrobe appeared startlingly gaunt—nothing but white bones.
"No she won’t," he instantly rejected the notion,yet a chill seized him,making his frame shudder.
Then impressions cascaded through him.

"At home,Mother suffers most.......Yet Father too—owning only that maroon frock coat—must feel shame before the governor."
"......Father can’t help Elder Brother Akira,but why does he speak so harshly to Mother?......Akira writes flawless calligraphy and reads Chinese classics,yet won’t seriously study foreign tongues."
"......Stealing household goods is wrong,but Father’s miserliness makes Elder Brother obstinate......Though he secretly takes pocket money from Mother......Buying clothes like some vain woman truly proves him foolish."

As he endlessly continued thinking such thoughts, a voice called out to him somewhere.
Facing toward the temple kitchen,
“Mother?”

He called out loudly but received no reply.
When he tried to stand up, sweat poured from his body.
As he moved toward the back entrance, another voice reached him.
It came from the mulberry field.
Suddenly he remembered Ohama.
He thought she must have grown tired of waiting at their appointed time and come to meet him since he hadn’t appeared.

Mitsugi dashed out like a leaping rabbit and entered the mulberry field.
Ohama was not in the field.
He reached the edge of the swamp.
The soil of the suribachi-shaped cliffs surrounding the drought-shrunken water had turned stone-gray, while the color of the quietly pooled water hung dully heavy, verdigris-like and poisonous.
Ohama was not there, but in the same manner, two mute boys from the School for the Blind and Deaf, dressed in plain mouse-gray single-layer garments, were crouching among the thick bear bamboo on the swamp’s bank, nodding to each other while conversing with hand gestures.
To Mitsugi, it seemed they were discussing whether to dig up a snake hole they had discovered.

“Don’t you go doing any bad things now.”

He scolded from five or six ken ahead.
The mute children, startled by the forceful demeanor, crossed the field with red corpse flowers clutched in each hand and dashed back to the Shishigatani School for the Blind and Deaf, not even half a chō away.

Mitsugi saw them off and felt an unpleasant sensation.

(3)

Mitsugi returned home dragging his zori sandals, his complexion sickly. He entered through the back entrance and wrung out a rag on insect-eaten floorboards that creaked underfoot, wiping his dust-covered feet.

“Mother! Mother!”

He called out two or three times, but Mother had gone to Ōhara with Momoe strapped to her back. Mitsugi transferred embers from the brazier to the konro stove, lit the dead charcoal, boiled coarse tea in an earthenware pot, grilled salmon, and ate cold rice. After putting away the meal tray and returning to his room, he found himself longing to see Ohama again. He considered dashing out to meet her, but with his head pounding heavily, he went instead to Mother’s adjoining eight-tatami room. Sliding open the shoji screen, he lay down before the chest of drawers.

It was a sweltering day without so much as a breeze. The sight of gourds Mother had hung from a rope stretched across the eaves—dried until crackled like thunder—made him dizzy. He tried keeping his eyes tightly shut, but closing them brought the crushing loneliness of being utterly alone in this vast, ruined temple—like an abandoned child in wilderness—swarming over him bodily. To distract himself, he opened his eyes and attempted to hum a school song, but his throat had stiffened into silence.

Then came a low, quiet voice:

“Mitsugi, Mitsugi.”

“Oh, Elder Brother Akira.”
“Welcome back, Elder Brother Akira.”

As he got up and tried to run out toward the entrance,

“Here.”
“Mitsugi.”

“Elder Brother Akira, where are you?”

Mitsugi stood on the threshold between the entrance and the interior, thinking.

“Here.”

The low, quiet voice came from the Main Hall. Because rain leaked in severely there, Father had nailed shut the doors on all sides, and they had remained unopened since before he was born. As the temple received no worshippers, those within paid their respects to the Honored Principal Image in the inner sanctuary. The fifty-tatami mat hall of the Main Hall—said to be fifty mats in size—was an utterly useless space. Everyone in the household had forgotten about the existence of this hall. Especially since Mitsugi had never once peeked inside since birth, he felt as though the voice had called out to him from a distant, distant, mysterious world.

“Elder Brother Akira, how did you get into such a place?”
“Where do you get in from?”

For a while, there was no reply.

“Elder Brother Akira.”

Mitsugi called out in a loud voice.
The low, quiet voice,

“Go around to the inner sanctuary.”
“It’s the third door from the left.”

