Side Story: The Meaning of Happiness and Where It Can Be Found

Side Story:
The Meaning of Happiness and Where It Can Be Found

 

THE FOOTSTEPS of the new year gradually approached.

Lively voices echoed through the front of the shop.

“Congratulations!” Kaori congratulated the other woman.

She smiled shyly. “Thanks. But I haven’t reached the crucial moment yet.”

She nevertheless looked happy as she fidgeted bashfully with the horns protruding from her forehead. Her gestures were full of joy, and Kaori’s face seemed to itch with envy.

“So what does it feel like at the moment?” she asked as she pestered the woman. “You’re going to give birth soon, right? Can I touch your belly?”

“I’m due in three months. Go ahead, say hello to the baby.”

The woman was Otoyo, the onibaba who lived next to the bookstore. She smiled gently as she patted her belly.

Otoyo had been married for two hundred years, but she hadn’t been blessed with children until now. Pregnancy for an oni was a long haul—it lasted ten years. I had also heard that oni were more likely to miscarry than humans, which was why Otoyo hadn’t even told us, her next-door neighbors, until right before she was due.

Otoyo sat in a chair in the shop. The heating was on, and it was warm enough to make me sleepy. She smiled gently as she gazed down at her own belly. “The baby’s very energetic. It kicks my stomach a lot, which wakes me up in the middle of the night.”

Now that she was finally able to tell us that she was having a baby, Otoyo seemed relieved.

“Hey, Nyaa-san. It’s amazing that there’s a baby in here, isn’t it?” Kaori said.

“Hmm.”

Smiling at me, Kaori cautiously touched Otoyo’s swollen belly. She looked delighted, but was she really all that happy? As I cocked my head, Otoyo giggled.

“Cats have lots of children, don’t they? Babies are nothing special to them.”

“It’s not that. I just wasn’t sure why you were in such high spirits,” I sighed.

At that moment, I heard clattering from behind me. Getting a bad feeling about it, I looked back. There was Kuro, his red eyes wide as saucers.

“C…cat? H-h-hey, cat.”

“What is it? More to the point, what’s a mongrel like you doing, swanning around the shop as if you belong here?”

“I’m j-just accompanying Suimei for his nap! Anyway, you were talking about having lots of children, right?”

I blinked several times and stared at Kuro. “So…you understood pretty well, even though you’re a mutt? Those words have a lot of strokes in their characters.”

“D-don’t look down on me! Even I’ve been reading recently. I can understand this much! Anyway, cat. Cat…” Kuro swallowed, and his face took on a somewhat serious look as he asked me, “Have you…had children?”

“Yes?” I answered immediately.

Kuro froze, his mouth open so wide that his jaw almost hit the floor.

“Why are you reacting like that?” I tilted my head, puzzled. Hearing someone giggling behind me, I frowned and looked back; it was Otoyo and Kaori, frantically trying to stifle their laughter.

“An Inugami and a kasha? That would be pretty complicated, huh?”

“I wouldn’t mind seeing Kuro try to walk that thorny path…”

“Hey, could the two of you please not decide that for yourselves?” I said with a touch of irritation.

They both apologized sincerely.

With a look of surprise, Kaori said, “In any case, I think this is the first time I’ve heard that you had children.” She gazed at me curiously.

“That’s because I didn’t tell you. I didn’t need to. It’s in the past.”

“What do you mean by that?”

I blinked slowly and fixed my eyes on Kaori. “If you’re content now, there’s no need to look back on the past, is there?”

“That makes sense.” Seemingly content, Kaori stroked my back, and I reflexively purred.

Otoyo smiled as she watched us. “You two get along well, don’t you? I wonder if my child will be good friends with you too…” Otoyo’s eyes were full of affection. She patted her belly and began to speak as if to her child. “I want this child to be happier than anyone. Will I really be able to be a good parent…? I’m full of anxiety, but I intend to try my hardest to do a lot for them.”

“That’s lovely. I’m sure your child will be delighted too.”

“Ha ha… If I’m struggling, will you give me advice, as an old-timer?” she asked me.

I blinked. “But I don’t think cat parenting and oni parenting has much in common, do they?”

“No, I’m kidding. That aside, I’d like you to choose books for me to read to my child…” Otoyo smiled as she suggested this to Kaori.

But Kaori only stared vacantly at Otoyo’s swollen belly and did not reply.

