File 14: The Inviting Hot Springs
File 14: The Inviting Hot Springs
1
It was a day late in the fall months when Kozakura called. “I have something to talk to you about. Could you come over tomorrow?”
That was unusual for her—it was the first time, actually—so I was pretty bewildered.
“Why so formal?”
“Oh, it’s nothing major.”
“Can’t we talk over the phone?”
“It has to be in person.”
“Whaa...? Now you’ve got me scared.”
“Oh, shut up. Quit your grumbling and come,” she snapped, and hung up the phone. I cocked my head to the side a moment, then called Toriko.
“...So, that’s what she said to me. What do you think?”
“Hmm? I wonder.”
“Has she ever said that to you before?”
“Nuh-uh.”
“I wonder if she’s gonna yell at me. I don’t think I’ve done anything to deserve it.”
“I dunno. Maybe she’s got something to give you.”
“I doubt it.”
That was how Toriko and I decided to meet up after my classes let out the following evening, and we headed to Kozakura’s house. When she poked her head out and saw us, Kozakura scowled.
“You two went out of your way to come together?”
“I didn’t know what this was about, so I was scared...”
“Is me tagging along a problem?”
I had my guard way up, but Kozakura just gave me a look of exasperation.
“I told you it was nothing major, didn’t I? Here, have this.” With that, she handed me an envelope. For a moment I thought it might be cash, but it was thin.
“What’s this? Can I look inside?”
“Just open it already.”
I pulled a piece of paper out of the envelope, and Toriko and I looked at it together. It said: “Nationwide Hot Springs Trip Pair Ticket.”
“You can have that.”
“Huh?” I replied, not quite understanding, and Kozakura mockingly bowed her head to me.
“You’re welcome.”
“Th-Thank you?” I looked down at the ticket in my hands once more. “Um, what is this?”
“Sorawo-chan, are you illiterate now?”
“I can read, but... Why give this to us?”
“They sent it to me as a stockholder benefit. I have no use for it on my own, but you two fit the bill perfectly.”
“You’re sure?! Thanks!” Toriko cried out with innocent glee, throwing her arm around my shoulder.
“Isn’t this great, Sorawo?”
“Y-Yeah.” I was still staring at the ticket in bewilderment. “Hot springs trip...?”
Even saying the words out loud didn’t make it feel any more real to me. I just couldn’t imagine myself going on something like that.
And with Toriko, too...?
Not noticing my confusion, Toriko spoke up. “Can we use this at any hot spring, Kozakura?”
“I don’t know. Look it up yourself. Isn’t there a list of participating locations printed on the ticket?”
“Oh, hey, you’re right. Sorawo, let’s decide where we’re going.”
“Uh, sure...”
“We’ll have to buy swimsuits, too.”
“Swimsuits? Why?” I asked, and Toriko looked at me as if it was obvious.
“Huh? We need swimsuits to go to the hot springs, right?”
“No. Most places, you go in naked.”
“...Huh? Seriously?”
Once we talked about it some more, it became clear that Toriko had been imagining something like the recreational center she went to in Canada. In Canada, when you talk about hot springs, it’s usually a large warm water pool, where swimsuits and beach sandals are required, and there aren’t separate pools for men and women.
When she heard that Japan’s hot springs weren’t like that, and that they were actually large baths that a large number of people used at the same time, Toriko got shaken up.
“I-I see... They’re actually baths...”
“Huh? You really didn’t know this?”
“I’d heard before, but I assumed that was the exception...”
Kozakura and I looked at one another.
“Well, um... if you’re uncomfortable with the idea of bathing with other people, you don’t have to force yourself, you know?” Once I said that, I found myself in a strange mood. I wasn’t exactly super comfortable with bathing with other people, either.
“There have to be places in Japan where you bathe in swimsuits, too. Why don’t you go with one of them?” Kozakura suggested, but Toriko seemed bothered by that, and shook her head.
“...I’ll go.”
“Your eyes are glazing over. Are you alright?”
“I’m fine. I’m going.” She vigorously raised her head, and shot me a grin. “Let’s get in the hot spring together, Sorawo...!”
“Y-Yeah.”
I winced at how shifty Toriko was acting. What was up with her? It’s weird for me to say this, but even I could tell something was up, so it had to be pretty bad.
“Well, that’s that then. You two figure out the rest yourselves. Have fun.”
“Uh, okay.”
“When you’re buying souvenirs, I’d like something sweet,” Kozakura said, not even bothering to look at us anymore. Toriko turned to go, but I didn’t move, so she stopped.
“Sorawo? What’s up?”
I made up my mind, and opened my mouth. “Um, Kozakura-san?”
“Hm?”
“If you want, why don’t you come with us? To the hot springs...”
2
“Whaaa?!” Kozakura cried out in surprise. Toriko’s eyes widened, too. Their shocked expressions made me cringe a little.
“What’re you saying, Sorawo-chan?”
“Huh? You can’t?”
“It’s not that I can’t. But why drag me along when I’m telling you two to go enjoy yourselves?”
“Well, you’ve been helping us out a lot lately, haven’t you, Kozakura-san?”
“I’m happy to see that you have some awareness of that, Sorawo-chan.”
“So, I don’t want to just keep taking without giving anything back.”
“You don’t need to be so considerate. Though, I wish that you had shown some very basic consideration at an earlier stage of all this.”
I didn’t have any response for Kozakura if she started digging up the past, so I just repeated myself. “Will you come to the hot springs with us?”
“I don’t wanna. It’s too much of a pain. Hey, Toriko.”
“Huh?!” Toriko cried out in confusion when Kozakura suddenly turned to her.
“You don’t want me tagging along, either, right?”
“Uh...”
“See? Sorawo-chan, it’s not good to just say whatever you think of. You should always check with the people going with you first before you—”
“I don’t mind!” Toriko cut her off. “I don’t mind. Come with us, Kozakura.”
“Huh...?” Kozakura furrowed her brow, looking from me to Toriko, and then back again.
“What is this? Are you plotting something? I don’t want any surprises.”
“That’s not it. You were the one who brought this up in the first place, right, Kozakura-san?”
“Look, that’s a pair ticket, so I’d have to pay for myself out of pocket, right? You think I’m going to pay money to have to sleep next to you two lovebirds? No way.”
“I’ll be the one paying. To thank you for everything you’ve done.”
“I’ll pay, too! Let’s go, Kozakura! It’ll be so much fun with the three of us there!”
As Toriko joined me in enthusiastically inviting her to come along, the furrows in Kozakura’s brow deepened. Soon enough, her eyes widened as she seemed to realize something.
“Ohh... Is that how it is?” Kozakura said, gazing up at the ceiling in exasperation.
“What do you mean, ‘Is that how it is?’”
Without answering my question, Kozakura glared at the two of us and muttered, “You’re hopeless.”
“Wh... What does that mean?!”
“Ye... Yeah! We were just inviting you to come on a trip with us!”
Kozakura looked down on us as we protested. “Do you need a chaperone that badly? I don’t want to have to look after you two when I’m on a trip, too.”
“You won’t have to, okay?”
“If anything, we’ll look after you, Kozakura.”
“Yeah. You won’t have to do anything, Kozakura-san,” I said.
“You just have to be there.”
“I’ll even feed you, okay?”
“Are you mocking me? Listen, I’m not going. Just go enjoy yourselves without me, will you?”
“Kozakura-san,” I said.
“Kozakura...”
Kozakura snorted. “Those sad eyes aren’t going to work on me. No. I’m not going. Not a chance. Absolutely not. End of discussion. Got it?”
“...”
“I said, got it? Hey.”
“...”
“Hey...”
