Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

A loincloth-clad fisherman was at the wellside, splitting a bountiful catch of horse mackerels into dried fish.

With the wide brim of her seawater hat wrapped around both cheeks like a carriage horse's blinder, the elder sister walking briskly ahead faced straight forward and said in a cheerful voice,

"Good day."

When she called out, the fishermen continued splitting fish without looking up from their work, responding in rising tones,

"Good day."

Toshiko, who had been following behind Elder Sister, stifled a laugh within the brim of her seawater hat. At that motion, the flesh of her back beneath the single swimsuit gave an almost ticklish shudder, which he caught a glimpse of from behind.

Elder Sister abruptly turned around.

"What are you laughing at?"

"Because your greeting was just too impeccable."

"I see."

The sound of the sea, both distant and near, enveloped the surroundings as the late summer sun scorched relentlessly.

"This area being rather rustic," Elder Sister said after a moment's pause, as though recalling something forgotten, "you must greet everyone you meet with 'Good day.'"

“It’s truly a wonderful place. I feel like my health has completely recovered.”

Elder Sister turned around once more triumphantly and looked at Toshiko’s face.

When Toshiko had fallen mildly ill with pneumonia and been seeking a suitable summer retreat, Elder Sister invited her to this Kazusa coast where they would stay with the siblings and their aunt—though she was already past fifty—making three in total. Though warned it lay one and a half ri from the station in remote countryside, Toshiko had initially hesitated... Yet upon arriving, this very remoteness proved beneficial.
Visitors from Tokyo, excluding them, numbered no more than six or seven in that village.

“The best part is not having crowds of summer guests to feel constrained around.”

“Instead, with a mischief-maker like Shizuo here, you should be careful.”

“Ouch!”

Having lagged four or five steps behind in a daze, when his name suddenly caught his ear, he wondered what they were discussing and quickened his pace—only for something to sharply prick the sole that had stepped into a thicket. He jumped up and clutched his foot.

“What’s wrong? Letting out such a sudden shriek.”

Brushing off the sand with his palm, he examined the sole, but there remained no wound marks to tell where it had hurt.

He thought he might have stepped on a crab, but it was nothing.

Still, he felt glad that Toshiko kept watching him with such a concerned look.
As if hiding that happiness from both others and himself, he broke into a run.

II

On the river tidelands and shore, there were many small crabs with red shells.
At the river mouth where the crabs had almost disappeared, they entered the water.
On the beach facing the boundless vast ocean, the rough waves made it too dangerous to swim.

“Come a bit closer over here, I’ll teach you how to swim.”

To Toshiko, who sat where the water only reached her knees idly splashing her hands about, Elder Sister called out from mid-river.
Except at high tide, it was a shallow river where one could stand anywhere, yet Toshiko never ventured beyond the middle.

“You act like some great teacher,” he interjected, “when you can’t even swim properly yourself.”

“What are you talking about? Well then, shall we have ourselves a little swimming contest?”

“Let’s.”

Though Elder Sister could only swim about thirty-six meters at best, she kept plodding along behind. Upon closer inspection, she was walking while pretending to swim. He slightly reduced his speed, timed it for when she drew near, and suddenly dove into the water. He intended to grab her foot and drag her under. But... he couldn't find that foot. After a while, he tentatively popped his head out of the water. Elder Sister had already realized his intention and fled toward Toshiko. He gave chase. Elder Sister finally managed to escape to Toshiko's side, grabbed her arm, and laughed while gasping for breath.

With Toshiko there, there was no helping it. Even so, because it was so irritating, he splashed water at them.

In the sunlight, a streak of water abruptly shot up, and from beneath it—

“Stop that… That’s… cowardly.”

It was unclear whether that was Elder Sister’s voice or Toshiko’s. When he tried to splash them again, the two fled toward the shore.

“I won’t get in the water with you anymore.”

While wiping the water splashed on her face with her palm, Elder Sister put on an angry look.

“But you’re the one at fault here.”

Toshiko said, still glancing at him with laughing eyes.

He picked up a large ark shell and threw it toward the river with all his strength.
That pure white object spun round and round high in the sky before plopping down onto the water.

The gently sloping sandy ground was pleasantly warm.

He went to the sea's edge and threw himself down there.

The sea that appeared flat within its uniform blue began swelling into towering waves from about a hundred meters offshore. No sooner had the white-crested surges come rushing forth with a roaring crash than their peaks collapsed thunderously, rolling back upon themselves. Countless waves surged forth in an unbroken chain along the straight line of Kujūkuri Beach between pine forest and sand dunes, stretching as far as the eye could see... until the distant end blurred into hazy mist. When he listened carefully, it was a sound like a subterranean boom. In the intervals between waves, very nearby, there was a rustling sound—something that couldn't quite be called light or crisp. Golden sand blown by the wind glittered like powdered glass in the sunlight as it raced across the entire expanse of the beach. The wet swimsuits had become soaked through with it.

“It’s not even that windy, but this sand is terrible, isn’t it.”

To Elder Sister’s muttered words, Toshiko answered while looking out to sea.

"But the wind must be rather strong, seeing how high the waves are rising."