Mitsugi passed through the tatami room and ascended to the higher inner sanctuary with loud, resounding footsteps.

“Third from the left.”

And then came the voice again.
Opening this partitioned door between inner sanctuary and Main Hall—which he’d always assumed had been nailed shut forever—set the boy’s curiosity ablaze. Yet when his fingers finally touched that third panel from the left, dread coiled through him like he might glimpse something never meant for human eyes. He yanked hard anyway. No screech of wood—just silent smoothness as it gave way.

“Ah!”

What met Mitsugi’s gaze was a murky realm where air sour as mold pressed against his cheeks like icy fingers stroking skin. One ken ahead stood sparse bamboo stalks among daylilies, their leaves barely parting to reveal shadows beyond.

“Where are you? Elder Brother Akira.”

“Go light the candle before the Buddha statue and come here.”

Mitsugi took the candle from before the Buddha as his elder brother had ordered, went to the kitchen, lit it with a spill, and returned.

“Elder Brother Akira, it’s not dirty inside.”

“Right below there should be Mother’s straw sandals that she wears.”

Holding up the candle to peer down at the dirt floor where the floorboards had fallen away, he found a pair of bamboo-bark sandals. After slipping them on and moving forward while avoiding the bamboo leaves, a spiderweb caught on his face.
The floor joists and tatami mats had mostly rotted away, and on top of them lay dust resembling scattered rat fur and mold like koji.
When he stepped over one of the remaining floor joist crossbeams, his foot landed on something eerie and fungus-like.

“Here.”

From beneath the central zelkova pillar emerged Elder Brother Akira’s thick hair, strikingly pale complexion, and elongated face—his large eyes, each pupil bearing two golden rings, gleamed.
Elder Brother Akira was sitting there naked, bound with his hands behind his back, wearing nothing but a single crepe silk loincloth.
Mitsugi was startled at first glance, but having often seen his brother being tied up and reprimanded beneath the persimmon tree in the garden or inside the storehouse, he thought it was Father’s doing that someone had brought him into such a place and left him bound there.
The red blanket that Mother had apparently draped over the naked body had slipped off.

“Mitsugi, won’t you do what your elder brother says?”

“Elder Brother Akira, would you like some food?
“If it’s food, I’ll bring it.”
“Since Mother’s out, there aren’t any side dishes.”

“I just ate rice balls.”
“Not food.”

“Then tea?”

“Already had tea.”

“Shall I fetch clothes?”

“I dress myself.”

“What is it? Elder Brother Akira.”

“Will you truly do as I ask?”

Never having heard Elder Brother Akira press so earnestly or phrase requests so courteously, Mitsugi felt a pang of pity.

“Hmph, I’ll do anything.”

“Thank you kindly. Now then—go fetch a kitchen knife and cut this rope for me.”

“Right away!”

He briskly agreed and brought the kitchen knife from the kitchen. Holding the candle in his left hand, he circled behind his elder brother only to find the wrists—bound behind the pillar with three hemp ropes—seeping blood. Then Father’s fearsome face from past reprimands materialized in his mind’s eye, and he understood this rope must not be severed.

“If I cut this… what do I tell Father when he asks?”

“I won’t cause trouble for you or Mother.”
“Tell them my friend came and took me away without anyone noticing.”

“Elder Brother Akira—are you planning to run away again?”

“This isn’t my home—it’s the enemy’s house.”
“My real home isn’t some dark hole like this—it’s somewhere bright.”

“A bright place—where?”
“Osaka? Tokyo?”

“It’s not that far away.”
“Just cut the rope already and free me.”
“It hurts too damn much.”

If I let Elder Brother escape while Mother was also away and the house unattended, I might get scolded terribly by Father. Mitsugi hesitated and sniffled back snot.

“Can’t you cut it?”
“Mitsugi.”
“You have no backbone.”
“Didn’t you promise?”

“But they’re all away.”

“You just don’t get it, do you.”

Elder Brother Akira let out a sigh.

“Ah, it’s not Father’s fault, nor Mother’s, nor mine. It’s all that thing’s doing.”
“Mitsugi, if you’ve got any backbone, you should cut that thing first.”

On the floorboard ahead where Elder Brother had indicated with his chin lay a white something, like a New Year’s ceremonial rice cake.

“What?”