3
That weekend, on Saturday morning, I was waiting at our usual meetup place in Ikebukuro—the above-ground ticket gate at the Seibu-Ikebukuro Line—which was surrounded by advertisements for anime targeted at women, when Toriko came running up the stairs. Her brilliant golden locks and ridiculously beautiful face made her instantly recognizable in the crowd. It was like there was a spotlight shining on just her. The way that light was rushing straight towards me was impactful enough to make it hard to breathe. Whenever we met, I always froze up like a deer in headlights.
It was no surprise that I could spot Toriko, but the mysterious thing was how fast she could pick me out of the crowd, too. Unlike her, I was totally plain. Maybe it was just because she was tall and had good eyesight?
...Wait, no. It was because of the color of my right eye. Yeah, of course she could see that from a mile away.
“Sorry I kept you waiting!” Toriko breathlessly stammered once she reached me.
She was wearing a gray parka, with a men’s military-style jacket over top. On her lower half, she wore black skinny pants and a pair of Converse sneakers. Toriko set her Boston bag—which bore the image of a zoo on a blue background—down on the ground, and wiped the sweat from her brow.
“That’s a cute bag.”
“Huh? Yeah, thanks.”
“It looks super heavy, though... What’s in there?” I asked.
“Just a change of clothes and the other usual vacation stuff. I might’ve messed up and brought too much.”
My own bag, a mustard-colored backpack, was a whole lot smaller than Toriko’s. Toriko shouldered her luggage, and we walked through the ticket gate together.
“We don’t need to take the express, right?”
“Yeah, the semi-express is good enough. It’s already here, so let’s get aboard.”
Ignoring the line that had already formed for the express, we ran across the platform to where the semi-express had stopped. We put our bags up on the luggage rack, and sat down to relax; trains heading away from the urban core were not that busy at this time of day. Soon, the doors closed and the train departed.
“I’m starting to worry I didn’t pack enough, but... we don’t need that much stuff, right? There ought to be convenience stores in the area...”
We had settled on a hot spring hotel in Chichibu. Though it was in the mountains, it wasn’t cut off from civilization.
“It’s my first time going on vacation with you, so I didn’t know what I should bring,” Toriko confessed.
“Is this... our first time?”
I cocked my head to the side. It might have been fair to say that our repeated trips to the other world weren’t “vacations,” but...
“We spent three days together on Ishigaki Island, didn’t we?”
“We were both halfway to going insane at the time. It wasn’t a planned trip, either. We just found ourselves there before we knew what was going on.”
“Well, yeah... I guess you’re right.”
We spent most of our time on Ishigaki drunk, so, to be honest, my memory of it was spotty. Because of the psychological damage from the terror we encountered on the beach in the other world just before going there, we spent most of our time not thinking about anything. Our mental states were a little weird at the time. It was so bad that I managed to buy the AP-1 on a drunken impulse, and then completely forget I had...
“This is a proper vacation, and the first one I’m going on with someone who isn’t family, so I really agonized over it.”
“Huh? It is?”
“Yeah. I went camping with some school friends when I was a kid. But that’s about it,” Toriko said.
“Is that a fact? Hmmm.”
“Huh? What?”
“Oh, I just thought you’d be used to going on vacations. I’m a little surprised.”
“Mama dragged me around all over the place. But I never went on my own.”
So she never went on a vacation with Satsuki Uruma then, I thought, and it felt kind of good. It came with the unfortunate side-effect of unconsciously scanning the crowd for a woman in black, but any time I managed to one up her, I couldn’t help but feel a little rush of glee.
...Maybe I was petty.
The semi-express reached Shakujii-kouen in about ten minutes. We got off the train, temporarily deposited our heavy bags in the coin lockers, and went to ring the bell at Kozakura’s now all-too-familiar mansion.
Shortly thereafter, a sleepy Kozakura poked her head out. “You seriously came...?”
Squinting in the daylight, Kozakura’s voice sounded hoarse, as if she had just woken up.
“You ready to go?”
“Somewhat, yes.” Kozakura rolled a plain silver suitcase out the front door.
“That’s huge...”
With a glare at Toriko for the unwanted opinion, Kozakura locked the door behind her. “You dragged me along after I told you I didn’t want to go, so I’m going to insist you look after me well.”
“We will. We will,” I said.
“Yes, we will,” Toriko agreed.
With a deep sigh, Kozakura started walking. “You two are such a handful. I wish I’d never thought to give you that ticket.”
“Well, we’re glad you agreed to come along. Right, Toriko?”
“Right.”
“Be careful with that. There’s a computer in there.”
As Toriko pulled the suitcase along, the sound of its wheels rolling echoed behind us—almost like the growl of some ill-tempered beast.
4
Once we had collected our luggage from the coin locker, we boarded the train again and transferred to the express train at Tokorozawa. Ridership was high because it was the weekend, but there was a lot of space in the area where our seats were facing each other, so it didn’t feel cramped.
Kozakura squirmed around for a while as she tried to find the best way to sit in the large seat. Ultimately, she settled on sitting cross-legged while facing diagonally.
“This is why I hate going outside. Most chairs don’t agree with my build,” she said grumpily.
“Well, there are kiddie seats...”
“I will kill you.”
Kozakura’s death threat shut Toriko up before she could finish that insensitive comment.
It was a little less than an hour from here to the final stop, Seibu-Chichibu. I was still debating whether or not to buy one of the boxed lunches they sold at the station when the train departed. The car we were in was a new one with a name like Laview, or something like that, and it ran surprisingly quietly. Toriko and I were seated side-by-side, while Kozakura sat in the window seat across from us. As I watched the scenery drift by out the large window, I started to get sleepy.
Letting out a big yawn, I suddenly noticed that Kozakura had drifted off before I could. The tablet laying in her crossed legs was powered off. I looked beside me, and Toriko was sleeping with her head on her hand, too. They beat me to it! If they were both out, I had to be the one to stay awake.
The reason I had invited Kozakura along was exactly as she’d suspected. As much as I hated to admit it, I was hopeless.
To be honest, I was scared. Of the idea of getting into the bath with Toriko alone.
No—to be a bit more honest, I was scared by the fact that Toriko was scared. I wasn’t particularly used to bathing with other people, either, but I had during school trips in primary school and had gone to the super bathhouse during my life on the run. So, while I was a bit flustered when I heard it was a trip for two to the hot springs, my only thought about getting in the bath with Toriko at the time was, Yeah, I guess that might be a thing that happens, huh?
But Toriko was far more flustered than I had been. Because she was from Canada, I would understand if she was a bit weirded out by Japan’s culture of mingling while naked in the bath. But that wasn’t what was driving Toriko’s shifty behavior. Her gaze kept drifting from my face, down to everything below the neck, and then back again. When she realized I’d noticed, her eyes froze on mine, and didn’t move.
“Let’s get in the hot spring together, Sorawo...!”
I was never going to forget the look on Toriko’s face when she said that to me. She was blushing up to her ears, acting more shy and bashful than ever.
In the same way that embarrassment was infectious, once I knew Toriko was feeling shy, I was, too. Once I became aware of it, it was too late. It was beyond embarrassing to get naked in front of Toriko, and I couldn’t help recalling that momentary glimpse I had caught of her in the nude that morning at the “New York-style” pension in Naha.
I was too embarrassed to look at her face when she was right beside me, and that scared me. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before.
This was bad news. My relationship with Toriko was heading for a dangerous corner, and I wasn’t going to be able to make the turn like this. There would be a major accident. That rising sense of crisis set off fireworks in my brain as I scrambled for a solution. What I got was the idea of inviting Kozakura.
“Why don’t you come with us? To the hot springs...”
For some reason, I was confident that if the two of us went alone, something weird was going to happen. Something there was no turning back from... I think Toriko sensed it, too. I say that because she backed me up, even though we hadn’t talked about it. Kozakura was pretty hesitant, but we needed her to come along no matter what it took. That was Toriko and me sending an SOS to Kozakura.
