Pathway to Japanese Literature

Yaguruma Bonta's visit to Kurotani Village was certainly not motivated by any special friendship or particular interest in Hachiya Ryūzen.
As for Kurotani Village itself, even before departing he had already felt something verging on despair; yet calculating it preferable to remaining in Tokyo, he had reluctantly let himself be rocked along on the long night train.

When summer came and he saw those gently floating cotton-like clouds, Bonta found himself possessed by an irrepressible wanderlust compelling him to immerse himself in the mountains.
When those white clouds hung serenely and he sensed the mountain season permeating the air, yet found himself bound by unavoidable circumstances to remain in the city, he would be assailed by a nervous exhaustion—a peculiar thirst infiltrating every sensory faculty—until abruptly succumbing to insomnia.
There was no particular reason for it, but two landscapes had governed half his life.
One was naturally the mountains; the other that murky urban bustle.
When merging with these two realms, he would feel with wordless certainty that he was truly dissolving into them, becoming acutely aware of his body melting away.
By listening carefully, he could even discern the light rhythm of daily burdens discarded by the roadside and quietly scattering in all directions—now transformed into a faint yet piercing resonance.
He had always been physically frail, making the agony of mountain climbing no ordinary ordeal.
Yet for a full year after descending—until that season returned when clouds floated serenely once more—the vision of verdant ridges emerging in his memories let him recognize a pleasant truth: within those hazy images, his climbing self no longer gasped in struggle but simply permeated the surrounding chiaroscuro with lapping ease.
Just as urban kindness recalled amid mountain silence carried fragrance, so too did sudden mountain visions intruding on city bustle possess clarity—visible to eyes, sharp to ears, seeping through skin.
It held nostalgia akin to worn-out concepts returning home to die.
When seized by violent nostalgia while feeling fierce desiccation through every limb, he wondered whether—should he faint amid this urban crush—his body might not be spirited mountainside through some buoyant sorcery the next instant.
At such times—when hands lost their place and scrambled like willful creatures across shoulders, waist, back, even empty air—
It was on one such day, amidst the metropolitan throng, that he abruptly recalled Hachiya Ryūzen.
This held no particular significance.
He lacked travel funds, and Ryūzen dwelt deep in the mountains.

Even during their student days, Ryūzen and Bonta had not been particularly close. However, since neither had other close classmates, they considered themselves fairly close friends and occasionally visited each other. Until graduation, they had maintained formal speech like “there is” and “you,” yet during moments when the other became unbearably bothersome or when drinking, they would casually exchange rough language that felt utterly natural in those instances without any particular suspicion. Ryūzen was not a particularly talented man, and just as he appeared at first glance, he could only be thought of as an utterly ordinary, good-natured person. His merits lay in his complete lack of malice and in this: though outwardly rustic, he inherently possessed urban sensibilities and views—ordinary in nature yet fundamentally genuine. Ryūzen was a solitary man without parents or a wife, serving as the young head priest of Kannon Temple in Kurotani Village; but when Bonta suddenly recalled him, the image of Ryūzen clad in priestly robes—robes he had never actually seen—appeared there with such vivid clarity, devoid of any strangeness or absurdity, that it only confirmed how inherently monkish the man truly was. Had they sat face-to-face, even an hour would surely grow tedious; yet to imagine living together for an entire summer felt unbearably oppressive—and moreover, according to the map he had consulted, Kurotani Village was admittedly deep in the mountains but ultimately nothing more than an utterly ordinary basin nestled among them. However, that year, Bonta was shouldering a despair-tinged heaviness gnawed at by successive unpleasant events; thus, thinking it still preferable to biting the tail of melancholy in Tokyo, he hoisted his rucksack and boarded the night train—yet the burden seemed only to deepen in proportion to the train’s accelerating speed.

The next morning, when he disembarked at a small mountain station and found himself left behind on a roofless platform with about ten people who had trickled out, there stood Ryūzen waiting to greet him—unexpectedly. He wore straw sandals and bore a pale, round face above an old-fashioned suit reminiscent of formal samurai attire; while scanning the scattered people one by one as if appraising them, he staggered about searching for him. Eventually recognizing him, Ryūzen—from five or six ken away—began making his way over while swirling something long and narrow dangling from one hand, and said, “Oh—” This extraordinarily open yet utterly commonplace demeanor completely astonished Bonta. And from that moment on, he found himself naturally transformed into an inexplicably intimate feeling that was utterly different from the weight he had anticipated. The thing Ryūzen had been swirling around in one hand was another straw sandal. He had Bonta put them on, and the two of them walked about ten ri along the mountain path from there.

On a mountain path utterly devoid of human presence, while savoring immense loneliness, Bonta rather preferred being borne by the valley wind and panting through ethereal breaths.
It was undoubtedly agonizing—after reaching utter exhaustion yet being unable to perceive any solid core of energy within him, with only this sticky sweat clinging thickly about, his entire body seeming like mucus itself dripping away—and when he looked up, an unbearable brightness stretched taut overhead while dizziness spiraled down, until at once the mountains' robust emptiness and unyielding heart violently tore open a curtain of darkness.
Cicada cries pierced through every corner of the mountain until it felt as though the entire world consisted of nothing but that sound.
While swallowing the streaming sweat and sinking into a kind of drunken stupor—if he were to collapse limply in the shadow of some rock there, it wouldn’t matter what became of him—feeling no more responsibility for his own body than one might feel for another’s possession, in unbearable recklessness he looked up at the bright sky, and his own shabby existence felt unbearably dear.

From not even one ri into the mountain path onward, Bonta had already fallen into such a drunken stupor; yet Ryūzen, though of unhealthy complexion and appearing accustomed from the start, showed no disruption in his clumsy gait. As if having completely forgotten his companion’s existence, he plodded onward in silence. In truth, over such a long distance, hadn’t they only become aware of each other’s presence once—that single instance when they descended to the mountain stream? Thinking back, that must have been precisely at the journey’s midpoint; there must have been some landmark there—Ryūzen suddenly pointed to a bend in the stream and proposed they rest. Peering down, one heard water’s murmur but couldn’t discern its hue through the depth—a chasm within chasms. Were one to slip on the steep thicket’s descent, peril would be extreme; and even having descended, contemplating the agony of reascent left no room for anticipating pleasure from such meager respite. Yet when Ryūzen abandoned words and plunged foot-first into the thicket without hesitation, Bonta had no choice but to follow suit. Upon beginning the descent, however, it was Ryūzen’s footing that proved precarious. With solemn confidence he occasionally glanced back as if shielding Bonta—yet all while his own posture wavered dangerously. He would clatter down a couple ken, barely halting himself, then fix a stern admonishing gaze upon Bonta’s footing without self-reflection—an absurd spectacle. Whenever taking this path, Ryūzen must have habitually rested at this spot; reaching bottom, he naturally shed his clothes onto maple branches and splashed noisily into the stream. Here alone the mountain stream held width enough, its depth in places reaching one’s solar plexus. Ryūzen lay prone with arms splayed, blowing bubbles; flipped supine with fluttering twists before trying prone again—testing every technique save proper swimming. After consuming rice balls down to the last grain in the valley’s dim recesses, Ryūzen—having urged Bonta to eat—lay supine on a flat boulder and sank into deep slumber. Gazing at that unhealthy nude form—ribs and joints starkly visible—it seemed nothing but an emaciated river toad fused to stone. As for something like a soul—of course—but even any proof of “being alive” felt absent; these were remains bearing no trace whatsoever. With no desire for sleep himself, during the three hours until Ryūzen awoke, Bonta drifted into strange desolate recklessness—splashing wildly in water, suddenly noticing wind-song through valley branches when raising his head, encountering a striped snake crawling through upper thickets.