“Kaori-chan?”

“O-oh… Sorry! Um, books, right? Wait a moment!”

Kaori rushed over to the shelf of picture books.

Staring at Kaori’s back, I let out a secret sigh.

 

That night, as always, I was sleeping with Kaori. Slipping out of the futon, I jumped nimbly up onto the windowsill.

The moon was very bright tonight. Because of that, the breath from my damp nose was so cold, I thought it would freeze. They say that on cloudy days, it’s like there’s a lid on the earth, so the warm air can’t escape. That means fair days are especially cold in winter. I supposed it was no wonder they would be.

Settling down, I gazed out of the window. It was a moonlit winter night. The sight I could see from this window was a special one.

It wasn’t that the view was amazing. It was just the view from the second floor of a run-down, shabby house. But on clear winter nights like this, it left a different impression, as if touched by magic.

A big moon shining on a spirit realm town. Everywhere blanketed in white snow. When the moonlight struck the snow, the light was reflected, making the snow itself shine brilliantly. This is called snow light.

Both the sky and the snow were shining. The tiny, tiny snow crystals twinkled as if breathing. Yet everything was shrouded in a silence as deep as that of the grave.

Nothing moved. It felt as if I was the only creature in the world.

“Pretty, isn’t it.” Kaori had been standing behind me, unnoticed. She wore a short hanten coat over her haori. Screwing up her eyes as if dazzled, she gazed outside. “You love sleep more than anything else, Nyaa-san. This is unusual for you, isn’t it? Being up at this time of night.”

Turning only one ear in her direction, I said reproachfully, “It’s because somebody kept squirming about.”

“Argh… Sorry. For some reason I couldn’t get to sleep. Please accept this as my apology.” Smiling awkwardly, Kaori let me inside her hanten.

I slipped inside it quickly. It was warm and pleasantly snug, and I settled myself down, instinctively flicking my three tails back and forth.

“You seem satisfied,” Kaori grinned impishly.

“N-not really… I was just cold, that’s all.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

I poked my head out of my best friend’s sleeve and glared at her half-hearted response.

She giggled.

“Anyway, why are you feeling down?” I asked as if I were just chatting normally.

At once, her expression clouded as she flinched. She blinked her chestnut eyes several times, her gaze wandering all over the place. For a while, she was silent, but finally she let out a long sigh of resignation. “So you found me out?”

“For ages now, when you’ve been worried about something, you struggle to get to sleep. That’s how I know.”

“I’m no match for you, Nyaa-san…” Kaori’s nose had turned red from the cold. Scratching it with her finger, she turned to look out of the window. “Isn’t it pretty outside?”

“It is.”

“I wish my heart was as pretty as that.”

I stayed quiet and waited to hear what she would say next.

She was on the verge of tears. “I was…jealous of a child that hasn’t even been born yet. What a fool I am.”

Tears quivered in her eyes, and her eyebrows drew together a little. She hugged me closer to her.

“I’m content with the situation that I’m in now. I have Shinonome-san, and I have friends. But out of nowhere, I’ll suddenly find myself thinking about them… My birth parents.”

Kaori closed her eyes. Her expression, which had lost all its usual vigor, was despondent, and my chest tightened to see it.

“You’re not genuinely happy, are you, Kaori?” The words just slipped out.

Kaori immediately shook her head, denying it. “No, I am happy. I can say that with confidence. I’m only thinking about them because…I’m very greedy.”

She said that as if she ought to be ashamed, and I couldn’t help laughing.

“Hah…ha ha ha. Silly you. What’s wrong with being greedy? Greed is a human characteristic. It’s how humans have enriched their lives. Cats don’t have that.”

“That’s because it was a trait necessary for survival, right? This is different. I can survive without knowing anything about my birth parents.”

“You’re a strange girl. That just sounds like an excuse to me.” Stretching out my body, I bumped my nose lightly against Kaori’s. “I think, when I’m happy, I make myself into a circle.”

“A circle?”

“The sun, which provides me with warm spots… Cushions, which are comfy to sleep on… Tasty tinned food… They’re all round, aren’t they?”

Round things are packed full of happiness. That’s why I curled up into a circle to sleep. In order to get close to happiness itself, I mimicked its shape, and then I had dreams full of warmth.