Since we were going to be footing the bill for her train fare, lodging, and food, and also offered to carry her bags, as well as any souvenirs she decided to buy, Kozakura folded under our combined efforts to persuade her. She had looked super exasperated, like this was a real imposition, but Toriko and I were relieved. I definitely felt like we had overcome some kind of crisis. Since then, Toriko and I hadn’t said one word about the subject.
The train reversed direction at Hannou. It’s what you call a switchback, I think? The other passengers around us were turning their seats to change the direction they were facing. We had been facing each other the whole time, so we stayed as we were.
I glanced sideways at Toriko. I had seen her face countless times before, but I could never get used to it. I always thought, What is a girl this beautiful doing next to me? It made it even worse that she was beautiful even when she was sleeping in her seat. If I let my guard down and dozed off like that, my mouth would hang open, I’d start drooling, and it’d just be a sad sight to see.
Then, as if she noticed my glance, Toriko’s eyelids opened slightly. “Hm...? Sorry, I fell asleep,” she said, rubbing her eyes. She yawned, and then her eyes drifted to me, and the scenery outside the window.
“Where are we now?”
“We just passed Hannou. You can sleep. We had an early morning, so you must be tired. Kozakura-san’s sleeping, too.”
“Yeah... Thanks. With all the packing I had to do, I barely caught a wink of sleep, y’know...”
I don’t know how that happened. It was close by, and we were only staying two nights. I only brought a change of clothes, a toothbrush and toothpaste, the bare minimum in terms of makeup, my laptop, and some cables for it.
That, and my trusty and reliable Makarov. You never knew what might happen, so I always put it in my bag when heading out these days. I also had a basic exploration kit with medicine, a flashlight, and emergency rations. Those items were with the Makarov in a waterproof musette bag I had bought at an outdoor specialty store.
Outside the window were the mountains of Hannou in autumn colors. Our Farm was somewhere out there. There were several gates in that bizarre facility constructed by cultists, still untouched, all leading to unknown places.
We couldn’t today, but... which would we explore first? I was excited just thinking about it.
Kozakura must have been dreaming, because she suddenly flinched in her sleep. I thought she might wake up, but she just mumbled something, then was quiet again.
I was dreaming up our next expedition on my own, but occasionally the thought that I was about to get in the hot spring with Toriko would butt in, making it impossible to focus.
Geez, it’s just a hot spring. What’s the big deal? Kozakura’s going to be there, too. We won’t be alone. There’s nothing to worry about.
It’s gonna be fine.
Fine?
What’s fine, and how?
I sat there, silently losing my cool, as the Laview Express sped towards its final stop in Seibu-Chichibu.
5
“Huh? I feel like I’ve been here before,” Toriko said, mystified, as she looked around in front of Seibu-Chichibu Station.
“You only just realized?!” I said in exasperation. “We came here that time with Hasshaku-sama, remember? We were at a shrine in Chichibu when we came back from the other world.”
“Oh! That was here! I remember now. We caught a taxi on a mountain road, came back here... ate some katsudon at the station, and went home, right? It had a gaudy name. What was it again?”
“Golden Waraji Katsu.”
“Yeah, that was it. That wasn’t so long after I first met you, huh? Oh, the memories,” Toriko said fondly.
I don’t think it had been so long that she should be feeling nostalgic, but it felt so far in the past now. I still didn’t trust Toriko back then, and Toriko couldn’t have known what kind of person I was. I think our relationship changed a lot in the six months since then. But as for how it had changed... I wonder. I didn’t really know, but it had gotten a lot better. I think that much was certain.
There was a building with a number of facilities, including a hot spring for people making day trips to the area, as well as a food court, attached to the station building. It was full of climbers who were about to go up the mountain, or had climbed in the early morning and were on their way back. It was just about noon, but from the way things looked, all the restaurants were going to be packed.
“What do we want to do? Are people hungry?” I asked, and Kozakura, who already looked sick of the crowds, shook her head.
“Food can wait. Let’s get to the hotel first.”
“Okay. Is that cool with you, too, Toriko?”
“Sure. Let’s go.”
The hotel offered a shuttle service, but if we called now, it would probably take some time for it to arrive, so we decided to take a cab instead. If Toriko and I split the bill, it wouldn’t be too expensive... probably.
I feel like my spending has gotten out of control ever since I met Toriko. The old me never would have used a taxi here. If this was what happened when I had too much financial leeway, I might have less self-restraint than I thought.
We caught a cab in front of the station and loaded Kozakura’s suitcase into the trunk. When Toriko and I didn’t put our own bags in there as well, the driver seemed mystified. Our guns were in them, though, so we didn’t want to let them out of hands’ reach.
The taxi left the station and headed towards the mountains. We drove along the twisty mountain roads for about half an hour. The higher the car climbed, the more the greenery around us took on a yellow tinge. When maybe a third of those yellow leaves had turned to red ones, we spotted a large building emerging from the trees. It was an aged wooden structure, with a large tree spreading its branches out over top of the tiled roof. It was the hot spring hotel we were heading to.
The moment we got out of the car in front of the entrance, Toriko started sniffing the air. “What’s that smell?”
“The hot springs, probably.”
“Oh! ...That makes sense,” Toriko mumbled, sounding flustered. It looked like she had nearly forgotten we were going to the hot springs.
The door at the entrance was made of smooth, dark wood, and the glass in it was slightly warped, speaking to the past era in which it was built. The door slid open with a rattle, revealing a lobby with a red carpet. I was surprised to find that the area for taking off your shoes was full of black leather ones.
“They’re busy, huh?” Toriko said, following my gaze. I nodded.
“A group of businessmen, maybe? I hope they aren’t noisy.”
We took off our shoes in the entranceway and put them on the shoe shelf. There was a stuffed bear and mountain birds, as well as Japanese dolls in gaudy kimonos, staring at us as we crossed the lobby in slippers.
“Why’d you choose this place?” Kozakura asked, seeming a little creeped out by the glassy stares of the taxidermied animals.
“Because it’s a long-running establishment with good reviews, and the food is supposed to be delicious, and...”
“And?”
“This was the only place that would let us change from the ticket’s two person plan to a three person one.”
We checked in at the front desk, then walked across the creaky floorboards to our room. Toriko looked back at the lobby.
“This has to be the first time I haven’t received a key at the front desk,” she said, sounding mystified.
“They’re fusuma sliding panels, so there aren’t any locks.”
I happened to look out the window from the corridor and was surprised to notice that the ground was further down than I expected. I didn’t recall climbing any stairs, but we had ended up on the second floor at some point. I looked at the floor map. This hotel was built on a slope, and the entrance we had come in through was one level up. They had extended and renovated the building over many long years, so there were all sorts of odd-angled corners and slight height differences of ten to twenty centimeters. The brand-new Wi-Fi router cable looked anachronistic running along the stained ceiling that had probably stood for over a century.
We were led to a bright room that had to be three times the size of my apartment. A scene of fall leaves spread out outside the window.
Toriko cooed with delight, and pressed herself up against the window to look at it. “Wow! This is amazing. There’s a river flowing right over there.”
Kozakura looked up at me. “This is a pretty nice room, isn’t it? Is this going to be okay?”
“It will be, thanks to the ticket you gave us.”
“Well, okay then... Where’s my room? Next door?”
“Here.”
“Huh?”
“We’re all in the same room.”
When I said that, Kozakura was nonplussed. “Huh? I’m staying in the same room as you people?! I don’t wanna.”
“Why not?!”
“Didn’t I already say that I don’t want to have to sleep in the same room as you lovebirds?! You two can have fun on your own. It’d feel stupid for me to be there, too.”
“That’s not true at all.”
“Yeah. Don’t be like that, Kozakura.”