When the two reached Kurotani Village's mountain pass, twilight had already thickened.
Stretching only their necks from the bear bamboo grass to look back, they saw their path transformed into layered mountain waves dissolving into deep purple.
Descending the pass while hearing distant evening cicadas fade into the peaks, they found the road shifting into an entirely ordinary landscape unlike anything before.
Every true mountain had been carved into terraced rice fields, with ears of grain battling waves that would have shone green by daylight—now rendered desolate—all the way to the ridges.
Occasionally beech groves menaced their path, and even that crystalline mountain stream now flowed at mundane low elevation directly below them.
Kurotani Village's Kurotani district comprised fewer than two hundred households lined along the Kurotani River.

Just as night had fully settled, the two slipped into an izakaya at the village edge and scooped up surprisingly inexpensive local sake.
When they opened the second-floor window wide, there was the mountain stream right behind the building—the unmistakable coolness of deep mountains bringing a chill night air that bit at their skin.
Piercing through the mountain stream’s murmur resounding from distant depths, the formidable silence of mountains clawing skyward pressed down upon their heads, seeping in deeply alongside the sake.
Ryūzen was strangely resistant to alcohol and showed almost no signs of intoxication compared to Bonta, but occasionally—as if reminded—he would skillfully tease the izakaya waitress.
In those moments his demeanor felt perfectly natural, yet when startled—when breath caught mid-air—his appearance reverted instantly to that peculiarly composed state that could only belong to Ryūzen.
Bonta found everything unreasonably amusing and, forgetting all restraint, ended up completely drunk.
The izakaya waitress grabbed the drunken Bonta and persistently pressed indecent proposals upon him.
The elderly landlady who had come out to greet them joined in,

“Since our priest here is such a good man, we won’t suggest staying with him—but you must lodge here tonight.”

She delivered this as if reciting a customary greeting.

“Given he’s due to arrive soon and it’s no grand occasion anyway, you’d best sleep at the temple just for tonight.”

With urbane composure, Ryūzen voiced this refusal on Bonta’s behalf. His bearing—that of one long acquainted with hardship—severed every shrill retort from the women and deftly pivoted their focus until they collapsed into laughter, chiding “How cruel you are, Priest…” while delighting in his mannerisms.

The two departed the izakaya amid boisterous farewells.
It truly deserved to be called a lively send-off—for though shouts clustered there like grapes on a vine, they were swallowed whole by darkness so profound that even at their epicenter, straining ears caught neither sight nor sound beyond themselves.

Eventually only valley echoes remained distinct.
——This comprised Bonta’s inaugural impression upon entering Kurotani Village.
Having settled in, what first appeared an ordinary mountain hamlet revealed itself as possessing peculiar savor.

Kurotani Village was a licentious village.
A leisurely sensuality so carefree that—when one thought of it that way—a carelessly vacant brightness permeated everything: the azure sky, the forest, the grasslands, to the point of seeming downright slovenly.
Bonta had spent the day crossing several terraced mountain fields, casually quickening his pace as he wandered about, when a young farmwoman—her upper body bared from between the ears of grain—suddenly lifted her face and shouted a hearty “HALLOO!” at his retreating back.
As Bonta had just set one foot upon the mountain ridge, he turned around—and there, the vast distant landscape, with the farmwoman’s figure sketched into its midst, seeped deeply into his eyes.
He felt exhilarated and disappeared into the backside of the mountain while returning a hearty “HALLOO!”, but upon reflection, there was a lingering sense of something missing.
That night, when Bonta tried telling Ryūzen about the incident, he indeed declared this to be Kurotani Village’s customary invitation to ritual night visits.
Now that he mentioned it, there had indeed been an experience one day—on a scenic ridge path leading to the border where a girl drying bracken had clearly cast a come-hither look at him.
After that, Bonta encountered the same circumstances time and again in various places and in various manners.
However, it could not be called licentious; rather, it was something that touched Bonta’s core with such profound depth as to warrant being described by vague yet intimate appellations like “transparent” or “eternal.”
It was not merely exposing what had been hidden; rather, a thorough carefreeness—like the brightness of the sky one gazes up at—simply flowed and unfolded there, plain and unadorned.
In this village where half the year was shackled by snow and even in the remaining half the sun was scarcely seen, the stain of climate seeped clearly into human emotions.
Summer too was but a moment.
That sky, that sun, and that sun-dappled meadow and trees.
...such transience seemed to imprint a rather forlorn and helpless mark beneath the bustling sensuality, leaving only a sorrow akin to mono no aware seeping desolately into his chest.
And Bonta, when he stayed in such a world of sensuality, began to feel an extraordinary sense of ease.
It was not merely about the village’s customs; across the entire expanse of this ordinary basin—its mountains, trees, and valleys—there welled up a certain resonance that echoed deeply within the heart.
While this could indeed be seen as grounds to tarnish Bonta’s reputation with lecherousness, the truth was that Bonta’s having had far too few expectations when embarking on this journey now proved a significant advantage.
In this, even the atmosphere of living at Kannon Temple could not be considered separately from Kurotani Village’s resonance.

