Fox-Hat and Neko

CHAPTER ONE

SUNSET

March 17th, 2013

AFTER AN hour and a half on the train from Tokyo, Tsukino Ayumu fought to keep his eyes open. Term had only ended two days ago, and he was still tired from preparing for and taking his exams. Normally he’d spend at least three days after term ended sleeping late and doing very little except wandering around with his friends, shopping, eating, and just watching the harried pace of life in the city flow over and around them. But this year he had no time to recover. His parents had left for their new jobs in America two weeks ago, but Ayumu had been allowed to stay to finish out his last term at his school in Tokyo. At first, he’d had grand fantasies about how he would spend two weeks unsupervised in the house, having parties and maybe convincing a girl to spend the night, but in the end he’d squandered most of the time in his underpants in front of the TV, eating ice cream and instant noodles. A few of his friends had stopped by to study or play video games, but none of them had seemed desperate to spend time with him, even though they knew he was leaving.

Ayumu shuffled through the songs on his phone and looked out the window. He’d left Tokyo in the dead of night, but the station had still been cramped and busy. Some of the other passengers had departed to switch trains, and now about half the seats were occupied, mostly with students like himself and young couples probably on holiday. He quite fortunately had a whole row of seats to himself, so he could stretch out his legs. Outside, the sun was just starting to rise, and the rural landscape smeared past in blurs of black and gray, unformed shapes and blobs at the speed they traveled. Ayumu looked in his messenger bag at the snacks he’d purchased from the vending machines but found no desire for any of them. He had dozens of books and manga stored on his tablet, but after the rigorous testing of his last week of school, reading was the furthest thing from his mind. The train was quiet, insulated against outside noises, most of the passengers sleeping or reading.

Ayumu folded his arm against the cool window and leaned his temple against his elbow. He might as well try to rest. There was nothing else to do, and he’d be starting up at his new school in April. He should take the opportunity to sleep when it presented itself. He turned off his music and closed his eyes.

HE’D ONLY been asleep for what seemed like a few minutes before he sensed the train wasn’t moving. He was still really tired and might not have made much effort to open his eyes if not for the lingering feeling that something, a noise or a touch, had awoken him. Though he had led a privileged life and he acknowledged that, at times—often the most ridiculous times, like alone in the hallway at school or taking the garbage out to be collected in the evenings, sometimes even sitting on his bed in his room—a feeling of dread would grip him, and a little voice would tell him he was not safe. He never told anyone because he knew how foolish he would sound, and he doubted anyone would be very concerned. Over the years, he learned to ignore the sensation, like a thin layer of ice forming over his skin and his chest hurting from breathing the frigid air it produced. He’d just rub his arms, take a deep breath, and tell himself it was all in his head. But he couldn’t ignore it this time, because the cold encased him like a sheath, pressing in until it constricted his bones, so he opened his eyes and sat up straight.

It was so frigid inside the train, he trembled. His teeth chattered until his jaw hurt and his breath misted around him. Filigree patterns of ice framed the train’s windows, and snow or frost capped the headrests of the seats. Confused, his head woolly with sleep, Ayumu stood up and looked around. He must have been deep in slumber, because all the other passengers had departed and the train was empty. Even the attendants had already gone. Not even a forgotten food wrapper or drink bottle remained to show anyone had ever been there.

Ayumu made his way down the aisle on legs that felt like mush. Luckily the train’s door still stood open, because he had no idea how to unlock it if it had sealed. Pulling his earbuds out, Ayumu staggered into the chilly mist obscuring the station. The fog hung so thick, he could barely see the commuters passing a few feet from him; they appeared as lumbering, insubstantial shapes only a little darker and more solid than the vapory soup. It was too quiet—even though he couldn’t make his mind work quite right, Ayumu knew there should be sounds: quiet conversation, wheelie bags on the concrete, the soft hum of the idling trains. Birds. Insects. Wind. Why wasn’t there any wind? Come to think of it, there wasn’t any movement in the air at all. And there were no scents of coffee, fast food, burning fuel, or people at all, either. Ayumu didn’t know what was happening, but he wanted to get away. His arms locked straight in front of him, he pushed through the throng of watery phantoms.