When Toriko returned from the window to assist, Kozakura let out an irritated sigh. “Aww, geez. Fine then. Dammit.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Let’s all just have a good time together.”
“I’m not going to have fun,” Kozakura said bluntly.
6
“Kozakura, where do you want us to put your suitcase?” Toriko asked. Kozakura strode across the room and stood next to the window; there was an area with a table and chairs in it between the shouji dividers and the windows. If I recall, the proper term for this sort of broad veranda was hiroen.
“This is it. I’m making this my territory,” Kozakura declared, and sat down in one of the two chairs. She frowned and moved her butt around for a while, but eventually found a position that suited her. “If I’m in here, I can always close the shouji when I get fed up with the two of you.”
“Oh, yeah, this sort of narrow space is pretty nice, huh? I like it, too,” I said.
“Really? I prefer something more spacious.”
We each unpacked our luggage, and lazed around for a while. I didn’t have anything in particular to do, so I boiled water in the electric kettle and made green tea with a tea bag. Then, I munched on the complimentary snacks that had been left on the table while looking at my phone.
Kozakura pulled a laptop, tablet, and more out of her suitcase, then plugged a power bar into the wall so that she could charge all of it. Toriko looked at the array of electronic equipment spread out across the little table in the hiroen with dismay.
“What did you come here to do, Kozakura?”
“To work, like normal. Go ahead and do your thing. Don’t mind me.”
Toriko’s massive bag, on the other hand, produced a raincoat, a pair of boots, a canteen, the sort of thick sweater you might wear in the middle of winter, and all sorts of other stuff that took up lots of space.
“Were you planning to climb the mountains, or something?”
“I had no idea what this place was going to be like, okay?!” Pouting, Toriko pulled a swimsuit out of the bottom of her Boston bag. I recognized it as the one she’d bought at the Donki in Naha.
“Huh? What’d you bring that for?”
“I thought I might use it...”
“There was a sign at the front desk asking us to refrain from wearing swimsuits in the bath.”
“Yeah, I saw...” Toriko said regretfully, and returned the swimsuit to her bag. Hoping to get things back on track, I took a deep breath, then turned to Kozakura.
“What do you want to do now?”
“I’m hungry,” Kozakura replied, and I nodded. It was pretty late in the afternoon. I was peckish enough that snacks weren’t cutting it anymore.
“When’s dinner?” Kozakura asked.
“7:00 PM,” I replied.
“That’s a ways off still... Is there a dining hall or anything like that in this hotel?”
“It looks like there’s a cafe,” Toriko said, looking at the hotel map.
“Okay, let’s go there then.”
“Oh, we’ll be paying for you, Kozakura-san,” I reminded her.
“You don’t have to tell me every time.”
We left the room. We put our valuables in the safe first, but Toriko still felt uneasy about the room having no lock.
The cafe next to the lobby didn’t have a lot of food items on its menu. After talking it over, we decided to order steamed sweet potato with sweet miso sauce and a number of varieties of bread that they said came from a local bakery to share. We had specifically avoided rice bowls, udon, and soba in order to save room for dinner, but we still ended up going heavy on the carbohydrates. It was like we were trying to fatten ourselves up with this meal. In terms of drinks, Kozakura ordered a cola, I got melon soda, and Toriko had coffee.
Once we had finished eating, and relaxed a bit, Toriko spoke up. “What’s next...?”
“Why don’t you two hit the bath while it’s still light out?” Kozakura said in between taking sips of her second glass of cola through a straw.
“Huh?!” Toriko cried out.
“Why are you shouting?”
“You want us to take a bath this early?”
“You can take as many baths as you want, whenever you want. This is a hot spring.”
“Is that how it works?”
Toriko looked to me, as if hoping I’d save her.
“Y-Yeah. It’s a hot spring,” I replied.
“You can go in the hot spring as often as you want?!”
“I’m not that knowledgeable about it myself, but apparently, yes. That’s what you do at a hot springs hotel.”
“I-I see... Hmm...”
Toriko started fidgeting nervously. She rocked herself back and forth, pressing both her hands on the chair for support. Her restless eyes looked past me, to the poster on the wall for the Chichibu Night Festival. They locked onto it, as if she was suddenly fascinated, and couldn’t look away. I would have bet money that she wasn’t reading a word of it.
I nearly held my head in my hands.
Toriko...
Why are you doing that...?
Why are you acting so restless...?
This is weird...
It’s just a damn bath!!!
Unable to take it anymore, I stood up. “Let’s get in the bath.”
Toriko looked up at me, shocked. I practically glared at her as I repeated myself. “Let’s go. Before it gets dark. Okay?”
“O... Okay.”
“Good.” I nodded, and Toriko’s head bobbed up and down in response. The expression on her face still seemed dazed.
“See you later,” Kozakura said, waving. The look on her face told me she thought we were being ridiculous.
“You come, too, Kozakura-san,” I said.
“I don’t wanna.”
“Kozakura-san.”
Kozakura stubbornly shook her head. “I’ll go by myself later. I don’t want to go in with you people.”
“Kozakura-san,” I said.
“Kozakura,” Toriko added.
“Hey.”
“...”
“...”
“...I loathe both of you.”
7
We walked underneath a red half-curtain and into a changing room that was so new and shiny that it seemed out of place in this old hotel. It looked like it had been recently renovated. With the towels and yukata that we had brought from our room under our arms, we each found an open locker and set up camp in front of it.
We weren’t the only ones in the changing room—there were a number of other guests, and someone was always opening the glass door between here and the bath to go in or out. Toriko’s eyes were bulging at the sight of so many women of different ages walking by, clad in nothing more than a towel. I had to do something.
“Don’t stare so much,” I whispered in her ear.
“Wha?” Toriko let out a startled cry, and I almost laughed. This was actually getting more and more fun for me. There had been a number of times I thought, We really grew up in different environments, huh? before now, but this was the first time it hit me so hard.
“You two can’t even go to the bath without adult supervision? I’m appalled. Why don’t you wear diapers for the rest of your lives?” Kozakura muttered as she put a 100-yen coin into the locker.
“Oh, Kozakura-san, I’ll pay that...”
“I can pay this much on my own! Besides, you get your money back later, anyways.”
As for Toriko, she was standing there, frozen, in front of an open locker.
“You okay, Toriko?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“You take off your clothes here. Just bring the key, the pouch with your bath set, and a small towel with you.”
“I know.”
Do you, really...?
It didn’t look like Toriko was going to move unless I set an example, so I sucked it up, and started taking off my clothes.
The fact was, by this point, a lot of my initial embarrassment had started to fade. Once we were inside the changing room, there were plenty of naked people around, and if I thought about it calmly, all we were doing was taking a bath.
But still...
Ohh, Toriko.
Why must you stare at me so?
Ignoring the painful stare coming from beside me, I took off all my clothes quickly, and took a deep breath before turning to face Toriko.
Toriko’s eyes bulged, and she stared at my naked body. Without taking off a single piece of clothing herself.
Just strip already...
“Toriko.”
When I called her name, she blinked, as if waking from a dream. “We’re going on ahead.”
“Oh, okay...”
Like me, Kozakura had already gotten naked. I felt Toriko’s gaze following us as we opened the heavy glass door and entered the bath.
The smell of sulfur grew stronger, and steam clouded my vision.
I poured hot water over myself, sat on one of the plastic chairs in the washing area, and took the shampoo out of my pouch to wash my face. As I was rinsing the lather off, the door to the changing room opened, and a lonely-looking Toriko walked in, just barely managing to conceal her front with a towel.
I had been preparing myself for this, but now that I was seeing Toriko naked for the first time since Naha, I felt my breath catch in my throat.
Why is she so... beautiful? Every part of her is stunning. Like a work of art, I thought. A living, breathing work of art...