"But those are waves from the open sea—they grow tall even without wind."

Yet just ahead, there was one spot where the waves stayed strangely low, never curling into white foam.

"Oh my, what's going on over there?"

Not only Toshiko—even Elder Sister hadn't known about it yet.

"It's quite something to swim there."

As he said this, he rounded his eyes dramatically.

"Why?"

“You’ll get dragged nearly a mile out to sea.”

“What? Out to sea?”

“It’s because of the tide—the pull there is really strong. Once you’re caught in that current, there’s nothing for it but to be swept out to sea. They normally call it a rip current, but even the fishermen fear it. With those things everywhere, you can’t just swim carelessly in this sea. People die every year.”

“Really?”

Elder Sister turned toward him with a look of surprise.

“It certainly is true.”
“There’s something even more fascinating.”
“You know how sometimes huge sharks or rays get caught in the beach seine nets?”
“They say human heads would come spilling out from their bellies.”

“Goodness, how perfectly horrid!”

As though completely indifferent to this outburst, Toshiko kept her gaze fixed seaward.

“Let’s head back now. It just feels kind of creepy.”

On the wide sandy beach, only the sunlight blazed directly down, with no human figures visible.
In the distance, several fishing boats lay silent as though forgotten.

"When I look at the sea, I somehow feel pulled into it."

Toshiko said that and, as if regaining her composure for the first time, stood up.

III

Though she said it gave her the creeps, Elder Sister enjoyed hauling in the beach seine nets.

From early morning until around ten o'clock, when the waves weren’t too high, it was conducted at various spots along the coast.

“Don’t just stand there watchin’. Why don’t ye lend a hand?”

After such whispers reached her ears, Elder Sister would always tuck up her kimono hem, mingle among the robust men and women, and take hold of the beach seine net’s rope.
She pulled with all her might, but it seemed little different from simply holding on.
He too occasionally tried pulling the rope.
He felt the powerful seaward pull through his hands, nearly losing his footing.
However, Toshiko did not lift a finger at all.

The likes of horse mackerel and barracuda were caught—four or five tubs when scarce, thirty or forty when abundant.
After sorting out only the prized fish, they piled what remained—a full tub each—onto the sand.
A crowd of buyers had come and were waiting.

“We’ll give this to the Tokyo folks who helped out.”

The influential-looking man tossed over a large swordfish with a flick.

“Thanks! I’ll help out again, ye hear?”

Elder Sister said in an odd tone and ran off, dangling the still-thrashing swordfish by its tail.

“Now there’s a grand and spirited lass for you.”

When the seine net was hauled up, all the fishermen were in good spirits.
Elder Sister was also in good spirits.

“How’s this?”
She waved the fish in her hand before Toshiko.
“It’s just the same as me goin’ into the sea and catchin’ it myself!”

“I suppose so.”

At Toshiko’s words—neither quite a bitter smile nor outright mockery—Elder Sister put on a slight show of enthusiasm.

“I like mixing with these sun-blackened people hardened by the sea and tasting their way of life.”
“You must become more vigorous, or there’ll be no merit in having come all this way to the shore.”
“Wouldn’t it be dreary just walking through pine groves or dawdling along the beach?”

“To me—perhaps because I’m unaccustomed—nature feels more interesting.”

“Why?”

“Why? If I had to put it into words, it’s because I can sense something like a great spirit of the sea within the sea itself.”

“There you go with your romantic notions again.”

“That’s not it at all. Since coming here, I’ve come to feel I simply can’t deny that the sea has its own spirit, you know... What do you think, Mr. Shizuo?”

He didn't know how to respond.
But as he kept listening to her words, he grew strangely uneasy.

"There was a fisherman who used to say things like that."

"Then," Toshiko turned toward her sister, "it would mean I haven't been in particularly close contact with the fishermen's way of life either."

"That won't do—yours are all just fantasies."

"Is that so?"

When he looked back, the sea glittered fiercely far offshore, its wave crests catching the morning sun's light.
As that radiance began to fade, the roar of the sea would grow even louder.

IV

Toshiko's so-called spirit of the sea was something she seemed to sense most keenly from evening into night.

The house they were renting—which couldn’t quite be called either a villa or a farmhouse—was situated at the boundary between the hamlet and the pine forest.

“Let’s hurry and have dinner so we can go for our walk.”

They ate dinner while it was still light and, leaving behind Aunt and the maid who said it was too much trouble, went out for a walk just among the young ones.

Circling around the edge of the pine forest and following a short path through the sweet potato fields brought them to the riverbank.
The far side of the bridge formed a low embankment, beyond which lush green rice fields stretched continuously to the coastal sand dunes in the distance.

A resplendent afterglow lingered in the western sky.
A wind crossing the sea and sweeping over the rice paddies swept away the day's lingering heat, drifting off into the distant evening haze.
Against that wind, along an embankment dotted with willow thickets toward the sea, the three walked down, chatting cheerfully.
By the time the three faint long shadows cast upon the gentle river's surface had blurred into the water's hues, their conversation had died away without their noticing.
Elder Sister began to sing.
Toshiko harmonized with her.
Songs of the Danube and Lorelei repeated through the air.
Though he had thought them old-fashioned tunes, he found himself memorizing their melodies.
Yet he never sang them aloud.