On his first night in Kurotani Village, when Bonta settled into the detached quarters of Kannon Temple that Ryūzen had provided, from that very moment he felt no sense of borrowed lodgings—only an inexplicable ease, as though this were his own home from some long-ago life he had outlived.
At the temple, there were no servants besides Ryūzen, and he could live without meeting even Ryūzen unless necessary; even when they did meet, Ryūzen didn’t treat Bonta with any particular guest-like formality, so meals could simply be sought in the kitchen whenever he pleased.
At times it was rather Ryūzen who would visit Bonta’s detached quarters with the air of someone dropping by for leisure, but in truth, this was neither an act nor humility—let alone servility—and first of all, even Bonta himself at such moments could only regard Ryūzen as the traveler from afar.
They would sometimes spend two or three hours lying there without exchanging a single word, simply passing the time in idle reverie—yet none of the boredom or awkwardness they had anticipated before arriving ever materialized. Before long, both would drift off to sleep; eventually one would awaken and slip out for a walk, whereupon the other would soon stir as well. Lingering in the hollow emptiness of the temple, this latter person would convince themselves they’d been sleeping there alone from the start before departing to attend to their own affairs.
If he were to wander Kurotani Village in this carefree manner, it was only natural that the village’s languidness would seep into his chest—but more than that, because even within Kannon Temple itself, a sensual haze had begun to drift…
It was an every-night occurrence—perhaps a trick of the mind—a somewhat cautious footstep that nonetheless clattered across the stone paving, passing through the temple gate and vanishing into Ryūzen’s study; this was Ryūzen’s mistress who came here nightly.
Of course, Ryūzen made no deliberate effort to introduce his mistress to Bonta, but neither did he go out of his way to conceal her. In the too-quiet mountain nights, there were muffled sounds of assent, trivial conversations like “The backside of Japan isn’t North America, is it?” leaking through, and on rare occasions even the sound of a woman weeping—all of which conjured vivid imaginings of such scenes.
On nights when intense sobbing lingered endlessly, Ryūzen made no particular effort to maintain appearances for Bonta’s sake, nor did he show any sign of concealing it.
Since he too made no particular effort to listen intently, only disjointed sounds occasionally spilled forth—yet no matter how he turned it over in his mind, he felt not the slightest stimulation transcending ordinary human affairs, much less anything resembling love.
Yet he could vaguely sense that she was a woman of somewhat higher refinement than a farmwoman.
With that being the extent of their interaction, for a considerable time afterward, he spent his days without ever learning the woman’s name, let alone becoming acquainted with her face.
Speaking of which, there had been a twilight when he caught sight of her back just once.
It happened as they walked together along a back road through the neighboring hamlet toward the hot spring—though this amounted to nothing more than a single inn housing one bath—when Bonta caught sight of a large-framed woman with her hair tied up walking along the main road back to the village, precisely at the fork between the main road and back road where a dense cedar grove stood.
Since it was at the three-way fork—where paths diverged without crossing—and no particular attention had been paid, Bonta did not see her face; but after a while, Ryūzen abruptly declared, “That’s my woman—Tomaya Yura.”
In truth, though only briefly, during those few seconds of Ryūzen’s unvoiced silence, there had already been an ineffable sentimentality that made it palpable—so Bonta swiftly perceived it, tasting the thick melancholy that rippled outward through the murky twilight.
And because the brief silence before Ryūzen broke it had been crushed into an unbearable length, by the time he heard those words, he no longer felt like turning back.
But in any case, he turned around—fixing his eyes not so much on the woman’s retreating figure as on the already indistinct purple of the mountains fading into dusk ahead—and then turned his head back.
Even so, as far as he had noticed, the woman had been wearing a yukata, but the way she wore it undeniably bore traces of having lived an urban life.
That was all he had observed.

The two walked steadily along the narrow back road once more, and by then, Ryūzen’s demeanor showed nothing but a remnant of his usual self—yet in Bonta’s heart, a deep sorrow lingered long and refused to fade away.
Lately, Bonta could no longer overlook how a faint yet unmistakable shadow of gloom had begun to seep through Ryūzen’s aloof demeanor.
In Bonta’s view, he had privately concluded that this was in part due to the woman’s circumstances, and for that very reason—though he knew not why—the sense of loneliness in his chest had grown only stronger.
Yet even when they drank sake at the hot spring, not a word about the woman passed Ryūzen’s lips.

Before they knew it, the season had drawn near to Bon, and every night the drums of the Bon Festival dance continued to resound from the mountaintop.
Though it was called Bon, since in this region it was customary to hold it in August, summer had already completely waned, and particularly in daytime, even the sound of cicadas flowed with deep melancholy.

That morning, Ryūzen received a messenger from a wealthy household in a neighboring village about five ri away and, due to the sudden death of an acquaintance’s second son there, was invited to the wake and set off on an overnight journey.
When he found himself alone idly welcoming the night, overwhelmed by the unbearable thickness of darkness that had fallen along with the evening cicadas' song, he considered going to get drunk at his usual izakaya—yet still feeling unfulfilled, Bonta slumped down listlessly into the hollow emptiness of the main hall without purpose.
He tried lighting an oil lamp, resettled himself for a while, then stood up to pace in circles across the cold floorboards—and in doing so, came upon a single memorial tablet inscribed “Kannon-in Donsō Koji,” already thick with dust.
He sat thinking intently, then straightened up once more—but before he knew it, as if in a dream, he had begun chanting sutras.
He was not a monk, but having specialized in Indian philosophy during his student days, he had vaguely memorized two or three short sutras.
The very appearance of the memorial tablet itself held no small mystery for Bonta, who was thoroughly savoring his solitude—yet previously he had been told by Ryūzen a peculiar tale concerning this temple’s former resident.
At first glance, it seemed a laughably absurd tale—enough to make one spit out their rice—but here in this moment of solitude with no one to share a laugh, it held no humor, and the visage of the temple’s former resident rose unbidden before him.
Therefore, Bonta—without bursting into laughter—began chanting sutras in this stiffly formal seated posture.
The story went like this.
The former head priest of Kannon Temple—two generations prior—was an old monk of distinguished learning, though his true passions lay in sake and boiled octopus; hosting gambling sessions in the main hall to literally earn temple funds for his drinking became his pastime.
Every time he went to town, he took pleasure in procuring boiled octopus and returning home—but one day, having acquired a plump, round specimen of the creature, he passed through the temple gate in great satisfaction.
That night too there was gambling, and though the priest was suppressing his impatience, when dawn broke and everyone had completely left, he headed to the kitchen greatly satisfied.
Now then, when he finally managed to open the heavy cupboard that had been rattling and casually thrust in a dim lantern, there in the corner of the shelf—huddled tightly and perfectly round—the boiled octopus was in the midst of munching on its own leg with an exceedingly earnest expression.
Because the octopus was earnest, it only belatedly noticed the lantern’s light after some time, then—blushing fiercely in embarrassment—turned its face away and sulked. But the priest stood frozen in shock, having forgotten to leave, so the octopus puffed up indignantly, its expression oozing contempt, and thrust one splendid leg right before the priest’s nose as if to say, “Eat.”
The priest, greatly flustered, hurriedly stooped down, cut it off as commanded, and returned to the main hall in a panic—but in any case, with a peculiar feeling, he gulped it down.
From the very next day, the priest went completely mad, obsessively licking women left and right, and before long became a guest of the netherworld.
And so, one night, Ryūzen recounted that story to Bonta bit by bit.
Bonta, upon hearing this story, immediately thought it must be a fabrication because it was too amusing, so he asked Ryūzen with a laugh—but Ryūzen too roared with laughter and fell silent for a while before saying, with a straight face that seemed to mask his embarrassment, “Anyway, isn’t it just like a monk to find lust in an octopus? That’s what makes it amusing.”
Because those words contained a strangely intense sincerity, Bonta found himself deeply imprinting an unforgettable impression into his mind at that moment.
Probably, Ryūzen’s woman was a beauty with skin resembling that of a mollusk—Bonta decided this instantly in that moment.