As I stared at her in admiration, Kozakura muttered, “What is this, a Botticelli?”
“...Huh, a what?”
“She looks like that painting of Venus on the shell, doesn’t she?”
I finally got it, and burst out laughing. It was true—Toriko did resemble the painting The Birth of Venus right now; in the way she was covering herself, and the confused look on her face, too.
Once I laughed, the strange tension I’d been feeling vanished.
“Toriko, over here.”
The newborn Venus was visibly relieved when I put my hand up and called out to her.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
“We wash ourselves before getting in the bath.”
“Huh? Every time?”
“If you’re not that dirty, you can just pour hot water over yourself. You saw the spot with flowing hot water to the right of the entrance, right? Fill a bucket there and wash the sweat off before you get in,” I explained like I knew all this stuff. Honestly, I hadn’t been confident that I did. That’s why I looked up “hot springs etiquette” online before coming...
“Hey, what about this?” Toriko lowered her voice before exposing her left hand, which was hidden by the towel.
“...Oh.”
I looked at Toriko’s translucent hand, my mouth hanging open.
“Sorry, I totally forgot.”
“Me, too. I had so many other things on my mind.”
We had both been so preoccupied with the idea of getting in the hot springs that it completely slipped our minds how badly Toriko’s hand was going to stand out once she took her gloves off. Sure, my eye stood out, too, but since you could see right through Toriko’s hand, it was immediately apparent that there was something abnormal about it. We’d gotten so used to all the things that happened to us...
I glanced around to see how the other people were acting. We were in the washing area where it wasn’t easy to see, so we were safe for now, but once we got in the bath, there could be problems. Toriko was beautiful, and that wasn’t just my personal bias speaking, so she was bound to draw attention.
“Well... You can hide it with your towel until you get in, right? It’s hard to see under the water, so it’ll probably be fine,” Kozakura suggested, sounding a little awkward. Apparently Toriko and I weren’t the only ones who had forgotten about this particular problem.
Toriko sat down next to me and hesitantly started washing her head.
“This feels so weird. Getting in the bath with other people like this.”
“It’s fine. You’ll get used to it,” I said, pretending to be a veteran.
Once I set my mind to it, bathing with Toriko was surprisingly easy. I just had to avoid looking beside me. If I thought about it, naked or not, Toriko’s beauty always made me feel confused, and I couldn’t look directly at her, so I just had to act the same as I always did.
Toriko still seemed to be having trouble calming down, and kept glancing my way as she washed herself.
It’s okay, you’ll get used to it...
Rinsing off the suds with the shower, we headed for the bath. Since we had come all this way, I wanted to enjoy an outdoor bath, not an indoor one. The crisp autumn air wrapped itself around our bodies as we opened the door to head outside.
“It’s cold!” Toriko cried.
Kozakura, myself, and Toriko—in that order—quickly ran across the cobblestones and got into the outdoor rock bath.
“Phew...” We all sighed as the hot springs warmed our cold skin.
Taking Kozakura’s example, Toriko had her hair tied up, too. Just as I was thinking this style gave me a rare look at the exposed nape of her neck, Toriko turned towards me and our eyes met. I gulped.
“I’m not allowed to put my towel in the water, right?” she asked nervously.
I calmed myself down and answered. “No, that’s taboo. It’s absolutely not allowed.”
“It’s that big a deal..?”
We rested our backs against the edge of the rock bath, and stretched our legs out. The three of us in a row, just zoning out for a while. Looking over top of the wall around the outdoor bath, I could see the mountains with their autumn leaves, and the blue skies full of wispy clouds.
“Phew,” Toriko exhaled. “Maybe I’m getting used to this.”
“I know, right?”
“But it’s still strange, you know? In our ordinary lives, out of all the private moments we have, bathing is still a really private activity. I can’t think of anything on the same level other than the toilet, or bed.”
“I understand the toilet, but bed, too?” I said that without really questioning it, but both Toriko and Kozakura stared at me, so I got flustered.
“Di... Did I say something wrong?”
Kozakura looked away without saying a word. It looked like Toriko was refraining from commenting, too.
What...?
Feeling awkward, I slid my butt forward, and sank in up to the bottom of my nose.
I don’t know. I’m just going to stop talking now.
“Were you fine from the beginning?” Toriko asked me.
“Burble, burble.”
“Huh?”
“Burble, burble, burble.”
“Are you drowning?”
I gave up and resurfaced. “It... still feels weird to me. Normally, if you get naked in front of other people, you get arrested, but once we’re inside the changing room, everyone just strips. And they act like it’s totally normal.”
“You think so, too, huh?”
“Maybe everyone else knows the right way to behave in this sort of place, but... I feel out of sorts. I see everyone else around me naked, so I assume it’s okay for me to take off my clothes, too. I’m just imitating them,” I explained.
“No one really understands it,” Kozakura said nebulously.
“Is that how it is?” I asked.
“That’s how it is.”
The hot springs slowly melted away my physical and emotional tension. The clouds drifted by, the birds chirped, and I listened to the endless sound of falling water. The autumn breeze felt wonderful on my flushed face.
Toriko let out a hot sigh, and wiped her face. “Sorawo...”
“Hmm?”
“How long do we stay in here for?”
“Huh? There’s no real rule. As long as we want...” I said, looking next to me, then panicked as I noticed Toriko’s face looked as red as a boiled octopus.
“A-Are you okay?”
“I’m feeling a little woozy...” The blood had risen, turning the nape of her neck and her ears pink. Because of how pale she was originally, it stood out even more.
“Get out. Get out. You’re going to faint.”
“Yeah...” Toriko picked herself up, and sat down on the rocks.
“There’s a cold water bath inside for people who use the sauna, so go cool down there.”
“Okay... I’ll be back in a bit.”
I watched with concern as Toriko got up and walked away.
“Maybe you should go with her, Sorawo-chan?”
“Good point.”
I started to get up, but Toriko turned the palm of her open hand towards me.
“I’m fine, I’m fine. It’s not that bad.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’ll go cool my head a bit.”
“Don’t push yourself. You can head back before us if you want.”
“Gotcha.” Though she seemed a little unsteady on her feet, Toriko managed to head back inside.
“It’s pretty hot in here, you know?” Kozakura noted.
“I think it’s perfect,” I replied.
“Me, too.” Kozakura stretched both arms over her head. “Phew. Now that I’m here, the hot springs aren’t so bad.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“I never would have come on my own, so I should thank you....”
“What’s this, all of a sudden? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like! Just accept my thanks!”
I was having a hard time believing it, but Kozakura was actually in a really good mood. Toriko had left us alone, and this seemed like a good opportunity, so I decided to ask her something that had been bothering me for a while now. “You know how I told you a gate opened up in the room next to mine recently?”
“Huh?”
“Toriko came over, and we managed to get it sorted out, but I don’t really remember what happened. That was the first time they’ve ever gotten that close to me, and I really didn’t like it.”
“...Right.”
“Before that, I had a cow with a human face talk to me at the Farm, and it brought up some super personal details. From my life.”
“Could you not seamlessly shift to talking about this paranormal stuff?”
“Not even at a bright, relaxed place like this?”
“That’s not the problem!” Kozakura tried to get up and run away, but I grabbed her by the wrist.
“L-Let go.”
“The scary stuff stops here. What I want to ask you is more of a theoretical question.”
“What is it?”
“How do you think the things in the other world decide who to make contact with?”
Kozakura scowled at me, then resignedly sank back into the bath. “First, let me hear what you think, Sorawo-chan.”
I let go of Kozakura’s arm. “They—though I don’t really know if it’s a ‘they’ or not—will try to scare us and drive us mad with terror in order to induce an altered state of consciousness.”
“If we theorize that the entities in the other world have a will of their own, it might be possible to say that.”