He ran. The pathway outside the station seemed to go on forever. It felt like he covered miles, but that mist and the nondescript people still surrounded him on both sides. Nothing changed no matter how hard he pushed. Minutes or hours passed, and it occurred to Ayumu he should be tired, out of breath, but he wasn’t. He stopped, stooped, wrapped his hands around his knees, and closed his eyes. He willed himself out of the fog, calling for all he was worth for… something else. Something concrete and recognizable. He didn’t know why, but he knew here—wherever here was—the calling would make a difference.

Ayumu opened his eyes and straightened. He tightened his fist by his hips as the mist fluttered away, though he still felt no breeze against his skin. The parting fog revealed not the train station at Wakayama City, where he’d expected to arrive, but the fishing village of Yuuyake-mura, his final destination and a place he only distantly remembered from his childhood summers. Along the main street, beyond the bus stop, stood a few blocks of shops and small restaurants. Narrow streets curled like lazy streams between them. After growing up amidst the frantic pace of Tokyo, Ayumu had found it soothing to come to a town with only one place to buy rice, bread, or fish when he visited his grandparents. The removal of a myriad of options had comforted him because it meant he didn’t have to choose. He remembered how alien it had felt when the elderly proprietor of the bakery had spoken with his grandmother as a friend, and how there had been no lines at the register. In Yuuyake, no one seemed in a hurry, and even at six, Ayumu had found it strange.

Now the village seemed too full, the slender streets choked with the gray-cloaked people from the station. They wavered in groups amongst the stores and stands, as colorless as the wood of the buildings’ walls, the sky, and the gravel of the paths. None of them seemed to notice Ayumu—either that or they didn’t care about his presence. That was nothing new. He found it more disturbing that everything looked dilapidated, abandoned. The village had never been fancy, but the residents cared for it meticulously. Now the roofs had caved in and the windows were cracked. Lintels supporting porches rotted and sagged. The gardens he remembered being so perfect were choked with dead brown weeds. This place had always been quaint and quiet, but now it was deceased. Yet more people moved along the street than Ayumu had ever seen.

Excuse me, he said as he came up behind one of the commuters, presumably a man with short dark hair and a nondescript gray suit. I may have lost my way. Is this—?

His words fell dead in his throat as the man turned to face him. He had no features, just sunken sockets covered in skin where his eyes should have been, a tiny bump indicating his nose but no nostrils, and a subtle depression that might have been the seam between his lips. Ayumu staggered back, but the thing only regarded him for a few seconds before turning around and continuing on its plodding path. It seemed solid from its shoulders to its waist, but from the hips down, it diluted and bled into the mist like ink. The others were the same: blank faces, identical, watered to nothing before their feet met the ground. None of them could be bothered with Ayumu. When he tried to touch their shoulders, his hand passed right through them. Terrified, Ayumu ran to one of the few intact windows and looked at his reflection. As he’d expected, he had no features; his countenance looked back at him smooth and unexceptional, with nothing to mark him as an individual. He was nothing more than another sleepwalking drone with a single-minded purpose he didn’t understand.

Ayumu wondered if he should follow the others. It was what he had done his entire life—tried to stick to the middle of the pack, do the minimum expected, draw no attention, just blend in. After all, he was nothing special; he had acknowledged that fact long ago. What made him any different from these other faceless, indistinct people?