And even as he engaged in such licentious conversation, he couldn’t help sensing from Ryūzen’s remnant a vein of helpless desolation—something entirely distinct from mere obscenity.
—And indeed, Ryūzen’s woman was unquestionably a woman of flesh and blood.
How did he know this? Because on this quiet night, while chanting sutras in the main hall, Bonta had unexpectedly received a visit from Tomaya Yura.

“Mr. Yaguruma… Mr. Yaguruma…”

At first, Bonta dismissed such voices as auditory hallucinations, but then immediately, a voice saying “You’re chanting sutras while feigning devotion” took on distinct character and sharply touched his spine.
When Bonta turned around in shock, there beside the main hall’s round pillar stood a large-framed woman, faintly blocking his path.
Bonta found it all so strange that... Or rather, though strange, this wasn’t a description of the scene but of Bonta’s own consciousness—and in that abrupt moment, he experienced a hollow sort of astonishment, left dazed as his thoughts came to an abrupt halt.
Originally, this was by no means an established rule, but whenever Bonta became deeply absorbed in solitude and was startled by the sudden appearance of a human figure, he would stray into a kind of inexplicable, soundless and colorless world entirely separate from the fact of their actual presence.
It was utterly unrelated to the individuality of the human figure that had appeared—an abrupt event so doubtful whether one could even minimally recognize the person in that moment—yet he found himself inexplicably jolted, and amid sensing a clattering sensation of plummeting, ended up staring sharply and deeply at something within himself.
By then it was undeniably a kind of dream—as he walked through the desolate expanse of that suddenly opened gate, Bonta tasted deeply, unbearably so, throughout his entire being, a void that transcended all causality in his life—perhaps the loneliest void, one that pressed upon him with sheer desolation—and a monotonous undulation that stretched into eternity.
When he began to awaken from that state after some time, he first felt the squirming of emotions earnestly groping in the dark for something, then gradually came to recognize the external world developing vividly within a blank whiteness of profound clarity—but on this night too, as he underwent that same process and the silence of reality began to prick at his ears, he sharply heard a manic laughter suddenly welling up within the quiet night air and gradually spreading its ripples outward.
However, since by this moment of awakening he had long since lost the capacity to be startled by anything, he calmly crouched like a toad and gazed up at Yura’s face from below.

“You’re a bit mad too, aren’t you?”
“Ryūzen is also mad…”

While listening to Yura’s shrill, rapid-fire voice, he nonetheless perceived all at once that this full-figured woman possessed an oddly antiquated oval face—completely at odds with her crude speech—that it even displayed a kind of simpleminded meekness like characters from old illustrated books, and that she was thoroughly drunk.
Bonta, by some impulse, sat up very straight and mumbled, “I am not insane,” finally regaining his senses—but the woman paid no heed to his voice. Planting her left hand firmly on the floorboards to shift her weight there, she collapsed into a seated position and splayed out both legs.

“Good evening. This is our first meeting, isn’t it?”

“Good evening. This is our first meeting.”

“Is Ryūzen away—?”

“I don’t believe he’ll return tonight. Did you know?”

“When he left, he came to tell me that—”

“Ah, I see—” Bonta hung his head in what seemed a natural reaction of shame for a moment, but upon careful reflection, he realized there was no legitimate basis for feeling such shame.
When Ryūzen had received the messenger early that morning—being a man who required no special preparations—he promptly vanished through the temple gate into the void, his skeleton-like form (bereft of any distant soul) echoing hollow footsteps. Yet to imagine that such a figure harbored the delicate sensibilities to make rounds informing women of his absence—this was at once a miracle, an absurdity, a shock, and a farce. And when he considered it, something struck deep in his chest.
Bonta stifled a long sigh and turned pale.

“Ryūzen dotes on me quite excessively, you know.”

“Yes… it does seem that way.”
“It does appear that way.”
“I say we’re friends in name only—we’ve barely had a proper conversation, and even living in the same temple, we often go two or three days without seeing each other—so in truth, I know nothing about that man.”

“But Ryūzen isn’t a very clever man, you know.”
“He’s so cold, so cold—sometimes he just drifts off into some thought and becomes utterly unbearable.”
“It’s fine that he dotes on me, but anyway, when I reflect on such feelings myself, the lonely self-loathing I feel is so painful—that’s why I keep saying I hate it, hate it, even if he’s being affectionate.”
“And yet he embraces me with the intensity of a madman.”
“I can somewhat understand Ryūzen’s loneliness, but the coldness he shows leaves me unsatisfied.”
“Ryūzen is such a fool, isn’t he?”
“Because Ryūzen is truly an utter fool, I’ve decided to leave him—”

“Ah… Was that decided this morning—?”

“No, it’s been that way since long ago.”
“But I truly decided just now.”
“A procurer has come to the village.”
“March and Bon are the procurer’s busy season.”
“I had once left the village long ago with a procurer.”
“Do you understand?”
“Bonta… I have slept with the procurer even now.”
“Ahahahaha… Lies, lies—we just had some drinks together...”

Yura slid her arms—which had been firmly propped against the floorboards—smoothly out from under her, then collapsed sideways and lay there like a limp stick.

“The procurer was overjoyed that I was a top-quality woman.
“I came here to tell you that—”

“To me—?”

“Yes. Because I want to tell everyone—anyone and everyone—I came to tell you too.”

Yura lifted her face as if picking it up, then dropped it back snugly into her arms, making no move to retrieve it again.
She was quite deeply intoxicated.

Thereupon Bonta stood motionless with folded arms—in truth, he began to ponder something entirely different.
No—rather than having begun to think of something different, it would be more accurate to say he strayed into a cessation of thought—a state where he was thinking nothing at all.
For these past several years, Bonta had been afflicted by an unfortunate habit: he could never fully immerse himself in present realities, and only after everything had turned to reminiscence—after conjuring illusions of those moments—would he at last begin to find interest in the delicate emotions or vague atmospheres that had flowed beneath the surface of entire scenes.
To put it plainly, this man was utterly bored in any interesting moment as long as he was facing it—not the present matter, but into the atmosphere of some scene he had experienced long ago, he would invariably drift off in a daze.
Even when listening to music, even when watching sports—of course it was always the same—he would now be listening to Chopin’s music yet feel utterly bored by it, recall some Mozart melody he had once heard and raptly attend to that instead; or while watching a runner on first base, in his mind he would place them on third and grow excited scheming a steal of home. Such feats were daily occurrences, and as proof that this did not mean he had not been listening to Chopin’s music at all, he would later vividly and delightedly recall that very moment.
Chopin is wonderful—he would hurriedly enthuse to acquaintances about how truly splendid Chopin’s music was while impatiently flocking to concert halls on days when Chopin was performed, but once seated and still, from before the curtain even rose he would again grow utterly bored without respite, and until the performance ended he would do nothing but think of other things.
To say he was a man who knew nothing of excitement would be absolutely incorrect; it was simply that in the very midst of great agitation—of indulging in clamorous frenzy—he would perceive a wave-like boredom regarding the excitement itself and fall into despondency.