“Circles are a pretty shape, so I can stay a circle. But if I get even a little crooked, or if I’m missing something, then I’m no longer a circle. I get the feeling that you’re not a circle right now, Kaori.” Slipping out of her hanten, I sat on the windowsill and looked up at her. “So, shall I tell you?”

When Kaori tilted her head to one side in puzzlement, I smiled, my differently-colored eyes closing slightly. “Something that might make your heart round again, Kaori. About when you came to the spirit realm. Everything that I saw, and everything that I know about the human world.”

Bringing my face up to Kaori’s ear, I whispered, “Do you want to know? Do you want to hear it? I don’t know whether you’ll really be able to return to being a circle after you’ve heard this, Kaori. I’m a cat; we do as we like, and we take no responsibility for the messes we make. But if you have the resolve to hear it, I’ll tell you.”

Kaori was fixated not on an unborn child but on her own past. If she wasn’t unhappy with the way things were now, then her mood ought to improve once she learned that past. Theoretically.

It wasn’t so simple for a human. If she found out too much, it might make her life difficult in the present. …But if she never found out anything, she would stay at this standstill, no matter how much time might pass. If that didn’t sound like happiness to her, there was nothing for it but to make a change.

My heartfelt wish was for Kaori’s happiness. For her to be able to go on smiling… And to keep the promise I made that day.

“I don’t know what will happen. Nevertheless, if you want to move forward…” I spoke bluntly, taking no responsibility, as was my feline right, and I smiled suspiciously, as was my spirit’s.

Kaori swallowed, then nodded, her expression earnest.

 

***

 

The fire in the brazier had been raked out, and the charcoal replaced. I gazed at the redness of the flames.

It was a relief when the warmth returned to the freezing room. Kaori entered my field of vision, looking a little nervous. Her features were mature now, quite different from that time when she had sobbed in the middle of the forest, and for just a second my eyes went wide with astonishment.

She’s come to resemble you. She really has. …Don’t you think so? The similarity is startling.

I spoke to that person inside my mind. Then, a moment later, I opened my mouth.

“It was a summer when the cicadas cried insistently.”

 

***

 

At that time, a series of typhoons hit the human world, and there was terrible flooding everywhere.

The river completely forgot its normal, elegant flow and bared its ferocious fangs. A number of humans lost their lives. That night, many shooting stars flew through the sky of the spirit realm.

Enma, king of the world of the dead, must be extremely busy.

In the midst of this, two spirits had met in the spirit realm bookstore and were groaning about the situation.

“What are we gonna do about this?”

“What do you mean, ‘what are we going to do’? If you’re not going to eat her, then give her to someone else.”

“Yikes! You say surprisingly awful things, don’t you, Noname?”

“It’s not awful for a spirit to say that about a human. What are you on about?”

It was Shinonome and the apothecary, Noname.

After I had picked Kaori up in the forest and scattered the spirits who had been enticed there by the glimmerflies, hoping to feast, I took the little girl to Shinonome’s place. I had been unable to just leave her where she was, but I also had no intention of looking after her myself. I had decided that was too much for me to handle.

Shinonome was known even within the spirit realm town as an eccentric. Although he was a spirit, he collected books that humans had made and lent them out.

I always wondered why anyone would even come to borrow such things, but surprisingly he seemed to be doing well. Spirits commented on books to their friends, saying “this one’s good” or “this one’s bad,” and they enjoyed the worlds that humans had created. That was why I chose Shinonome; I thought that, if he liked books, then at the very least he couldn’t bear any ill will toward humans.

I judged correctly. It seemed that Shinonome had no intention of eating Kaori.

“W-waaaaahh!”

“Hey, hang on. Don’t rub your snot on that! It’s my only good kimono!”

Kaori seemed to sense that instinctively. Although she kept bawling away, she stayed on Shinonome’s lap, looking very small, and held onto his sleeve, refusing to let go. Shinonome tried his hardest to peel her small hands away, but he couldn’t bring himself to treat her roughly, so he was at a complete loss.

Good grief. If he’s like this, it looks like she’s going to be okay.

Once you’ve become attached to something, even for a moment, the idea of someone tearing it to pieces makes you feel sick. It looked as if Shinonome was going to treat the child well, so I decided to leave the bookstore as soon as possible.

“Oh, no you don’t, cat. That’s too irresponsible of you.”