By the time they reached the coast, twilight's lingering glow was beginning to give way to moonlight.
The hazily pale-glowing coastline stretched far into the distance, bearing the demonic roar of the waves.

“What an evening that makes one want to keep walking forever.”

“Yes… but looking out to sea feels somehow frightening.”

Elder Sister stretched out her hand—oddly large-looking in the dim light—to point seaward, where an expanse of pure black seemed to draw both the faint moonlight and roar of waves into unfathomable depths.

“But if you actually went out to sea, it might not prove so terrifying after all.”
“It’s just like how a graveyard appears frightening from without, yet feels somehow lively once you enter—don’t you agree?”
“Mightn’t the sea be much the same as a graveyard?”

“Then I’m still more frightened.”
“If a ghost ship were to appear, what would you do?”

“Hmm...”

Toshiko’s face, pale and floating against the dark sea’s backdrop, seemed to sway slightly—then came in a low, playful voice:

“I’d go ‘Boo!’ at it.”

That was unnervingly eerie.

“You’re so mean!”

Immediately after his sister blurted out those words, he continued from the side.
“It’s said that ghost ships appear out here too.”

“That’s a lie!” Elder Sister’s voice trembled slightly.

“It’s not a lie. There are often times when you can hear the sound of oars without seeing any ship, or when a jet-black sailing ship slips silently past right beside you.”

“That’s just hearing distant oar sounds because of how the wind carries them or mistaking real ships for something else in such conditions.”

“But here’s the strange thing. There was once a boat that went out fishing offshore and returned at night. According to those fishermen, when they tried to head back as dusk fell, no matter how hard they pushed their oars, the boat just wouldn’t move forward. Yet even as they rowed desperately, strangely enough, a boat appeared about a hundred meters behind them, also rowing diligently. Though there was no sound of oars or shouting, the ship’s form and people’s shadows remained clearly visible—what’s more, without ever drawing nearer or falling behind, it kept following them at precisely the same pace. Having started feeling uneasy, the fishermen rowed with all their might, finally managing to return to shore—and when they turned around in relief, the ship that had been following them at the same pace all along had vanished without a trace. They said they truly felt a chill down their spines at that moment.”

As if uttering "Well—," Elder Sister stared blankly, her mouth agape as she watched his face.

"Such things could indeed happen," Toshiko said quietly. "Even if no single spirit inhabits the sea, it must surely contain various spirits of some kind."

The wave's roar drowned out her voice from above.
Yet within that roaring surf lingered another strange presence.
When he looked up, a solitary black bird skimmed low overhead.

He jolted. Without thinking, he moved closer to Toshiko, who responded with a faint smile playing at her eyes and lips. That face held an eerie beauty. A sudden jolt surged through him. As he stood flustered and disoriented, Toshiko instantly averted her gaze and addressed Elder Sister, who had seized her arm.

“What a scaredy-cat. It’s just a bird.”
“But I thought it was something.”
“I’m not scared of living things at all, but I absolutely detest strange, suspicious ones.”
“I’m not scared of monsters at all, but humans are what frighten me most—you never know what they might do.”

The moonlight suddenly brightened, and the wide sandy beach was illuminated with a pale glow.

V

He liked waking up early in the morning. From the time roosters crowed and the eastern sky began to pale emerged a dawn light—unobstructed, faintly whitish yet crystal-clear. There along the rugged seashore, the morning mist marking night's boundary with day would first begin enshrouding forests and villages only after night had fully broken. At dawn, the air stood perfectly clear. The edges of black clouds that invariably appeared in the eastern sky before sunrise were tinged yellow and crimson, their hues reflecting directly into the dawn light. It was a dawn that seemed to cleanse the soul's very depths.

“Sis, wake up. Let’s go see the sunrise.”
“Let’s go see the sunrise.”

After being shaken two or three times, Elder Sister finally sat up, rubbing her eyes.
She had never once seen the sun rise from the sea.

“That’s somethin’ you can’t put into words, I tell ya.”
“Ain’t one who’s seen it can tell.”

The old woman who came to sell watermelons had said this.
But at sunrise, the eastern horizon was usually shrouded in clouds.

"Is it clear?" Elder Sister asked.

"Aye."

The reply had been ambiguous in tone, but Elder Sister nevertheless began rising.

Wondering if this was that famously fragrant sandalwood tree—the one said to surpass two leaves in aroma—she moved beneath its large canopy, climbed onto a tree stump lying beneath it, stretched up on tiptoes to peer eastward through the sky, yet could barely distinguish what flowed low across the expanse from the still-darkened firmament—something that might have been clouds.

“That’s not clouds?”

“Well—...”

She leapt sideways, grabbed a low branch of the fig tree across the way, lightly hopped up to peer through the leaves—and there beneath the black clouds, a silvery glow tinged with crimson cleanly sliced through.

“It’s fine—the lower part’s clear.”

