Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [25]
Wataru couldn’t contain his excitement. “How? Where?”
“Right in front of the haunted building. He was with some construction-type guy in a gray uniform.”
Maybe he’d found a new contractor. “Was it just Mr. Daimatsu? His son wasn’t there?”
“Nope, just him. Why?”
“Why…” Wataru paused. “No reason.”
Katchan had this annoying habit of answering most questions with “Why?” He just assumed there was a why to everything. Wataru had always thought it was kind of a simple and refreshing attitude, but today for some reason, it irked him.
“Mr. Daimatsu looked pretty happy. He said they’re going to resume construction.”
So he did find a new contractor.
“Well, once they finish that building, it’ll put an end to those rumors,” Wataru said. “It’s probably for the best. The longer it sits there, the more people like Mitsuru will go there and take ghost pictures to show off to their friends.”
Now that wasn’t a nice thing to say. Nor had it been entirely truthful. In fact, Wataru was pretty sure it was a lie. Mitsuru certainly hadn’t been boasting to anyone, and Wataru had just heard firsthand testimony that the picture probably wasn’t a ghost at all. Still, he knew the shock it would cause on the other end of the line, and it made his tongue tingle with excitement. The sensation was like an exotic spice. Once he got the idea, he couldn’t stop. He would probably lie more often if he wasn’t so afraid of it becoming a habit.
But this time nothing stopped him. As predicted, Katchan gobbled it up. “What’s that? He actually got a picture of a ghost?”
Wataru explained, piling lie upon lie. Katchan hadn’t heard about this latest development at all, and every twist and turn of the story elicited fresh squeals of excitement.
“Cool! I gotta see it!”
“I wouldn’t,” Wataru advised. “The more people that get all excited about it, the bigger that Mitsuru’s head is going to swell.”
“Yeah, but my old lady says if you don’t see a ghost by the time you’re twenty, you’ll never see one at all.”
“Then you’re in luck. You can avoid the whole thing if you just hang on for a few more years.”
“No way! I wanna see a ghost before I’m twenty! Man, how boring would that be to go through your whole life without seeing one.”
This was classic Katchan-style logic. One, you only have until twenty to see a ghost. Two, to avoid leading a boring life, you must see a ghost. Ergo, time was short. Wataru felt like telling him that seeing a ghost wasn’t exactly a requirement for living the good life, but he swallowed his words. Saying that would just incite Katchan to wax even more poetic about the ghost, and for some reason everything was getting under Wataru’s skin tonight.
“Look, I gotta take a bath and get to bed.”
Katchan was still talking when Wataru hung up the phone. Kuniko asked him what the call had been about, and Wataru made something up. He went back to his room and closed the door, breathing a deep sigh of relief.
“Liar.”
The girl’s voice echoed through the room. In his chair, Wataru froze.
Chapter 4
The Invisible Girl
Wataru was hearing voices again.
It was the same phenomenon he had experienced the night he met Mr. Daimatsu. His mouth felt strangely dry.
“So you’re a liar.”
Sure, it sounded like a girl’s voice, but Wataru knew it was an echo or something, probably coming from the neighbor’s TV. That was it. His neighbors were watching some television show with the volume cranked too loud. His father had complained when they moved in that the walls in this building were thinner than had been advertised.
“Ignoring me won’t make me go away.”
Now she was sulking. It must be a soap opera.
“Why did you lie to your friend? Is that the kind of person you are? Was I wrong about you?”
Definitely a soap opera. Wataru hesitantly looked around the room, but nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary. His mother had changed the comforter on his bed. The old one had a blue check pattern, but this one was yellow. The spines of the books were aligned neatly on his bookshelf as usual. The shelf below them held the volumes of the Children