But all of a sudden, someone roughly caught hold of my tail, and a thrill of fear ran through my whole body.

Reflexively, I tried to claw at them, but they easily evaded me. I ground my teeth in frustration.

The person responsible—that is, Noname—flashed me a bold smile. Taking me by the scruff of the neck, she returned to Shinonome and flung me carelessly onto the child’s lap.

“Meeooow?! What are you doing?!”

“Oh my, what a pretty voice you have!”

“I’ll kill you, apothecary!”

I hissed threats at that strange person; it was hard to tell whether she was a woman or a man. Irritatingly, she didn’t seem to think anything of it. She just watched me coolly.

“No, you mustn’t!” Then a small voice came from over my head, interrupting my threats. “Mama always told me not to argue. It makes people sad.”

Kaori earnestly begged us to stop fighting. But her body was trembling, and tears continued to gush from her round eyes as if from a broken tap.

Noname and I looked at each other, and we both heaved a deep sigh,

“You’re an apothecary, and you made a child cry?” I sniffed. “You’re the worst.”

“You’re the one who picked her up, and yet you’re taking no responsibility for her, cat?” she snapped. “You’re the worst.”

The apothecary and I glared at each other, then pointedly looked away.

“Cut it out, you two,” Shinonome said, exasperated.

I glanced back in disgust at this man who spoke so glibly despite having done nothing while he watched what unfolded.

Shinonome sighed deeply. “I understand. At any rate, I’ll hold on to this human child temporarily.”

“What do you mean by that, ‘temporarily’?”

I thought I’d handed her over to him. I peered suspiciously as he spoke this nonsense.

Shinonome tapped a still-bawling Kaori on the head and gave me a tight smile. “Her Mama or whoever will be worried about her. You’d better find them quickly.”

“Hang on. What are you…”

This blockhead was giving me a headache; I glared up at him. But Shinonome only grinned idiotically and, not taking my feelings into account in the slightest, continued. “You’re not being honest with me, are you? Surely the reason you brought her here is so I could return her to her parents. If not, then you must be saying I can eat her.”

“Huh? I told you, bookseller, hang on a moment—”

“It’s because I’m known throughout the spirit realm town as an oddball, isn’t it? But your judgment was correct. I’ll look after this child until she can be returned safely to her home. So go and do your best to find her people. Don’t waste your act of kindness!”

Ugh, this guy never listens! I’ve completely lost my appetite! To Shinonome, I was a kind, human-loving kitty. You’ve got to be kidding me. Don’t go too far with your misconceptions…

“Oh? Is that so?” Noname said, sounding surprised; she seemed to understand that Shinonome had the wrong idea. She winked at me with a malicious grin. “In which case, I’ll help too. It will be terrible if you only have this man to give you a hand. And I’m interested in finding this ‘kindness’ of yours.”

“What? Give it a rest, you two!” I cried.

Crouched down in front of me, Noname gave me a look that said, I can see right through you.

“You picked her up, so you take responsibility for her,” she said. “That is, unless…are your limbs so short that you can’t wipe your own behind, Miss Cat?”

I’m gonna hit the roof! You piece of crap! In a flash, my anger reached its peak, and I saw red. Unsheathing my claws, I tried to scratch the idiot in front of me…

“Stop fightiiiing!”

I froze as the sobbing child held me tightly.

Ugh, be quiet… I sighed. Her cries were so loud that my eardrums were vibrating fit to burst.

“Waaaaaahhhhhh…”

“Oh no. You two made her cry. How immature of you.”

“Ugh, it wasn’t my fault—argh, shut up!” I shouted, unable to bear the noise. “Don’t scream so close to my ear!”

“Waaah? I-I’m scaaared! Mamaaa…” Kaori only cried more and more.

Completely fed up, I wailed in despair. “I get it, okay?! I’ll find your Mama! So please stop crying!”

“That’s right, leave it up to the cat. Now come on, isn’t it about time for good children to go to bed?”

“Don’t wanna sleep! I wanna sleep with Mama! Waaaaaaah!”

“Are you going to go to bed, or aren’t you?!”

Ugh, I’ve really drawn the short straw! Looking up at the sky, I heaved the deepest sigh of my life.

That was how I got stuck with the task of searching for Kaori’s parents in the human world.