The roar of the sea sounded clearer than usual.
The beach seine net's horn resounded.
Even if they couldn’t see the sunrise, it wouldn’t have been a loss.
Besides, they were already up anyway.

“I’ll go wake Miss Toshiko too. Wait here.”

While he took deep breaths, his sunburned sister’s swarthy face and Toshiko’s pallid, almost bluish-white one came floating into view.

Treading on dew gathered at grass-blade tips and emerging from the sparse pine grove’s edge, they found the sea waiting immediately beyond. Through the pines, the eastern sky glimmered intermittently.

“Goodness, there’s such heavy cloud cover.”

What they had initially taken for wispy clouds had within moments shrouded the eastern sky, continuing their steady expansion.

“Since there’s no helping it, we’ll go pull the beach seine ropes instead.”
“They’re certainly lively this early in the morning.”

On the sand dune, ant-like human figures were visible.

“I don’t know. …Waking people up this early!”

From behind him as he walked briskly with an aloof air, Toshiko calmly issued a warning.

“But what a strange morning—unlike any you’d see elsewhere.”

Enveloped in the shadow of great black clouds over the eastern sky, a blinding white radiance stretched uniformly clear into the far distance.

He who had been walking at the front suddenly stopped. Where the pine forest ended stood four or five mixed trees. Near their lower branches, something white appeared perfectly round and swayed gently... or so it seemed for an instant. Looking closer, it hung limp and motionless.

A chill shuddered through his body. But just as he could no longer hold his restrained breath, relief came. A lantern was hanging from the tree branch.

“What’s wrong?”

When he started walking in silence, this time in a voice tinged with surprise,

"Was there a snake?"

He once again silently shook his head.
He felt a sort of washed-out emptiness.
When he looked up with a dazed gaze, the lantern was plain white and unpatterned.
That was somewhat odd.

"Oh my, Mr. Shizuo dislikes snakes?"

Her voice carried an affected tone of deliberate wonder.

"Yes, he dislikes them to a ridiculous degree," answered the Elder Sister from her position between them.

"Yes.
"I'm rather on the side of liking them."

“A snake!”

“Yes. I used to dislike them, but I feel I’m growing to like them.”
“What I truly can’t stand are earthworms—they’re so slimy.”

Remembering how his aversion to earthworms kept him from fishing, he suddenly turned around.

Toshiko had already cast her eyes downward and was leaping over the earthworms crawling there.
Her face—or was it his imagination?—looked as pale as the lantern.

VI

On clear days there were countless ways to pass the time—observing beach seine nets, swimming, strolling about, losing themselves in pine groves, sneaking into fields to filch sweet potatoes—but rainy days became insufferably tedious.
When rain came it usually meant storms.

Though the land received the sea at its eastern flank with southern leanings, the ocean's roar was most often perceived as coming from south or north.
This sea-roar—known to portend poor catches when heard from the south and bountiful ones from the north—on storm-lashed nights resounded from both directions alike.
Enveloped in that reverberation, rain and wind came crashing against the storm shutters with a great watery roar.

“Huh? What’s happening at this hour?”

When they listened closely, sure enough, a horn sound similar to those during beach seine netting faintly reached them from afar.

“They’re hauling up the boats.”

“What does ‘hauling up the boats’ mean?”

“Because the waves are high, they gather the fishermen and haul the boats far inland.”
“Don’t you even know that, Sis? And here you act all worldly-wise.”

Without realizing she’d been put in her place, the Elder Sister simply stared wide-eyed with unease.

“Are the waves really that high? …What a dreadful sound—like there’s a shipwreck out there.”

“There might be one.”

The lamplight seemed strangely dim.

“Before long, if this lamp’s light grows dimmer, the Sea Monster might come lumbering in.”

“Don’t talk such nonsense.”
“Do such things as Sea Monsters even exist?”

“They do exist! There are people who’ve actually seen them.” He pursed his lips tightly and stared fixedly at his sister’s face.
“When they return late from fishing, the sea suddenly grows rough, and as they struggle through it, a perfectly round mountain shaped like a human figure looms ahead.”
“But there’s no way such a mountain could form in a single day.”
“Thinking ‘This fellow’s suspicious,’ the boatmen rowed with all their might while steering straight toward its center.”
“Then the boat glided right through the mountain—yet behind them, the mountain still loomed.”
“The boatmen panicked but kept rowing with their heave-ho chants when—from nowhere—came a warm wind. A faceless thing without eyes, mouth or nose gripped the prow, suddenly reared up, and then... Scared now...?”

“What’s this? Making strange voices?” interjected the Aunt from the side, laughing. “Isn’t that Elder Sister’s hundredth Sea Monster tale?”

“Auntie knew about it? Then I shouldn’t have told.”

The Elder Sister looked relieved yet still wore an uneasy expression as she glared about.

“Trying to scare me won’t work. You who claimed monsters don’t exist—ever since Miss Toshiko the monster enthusiast arrived, you’ve caught her mania and started spouting these tedious stories.”

“Oh my, to call me a monster enthusiast…”

Even so, Toshiko laughed with her eyes.

As complete silence fell over them, the Elder Sister suddenly boomed, “Come now—let’s resume our earlier game.”