Yet there were others. Ayumu saw them from the corners of his eyes because he was too afraid to look at them directly: towering malleable forms that seemed to suck the light from the air, twice the size of a man but misshapen, undulating black blobs with an oily surface that refracted the scant light. They peeked out from alleyways, around the sides of buildings, watching, reaching. Some of them had ridiculously long arms with talon-like claws at the ends. Others had dripping red eyes or smiling maws full of triangular teeth. Some had horrible perversions of sex organs—sagging, deflated tits tipped with blackish-purple nipples or huge, angry-red penises pointing out like swords. Misshapen flesh like embryonic wings extended from some of their backs, and many coiled serpentlike, their lower bodies dissolved to black cords, waiting to spring upon their prey. Pinkish froth oozed from their reptilian mouths and elongated snouts and sizzled when it hit the ground, but no one else seemed to notice them. The others just plodded along as Ayumu stood frozen with horror. Even when one of the creatures snatched a man and pulled him into its gaping jaws, the others continued their almost funereal procession.

The creatures were solid and real—fresh red and black ink splattered upon ancient and crumbling pages, vibrant and startling in a world of disregarded, fading unimportance. The people traipsed along. An ebony monster with dozens of tendrils tipped in crimson claws as long as a man’s arms ensnared one and pulled him between sanguine lips dripping with hunger, but the others continued undaunted. Unaware.

Could they not see? Or did they not care? Ayumu didn’t know which was more horrifying.

Someone should do something. How could they all go about their business, ignoring those who were devoured?

Ayumu should do something. He knew it, and yet he lowered his head, shoved his hands into his pockets, and followed. It was what he had always been taught, to do what was expected, to go with the flow, and it had served him well so far. He slogged along behind the others, nothing special, nondescript, and kept his head down.

More and more startling saturated creatures emerged to harvest from the human throng like a buffet. Ayumu found it easy to dismiss the victims; they were nothing special as he was nothing special, just oysters plucked from a riverbank. Still, he hoped he would go unnoticed. And a part of him, suckled on myths and stories, expected a hero to rise and take on the vile things, even as the part of him that had been disappointed again and again told him there was no such thing.

He walked, face down, hands in his pockets. People screamed as the things in the shadows snatched them. He tried to stay at the middle of the crowd, because it seemed safest. But the echoes of the pleas of those taken shook his chest, his heart, his whole being. Why did no one care? So what if they were ordinary and anonymous. So what? Did that make them worth any less?

Wouldn’t he want someone to help him if one of those gore-soaked hooks pierced his belly and dragged him off? But would anyone care any more for him than the others?

Anger, hot and so red he could almost see it beneath his skin, coursed through Ayumu’s veins. Being average, one of many, didn’t make a person fodder. Every person had a right to a life.

But what could he do?

Nothing. He was nobody. He kept his head low and followed, as he had always done. He hoped he wouldn’t be noticed or chosen. As always. His life was an ignored one, one without meaning, and he had learned to not only accept it but take solace in it, and so he trudged along. There was a measure of comfort in knowing he didn’t matter, that he had no responsibility to make the world better or worse. That nothing would change because he existed—or if he ceased to exist.

He walked in the gray procession as horrors he had never imagined plucked people from the periphery. Their screams echoed in his skull as he wished he was more, somehow special. But he knew better, so he just dragged one foot in front of the other and tried to remain invisible.

He wanted to help, but he was nobody, faceless, the same as the rest. Nothing special.

He marched on until a shrill sound, sharper and more real than anything around him, made him lift his head. An old fox, manky, matted fur draped over a skeleton, stood upon a pile of rubble. Its coat was so red, so effervescent, that it seemed to burn a hole through the hampering gloom. It almost hurt Ayumu’s eyes, it was so brilliant. The fox inclined its head and yipped, the loud, acute sound slicing through the murk in Ayumu’s head, echoing through his brain, chest, and belly. Rallying something in him he didn’t know he contained, rattling it loose. As he watched it run off, a rust-colored smear against the bluish-gray, he decided he wouldn’t just follow along. Not anymore.