 

***

 

The charcoal blazed quietly in the darkness. As I paused in my storytelling, entranced by the faintly gleaming colors of the charcoal, I realized that Kaori was holding her head in her hands.

“You weren’t friends…” She seemed genuinely surprised by the truth of our relationship back then.

“That’s normal. Shinonome and Noname had been friends for a long time, but we only knew each other by sight. When a spirit meets somebody, they quarrel.”

By nature, spirits are solitary creatures. They don’t meddle in each other’s business and go about their own lives as they please.

To be frank, the current state of affairs in the spirit realm was abnormal. Altered by Kaori’s existence, the spirits had become close to one another as if they were…humans.

“Even if that’s the case, isn’t that very different from the way things are now?” she asked.

“I had no choice but to compromise. You should be thankful.”

“Wow. How generous of you, Nyaa-san…”

Kaori slumped, but the next moment she lifted her head cheerfully. It looked like there was something she wanted to ask me. She gazed at me intently. “That reminds me. What about my name?!”

“What about it?”

“Where did you find it out?! I was three, so I could probably say my own name, but I wouldn’t have been able to write the characters for it! Did you just pick appropriate characters? Or…” Kaori suddenly brought her face close to mine and asked excitedly, “Did my parents tell you?!”

“No.”

I swiftly denied it, and Kaori immediately crumpled. Unconcerned, I groomed myself and continued my tale.

“Your name was written on your underwear. The kana reading was neatly added to the kanji. That’s all.”

“Oh…” Kaori’s shoulders sagged in disappointment, and she urged me to go on with the story.

 

After that, I believe it was from the next day onward, I went around contacting the cats I knew in the human world. I told them I’d found a missing child called Muramoto Kaori, and I was looking for her parents.

At first, I didn’t take it very seriously, thinking I would find them straightaway. Obviously, a small child going missing is a matter of the greatest importance. However…

“After several months of searching high and low and finding nothing, I was at a loss. Because of the typhoons, there were far fewer feral cats about. Toochika might have been able to find them immediately from the lists of missing people kept by the police, but back then, I didn’t even know that kappa existed.”

I think that was careless of Shinonome and Noname. If they’d turned to spirits who knew more about the human world than I did, it probably wouldn’t have taken so long.

That’s right. If I had met that person earlier… I might have made a different decision.

For a little while, I fell silent. When I looked up with a start, I found Kaori watching me anxiously. I hurriedly schooled my expression and picked up the story again.

“While I searched everywhere, summer passed and autumn came. It was just when I had begun to doubt that your Mama existed at all, Kaori…”

 

***

 

As the heat of summer died away and the sky over the spirit realm was tinged a purplish-red, a cold autumn wind began to blow.

Exhausted from my search for “Mama” in the human world, I listened to the dry sound of the fallen leaves by the roadside as I returned home. The moment I stepped into the living room of the bookstore, my face creased into a scowl.

“Waaaaahh!”

Someone was crying noisily. It was as if they had carefully calculated the volume to make it as unpleasant as possible. I swiftly turned on my heel, but at that moment—much to my disgust—I was seized by the scruff of my neck.

“Perfect timing! This is a big help, cat. Come here for a minute!”

It was Shinonome. He looked very strange. Although he had the kind of elegant look that women liked, he was wearing a bandana with a motif of little bears on his head. Right in the middle of his apron, which was made from matching material, was a patchwork bear with a stupid expression on its face.

“You’ve taken on her style…” I sighed.

In an instant, Shinonome’s face became serious, and in a voice as deep as those of the devils of hell he growled, “Stop it.”

Just as I was giggling at the terribly funny sight, I was dropped somewhere with a thump. I stiffened when I realized where that was.

“Nyaa-chan!”

I was directly in front of Kaori, who was in the middle of eating.

She was seated at a little desk made for a child, eating a lunch of spaghetti. It was smeared all around her mouth, as if she were a wild animal feeding on entrails, and the dress that Noname had proudly hand-picked looked like evidence in a murder case.

At some point, Kaori had stopped crying; she smiled and reached out a hand in my direction, as if she were about to stroke my head.

“Stop. Don’t touch me with your dirty hands! And besides, what do you mean ‘Nyaa’? You can’t just give me a name of your own accord. And don’t call me ‘-chan.’ Show a bit of respect for your elders—at least use ‘san’!”

“Nyaa-cha…Nyaa-san.”