The card game interrupted by the boat-hauling horn began anew.

To his sister who had initiated this, he triumphantly played the queen of spades.
Thereupon, the Elder Sister found herself forced to take the five of spades from Toshiko.

“Fine, just you remember that.”
“I know exactly what you’re up to—you monster comrades are ganging up on me, aren’t you?”

Toshiko met his eyes and chuckled quietly.
A finger-pressed indentation formed at the corner of her mouth, and her flickering eyelashes cast wing-like shadows in her eyes.

He somehow found himself praying in his heart that he would win when the heart trump was played.

But even amidst such play, the pitch-black night stealthily crept in.
The wind died down unnoticed, leaving only the sound of rain that brought to mind a steady drizzle.
That still conjured the darkness of the night outside.
The darkness—that utter blackness they’d first come to know here, where one couldn’t tell if their nose was being pinched—peered from every corner of the room.

“It seems the sea will be rough again tomorrow.”

The Aunt, who had been intently listening to the roar of the sea that had shifted southward, set aside the card game and spoke.
When no one offered a response, the Aunt opened her mouth again after having once fallen silent.

“It’ll be September in two or three days.”

The Aunt, who rarely went to the sea, had grown bored early on and wanted to return to Tokyo, but for Toshiko’s sake, it had been decided they would all stay through August.
That August now had only two or three days remaining.

“There’s only a little time left—let’s play our hardest.”
“I wouldn’t mind staying up all night.”

But even the Elder Sister’s voice now lay utterly exhausted from daytime activities.

“They say once you start losing, you become even less able to stop.”

“Oh, aren’t you the one accumulating losses here?”

“Is that so?”

The slender nape of Toshiko—who had peered at the score sheet—stretched its smooth skin before his eyes.

VII

The day they were to return to Tokyo was perfectly clear from morning.
Since this was their final day, they went seining, wandered along the coast, went into the water, and walked through the pine forest again.
In the pine forest where matsutake mushrooms were said to abound in spring, only nameless bamboo baskets lay scattered here and there; instead there were many beautiful birds commonly called long-tailed—white, black and gray tricolored ones.
Fledglings that had just left their nests were flitting precariously from branch to branch.

He shook down one of the small fledglings from the pine tree and brought it to the house's garden.
He had brought it, but now he didn't know what to do with it.

“Oh, what’s that?”

No sooner had Toshiko's taut, crystalline voice resonated than this time a languid voice caught in her throat—

"My, how adorable it is."

He brought rice grains for it, but it showed no interest in eating.
When placed on the ground, it stayed still with a bewildered look, but when taken into a palm, it fluttered its tiny wings.

“How pitiful.”
“You should set it free.”

“Yes.”

As he was about to answer and walk away, from behind—neither calling out to him nor muttering to herself—in a casual tone,

“Just today left now. Shall we go out to the sea again this evening? The moon will surely be lovely.”

When he turned to look, she was smiling with the lower half of her face.
But her large, dark eyes staring fixedly at him felt oddly hot and piercing.
He abruptly lowered his gaze that had nowhere to settle and ran off toward the pine forest.

The figure of her he had seen that day—observed deeply yet furtively as if for the first time—had adhered to the recesses of his mind.
――Her standing figure stared unblinkingly at the seine net being hauled ashore, shoulders sloping with delicate gauntness, hips to thighs swelling with soft fullness.――Having emerged from the water and lying sprawled on coastal sand, supple fingertips gently pinched and pulled at thin flakes peeling from sun-reddened upper arms,

"My skin's peeling so much now—I'm quite the proper beachgoer, aren't I?"……Yet beneath the wet swimsuit clinging to her slender chest, breasts appeared forlornly small compared to her sister's—mere buds where one expected fuller bloom.――When he peeked at her applying makeup post-bath, "Don't look!" she protested even while calmly exposing her half-nude form; perhaps because the rest of her was sunburnt, the swimsuit's outline stood out with particular clarity—pale and delicately defined.――As he gazed transfixed at the childlike toenails of feet dangling from the veranda while munching a pear, those feet suddenly jutted forward abruptly, startling him……but in that instant she stood up, casting a fleeting smile toward his dazedly upturned eyes.
Her face was ghostly white, with only the eyes appearing large.

Suddenly noticing the small bird he had been tightly gripping in his palm, he released it onto a low pine branch.
It flapped its wings noisily, glanced around briefly in quick movements, then flew upward branch by branch toward the high treetop.
The roaring sound of wind through the pines obscured what followed.

It was an uncertain, lonely evening.

“Though knowing not why, the heart wavers—the ancient legends pierce all the more...”

He firmly suppressed the melody of a song he had somehow learned without realizing, which now tried to escape his lips of its own accord. Singing her song felt like something that should be held back within his heart.

In the sky’s unfathomable heights, through pine treetops into lingering twilight, a single star appeared to glimmer. "Love, you must love!" something whispered. "Do not love, do not love!" something whispered again.

When he listened closely to it, "All is Emptiness!"

The sound of the early autumn wind roared.

VIII

"I'll be there shortly, so don't wander off—wait right here please."