Ayumu bent down and picked up a fallen branch. It was thick and gnarled and looked too ancient to have just dropped from its tree. Though old, dry, and gray, it was heavy and tough, crowned with knots and whorls the size of baseballs, more like a club than a stick. Its presence made no sense. But it felt right in his hand, solid and good amidst this world of phantoms and doubts. Something he could get behind.

It felt like it had wanted him to find it. Holding it made him feel more alert, less fuzzy. Stronger. None of it made any sense, but little had since the moment he’d stepped off the train.

A long appendage shot out of an oily puddle. Three fingers with long, shattered yellow nails tipped the end, human-looking with bulbous knuckles, and sooty black scales covered the rest of the serpentine thing. A thick ooze, stinking of garbage and rot—the first thing Ayumu had been able to smell—covered the roiling limb. It snaked along the ground jerkily, as if newborn and just learning how to move, and then it bolted vertical and twisted around the waist of one of the commuters. The fingers clutched at the small man’s throat, and the filthy nails broke skin. The man threw his head back and screamed as the digits wriggled beneath his flesh, moving down his neck beneath his skin and stretching it almost translucent.

Ayumu pushed through the crowd, took his club in both hands, and swung. He didn’t know what he expected to happen—maybe that it would pass through the monster as his hand had passed through the back of the ghostly commuter. But it didn’t. It connected at the thing’s wrist, and the slimy scales split open. Boiling black ichor poured from the gash. The pavement melted and bubbled up where it fell, but the monster released the man. Ayumu knelt to wrap an arm around his waist when he fell backward, and he dragged the man away from the flailing tendril.

When they reached the shelter of the buildings on the opposite side of the street, Ayumu, with his club held out to protect them, traced the path of the horrific appendage back to its source. It didn’t join with anything resembling a human or even an animal. Instead, the limb connected with a sack-like form affixed to the side of the antiques shop. Purplish black, the cocoon hung from the Chinese eaves, swollen with splitting orbs making flatulent noises and dripping pus. As Ayumu watched, a new hand sprouted from each exploding pustule and reached into the crowd. Ayumu tucked the man he’d rescued into an alleyway and stood, his club held ready across his chest.

As each new appendage wormed its way into the throng, he hit it as hard as he could, raising his weapon over his head, widening his stance, and bringing the branch down with all his might. Where the old tree limb made contact, the sickly tendrils opened, splattering him with gore. It burned and sizzled against his face like acid, but he kept swinging, running to every greasy limb that exuded from that pulsing sack, because no one else could fight them, or they couldn’t be bothered. He chopped down with his weapon, slicing the invading tentacles apart and leaving them to disintegrate into burbling black ooze, as he advanced on the drooping bag that spawned them. When he reached it, he pulled back and swung the branch like a baseball bat. His blow cut a gash across the center, and it keened with a cicada-like hum. Eellike creatures erupted from the wound and slithered toward the shadows cast by the buildings. Ayumu stomped on those he could and reduced them to greasy black smears, but he knew he had to destroy the cocoon.

Lifting the branch above his head, he slashed downward, making a cut that crisscrossed the previous injury he’d inflicted. The cross-shaped gash rained wormy white innards and comma-shaped black blobs onto the ground. All the creature’s guts emptied and fell in a heap at his feet. Ayumu, gagging, kicked them away as he swatted at the viscous blobs assaulting his face.

A scream made him whirl around. The little black swirls descended on the man he had saved, crawling up his legs, coating him in ichor as he tried to swat them away. Ayumu sprinted back across the street. If he let this man be taken, be devoured by these slugs, he’d failed. This man depended on him, and there was no one else.

By the time Ayumu reached the man, the slimy little things covered him almost to the waist, miring him in a thick, sticky pool. The man screamed his throat raw and clawed at them to no avail. Ayumu swung his branch in an X, and though he hardly touched the black shell hardening over the man’s legs, it broke up and dispersed as if repelled by the gnarled bit of tree.