Yura’s limbs lay sprawled limply across the floorboards, but under the faint lamplight from Bonta’s devoted efforts, they fortunately took on the ethereal loveliness of a mermaid, evoking a fairy-tale-like romance.
Bonta stood with arms folded, staring fixedly into empty space until he began to feel upon his skin—as if lapping close at hand—the distant setting sun fleeing across the surface of a boundless ocean where waves fell with clinging dampness.
It was a distant sea. The southeastern purple of the already sunken dusk gradually deepened into pervasive blackness, while on the western horizon, the faint remaining twilight cast its broad desolation—and there he discerned the figure of a man walking westward across the ocean expanse, head deeply bowed as though one who would never return.
The sharp shadow had already dissolved into the deep darkness at its back after streaming across the sea in a single line, yet the man—as one whose heart contained only that solitary resolve—kept hurrying his weary legs in single-minded pursuit of return. After some time, like one frightened by some presence, he suddenly turned his neck to peer at the darkness behind him, and... ugh—"Thus I have heard, thus I have heard—" While feeling the fragmentation of a self fleeing in disordered reckoning, Bonta straightened his posture and began muttering sutras with borrowed courage.
That too was fleeting; when the bubbling mutterings gradually faded away, only the reverberations of the Bon Festival dance’s barrel drum from Konpira Daigongen’s garden on the mountaintop quietly seeped into their spines.
At that moment Yura too abruptly sat up; for a while she kept her hands pressed against the floorboards, her heavy head bowed low, as if meticulously sifting through the various sounds reaching her ears.

“You can hear the Bon dance drum, can’t you…”

“Yes… thump-thump-thump-thumpthumpthumpthump-thump… Ah… I can hear it.”

“Shall we go see?”

Yura stood up unsteadily, stared fixedly at the lamp, but then laughed in dismay.

“Now look—stare fixedly at the lamp.”
“It begins to sway ticklishly, flickering with pretense… It’s not merely my imagination, is it?”
What a repulsive man.
“Ahhh—”

When they began walking, Yura’s gait was not as disordered as Bonta had feared.
The wind lay dead, yet the night air itself pressed its chilling cold against his skin—with each contact came the sensation of a gloomy process unfolding, as though stripping away whatever capacity for meditative thought one ought to possess.
If one passed through the cemetery behind Kannon Temple, a steep path lined with cedars extended for some four or five blocks before eventually leading to Konpira Daigongen surrounded by dense beech forests.
At every spot they walked toward, the insect sounds snapped off abruptly—the sudden emptiness unsettling Bonta’s heart—until the intense silence began to feel like an unbearably noisy chatter, for his own mind had started to become as garrulous as surging waves.
Guided by scattered moonlight, they finally reached the base of Mount Konpira with its dense beech trees, but not a single light that might belong to such a place leaked through; however, the clamorous shouts of the crowd could be heard nearby through the leaves.
As they finally reached that mountain and began assisting Yura, who had started panting quite violently, stepping onto the temple grounds' flat area and abruptly thrusting their heads out revealed that—contrary to the teeming crowd’s volume—the number of lit lanterns was unexpectedly scarce.
From the dimly floating faint red light, most of the crowd had rather spilled out; within—unseen from the outside—the villagers, men and women alike wearing broad flower hats with crimson sashes, danced a monotonous circle dance while murmuring chant-like Bon odori songs as if in prayer.
It was indeed worthy of being called der Reigen.
By September came the fierce comings and goings of rainclouds; soon every tree on every mountain shed every leaf until nothing remained but bare branches scattered thick across the low sky—drizzles pattered busily through fallen foliage—then by November’s end they lay utterly bound in snow; the year turned, and when soot-stained snowdrifts on mountain switchbacks at last vanished into blue skies come May, one would lift eyes to summits bathed in bright air only to find summer’s zenith already arrived.
Most of the year was painted over with dismal clouds; the act of gazing up at sunlight became a season that came but once a year.

In an instant, that summer too ended; and life along with it faded away. Even the existence of a blue sky was utterly forgotten—the villagers’ hoarse sighs whispered beneath damp thatched roofs becoming transparent undulations visible through the bright summer sky.
Clinging to the fleeting summer that faded with dusk-like haste, the villagers danced their cicada-like frenzy upon Mount Konpira.
Bearing the same climatic imprint—when lilies-of-the-valley bloomed and maidens clasped hands to dance across blue meadows—the Nordic Reigen was a scene with which Bonta had felt deepest resonance since ancient times; Bonta had long yearned to cast his own tenuous existence skyward amid such sweet frenzy, tracing a chain of dissolution until extinction.
That he felt this irresistible wanderlust was due in part to how this taint of frenzy resonated with a rhythm too futile;—Bonta, choking on the deeply flowing fragrance of emotion in Konpira Daigongen’s garden, felt the joy of selflessness as he dissolved into it.

The two of them made another silent circuit from afar around the circle of spectators surrounding the round dance.
At this moment, however, the quiet atmosphere in which Bonta had been immersed did not last long.

――A head came swaying unsteadily out from the dark crowd's midst, pursuing Yura's back, when: “Sis, there’s something I need to ask...”
While still hearing that low voice, Bonta nevertheless walked five or six steps further ahead alone before quietly turning around.
That was a small man who had bound his head with a stiff waistband in merchant fashion, appearing at first glance like some shop’s head clerk.
The man and woman seemed to exchange a few rapid words, but before long Yura briskly stepped away from him and approached Bonta, her face bearing a pallor utterly drained of vitality and devoid of any emotion as she stood facing him.

“Goodbye...”

“Goodbye.”

“That guy… the procurer I mentioned earlier…”

“Procurer?—”

By then Yura had already turned away—her back facing the two of them—and begun walking toward the procurer, who was sauntering alone away from the crowd while gazing at the sky.
Watching them, the two were whispering about something, but eventually the procurer noticed Bonta—still gazing vacantly in their direction—and gave a distant nod.
Bonta, terribly flustered, returned a hasty bow, but feeling awkward, once again walked a rather large circle alone, occasionally stopping to peer at the dancing within.
Then, resolutely abandoning Mount Konpira, he began briskly descending the slope he had just climbed into a mass of blackness, but with natural acceleration it gained ferocious speed—he reached the base as if in a dream—and unable to stop even there, he dashed another ten paces down the next slope with leftover momentum before finally halting.
From there, Bonta casually glanced back up at the mountain he had just raced down, but by now the crowd’s clamor had grown indistinct and no light spilled forth either; only a lapping sorrow—transformed into a deep sort of mood—had thoroughly permeated his innermost being.
While remaining deeply immersed in that mood, Bonta followed a dark, precipitous bypath running parallel to the main road, crossed two mountains where sound had fallen utterly silent, and emerged onto the main thoroughfare—only to find himself at a melancholy forest marking the very point where he would soon stray into the heart of Kurotani Pass, its slopes thick with dwarf bamboo, having long since left Kurotani Village’s houses far behind.
Bonta hurriedly turned around and returned to Kurotani Village along the main road this time, yet feeling as though he had passed through a long, long history, he spotted the light of an izakaya and slipped inside.
The izakaya waitress had also wandered out to the Bon dance, leaving only an old woman with a sleepy, troubled face in the dimly lit earthen-floored area, but Bonta, without being shown upstairs, requested sake at a solitary table.