“At the very least, I think it appears that way. And in order to accomplish their goal, they make use of the templates and details of ghost stories. By peering inside our heads.”
“What criteria do they use to choose their victims?”
“I had always thought it was accidental before now. Because true ghost stories don’t explain why the people involved had such a scary experience. They just happened to be there, and had the bad luck to run into a paranormal phenomenon. There’s no more reason behind it. I thought the phenomena triggered by the other world were following the same trends as true ghost stories. But...”
I was hesitant to speculate further, but Kozakura pushed me to continue. “But?”
“Recently, it feels like they’ve been blatantly targeting me. Maybe I’m being overly self-conscious, but the two most recent cases felt less like accidents, and more like direct attacks.”
Kozakura glanced around. The outdoor baths included a waterfall bath, and a lay-down bath in addition to the rock bath, but there didn’t seem to be anyone in earshot of us.
“What was this ‘personal information’ of yours, exactly?”
“The faces and words of my father and grandmother after they fell in with the cult.”
“Was that something frightening to you?”
“Well... Yeah. It was scary. Something I thought I had left in the past suddenly resurfaced. It may have been partly because that caught me by surprise, but I got pretty shaken up.”
“That’s nasty.”
“You said it. I reflexively shot it.”
“Oh, how I hate talking to you.” Kozakura gazed up to the heavens and groaned.
“That’s enough of my story... What do you think, Kozakura-san?”
“One thought I had was that what looks like an attempt at contact from the other world to us may be a mirroring of our own human attachments.”
“Attachments?”
“For instance... Let’s consider Satsuki.” There was a graveness in Kozakura’s voice. I listened quietly, and she hesitantly continued.
“Toriko went to the other world with you, and encountered something with Satsuki’s form. But that didn’t happen to me. For a while after she vanished, I worried about Satsuki, too, but I wasn’t about to arm myself and go searching the other world for her. I was scared, and I didn’t feel like I had any right to be her partner anymore. I had already given up on her by then.”
There was a hint of self-derision in the way she spoke. I had made the decision not to engage with their feelings for Satsuki Uruma at all, so I drove that out of my head as I considered the idea.
“Do you mean that Toriko hadn’t given up on Satsuki-san? And the reason we’ve stopped sensing Satsuki-san’s presence is that her attachment to her has weakened...?”
If so, that was a desirable outcome.
“I mean, she dislocated the ASMR girl’s jaw and crushed her mother’s eyes as we watched. Anyone would be put off after they saw that. That thing was a monster, even if it was shaped like Satsuki.”
Kozakura shuddered and sunk into the water up to her shoulders.
“If the beings of the Otherside were to use human attachment as to approach us, then the strong conviction that Toriko had in pursuing Satsuki might have made her the easiest for them to work with. Now that her attachment has faded, yours may have stood out more.”
“You mean that they changed the target from Toriko to me?”
“I think we should put off deciding if the entities we’re dealing with have a conscious will for now. We don’t know anything about them.”
“Hrmm,” I groaned and wiped my face. “This is tough. If what we’re up against is a ‘phenomenon’ with no will of its own, I won’t have anything to get mad at.”
“Do you have to get mad?”
“I get weaker when I’m not angry.”
Kozakura gave me a meaningful look.
“What?”
“Sorawo-chan, you saw a phantom of Satsuki that Toriko couldn’t, right?”
“Yeah.”
“You were never interested in anyone but Toriko, right, Sorawo-chan?”
“What does that have to do with this...?”
“Continuous anger is a form of attachment. It’s possible that the Satsuki you were seeing was a manifestation of your obsession with her. The Satsuki who appeared before Toriko in the other world, and the Satsuki that you were seeing might, in fact, be two different entities entirely.”
When I heard that, I jumped a little. It might have been because I was being cautious, but on multiple occasions I had caught myself looking for Satsuki Uruma in a crowd, and gotten even madder at her.
“If something appears in Satsuki’s form again, the cause might be you, not Toriko, this time.”
“...That doesn’t feel good.”
My opinion was met with a cynical laugh.
“This is all just supposition, though.”
I scooped water into my hands, and washed my face.
“If your theory is correct, then would that mean... if I can cut off my attachment to the past, I’ll stop being attacked? But I don’t think I’m that hung up on it. I’d forgotten, actually.”
“That may just be what you think, and in actuality you’re suppressing the memories.”
“You could say that about anything, couldn’t you?”
“Maybe. Whatever the case, you’re the only one who understands you. I’m not a shrink.”
My attachment to the past...
It wasn’t hitting home for me, but could that be it? I don’t think what happened to me was anything noteworthy, so I didn’t have the sense I’d tried to forget some unpleasant memories.
But they do say that crazy people don’t realize they’re crazy, after all...
As I was thinking about it, Kozakura opened her mouth again. “If you have a lot of regrets and lingering emotions, it gives them that many openings to work with. That’s true whether you’re dealing with humans, or beings from the other world. Even if you had forgotten it up until now, if you confront your past and settle things, no matter how it goes, I don’t think it’s a bad idea.”
“Confront my past and settle things...”
She could be right, I was thinking when Kozakura seemed to remember something.
“No, wait. Knowing you two, it seems highly likely you’d do something illegal in the process. I take it back. Forget what I said.”
“Whaa...?”
The wind blew past, stroking the beads of sweat on my skin. It was still light out, but I could tell evening was approaching.
“She’s still not coming back, huh?”
“I did tell her she could go back without us, but... Maybe she’s passed out somewhere.”
“I guess we should go check on her.”
Kozakura and I got out of the bath and shuddered in the cool autumn wind as we headed back indoors.
8
We bought coffee milk drinking boxes from the vending machine and collected Toriko from one of the massage chairs before leaving the changing room.
As we passed through the lobby, I noticed the pile of black shoes by the entrance had completely disappeared. Either their owners had headed out somewhere as a group, or the shoes had simply been tidied away.
I was feeling a little lightheaded after the bath, so we headed back to the room to relax for a while, and when 9:00 PM rolled around, one of the staff came with dinner.
The traditional kaiseki cuisine that lined our table was more eye-catching than anything I had ever seen.
“This is sea urchin, fall salmon, and okra with grated yam.”
“This is an appetizer with roast duck, arugula, and tomatillo.”
“This is catfish with rock tripe, chrysanthemum flower, and ginger juice.”
“This is fried sweetfish and marsh crab.”
“This is masu salmon cooked with salt.”
“This is a clear soup with lotus fruit and sheet tofu.”
Toriko watched, her eyes sparkling, as they explained what each dish was, even if I still didn’t really get most of it.
There must have been a party somewhere, because we could hear boisterous voices from another room.
“It’s busy today, huh?” I asked the staff member.
“Huh? Well, yeah.”
When I casually brought it up during the explanation, the waitress gave me that sort of vague response, so I reaffirmed my resolution to never try to engage in small talk with someone I don’t know again.
The waitress laid the food out on the table as I suffered in silence, then bowed to us and took her leave. “Please, take your time.”
The kaiseki course came with three large bottles of beer. “You don’t need to worry about pouring my drinks for me,” Kozakura said as she opened one of the bottles. Toriko and I looked at one another, then nodded. The thought had never crossed our minds.
We each poured our own beer, and then clinked our glasses together.
“Here’s to Kozakura, who made this hot springs trip possible!”
“I’ll drink to that! Thanks, Kozakura-san!”
“Yeah, you better be grateful. Cheers!”
Because we were in a private room, with no need to concern ourselves with the watching eyes of others, and were relaxing after a hot bath, the alcohol may have flowed more quickly than usual. As we worked through the meal, punctuated by regular comments on how delicious it all was, we gradually got more and more inebriated.