The elder sister, who had been organizing scattered tools for tomorrow's departure, kept packing at her leisure even while saying this.
Auntie—persistently stuck to the basket while trying to cram in more belongings than it could possibly hold—showed even greater patience than the elder sister.

“What a lovely moon.”

Triggered by Toshiko’s words, he too darted outside.

Though the moon newly risen in the eastern sky remained hidden behind the pine forest, the night outside felt more vivid—brighter than the dim lamplight within the house.
Over shadows that crawled long across the ground, the two walked silently toward the sea.

When they stepped into the chilling thicket, insects shrilled incessantly.
There, where moonlight fell in sharply defined pools, they abruptly halted and waited for Elder Sister to arrive.

“I somehow can’t bring myself to believe we’re returning tomorrow.”
“What about you, Mr. Shizuo?”

It wasn’t only about returning tomorrow. Everything from having come here to what he was doing now seemed like a dream. When they remained silent, the sound of the waves began carrying from afar.

“The sea is truly wonderful, isn’t it?”

“Yes, absolutely!”

Though Toshiko had responded immediately, the tone of his own words that had felt so awkward still hadn’t left his head.
He abruptly turned sideways and lit the ABC cigarette he had carefully brought.

“What a lovely-smelling cigarette.”
“Perhaps I should try one too.”

He silently offered it, and she took one with a laugh, but—

“Ah, this won’t do.”
“It has no mouthpiece.”

As he took back what was returned, a suffocatingly sweet cosmetic fragrance wafted sharply into his nostrils.

Elder Sister never came.

“Shall we go to the sea?”

When he casually looked up at her face, within the pallid glow of moonlight, her luminous black eyes and crimson lips stood out with vivid clarity.

He felt his body stiffen.
In the quiet night, standing there with her under the moonlight was suffocating and unsettling.
Being so unbearably close to her resonated deep in his chest, leaving him unable to move.
Her retreating figure—advancing slowly without a word or song, as if awaiting his pursuit—drew him in relentlessly.
Beneath the earlobe visible through her black hair's edge, four or five stray strands quivered.

When they entered the shadows of the pine forest, the sound of the waves abruptly grew louder.
The grass beneath their feet was damp with dew, yet the pine boughs above seemed parched and brittle in the night air.

After walking some distance, four or five scrub trees came into view on their left ahead, hunched in a dense thicket.
He started at the sight but kept walking, relieved to find the lantern from days prior had vanished.

At the same moment, everything abruptly brightened. Against the dimmed sea's backdrop, the gently sloping sandy beach stood vivid. As far as vision reached stretched a vast emptiness; the razor-sharp moonlight poured down across the entire expanse. The wave sounds vanished, leaving a hushed pallid brightness. As though within some transparent watery depths...the circular moon glared with blazing radiance.

He quickened his steps to catch up to Toshiko.
The moment he did, leaden moonlight slid slickly from her hair. As she turned her face, it threw into sharp relief pearly teeth and jet-black eyes before she flashed a tight smile.
It was an instant that allowed not even a blink.

He shuddered.
He remembered his body trembling violently... but after that, everything fell completely silent.

“Mr. Shizuo!”

When he heard a thin voice permeating his chest, he abruptly opened his eyes.
Toshiko’s upper body—bearing the stately beauty of a lofty goddess—hovered within cascading moonlight.
The moment this thought came, her face—tilted slightly leftward—dissolved into blurred fragments.

He felt his entire existence within her arms.
Minute tremors coursed down his spine as suppressed sobs and tears surged upward.
…Yet—

“What’s wrong?”

Her voice rang out crystal-clear.

He shuddered again.
He suddenly shook off those arms and dashed across the sandy beach.
She came chasing after him from behind.
He couldn't catch his breath.
He plopped down onto the sand and closed his eyes.

“Mr. Shizuo!”

When he felt a soft hand on his shoulder, he felt for the first time as if he had come back to himself.
When he opened his eyes, it was Toshiko as she always was.

Her wide-open eyes appeared wet.
Her cheeks—which her high nose made look desolate—had drained of color and turned deathly pale.
Her firmly closed mouth opened slightly with a gentle, veiled voice,

"What were you so afraid of!"

Having said that, she let out a relieved breath.

He blankly stood up.

"I remembered something scary…"

When he blurted out this nonsense under her penetrating stare, the words died in his throat.
The depths of his mind fell silent while his chest throbbed violently.
Both remained wordless, gazing at the distant sea.
Time itself seemed to halt its march.

Then from across the pine shadows came his sister's voice calling as she ran toward them.

For the first time, he stared unflinchingly into Toshiko's eyes.
Her answering gaze dipped in acknowledgment.
In one fluid motion she pivoted to face the approaching sister.

The moonlight pressed down from above upon the sound of nearby waves.
But out in the offing too, the sea was roaring.

IX

Upon returning to Tokyo, though it was muggier than the coast, autumn could still be deeply felt.
Not only had the summer resort atmosphere vanished, but cold mists enveloped them each morning, and by evening everything stood in hushed clarity.
In the disproportionately large garden of the small house where the siblings and maid lived as a trio, the incessantly chirping insect voices carried a metallic quiver.

