Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [2]
When Akira heard the story days later, he had frowned. “Don’t confuse a kid whining for a treat with the argument of a rigorous, logical mind,” he had said, as logical as ever.
In any case, Wataru was not the sort of boy to readily believe in ghost stories, especially not one as riddled with holes as this one was.
The building in question, the one next to the Mihashi Shrine, was actually still under construction. It stood in an awkward, half-completed state almost exactly midway between Wataru’s home and the school, so he passed it every day on his way to and from classes. He knew its story well, even though the rumors kept getting it wrong.
The building had been under construction for what seemed like forever. A crew had started work on the site during spring break more than two years ago, when Wataru was still in second grade. The eight-story steel framework had gone up first, and everything seemed to be proceeding on schedule, until one day, work stopped, and the whole building was covered in blue plastic tarps. As far as Wataru could tell, there were no construction workers on-site anymore. A while after the heavy machinery stopped coming, somebody removed the old blue tarps and put up new blue tarps in their place. That’s when Wataru noticed a new construction company had moved in.
According to Kuniko, the tarps had been replaced once more after that, and the name of the construction company had changed, as well. After that there had been no change to the site at all, and so the building stood there, draped all in blue, not quite a proper building, coldly looking down on the surrounding houses. A placard out in front that had listed a timetable of projected completion dates had disappeared.
“The contractor and the builder had some kind of dispute, so construction stopped. Happens all the time these days,” his father had said with a roll of his eyes, and Wataru soon forgot about it himself. But Kuniko’s interest was piqued, and she had started asking around.
The Mitani family lived in a large apartment complex with nearly three hundred units. They bought their apartment right after Wataru was born, and moved in right away.
Wataru had several friends among the kids who lived in their building, and they rode the same bus to kindergarten. Kuniko, too, made friends among the circle of mothers in the complex. One of the women she came to know was married to the manager of a local real estate agency. Because of this, she was well informed about all the local properties. One day, their conversation had drifted to the topic of that “terrible eyesore” next to the revered Mihashi Shrine.
“Remember how the temple grounds used to be so large? Well, I guess it was hard to maintain all of that. So, once when they were refurbishing one of the old shrines, they sold off some of their empty acreage. That’s where that building is standing.”
The company that had bought the land and begun construction of the building was a rental office place called Daimatsu Properties, headquartered in downtown Tokyo. It managed properties throughout the metropolitan area, and while attracting a shrine’s business spoke well of the company’s pedigree, it wasn’t particularly large. In fact, from the sound of it, the whole operation was run by one man with the stuffy-sounding name of Saburo Daimatsu.
Wataru’s family lived on the eastern side of Tokyo, or “Old Tokyo,” as the locals called it. Years ago it had been little more than a string of factories, but the quick commute to the city center (only thirty minutes or so) made it attractive to residents. Over the past ten years, apartment buildings had sprung up like mushrooms after the rain. With the coming of the apartments and the people who lived in them, the face of the town changed. To long-term residents like the real estate agent’s wife, their little borough was like a poor girl who had suddenly married into wealth. “Oh, it’s the same old town,” she would say, “but now it’s all dressed up for a cocktail party.”
Wataru’s father was born in the countryside of Chiba, and his mother came from