As he lowered the candle flame and bent down, the thing on the floorboard transformed into a white snake and swiftly glided over the decayed tatami mats before vanishing.
In that instant—Mitsugi—

It was the swamp deity.

He felt this and shuddered violently.

“Mitsugi! Mitsugi!”

Ohama was calling out near the study garden.
Mitsugi had ringing in his ears and could not hear his dear friend’s voice.
Elder Brother Akira laughed sharply,

“Did that startle you?”

Mitsugi silently gazed toward the dark depths where the snake had passed.

“In dark houses dwell loathsome creatures like that thing.”
“The people of this house are all that thing’s prey.”

Though I didn’t fully understand, each thing Elder Brother said resonated in my chest as if it were reasonable. I felt that no one could stay even a single day in a house like this.

“Elder Brother Akira, escape quickly. I’ll cut the rope.”

“Much obliged.”
“When you reach my age too, your brother will take you to a bright, interesting place.”

“Is it really interesting?”

“Absolutely.”

“I can’t go alone.”

“You can go.”
“Your brother will go alone.”

“Please take me with you without fail.”

“When you reach my age,”
“Until then, endure and graduate from Yoshida School.”

“Can women go too?”

“They can go, absolutely.”
“There are more women there.”

“Please take Mother along too.”

“You’re so insistent.”
“Hurry up and cut the rope.”

Mitsugi boldly cut through the hemp rope without hesitation.
Ohama-san came around to the entrance.

“Mitsugi! Mitsugi!”

“Ohama-san has been looking for you since earlier. Hurry up and go.”

Elder Brother Akira leaned against a pillar and stood up, then said while rubbing his rope-bitten, blood-stained wrists.

Mitsugi—

“I’m coming now, Ohama-san,” he said in a high-pitched voice, then added, “Elder Brother Akira, please take Ohama-san along with me too.”

“Idiot.”
“You shouldn’t say such things to other people.”

Without even looking back at his brother’s glare, Mitsugi bounded up to the inner sanctuary, holding a candle and a kitchen knife.

Ohama-san went around from the back entrance and sat on the edge of Mitsugi’s living quarters.
Her bangs were cut straight across just above her eyebrows, her hair styled into sparrow-wing sideburns with a peach-shaped part, and she wore a large hairpin adorned with silk tassels.
She was an adorable girl with puffy single eyelids and a round face.
Wearing a long-sleeved unlined kimono of thick-striped purple twisted hemp cloth with a crimson patterned crepe sash tied in the Kichiya style, she appeared beautiful to Mitsugi as he descended from the inner sanctuary.
Wearing a washed Iyo-kasuri unlined kimono and a white cotton Heiko obi, Mitsugi sat down shoulder-to-shoulder with her.
Ohama-san was three years older at thirteen years old, but due to illness had been delayed in elementary school and was in the same grade.
Ohama-san’s father was formerly a samurai of Echizen and now served as head of Kyoto Prefecture’s Industrial Promotion Section.

“Ohama-san, I’d intended to go since morning though.”

“I’ve been waiting, you know.”
“What a bother.”

“I’m sorry.”
“I was told to keep watch over the house.”

“I wouldn’t know about such a thing.”
“I waited and waited, cried, and got scolded by Mother.”

“Crying is so strange.”

“But Mitsugi-san tells lies, you know.”

“Would I tell lies? I wanted to go, though.”

“I’ve been calling for ages—where on earth did you disappear to?”

“That’s right—you were calling all along.”
“I didn’t hear you.”

“Were you taking a nap?”

“I don’t take naps or anything.”

“Cloud-hider.”

“I was talking with Elder Brother Akira.”

“Elder Brother Akira was here.”

“Hmph.”

Ohama-san lightly stroked her peach-split hairstyle with her hand, cheeks reddening,

“So you were lying after all, Mitsugi-san.”
“Even though Elder Brother Akira was here, you claim you were keeping watch?”

she said.
Mitsugi-san seemed troubled and fell silent, looking down.
At that moment, a figure clad in white kasuri-patterned fabric was glimpsed darting through the mulberry field ahead.

“Oh my, I have a little something to attend to.”

Ohama-san said and abruptly broke into a run.
Mitsugi-san also hurriedly put on his sandals and chased after her trail.
By the time they passed through the mulberry field and emerged onto the highway, Elder Brother Akira—wearing a summer hat and holding a Western-style cane—was already leisurely heading toward Kyoto along the road two blocks ahead.

――(End)――