“The young folks are utterly absorbed in the dancing now—” The old woman floated a worldly smile ill-suited to Kurotani Village as she spoke of how even the migrant factory girls from this village couldn’t wait for Obon to return home just to dance, and such.
Bonta nodded with excessive enthusiasm.
When he began drinking here, that sweet melancholy still lingered around him, staggering lowly in all directions—rather, he felt its fragrant resonance deepen.
Since embarking on this journey, he had never raised his cup with such profound satisfaction as tonight; garrulously spouting while refilling his drink, he eventually slipped into lighthearted drunkenness and began lecturing the old woman on life philosophies using esoteric terms—yet she remained exceedingly gracious, chiming in with “That’s right, truly, exactly right.”
Soon the night deepened further, reaching that hour when one began sensing time and again an aura as though some antiquated silence were seeping from the walls.
Before long, the maid too returned from the dance, her lively steps echoing through the earthen-floored area like an extension of Mount Konpira—but then Bonta froze upon seeing the small man who had casually thrust his neck in right behind her.
That was unmistakably the procurer.
——The procurer perched on the upper frame with one leg crossed over his knee, shot Bonta a sharp glance, then immediately averted his eyes and feigned ignorance before addressing the maid ascending upstairs: “Can we go up now?”—his words icy with arrogance.
Every gesture radiated a cold cunning beyond Bonta’s comprehension, so he glared fiercely at the procurer’s face as hatred surged within him—but the procurer remained unruffled, clomping up the stairs with measured steps.

“Hey, wait! And get outside. I’ll fight you—” Bonta burned with a fervent urge to shout in anger but gritted his teeth to suppress it, pausing to reconsider. “Then perhaps I should confront the maid and have a showdown—” He began spinning pointless fantasies as irritation flared uncontrollably, but since she wasn’t worth competing over, the thought of spending all night taking turns with the procurer struck him as a lifelong disgrace. Burning with indignation, he resolved to leave the izakaya.

The old woman and maid were startled. “You’re our first guest tonight—do stay,” they urged, but seeing his unyielding resolve like bedrock, they said “Well then…” and brought out a lantern from the backroom, forcing it into his hands.

When he spilled onto the slumbering street and took a step forward, his drunkenness proved unexpectedly severe—so much that advancing felt nearly impossible—and the nuisance of the lantern drove him to such despair he wanted to scream for salvation and burst into tears.

Unable to bear it, he turned to find the old woman still watching from the doorway; relieved, he abandoned the lantern mid-road and fled at full speed.

Using the street’s full width as his stage, zigzagging while occasionally pausing for breath, he neared Kurotani’s western edge—where amid dead surroundings, a crowd strangely lingered at the road’s center: youths from a neighboring village packed onto departing trucks.

Bonta raced over ecstatically. “Let me ride too!” he proposed, but the headband-wearing youth stopped him: “You’re drunk—can’t allow that,” before vanishing into darkness with a gasoline stench.

Bonta stood dazed less by the vanished truck than by the crashing darkness and loneliness—but regaining composure, he began climbing Konpira Daigongen’s approach with effort.

Midway up the perilous cedar slope, he slipped and tumbled clamorously down several yards, lacking any will to rise. Savoring his body chillingly shrinking to a silk thread’s thinness, he listened to subterranean silence through his skin when sensing movement above.

Raising his head to confront it—not human but likely some insect—he soon heard stagnant wind swaying cedar leaves overhead.

He abruptly sat up and after hardship reached Konpira’s precincts—now reduced to hushed darkness with nothing visible, yet bearing traces of disturbance where round dance footprints fluttered vividly circular, a nostalgic scent clinging.

Closing his eyes momentarily to clap at the simple shrine, he suddenly leapt into an invisible circle—thrashing arms and legs in wild dance like swimming, repeatedly slamming against bare earth.

Groaning “uun, uun” in agonized ecstasy, he thrashed nearly an hour before regaining composure enough to tumble downslope safely to Kannon Temple’s annex.

Returning to what should’ve been darkness, he found stark white light permeating—odd even to his drunken nerves—yet revealed only pallid expanse until spotting bananas imposingly dominating the desolate brightness atop the desk.

Undoubtedly Yura’s doing—Bonta crossed arms tightly glaring at their audacity before loosening stance to crawl closer and devour every last one instantly.

The next day, Ryūzen was sent back by car.
They had no chance to meet face-to-face until sunset, but after bathing and sitting down to the evening meal, the story Ryūzen began recounting in fits and starts was a novel topic in these mountain depths.
At the affluent household where Ryūzen had been invited, their second son—who had been quite a close friend of his—had died suddenly, though not from illness; in truth, it had been suicide by hypnotic drug.
As they were one of the prefecture’s foremost wealthy farming families, the newspapers had been swiftly silenced, and even the substantial donation given to Ryūzen contained sentiments pertaining to that arrangement.
The man had been somewhat educated—he had studied abroad in Europe for several years—but wearied by his circumstances of idleness, he harbored an intense sense of nihilism.
“A being of idleness like myself ultimately seems to have no more connection to this world than a single gecko. When sitting still in a spacious building, one cannot even discern whether humans are present there or not—and even if they are known to be there, people consider them no more than a natural stain upon the structure. No one questions my existence with the lively commotion that arises when discovering a gecko.”
“I will likely die someday, yet even after my extinction, this ancient, solemn building will still stand imposingly. People will continue living within it without a thought for how a being like myself once dwelled here like a stain—now vanished without a trace. Even if they were to recall such talk, they’d struggle to recognize any proof I ever existed and would likely smile wryly.”
“It’s as though I’ve been living within death itself—ultimately feeling inferior to life, continuing to be defeated by existence for as long as I live…,” so that man had always confided these same sentiments to Ryūzen in various forms, though at times he would grow agitated, raging about how he wanted to rush headlong into leftist movements and shatter his life force in one decisive act—such was the desolate man he had been, it was said.
The man likely had had no other close friends, for upon his death he left a will addressed to Ryūzen as well.
It contained only a few simple lines expressing gratitude for their long friendship, but this will had already been opened by the family before reaching Ryūzen’s hands.
Of course, had it been merely that, Ryūzen—being who he was—would not have been angered; yet unfortunately, this family’s treatment of the deceased exuded an unclean cruelty akin to how one might treat a disgraced pariah deserving scorn. While this was likely unavoidable for a prestigious household prioritizing appearances, Ryūzen, as a friend, found it deeply displeasing.
Upon hearing the disgraceful excuses they made regarding the opened will—excuses that showed not the slightest understanding of propriety—he became utterly indignant and reportedly launched into a fierce tirade during the wake.

