Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [13]
“I’m sure that Mr. Daimatsu and his son had something far more serious on their minds than kids coming to play ghost hunter. Whatever it was, they were so wrapped up in thinking about it they didn’t even have time to worry about a few neighborhood brats. They were nice to us, because they didn’t care.”
Katchan scratched his head—his hair was cut so close it was almost a crew cut—and rolled his eyes in exasperation as if to say “there he goes again.” This had happened before. Wataru would be deeply concerned about something, and Katchan wouldn’t get it at all. It made Wataru frustrated, and several times he had snapped at his friend. It never occurred to him that, when he did so, his face looked exactly like his mother’s whenever she talked about those “Komuras and their filthy bar.”
“You think it has something to do with that girl, Kaori?” Katchan muttered. He said it quietly, as though he didn’t want Wataru to hear, but loud enough just in case he happened to be right.
Of course it does!
“Of course it does!” Katchan said, beating him to it. “How could it be anything else?”
That was my line, Wataru thought, growing more irritated. He was the one who figured it out, he was the one who saw behind their kindly façade.
“You think she’s sick?” Katchan said, even quieter than before. “It was weird, I mean, she looked fine, except she was all limp. I wonder why she doesn’t talk?”
Wataru thought. They had said they were taking her for a walk, but that was odd too. If she didn’t like other people around, why couldn’t they go to a park, or the ocean, or somewhere else? Why did they have to take her out in the middle of the night?
The unsettling thought occurred to him that her condition might have something to do with the haunted building. That would explain why Mr. Daimatsu snuck her out so late at night when they wouldn’t be noticed, and brought Kaori to such a strange place.
“Hey,” Katchan said, growing restless at his friend’s silence. “I asked my old man about Ishioka’s dad.”
Because of their profession, Katchan’s mother and father worked late every night. But they always made sure to get up early the next morning and eat breakfast together. “The family that eats together, stays together,” they would say. They loved those kinds of sayings: “One kindness every day,” and “Friendship is priceless”—things like that.
“He said he didn’t know. Ishioka’s dad hasn’t come to the bar for a long time.”
“Hmph,” Wataru snorted in response.
“So, we’re done with that haunted building, right?” Katchan said with a grin. “I wouldn’t be caught dead following in that jerk Ishioka’s footsteps.”
Wataru was silent. Katchan scratched his head again, said something about that being the end of that, and nodded goodbye before heading back to his own desk just as the beginning-of-period bell began to ring.
From his desk, Wataru could see the back of Katchan’s head. Katchan’s father cut his son’s hair himself with an electric shaver, and there was always a little bald spot. Every time he had it cut, the bald spot would move slightly to one side or the other, or change its shape. Katchan never complained. His father would laugh while he cut it, talking to Katchan and his mother, threatening to cut off Katchan’s ear if he moved.
Someone cut Kaori’s hair too. Wataru remembered how it smelled. That fresh, clean scent of shampoo. Someone washed her hair, shampooed it, tied it up in a ponytail. Maybe they talked to her—her face a silent mask. Probably it was her mother. She must be very sad. How horrible it must be to know that Kaori would never answer her. It was like she was dead, even while she still lived.
What had happened to her?
Wataru realized that he utterly lacked the means to imagine what life must be like in the Daimatsu household. He couldn