We used the internal phone to order more beer three times, and by the time we finished the matcha milk tofu that was our dessert, all three of us were totally sloshed. The next thing I knew, Toriko and Kozakura were both dozing with their heads in my lap, and I was patting their hair while half-asleep myself.
How did this happen again? I wondered as I looked down at their sleeping faces. They both look so content...
I stopped patting, and called out to them. “Hey, get up.”
“Nngh...” Toriko groaned.
“Come on, please. Wake up.”
“No... I don’t wanna...”
When I shifted my legs and their heads fell to the tatami floor, the two of them finally came to their senses. I got them to their feet, where they shambled like zombies, then fixed their yukata before calling the waitress and having her take away the dishes. I then chased the two of them into the three futons that were laid out in a row, and finally laid down on top of the sheets myself.
I’d worked hard. It was pretty praiseworthy, if you ask me.
I passed out for a little while, then suddenly woke up again. The room was pitch-black. I must have turned out the lights before I collapsed, though I had no recollection of doing so. Damn, I was good...
It was silent in the room, and outside it. I felt around for my phone, and when I found it, the glare of the screen was painful. It was 2:00 AM.
“Ungh...” Toriko groaned in the futon next to mine.
“Sorry, did I wake you?” I apologized in a whisper.
“What time is it?” Toriko asked without raising her head.
“Just past two.”
“I’m sweaty... and I stink of booze...” Toriko said like a petulant child. Well, I guess children don’t normally smell like alcohol.
I was all sweaty, too. Maybe warming up in the bath had raised my metabolism. My yukata was damp and clinging to me.
I sat up. “Hey, why don’t we hit the bath?”
“Is it open? At this time of night?”
“We should be able to go in 24/7 here.”
“Huh? Wow, that’s amazing.”
Kozakura groaned and turned in her sleep. We stopped talking and looked at one another in the light of my phone, then snatched up our towels and a change of clothes before quietly sliding the fusuma aside and walking out into the hallway.
As we walked through the old hotel with creeping steps, we both started giggling in unison. It was like I was a kid again, exploring an unfamiliar mansion. Looking next to me, Toriko had a mischievous smile on her face. I didn’t have to ask to be able to tell she was thinking the same thing I was.
Even the lobby, which had been bright when we passed through earlier, had been reduced to the minimum amount of light needed at the front desk. Over by the wall, the glass eyes of a taxidermied bear and some mannequins stared at us out of the darkness. There was one staff member behind the counter, which was the only place lit up, but we felt like we were playing a game of hide and seek, and rushed past while their back was turned. There were quiet footsteps as we walked across the red carpet in the darkness. Did she see us? Or did she not? The two of us whispered back and forth excitedly.
The changing room was bright even at this hour. There was only one guest here other than us: a woman wrapped in a bath towel, sitting in front of the sink and blow drying her hair.
We were free to use whichever lockers we wanted, but we deliberately chose two that were next to one another. This time, Toriko was the first to take her clothes off. She undid her obi and dropped her yukata to the floor, then quickly pulled off the T-shirt and panties she had on underneath. Seeing me agog, the now naked Toriko laughed.
“Ahah!” I laughed out loud despite myself, too. We were like total kids right now.
I tried to take off my own yukata, but I was struggling with the obi, which was tied too tight. Toriko reached out to help. Once her long, dexterous fingers loosened the knot and pulled, the obi came undone easily, and my yukata fell open. When I got naked, I heard a little squeal from Toriko. All we were doing was undressing together, but she sounded beside herself with glee. Hurriedly stuffing our belongings into the lockers, we raced over to the washing area.
Even though it was late at night, there were still a number of other guests in the large bathroom. They must have woken up in the night and come to rinse the sweat off like we had.
“Sorawo, let’s go outside!”
“Okay.”
We poured hot water over ourselves with a small bucket first, then headed to the outdoor baths. There was nobody out there. We screamed at how cold it was, then got into the rock bath again. Once we had sunk into the hot water, we both breathed a sigh of relief.
“This is fun...” Toriko said, sounding like she really meant it. “I have so much fun being with you.”
“Yeah. Me too.” My honest feelings slipped out. “I want to be with you like this forever.”
“Me too!”
“I feel like I could go anywhere with you.”
“You could. Let’s go.”
“Yeah. Let’s!”
Once we said all that, the embarrassment finally set in, and we both cackled with laughter.
We got out of the rock bath before the heat started to get to us and tried out some of the other baths that were outside together. There was the waterfall bath, with a small stream of water coming out of the wall, and the lie-down bath where hot water flowed over flat rocks, jar baths that were small enough they only fit one person... All we were doing was warming ourselves up in the bath, but when we did it together, it was a whole lot of fun. I felt like we were playing around in an amusement park.
Once we had tried out everything, we headed back to the rock bath. We sat shoulder-to-shoulder, and gazed up at the night sky. Because of the light from the bathing area, it didn’t quite look like the stars were going to come falling down on us, but seeing the fall constellations on a quiet night was still pretty romantic, to say the least.
“It’s beautiful,” I murmured, and Toriko leaned her head against my shoulder.
“Hmm? What’s up?” I asked.
Toriko gave me a goofy smile. “Sorawo, I love you.”
“Thanks. I love you, too,” I replied without a second thought. I was feeling more emotionally honest than ever before, so it didn’t bother me in the slightest saying something that I’d normally have been too embarrassed to.
Toriko gulped.
Finding that strange, I turned to look at her, and her face was so red I could tell even in the night. Her indigo eyes were wet and quivering.
Oh! The heat’s getting to her again, I thought, but the very next moment I felt her right hand on my left, searching for, then grasping it.
I felt like I’d been hit with a jolt of electricity, and I couldn’t move.
“You mean it?”
Her voice was a little hoarse.
“You really mean it?”
All of a sudden, with no forewarning, I found myself in a terrifying and dangerous situation again.
It was like we were holding hands on the edge of an abyss that, once we fell down it, there could be no return from. Without knowing whether those hands would pull us back from the edge, or drag both of us down.
I stared vacantly at Toriko. Her eyes clung to me. It looked like her own words had shocked her. Sensing that the next thing I said might cause her to collapse completely, my tongue froze.
Looking Toriko straight in the eye, I cautiously nodded.
Her grip on my hand tightened. Her eyes widened even more. Her breathing was quick, and shallow, as if she was panicking.
I stayed there, holding her hand, without averting my eyes. It must have helped her to calm down, because I could see the tension slowly melt out of Toriko’s shoulders.
I wasn’t in any position to relax yet, but Toriko was the one in more danger right now. In an attempt to calm her down, I managed a smile.
Toriko lowered her eyes. The drops of water behind her long lashes sparkled, and I couldn’t help but be taken by her beauty. Her gaze slowly drifted down my body. Her moist, colorful lips let out a sigh.
“Yo...!”
Yo?
“Your boobs are cute... Sorawo...”
The world came to a stop. In a bad way.
I looked back at Toriko, anger seething in my chest.
In a situation like this... that’s what you’re gonna say...? That, of all things?!
Come to think of it, she had been looking my way a lot during the day, and it had felt like she had been eyeing my breasts. So I wasn’t imagining it?
And here I was, doing my best not to stare!
Why, you little...!!!
Just as I was about to yell at Toriko louder than I ever had before, another figure leaped into my field of vision. I saw someone there, over her shoulder, in front of the waterfall bath.
Noticing my gaze, Toriko quickly turned to look, too.
“Oh... There was someone there.” She gave me an awkward sideways glance, which I returned with a glare while covering my breasts. What was this perverted blonde planning to do if there wasn’t someone here, huh?
“Huh? Hold on... Isn’t something weird?” Toriko furrowed her brow.
What is? Don’t try to dodge the subject!
“That person isn’t moving.”
“Huh?”
I looked over her shoulder again. Toriko was right. I thought they must be a guest because they were naked, but they weren’t getting into any of the baths. It was like they were frozen there, mid-step.