“Actually, these so-called large buildings have a strange, oppressive power.”
“When I sit still in this hollowed-out temple, I too sometimes find myself profoundly recognizing the same vague unease as that man.”
“It’s not just that I feel—and bitterly savor defeat through—the oddly solid presence of things like buildings or their dark walls. I acutely realize the meaninglessness of my own existence as I sit here in a temple corner, yet beyond that realization, I feel a weariness so deep that even this awareness itself seems meaningless. Alongside this, my very existence becomes something I can no longer believe in all at once.”
“Because it’s not merely that these thoughts occur within my mind—when this building’s will, pulsing with vitality far fiercer than my own, makes me perceive such weariness through its strangely meticulous comparisons… truly, truly, I’m overcome by devastating helplessness…”

“That’s probably true.”
“In your case—living directly within this intense architecture—you end up perceiving it as the object of those feelings. But in my life, architecture holds no significant relation. I’m left targeting some vague whole as the object…”

Bonta began voicing agreement with such thoughts, but since their debate’s subject itself was so nebulous—ultimately a lifelong cross—and he deemed bandying words about it futile, he promptly fell silent.

Moreover, Bonta harbored profound humility toward his own nihilistic philosophy: he was no man capable of grasping the deep reality required to devote himself to nihilism; he was a shallow fellow—neither optimist nor nihilist by nature—but rather a mood-driven dilettante of life who avoided probing anything to its depths. Having resigned himself to being little more than a man utterly indifferent to his own existence (his sole redeeming quality), he not only lacked any will to contest life through theory but had resolved to pay genuine respect—in sober earnestness—to others’ profound nihilism, regarding it as his seniors’ earnest wisdom.

For him, it sufficed to vaguely sense everything from his own standpoint—to merely verbalize such things and further darken an already melancholy moment could be nothing but tedium. And indeed it *was* nothing but tedium—so at that moment too he hurriedly clamped his mouth shut and began idly pondering something else: whether that juicy gossip about this gloomy priest called Ryūzen—that he’d delivered a tirade during the wake—was actually true. To this he now found himself growing intensely interested.

“Is it really true that you launched into a fierce tirade?”

“That’s the real story.”
“I thoroughly frightened the entire gathering.”
“Admittedly, deep down, I was in quite a mischievous mood though…”

With his usual utterly ordinary expression—yet still wearing a faint wry smile—Ryūzen let out a strange voice, “Ahhh…,” and yawned in an utterly slovenly manner.

However, the very next day, an utterly unexpected event occurred.
Not only was the incident itself utterly unexpected, but what had caused it was truly outlandish—or rather, this too was an account of Bonta’s unyielding curiosity within his consciousness—but in any case, being so extraordinarily bizarre, Bonta felt profoundly strange.
In other words, not only had Ryūzen actually attempted a passionate, indignant speech at the wake gathering, but he had also frequently employed radical rhetoric to attack capitalism and the bourgeoisie—so it was said.
Of course, this might have been a case where, given that the other party was one of the prefecture’s most influential families, they had exaggeratedly slandered him and troubled the authorities.
However, it was indeed true that the solemn clatter of a sword passed through the temple gate the following day—the village policeman had come to visit the temple, guiding a single senior officer.
The senior officer, however, appeared to be an unexpectedly reasonable man; in a tone mild despite his rural accent, he droned on—though given that the other party was an incomprehensible wealthy man, they had likely fabricated some pretext out of resentment, but as an officer ill-equipped for such matters, this was merely a dutiful formality, and by no means did they suspect you, reverend sir…—or so he elaborated at tedious length.
Bonta leaned against the sliding paper door of the adjacent room, holding his breath as he assessed the situation. The detective’s words seemed devoid of hidden malice, so while he felt momentary relief, it left him oddly deflated—he no longer bothered paying attention to voices that now buzzed like horsefly wings.

Then suddenly, a tremendous noise erupted in the adjacent room. Without thinking, he pulled away from the sliding paper door. It was undoubtedly Ryūzen's voice—a shrill cry like that of a man experiencing his first mad fit—but Ryūzen wasn't merely screaming; the ferocious din suggested he was using the entire room as a stage to stomp about wildly in every direction.

Yet upon listening, this proved more than mere screaming—Ryūzen was undoubtedly attempting some manner of single-minded speech. That it hadn't been recognized as oratory stemmed not just from the shrillness, but from how his words formed an utterly disjointed jumble of phrases that would make any sane listener burst into laughter: one moment declaring "The Great Japanese Empire, eternal and unbroken..." before pivoting to "Ah! This humble priest's honor lies trampled! All praise for loyal patriotism proves hollow—how tragic!..."

"Shakyamuni Gautama was born there in India over two thousand years ago—" and so on and so forth.

Bonta had held considerable respect for Ryūzen’s erudition. It was the night he first set foot in this temple—Ryūzen had made an embarrassed face while trying to conceal the substantial stack of books piled in the study, muttering, “There are no secondhand bookstores in these mountains to sell them off to...” From Bonta’s experience, those who felt genuine shame about owning books were typically people of superior learning; thus, from that moment onward, he had resolved to respect Ryūzen’s scholarship accordingly. Having never engaged him in debate since, he simply maintained that initial reverence unchanged. Yet the madness in the adjacent room defied all coherence—devoid of logic or intent, not even maintaining linguistic decorum—that one might have thought Ryūzen had gone mad, though likely he had not. The detectives, thoroughly flabbergasted, finally placated him and retreated while apologizing profusely: “We deeply regret raising such baseless suspicions—now that all is clear as day, rest assured your honor remains untarnished...” With these words, they practically danced their way out. Breathing a sigh of relief, Bonta went to greet Ryūzen at the entrance—only to find him returning as usual with his wreck-like downcast face, as though nothing had happened. When Bonta approached and tapped his shoulder, Ryūzen showed no reaction; walking side by side in silence toward the study, he pressed his nose against the lintel upon crossing the threshold and burst into laughter—“Ahahaha...” Utterly disarmed, Bonta felt such profound discouragement that even asking “Was that an act?” seemed foolish. Tasting an awe that chilled his very marrow, he concluded this priest was an uncontrollable monster—whether fool or genius defied all reckoning.

After that, the woman he had thought might never come again continued visiting Ryūzen every night as before.
Even as he strained to catch what changes might occur, nothing particular had shifted. Sitting still in the annex with eyes closed, leaning against the desk and propping his cheek, he faced the small old marsh just ahead—beyond it lay the cemetery atop the hill, and above that, the hushed mountainside. These three-tiered layers of stillness, each with its own nuance, carried the scent of early autumn now fully deepened.
Somehow, his body too had become a presence wandering hazily—a desolation both refreshing and heavy with settled weight—flowing everywhere unobstructed by physical forms.
As though creating a sensory realm apart from reality, closing his eyes revealed a world of sweet melancholy spreading wide like an open window before him.
It was “nothingness”—though in truth, a desolate path too saturated with monochromatic “heart” to merit that name.
That was a fact—it truly felt like a path.