That struck him as strangely lonely.

But it was not only that—it was actually a mysterious loneliness.

On the day of their return to Tokyo, the bustle of travel had left him numb to everything, but starting the next day, the roar of the sea would occasionally resound vividly in his ears.
When he thought it strange, the piercingly clear moon appeared before him.
He recalled that the moon must be shining over Tokyo too, but this was an oddly glaring moon of raw vividness beneath which a wide sandy beach lay exposed, someone standing there facing away motionless.
When he realized it was Toshiko... his head grew hazy.
His chest ached with heartache.
He shook his body frantically.

“Shizu-chan, what are you doing there, shaking like that?”

Elder Sister was watching him.

“Because my head feels oddly heavy.”

Though there was no real need to shake his body like that, Elder Sister didn’t press further.
Seizing this excuse, he spent each day shut away at home, complaining of his heavy head.

The figure standing bathed in moonlight on the sandy beach grew particularly distinct at night.
In nothing but a swimsuit—half-naked, an incongruous sight under the moon yet perfectly harmonious—she stood endlessly still, facing away.
...When he wrenched it toward him with all his strength yet gently, the pale face bathed in cascading moonlight smiled sweetly from its depths.

He shuddered.
...but there was an instant when he nearly failed to stifle the cry rising in his throat.
The electric light's glow had fallen utterly silent.
Insect voices came thick as rainfall.
Outside, the moon must have been shining with glacial clarity.

“You’re impossible!
“…Why are you staring at me so intently?”

Slapping her magazine down on the tatami, Elder Sister sat up and turned around.

“It’s nothing.”

Up to that point, it was fine, but…

Late at night, he suddenly awoke.
At the ceiling above the mosquito net, there was a dim circular glow.
It was a white paper lantern, and the room was faintly lit.
The moment he thought "It's strangely quiet," the glow transformed into moonlight and with magnet-like persistence drew him toward its circular form.
Unable to move, when he fixed his eyes, it was Toshiko's face.
With jet-black pupils and pure white teeth, she grinned.
No sooner had this registered than slender fingertips grazed across its surface—the round glow swaying unsteadily before vanishing in an instant.

Everything fell completely silent.

A brief moment passed... one that couldn't be distinguished between dream and reality. When he truly awoke, a shudder ran through him—every hair stood on end, the tips of his limbs turning icy.

He remained completely still like that for a while—but then, suddenly terrified, he abruptly leapt up.
Instinctively, he rushed into the neighboring room.

“Sis! Sis!”

Elder Sister, who had finally managed to crawl out from under the mosquito net whose hanging cord had been severed and come falling down, recoiled in surprise upon seeing his condition.
Disregarding this, he clung to her arm.

“Sis!”

Struggling for breath, he forced out the words.

“Because I’m scared, please let me sleep here.”

Elder Sister was trembling too.
Without saying a word, she dragged his futon over from the neighboring room with a scraping sound.
While straining her ears, she quietly closed the partition door.

“You mustn’t touch the mosquito net.”

With that curt remark, he pulled the futon over his head.

Elder Sister, who had been putting away the mosquito net, suddenly hurled it aside and burrowed into the futon.
From beneath the nightwear, trembling fingertips extended and clung to him.

10

He absolutely would not state the reason; he couldn't say it.

Every night, he laid out bedding in the same room as Elder Sister, burned mosquito-repellent incense, and slept.
Yet in the middle of the night, he would sometimes be tormented.
Even during daylight hours, visions would sometimes appear in the distance.

"If you don't even understand it yourself, why not at least have a doctor examine you?
Come on, do that."

Given Elder Sister's growing sense of eerie unease, he couldn't refuse that either.
Though knowing it was futile, she called for a doctor.
Since he didn't want to go, she had the doctor come.
No matter what they asked him, he remained silent except to say he'd been having strange dreams.
Under the diagnosis of severe neurasthenia, he was given some cloyingly sweet liquid medicine.

“Hmph.”

He scoffed through his nose and began pacing around the room in circles.
When even he himself found this comical and was suppressing a chuckle, Elder Sister watched his demeanor intently from the room across the way.

He tried to jokingly scare her with a "Boo!" but somehow felt it might turn serious, frightening even himself.
His legs stiffened, immobile.

Yet Elder Sister was trembling strangely.
Her face was pale, the muscles in her cheeks twitching faintly.
He walked past her without a word.

“Where are you going?”

When he was taking his hat, he was called from behind.

"I'm going out for a short walk."

“Please don’t go today.”
Then in an imploring tone: “Please don’t go. Tsune isn’t here either, and I’m all alone.”

“Where did Tsune go?”

“Just over there.”

After hanging his hat on the nail again, silently returning to his room, sitting on the veranda and swinging his legs, he suddenly felt unbearably lonely.

"Though I know not why, my heart wanders the paths of old..."

He softly repeated the song that had suddenly come to his lips, over and over again.
He had the feeling that Toshiko was standing somewhere.