Ayumu swung and swung. He knew he should be tired, gasping for air, but he wasn’t. He felt more alive than he ever had, and he drove the oily muck back. Then he knelt and grasped the man’s arms, just below his shoulders. He looked into his face and found not a claylike mask but real human features: amber eyes framed with heavy lashes, full, wet lips the color of damp brick, a round chin, high cheekbones painted with diluted pink like watercolor, and a few light brown hairs decorating the line of his jaw. Ayumu lost all sense of time or purpose staring at that too-pretty face, but then, this was a dream….

A dream. How had he not realized before? In reality he was nothing special, but in this unconscious fantasy, he was the hero, the savior. And this boy—just about his age—with the light brown hair, ridiculously sumptuous eyelashes, and moist, red lips, parted like a flower’s petals seeking the sun—he was Ayumu’s prize.

Those things are gone now. I killed them. Ayumu stroked down the young man’s face, letting his fingers come to rest on his neck. He was warm and alive, more concrete than anything in this realm. It’s safe now.

I don’t know what’s going on. The boy’s fear was clear in the width of his eyes, the trembling of his lip, and the sweat coating his face. I-I was watching TV. Exams are over, and I was tired. I just wanted to sit and relax…. What’s happening? Why me?

I don’t know, Ayumu said, surprised to hear his thoughts made into sound. I won’t let you get hurt.

Why?

You don’t deserve it, Ayumu answered.

The boy pursed his lips and bowed his head, pressing his chin against his chest. Maybe I do. Maybe everyone would be better off—

A loud screech cut the young man off. Ayumu lifted his head and looked around. The train was stopping; he felt the cessation of motion, heard the murmurs of those distracted from sleep or reading, sensed them reaching for their bags and packing their newspapers away. Somehow, he perceived it simultaneously to looking into the boy’s wide eyes. They overlapped in his mind, but the reality on the train tugged at him, pulling at a spot just above his hips, and the honey-eyed boy began to fade and drip away like water poured over ink. Ayumu clung to him, because that boy was so afraid, but the boy slid through his fingers like diluted pigment and dribbled away until he was gone, and Ayumu opened his eyes to the stale, artificial air of the train.

People were gathering their baggage and checking under their seats to make sure they hadn’t left anything behind. They were reading their transfer tickets and checking the messages on their phones. Talking. Opening drinks and snacks. To Ayumu, after what he had been through, it all seemed silly and superfluous. And yet he reached down and pulled his phone from the pocket of his jeans. It displayed the time and the temperature and weather conditions at Wakayama City Station.

Twenty-five degrees Celsius. Humidity 67 percent. Partly cloudy. Chance of rain 44 percent.

Ayumu turned the phone off and held it in his hand as he followed the other passengers off the train. He was still trembling with a mélange of terror and adrenaline, and he felt a little like he was going to throw up. The images from the dream were so fresh in his mind that he expected one of the monsters to dart around a corner at any moment. He couldn’t help watching over his shoulder, on high alert, as he pulled up his itinerary on his phone and checked it against the train schedule in the station. Something brushed Ayumu’s shoulder, and he shrieked and jumped, already looking around for something to defend himself with as a tired-looking woman tugging two toddlers behind her muttered her apologies.

Ayumu huffed out a sigh of relief and offered his own apology along with a weak smile. He had to banish this foolishness from his mind. He’d had a nightmare—so what? It had left him physically drained, aching, nauseous, and wanting nothing more than to curl up somewhere and hide. But who could he tell without making himself sound weak and stupid, or like a crazy person? Further, who would care enough to listen, let alone offer help? All the people hurrying around him had places to be, problems of their own. His problems wouldn’t matter to them.

Checking his schedule again, Ayumu realized he had a little over an hour before he had to board the train that would carry him the rest of the way to the southeastern coast, and he decided to go outside, hoping some fresh air would clear his head.