Since he had become friends with Yura as well, Bonta had been subtly waiting for the two of them to come visit together, but they never did. One day he asked Ryūzen if he perhaps didn't know about that night, to which came a composed reply: "Ah yes, yes—I did hear about that matter. She asked me to pass along her regards to you. We've finally decided to part ways, you see," and so on.

“That woman doesn’t particularly need to go to Tokyo with the procurer, so she said she’d like you to take her along when you return, provided you don’t find her a nuisance.”
“If she has acquaintances in Tokyo, she can live with more peace of mind, I suppose.”
“Please take her back with you and continue to support her from now on.”
“I’ll arrange another meeting tonight, then.”
“I’m quite relieved to part with that woman as well.”

As he said such things, Ryūzen was distractedly wiping oil from his nose.
Yet despite this, part of him still couldn't bring himself to fully part with the woman.
It must have been around that time when Bonta and Ryūzen found themselves strolling along a twilight cedar avenue toward Konpira Daimyōjin, only to encounter that procurer descending alone from above on a perilously steep slope midway through their walk.
The procurer carried a short cedar twig in hand, fiddling with it as he hurried downward—and in that moment, Bonta seemed to recall having spun this fantasy: that were he in Ryūzen's place, meeting the procurer alone in these mountain depths now, he might murder the man and bury him in the valley below...
Yet Ryūzen passed by with such complete nonchalance—his bearing suggesting he hadn't even registered the procurer's presence—that Bonta, relieved, drew breath while gazing up at sky patterns filtering through the cedars above, wondering whether Ryūzen even recognized the man's face.
Then suddenly at his ear came a fierce sound slicing through air with a whoosh.

“Procurers are no good!”

Ryūzen stood rigidly upright glaring down the slope, his sharply squared shoulders radiating such fierce intensity it stole one’s breath.
Bonta too glared downward and saw—before any shout could erupt—the wooden sandal hurled from Ryūzen’s hand miss its target, gouging a raw scar into a cedar trunk before clattering several yards further and coming to rest.
The procurer half-rose to flee but, sensing no pursuit from Ryūzen’s direction, displayed a servile sort of grit as he briskly descended toward the foothills feigning ignorance.
True to form that day, Ryūzen needed a dozen paces to steady his breathing and regain composure—but once settled, he reverted to his detached shell again, tilting along the long slope with one foot still bare.
Bonta tasted an indescribable desolation; even when he considered asking *Doesn’t your foot hurt?*, words now felt superfluous as emptiness filled his core.

The mountains were now deep in autumn.
It was the daylight’s brilliance still proving unbearably desolate—the frantic clamor of cicadas that seemed only conceivable as creatures hastening toward extinction; the many streaks of clouds already beginning their hurried rush across the distant sky; and this brightness that had tumbled hollowly into void—all coalescing now into the death throes of vitality snuffed out abruptly, flowing through every mountain, every path, every thatched roof as a rhythm seeping into one’s very eyes.
The procurer had already left Kurotani Village, and from the eaves of the stagnant hamlet, something like the murmuring of curses seemed to leak out.
And Ryūzen, having found a single straw sandal covered in dust from the storage shed, hastily put it on along with a geta—mismatched—as he exposed his black priestly robes to the autumn wind. Like one sensing madness in the hurried flow of clouds that had begun to drift, he busily came and went through the temple gate on village priestly duties.
Bonta contemplated returning—or rather, there were many days when he would stare blankly at the desolation of Kurotani Village after departure, as though it were a land of fate where he must dwell forever.

On the first day that entered September, Bonta finally departed.
In that predawn hour, they passed in silence through the deserted white road of Kurotani Village—still not fully light—walking side by side with Ryūzen without exchanging a single word.
From the valley surged a dull black mist that obscured even the nearby mountains from view, and as the sound of evening cicadas from a distant forest trembled through the morning’s stagnation, Kurotani Village—which had likely just awakened to dawn—was no longer visible below, even when one looked back.
Yura was supposed to arrive by automobile at the station in time for the first morning train.

“When you return to Tokyo, please do not forget to send me letters.”

Ryūzen suddenly said this and—though the station remained seven or eight ri away—asked Bonta for a handshake; while adding, “Please be sure to come again next year,” he kept holding onto his hand for some time.
After a long silence, having walked another ri, he recalled their earlier conversation and laughed, “If I’m still in good health next year… Ahahaha—”
Yet no sooner had this thought come than he paid no heed to Bonta’s words and simply kept walking briskly.

“How about it? Shall I present that woman to you?”

Ryūzen again abruptly brought up such matters.

“Granted, she’s that sort of woman.”
“However, she’s certainly cleaner than prostitutes or harlots, so if you intend to treat her as a plaything, feel free to use her whenever you like.”
“If she falls into a procurer’s hands, there’s no telling what he’ll do.”

And as Bonta stood perplexed, unable to respond, he lit a cigarette and walked on puffing smoke without a care.
At that winding path on the way here where Ryūzen had left his wreck-like self, the two of them passed through without resting.
The bright sun, still carrying the morning’s moisture, blazed intensely over the mountains, drenching the two of them in sweat.
After arriving at the station and waiting a short while, the shared automobile also came from behind, and Yura, clutching a large bundle, collapsed into the waiting room.
Feeling as though her throat were blocked by exhaustion, she deliberately heaved exaggerated sighs while masking her true state—a hollow, blank emotion that left her disinclined to speak—with a forced smile. But once the smile faded of its own accord, she merely gazed vacantly out the window with a dazed expression, not even attempting to sit down.
The three of them, profoundly bored, turned their dark faces away from each other, yet now and then—without anyone prompting—exchanged hollow words about what time they’d reach Ueno at night, or how Tokyo must already be asleep by now.

The train arrived.
When they boarded the train, Yura was already crying violently.

“May you stay well.”

Ryūzen, uncertain which of the two he was addressing, tossed out a word or two of this farewell and, throughout the brief station stop, stood vacantly by the window gazing at the bright sky.

The train began to move.
Goodbye.
And Yura was crying while clinging tightly to the window, waving her handkerchief fiercely; but Bonta too—leaning out from the carriage step and exchanging a silent nod with Ryūzen—could do nothing about the glistening tears overflowing from his eyes.
By now the train was gliding smoothly, about to depart the short roofless platform—on that deserted platform, Ryūzen stood alone and detached, his legs spread wide and firmly planted like a man independent of all emotion as he watched the train leave. Already he appeared diminished under the bright sun, a solitary figure left behind and withering away—but when one imagined his face suddenly contorting grotesquely, there he was: crouching slightly, pressing both palms hard against his face, likely letting out a violent scream as he collapsed forward in tears—