It was a hazy, desolate evening.
There was a rustling sound of dry leaves.
It permeated his chest.
When he strained his ears, there came the sound of the front lattice door being opened quietly.
After a brief pause, in a gasping voice,

“I came in such a hurry that I’m out of breath.”

“Forgive me for calling you over so abruptly.”

“No.
Is he that unwell?”

“Well, you see...”

was all he could hear.

The ones whispering at the entrance were Elder Sister and Toshiko.

He forgot himself and stood up.
His head grew hot and his chest throbbed with unease.
In his flustered state, he suddenly locked eyes with Toshiko as she came up from the entrance.
There was nothing he could do.
He lowered his head and sat down there.
He stifled the searing mass welling up from the depths of his chest.

Toshiko came striding over.

"I hear he's unwell. I hadn’t the slightest idea..."

Elder Sister took over from beside her.
“No, it’s not really an illness per se.
It’s neurasthenia, they say.”
“I see.”

After giving a flustered, makeshift reply and exchanging meaningful glances with Elder Sister, she turned toward him again,

“The sea isn’t very good for the head, you know.”
“After returning home, I too was in a sort of daze for four or five days.”

There was something odd about their manner. Yet there she remained - clasping a pale blue habutae sash high on her chest, draping an omeshi haori coat loosely over her shoulders with its cord neatly tied in a small knot at her breast, her casually parted hair twisted once above the ears and gathered low, slender neck extended ever so slightly, those clear eyes with their long lashes watching him intently from beneath slightly furrowed brows - unmistakably the same Toshiko he had always known.

_This is strange_, he thought, his gaze intensifying as he stared fixedly at her face.
He stared even more fixedly at her averted gaze.

“What’s the matter? You’ve been silent this whole time.”

When he turned his gaze that way, Elder Sister too averted her face.

“What’s wrong?” he felt like asking from his side.
But then, as he listened to them discussing how returning to school—they were alumni of a women’s college—around the 15th would be fine, he began to feel he was starting to understand.

“What’s today’s date?”

“It’s the eighth.”

Along with Elder Sister’s words, seeing the pale slender face with its high nose turned toward him, he started strangely.
His mind grew foggy again.

Eleven

From having persistently begged his sister for a small drink during dinner, his body had gone completely limp.
When lying down, he became so sleepy it felt unnatural even to himself.
While listening to Elder Sister and Toshiko's conversation as if it were music, he seemed to have fallen asleep without noticing.

When he awoke, the room was empty.
The electric light was far too bright.
He tried to turn over—unbeknownst to him, he had been provided with a pillow and was wearing a padded robe.

“You’re awake, Shizu-chan?”

He deliberately did not respond.

After a while, from the next room came a voice lower than before,

“Since Miss Toshiko is here, shall we play cards or something?”

Even so, he remained silent.
Toshiko’s refusal to leave and composed demeanor, her post-dinner whispers with Elder Sister in shadowy corners—these matters lingered uneasily in the depths of his mind.

Everything fell completely still.

It seemed a long time had passed......

“It’s not that bad, is it?”

“You don’t know what happens in the middle of the night.”

“Every night?”

“No, every other night or so.”

“I see. How strange.”

“When they asked if there were any mentally ill relatives, I didn’t know what to say.”

“But that much is still manageable. If we consult Auntie and make it into some big affair, wouldn’t that just aggravate the nerves instead?”

“That’s true too.”

“We should leave him be a while longer and observe...”

……So that’s how it was.
He felt he could no longer endure it.
It was humiliating.
He suddenly sat up and rushed into the next room.

Two pallid faces sat side by side.

“Sis, you’re treating people like lunatics, aren’t you?”

The two faces looking up did not even blink.

“I am not going crazy.”

When he shouted, a cool relief washed through his chest.
At the same time, all strength drained from his body.
He collapsed there and cried.

Two hands were placed on his shoulders.
A gentle breath brushed against his ear.
He waited, but no words came.
The loneliness became unbearable.

“I’ll say it.
Everyone will end up saying it.
...Miss Toshiko should know everything.
From that night...from the night we went out to the sea......”

He didn't understand himself what he was saying.
Even so, he kept ranting incoherently.
When he finished speaking, his mind went completely blank.
As he abruptly lifted his face, there before him were his elder sister's eyes widened in shock.
Gripped by Elder Sister's hand, Toshiko was biting down hard on her teeth.

They remained perfectly still, just as they were. The three of them turned to stone, not moving a muscle.

Into his emptied head, drop by drop, the correct memories began to revive.
His vision began to clear.

"I'm not thinking about Miss Toshiko."

He spat out the words, but as they echoed back in his chest, his face turned bright red.
He stood up to cover that up.
But... he didn't know what to do.
With his right foot, he lightly hopped, then using the heel of his stiffly extended left foot, spun around completely.
After spinning around twice, he said.

“There’s nothing wrong anymore.”

His mind had grown clear.
It had become so clear that it felt slightly strange. He spun around once more on the heel of his left foot.

Toshiko’s tears fell in scattered drops.

He let out a breath.
He felt his mind was clear.

It was quiet.
The sound of insects came thickly, like rain.
Outside, it was a night where the moon seemed to shine with piercing clarity.