It was an eerie sort of day, overcast but with shafts of bright sun poking through the cloud cover. The humidity, already causing sweat to bead beneath Ayumu’s collar and above his lips, lent a hazy quality to the busy street. Like in his dream, everything looked a monochromatic blue-gray. It made the splashes of color from flowers and fruit and fish stands even more vibrant. Nearby, a little girl’s daisy-printed red Wellington boots seemed bright enough to hurt his eyes. It was surreal, like an old black-and-white photograph where someone had colored in just a few objects here and there—the kind featuring happy children and used for sappy greeting cards.

Blinking, Ayumu shook off the disconcerting feeling of standing outside reality. As he turned on his music and started walking, he reminded himself he was in the biggest city in the prefecture and surrounded by thousands of people. Wakayama City wasn’t a place hiding monsters in the shadows; it was all in his imagination. Some noodle shops, curry places, coffee houses, and street food carts surrounded the busy station, and Ayumu contemplated getting something to eat. His parents had left him behind, but they’d made sure he had more than adequate funds. He supposed it eased their guilt to give him money, but he couldn’t forget how happy they’d seemed to be leaving. He’d overheard his mother calling it their second honeymoon.

He’d get nowhere by wallowing in self-pity or acting like a child, Ayumu knew. He took stock of the food on offer in his immediate vicinity and decided he wasn’t really interested in it. Wakayama City, he’d read online, offered some more exotic fare—Chinese, Thai, and even Italian—but he couldn’t wander too far and risk missing his train. He spent the time stretching his legs, passing by groups of boys and girls about his age, many still in their school uniforms. He wondered if any of his friends from Tokyo would e-mail him like they had promised. He checked his phone, but there was nothing from any of them yet.

After about forty minutes, he returned to the station, found his platform, and boarded a train that looked like an antique compared to the one he’d taken from Tokyo. It was wonderfully empty, and no one occupied the seat next to his, so he could make himself comfortable and try again to get some rest. This time his slumber was blissfully free from dreams.

At the train’s last stop, Ayumu boarded a bus. The ride was too bumpy for him to really relax, and the bus was cramped with what looked like rural people on their way back from the market, carrying baskets and paper bags full of fruits and vegetables. Everything smelled of onions, oranges, and fish, and it did nothing to settle Ayumu’s stomach. He kept his attention on the thickening greenery beyond his window until the ride ended.

At the tiny station, little more than a single-room building atop a wooden platform, Ayumu slung his messenger bag over his shoulder, disembarked, and went to gather the two suitcases containing all his worldly possessions. He sat on a bench next to a white-haired old woman in a garishly flowered dress and plastic flip-flops, reflecting on his trip from Tokyo to Yuuyake, thinking about the way his world had gradually become smaller and smaller, station by station, from the pristine modernity of the Tokyo station to this place, where he wouldn’t have been surprised to see a mule-drawn cart on the dusty road. To think he could be in New York City right now—not that his parents had given him the option of going with them.

After enough time passed for the southern heat and dampness to glue Ayumu’s burgundy-and-cream striped polo shirt to his chest and make him more than a little uncomfortable in his snug designer jeans, a battered red pickup truck pulled to a stop across the street. Ayumu stood, and his grandfather, wearing a straw hat and faded denim overalls over a white tank top, waved and called his name. Ayumu waved back and bowed. Together they loaded his luggage into the truck bed beside nets, coolers, fishing rods, and miscellaneous junk. Ayumu could have managed on his own, but suggesting it would only insult his grandfather, who complained about his age when it suited him and expected people to regard him as a strapping middle-aged man the rest of the time. It could be hard to tell when to do which, but Ayumu loved his grandfather, who had treated him as a friend and a peer from the first time they’d gone fishing together when Ayumu had been six.

Good trip? his grandfather asked as they settled into the cab that smelled of fish and old tobacco. His grandfather took out a small tin that had once held canned eel and rolled himself a cigarette.