The very next moment, I stood up despite myself. “It’s not a person.”
“Huh?”
“It’s a mannequin.”
Toriko stood up, too. Was the chill I was feeling the night air, or fear? I couldn’t tell which. That was clearly a plastic mannequin that had been left standing on the cobblestones.
“Something’s weird here. Let’s get out.”
Toriko nodded, a tense look on her face. We got out of the rock bath, and hurried, dripping wet, back to the indoor baths.
Oh, no. Oh, no. This had to be the absolute worst time for the Otherside to try and make contact with us. I mean, we were both stark naked. This was no joke.
“Urgh...”
When we opened the door to the indoor baths, we both groaned.
Everyone in the baths and the washing area had been replaced with mannequins. A mannequin sitting on a plastic stool, posed like it was washing its head. A mannequin in the jacuzzi, looking up at the ceiling. They were mannequins in the same positions as I had seen the people before, and in exactly the same poses. Was it possible they were like that to begin with, and we just hadn’t noticed?
Rushing through the indoor baths, we opened the door to the changing room, and were greeted by the sound of a dryer. The woman who had been drying her hair by the sink was in the same position as before. She was a mannequin, too, of course. Maybe because the dryer had been blowing on the same place all this time, the side of her head looked a little charred.
We opened our lockers, worrying the whole time that she was going to turn around, then quickly wiped ourselves down and threw on our yukatas without anything underneath.
“Let’s go!”
“Yeah...!”
We left the changing room and ran back to the lobby. In the darkness, I looked and saw that the front desk lit up, and was relieved.
The very next moment, I realized that was a mistake. The staff member at the counter had their back to us, and didn’t turn when we raced over to the desk. I didn’t feel any need to double-check that they were a mannequin, too.
As we tried to head back to our room, we came to a stop. Down the dark corridor, in the light of the green emergency lights, we could see there was a figure blocking our way. It was a male mannequin. It had its arms raised and bent in a W shape, and was looking straight at us. It was wearing a sweatshirt, and a brimmed hat.
Either my eyes had adjusted, or it was slowly approaching. The features on its face were getting easier to make out.
We had both left our guns in the room. Did we have to head towards that mannequin to get back?
No, hold on.
I thought back to the map of the hotel. The layout was a little bit complex because of all the things that had been built onto it, but if we took a detour, there was another way.
“This way, Toriko!” I pulled her by the hand, and we ran down another corridor that led off the lobby.
Right away, there was another staircase going down. There was a series of large private rooms downstairs, and the long corridor was lined with fusumas.
The moment we turned the corner, there was a taxidermied bear blocking the way, and Toriko and I jumped backwards. Hey, wasn’t this guy in the lobby before?!
We slipped past the unmoving stuffed bear, but at every corner there were stuffed birds and deer peering out through the openings in the fusumas, and they always gave me the chills. The echoes of our footsteps were the only sound in the silence of the hotel. Eventually, we hit another set of stairs. From upstairs, we heard boisterous laughter, and the sounds of plates and cups hitting each other. It was the party!
We looked at one another in relief, finally having come across sounds made by people. Normally, I’d have been mad at them for partying this late into the night, but this time I wanted to praise them for it.
Looking up the stairs, I saw a whole bunch of slippers neatly lined up. The corridor soon came to an end, and there was a fusuma at the end of it. The fusuma was ajar, light and sound leaking out of it.
That’s when a hand reached out of the gap, and closed the fusuma right in front of us.
“Huh? Hold on,” Toriko blurted out, reaching for the fusuma. I didn’t stop her. We were both desperate to hear the sound of ordinary voices. Even though we knew we’d be seen as strange for barging in on them, we wanted nothing more than to see normal human beings drinking and partying.
However, the moment Toriko slid the fusuma open, all of the sound and light vanished.
“No way,” I murmured, dumbfounded.
The room we thought the party was being held in was dark, with tens of mannequins just standing there.
“Sorawo, behind us!” Toriko shouted a warning, pointing back the way we’d come. When I turned around, there was that mannequin with the hat from before, his nose peeking over the edge of the stairs we had just climbed.
He’s gonna catch us! The only place to run was inside the room. We wove our way between the mannequins, which were spread out thinly, and the opposite wall was a fusuma, too.
Through it, there was another dark room. Inside were a number of mannequin arms lying on top of the tatami floor. For some reason, there was laundry piled next to them, and a female mannequin on all fours, like she was crawling. We kicked the arms out of our way and kept running.
When we opened the next fusuma, I saw the back of a man wearing a yukata. He was sitting cross-legged, his back to us. There was an old CRT TV in front of him. It turned on, as if it had been waiting for us to enter the room. The flickering blue light lit up the man, and us...
Instinctively, I turned my right eye on the TV. Once I confirmed the silver haze around it, I shouted.
“Toriko! Touch the TV!”
Toriko immediately understood. Just as I noticed her translucent hand leaving an afterimage in the darkness, she touched the blue screen. She clenched her hand into a fist, and pulled, sending a splash of silver across the room.
Suddenly, I noticed the sensation of tatami under my feet had vanished, and Toriko and I were falling. We fell through the infinite darkness, hand-in-hand, and—
9
“Ahhhhh?!”
Toriko and I sprang up from our futons in unison.
“Whoa, what?!”
Kozakura was sitting in a chair in the hiroen, looking at us with surprise.
“H... Huh?”
It was morning. The shouji screens were open, and there was bright light shining into the room.
“Good morning,” Kozakura said sarcastically.
“Go... Good morning,” I stammered.
“Good... morning.”
“Did you both have a bad dream?”
Toriko and I looked at each other in confusion.
A dream...? That was absurd. There were no gaps in my memory. We had woken up in the night, gone to the bath, and fled after encountering mannequins... No, or was it a dream from the beginning? The whole time, from when I woke up in the middle of the night?
In my confusion, I suddenly realized where Toriko was looking. I followed her gaze, and when I saw my yukata was open at the chest, I remembered I didn’t have anything on underneath. I knew it wasn’t a dream! When we fled the changing room, we put our yukatas back on without any underwear out of haste.
I pulled my yukata shut to hide my exposed flesh, and glared at Toriko. Toriko looked away, playing innocent.
Listen, you pervy blonde. I haven’t forgotten that terrible line of yours, you hear?
But... if it wasn’t a dream, how had we gotten back to our room?
Kozakura yawned and stood up.
“Phew, that’s the first time I’ve been completely out of it in a good long while. I let my guard down because it was just beer, but I must’ve drank a whole lot. I don’t even remember when I went to bed,” Kozakura said, mussing my hair.
“Your hair is a mess. Both of you. Did you go to sleep with it wet? Well, now’s a good time—let’s go for a morning bath.”
“O... Okay.” I replied reflexively, but, wait, go in that bath again? It felt like I had just been in there.
But it was true that my body was drenched with sweat, and Toriko’s hair was a total mess. If I thought about it normally, it was clear we should go.
But still...
Kozakura got her stuff together, with no indication she knew we were hesitating, and cheerily said, “Before we got here, I thought one night would be fine, but now I’m glad that we went for two. What do you want to do today? We can laze around again, but I’m starting to think it might be nice to get out and have some fun in the area.”
Well... Whatever else happened, I guess I was glad that Kozakura was happy, at least. Because she was spared the terror that Toriko and I had gone through. If she’d been put through that kind of horrifying experience after we forced her to come along, I wouldn’t know where to start apologizing.
But still, after an experience like that, we were staying another night in this place? Seriously...?
“Whoa, what is this?”
Kozakura cried out in surprise when she opened the door. We peered out from behind her, and gulped.
In the hall outside our room, there were a large number of slippers lined up, their toes facing our door, as if we had received countless guests in the middle of the night.