“Clever girl! You’re a good girl, aren’t you?” Shinonome cooed.

Kaori let out a shy giggle at the compliment and scratched my head with her dirty hand.

Averting my eyes from her brownish hair, which was decorated with meat sauce, I gave Shinonome a look of great displeasure.

“So, why did you put me here?” I asked.

“Kaori settles down when you’re around. Please stay here just for a bit.”

Shinonome had a mountainous pile of laundry in his arms. Is this how much you end up doing when you add just one child to the mix? I wondered, watching absentmindedly as the clothes hung up in the courtyard fluttered in the wind.

“Humans are a lot of bother…” I muttered.

“Bother?” Kaori asked.

“It means ‘please grow up and become independent quickly,’” I said snidely.

As if she hadn’t understood at all, she cheered. “I’ll do my best!”

“So, how did it go?” Shinonome asked me as he stretched out a clean white sheet.

Looking askance at him—he seemed to have become adept at what he was doing—I informed him that I’d had no success.

For just a moment, Shinonome stopped. “Is that so?” he replied laconically.

“What’s with that attitude? If you’re not happy, say so clearly! After all, you must think I’m useless, not finding anything after all this time!”

I was exhausted from coming and going between the spirit realm and the human world all the time, and I was annoyed that I hadn’t found a single lead; I took this jumble of feelings out on Shinonome. Bracing myself for whatever he might fire back at me, I was surprised by the timidity of his reply.

“I don’t think that. But…” Beating the sheet all over, he picked up a clothes peg. “It’s already been three months since she came here. I was just thinking, I’ve grown used to living with a child. That’s all.”

I stared in silence at his back as he hung out the washing. Irritated, I looked away from him and curled up.

What?! What on Earth do you mean? Have you grown attached to her? The way you’re talking, it sounds as if you don’t care if I never find them!

“Are you…fighting?”

I heard a worried voice. Kaori was watching us, looking ready to burst into tears at any moment.

“No. So hurry up and eat.”

“’kay. Shimomome’s not cross, is he?”

“He isn’t. This is business as usual for that idiot.”

“Business?”

“It means ‘normal’!”

As if she’d finally understand what I’d said, Kaori nodded in satisfaction. “Uh-huh!” Clumsily, she picked her spaghetti up with her fork.

Good grief. It’s not just Shinonome. I’m taking on her style too. I was astonished that I was participating in a child’s conversation—that I was willing to compromise like this.

Just then, I heard the noisy clattering of footsteps. The spaghetti that Kaori had scooped up so painstakingly spilled out of her mouth, and tears sprang into her eyes. As I willed her not to cry, the owner of the footsteps burst into the living room.

“Oh, there you are, Nyaa!” It was Noname. Her unusually bright green hair was disheveled, and she held out a flier to me. “Look at this! Come on, quickly!”

“Don’t you start calling me ‘Nyaa’ too!”

Cursing her, I reluctantly looked over the flier. My brain froze suddenly as I saw the information printed on it.

“I am looking for a child. Muramoto Kaori. A three-year-old girl. At the time of her disappearance, she was wearing…”

“For a long time now, I’ve been letting my customers know that we’re looking for Kaori’s parents. One of them brought me this. They said an acquaintance of theirs gave it to them.”

They had probably found it lying on the ground somewhere and picked it up. The flier was slightly dirty all over, and the crucial contact details were so smudged that they were unreadable. But the girl in the photo that was printed on it was unmistakably Kaori. Noname and I looked at each other and nodded decisively.

“The spirit that gave you this, where are they from?”

“Akita. It’s Kawa-akago. They said that one of the children in their neighborhood had gone missing.”

With a gasp, I swung around to look at Shinonome, who was standing at the foot of the clothes-drying platform.

He seemed to have heard what Noname had said. He gazed at Kaori, grappling with the spaghetti by herself, with an expression I didn’t really understand.

 

Kawa-akago is a spirit who appears in Toriyama Sekien’s Illustrated One Hundred Demons from the Present and the Past.

In Toriyama Sekien’s pictures, Kawa-akago can be glimpsed hiding in reeds at the edge of rivers, his face the only visible part of him as he lets out a cry similar to an infant’s. But the legends don’t record what kind of spirit he really is. In that same book, Toriyama Sekien states that he may be a Kawatarou, a variety of Kappa.