Ayumu wondered if he should mention his nightmare, but here in the pulpy light, it already felt faraway and left behind. Long, he said.

His grandfather clapped him on the back, lit his cigarette, and put the truck into gear. Well, boy, this should be a good time. Two men on their own—watch out, ladies! What a time we’re going to have! The fishing is good this year, and I have a cooler full of beer. Don’t tell your mother!

Ayumu couldn’t help smiling as he thought about how much more alive his grandfather seemed than the people plodding around the train stations, even though he was almost seventy. Yes, Grandpa. It will be our secret.

Good boy. They drove slowly through thick, almost tropical forests and dense groves of bamboo. Quite a change from Tokyo.

Yes, it is.

Well, give us country people a chance, boy.

I will, Ayumu answered. After all, what choice did he have? He didn’t know what awaited him, and he was too tired to consider it. All he could do was face whatever life threw his way.

CHAPTER TWO

ORDINARY

AYUMU WAS napping on his futon on the floor when his grandfather called him for dinner. Their house stood with about a dozen others atop a rocky embankment, and a winding little footpath ran down the center of the group. Ayumu’s room, at the back of the single-story home, remained dark until late in the morning, but the setting sun flooded through the yellowed vinyl blinds in the evening, filling the tiny space with gold, as it was now. Ayumu sat up, stretched, and ran his fingers through his hair. For the last week, he’d spent most of his time sleeping. His grandfather didn’t ask him to do any chores beyond his own laundry, and as much as he wanted to explore the little fishing village and the coastline beyond it, he always felt exhausted. Never before had it taken him this long to recover from his end of term exams. Even now his body ached with fatigue, and a few more hours of sleep seemed more important than food.

Still, Ayumu got up and left the room. He didn’t bother folding his futon, as he planned to return to it as soon as he had eaten. The house was small and rectangular, with two bedrooms and the bathroom along the back wall and an open kitchen, dining, and sitting area at the front. Aside from that, there was the genkan, an alcove just inside the front door where they could leave their shoes, and a tiny attic Ayumu had to walk nearly bent in half to explore but that was full of wonderful treasures shrouded in dust. He planned to really rifle through them as soon as he didn’t feel so tired.

The kitchen contained an ancient gas range and an even older iron sink. A round red-painted table stood by the circular window overlooking the small kitchen garden, but it was covered in Ayumu’s grandfather’s lures, hooks, and fishing supplies. Rows of shelves lined the kitchen, all of them covered in model ducks made from wood, ceramic, or metal. Some of them were brightly painted and quite fanciful. As a young boy, Ayumu had been allowed to play with the ones that weren’t too fragile. They usually ate in front of the TV—not even a flat screen but a boxy older model with a grainy picture—sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table. Their dinners varied little and consisted mostly of whatever his grandfather had caught that day cooked under the broiler, rice, and vegetables from the garden. Eggs and tofu if Grandpa felt like stopping at the market. Tonight it was cucumbers, peas, and purple baby lettuce. Ayumu filled his plate, wishing for a cheeseburger, and went to join his grandfather, sitting on the tatami mat floor. In Tokyo, Ayumu and his parents had eaten at a long table atop a tiled floor on those few occasions they didn’t go to a restaurant. They’d sat in chairs and used silver knives and forks, not chopsticks, like now.

When Ayumu sat down, the local news was on TV, but his grandfather wasn’t railing against the politicians like he usually did. He looked up from his plate with concern in his black eyes, nestled between freckled folds of skin. Ayumu had rarely seen such care directed his way, and he wasn’t sure how to react. He felt suddenly raw and exposed, and he focused his attention on the bland food on his plate.

Having a hard time adjusting? his grandfather asked.

Hmm? Ayumu responded with a mouthful of rice. He swallowed quickly and said, No. Not at all. This is nice. It’s very peaceful here.

But it isn’t Tokyo.

Grandpa, I don’t understand.

Oh, boy. His grandfather shook his head. I know this isn’t what you’re used to. This place must seem like a hovel to you. It was never enough for your father, either, but your Grandma and me raised three children here—three children who went on to better things. Don’t let it get you down, Ayumu-kun. It’s only for a year, and then you’ll be back to what you’re accustomed to.

Ayumu set his chopsticks down and met his grandfather’s eyes. I’m not unhappy here. No less happy than I was in Tokyo. I’m not a spoiled brat.

What’s wrong, then? You’ve been spending every day alone in your room, sleeping most of the time. That’s not normal for a boy your age. You should be out swimming, playing games, checking out the village girls. Our village is small, but there are some lovely girls living here. Maybe not like those big-city girls you’re used to, but sweet and nice. If you’re looking for a wife, you might do better here than in Tokyo. His grandpa winked.

Ayumu let his shock out in a loud laugh. A wife! Grandpa, I’m only sixteen!

All right, all right, his grandpa said, shaking his head. Things were very different when I was your age, but I understand. You want to go to university and be an important businessman like your father, don’t you?

I haven’t thought about it, Ayumu admitted. I don’t know what I want to do with the rest of my life. I know I’m almost done with high school, but I don’t know what to do next. I can’t see it.

Yes, well, I won’t be another person telling you to make up your mind or find a career path or any of that bullshit. You’ll know what you want when you see it. All I want is for you to be happy while you’re here. Give Yuuyake a chance.

Ayumu bowed his head. I will, Grandpa. I promise. I think I’m still just tired from my exams, and all the traveling.

Well, finish your dinner. Have a beer or two. It’s just us carefree bachelors here, right? Have a lie-in tomorrow, and then we’ll take my boat out and do some fishing. She isn’t much, but she’s my beauty, and she seems to know where to find the fish. We’ll pack a lunch and some drinks, get tipsy, and catch some fish. Like we did when you were a boy. Except the tipsy part. What do you say?

Ayumu felt happier and lighter than he had in recent memory, already bobbing lazily with the gentle tide. He smiled. It was nice to have someone notice how he felt and care enough to improve it. That sounds very nice. Thank you, Grandpa, for being so kind to me.

FOR THE next week, Ayumu and his grandpa fished from what was essentially a rowboat with a tiny engine attached, but he grew to love the stout little vessel almost as much as his grandpa did. Ayumu drank more than he should have and built up a fair tolerance to beer and sake as he dozed through his days in the Kansai heat and humidity, wearing a pair of plaid trunks he’d bought from the general store and baking his city-white skin to a pale golden brown.

Afterward, he sat with his grandpa and the other widowed old men of the village at outdoor tables beneath flickering torchlight, or on the porch of their house where they had a good view of the sea, playing Go or complaining about politics or the weather. No one cared that he’d been wearing the same pair of trunks and nothing else for the last three days. He was content, and maybe that was his problem. Maybe he settled for too little, aspired to no goals, and was happy to fish, drink, and play games. Maybe he was an old man in the body of a sixteen-year-old, happy to have no one expecting anything from him. Ayumu couldn’t be bothered, because he had never been so happy. He let himself enjoy it.

At night he ate whatever they had caught, drank more beer, and saved the boy with eyes like sunlight through honey in his dreams. He always found the gnarled old branch, and he used it to kill monsters that grew more and more grotesque. It left him tired, and he woke in the morning hurting and barely able to drag himself off his futon. Sometimes he trembled and dripped sweat, and a few times he even threw up. He could manage, though, knowing all he had to do was doze the day away on his grandpa’s boat, knowing the old men of the village would greet him in the evenings as if he was one of them.

BUT A week later, on Monday, school started.

CHAPTER THREE

STRANGERS AND FRIENDS

AYUMU DRESSED in one of the uniforms that had arrived at the house by post: gray trousers and a blazer with a subtle houndstooth print. White shirt, starched, scratchy, and still bearing the lines where it