I decided that I would travel through hell all the way to Akita to meet Kawa-akago.

Kawa-akago’s den was deep in the mountains. A primeval beech forest stretches around Lake Tazawa, and in the middle of that beech forest, where all the leaves were tinged yellow in the autumn breeze, the calm Sendatsu River flowed. At different spots along the river, fish such as char and masu salmon could be found, and Kawa-akago survived by catching and eating them.

“In the past, I lived a little closer to human settlements, but recently I’ve been dwelling quietly deep in the mountains, not frightening anybody.”

“Have you been around here for a long time?”

“Yes, since my parents’ lifetime. So I recognize the people who live in these parts,” the spirit said. His serene voice didn’t fit his name, but as his name “river infant” suggested, he had the small body of a child. He was wearing nothing but a red apron. Although his head was disproportionately large, he walked through the thicket as adroitly as an adult.

The beech leaves fell gently on us, hinting that winter was almost here. As that gold rain drifted down, dazzling my eyes, Kawa-akago arrived at a particular spot and stopped.

“There it is.”

Kawa-akago was pointing at a rustic inn. The single-storied wooden building, which had a historical feel, bore a sign reading: Yume no Yu—the Hot Spring of Dreams. Apparently, it was a hot spring inn. The smell of sulfur permeated our surroundings, lending the inn a peculiar atmosphere.

“So, is the woman who was handing out those fliers here?”

“Sometimes, to pass the time, I come here to watch humans. I’ve seen her heading out with the fliers many times. But recently, I haven’t seen her daughter at all.”

“You know a lot about this situation, don’t you?”

“All the spirits around here have too much time on their hands. We love people-watching. Why, the Kodama-nezumi even crawl under the floorboards of the guests’ rooms—”

“I don’t care about that. Thanks for guiding me here.”

Cutting him off in the middle of his story in bad taste, I set out toward the inn.

I brushed off his careful warnings not to let anybody see me and continued on my way, though I didn’t forget to disguise my three tails as a single tail.

Well, even if I did get discovered by a human, I could probably dispose of them on the spot, I thought to myself. But if the worst happened and I accidentally killed one of Kaori’s parents, this would all come to nothing.

The Hot Spring of Dreams was a fairly small inn. As far as I could see, there were no other buildings around it. This was in the area known as Nyuutou Onsen, where hot springs are dotted all over the base of Mount Nyuutou. However, the Hot Spring of Dreams wasn’t included in the extensive list of hot springs within Nyuutou Onsen. According to Noname, it’s still known as the best secret hot spring amongst true enthusiasts, but…

“Maybe it’s just not thriving,” I whispered to myself, gazing up at its roof, which seemed to bend under the weight of the snow piled on it.

The Hot Spring of Dreams was obviously run-down. The spirit realm’s bookstore had seen the rough end of many winters as well, but this disrepair went beyond that.

I walked the grounds, avoiding the places that looked as if they might collapse at any moment, and searched for any sign of humans. But I was already losing heart.

“It stinks. I think my nose is going to stop working. I hope I can go back soon…”

The smell of sulfur was almost unbearable; it was so powerful that the inside of my nose hurt, and I winced as I walked. Just then, I sensed people nearby, so I hid myself. Peering out from my hiding place, I saw a woman and a man who appeared to be a couple past their prime.

“Tsk… So what if service is bad, or the towels in their rooms smell? They should stop complaining.”

“They really should. I told them, if they have complaints, they’re welcome to go somewhere else. They went bright red and left. I wonder what they’ll do. The nearest inn from here is a pretty long walk away.”

“I don’t give a damn! I hope they run into a bear.”

Unbelievable…

I listened, stunned, as they fired these remarks back and forth; I couldn’t believe they worked in hospitality. I’m a cat—and a spirit—so I don’t understand human feelings that well, but I could tell that they had a uniquely awful attitude.

How disagreeable.

Having seen this dark side of humans, I sighed. But I shook my head and quickly put those feelings behind me. I was going to find Kaori’s parents without delay and thereby free myself from this search for “Mama.” I didn’t have time to think about anything else.

The mature couple probably weren’t Kaori’s parents; they were too old to be the parents of a young child. That meant there had to be someone else about. Turning around quietly so that the couple would not notice me, I headed off to look for them.

“Akiho-san?! Our guest has left. Hurry up and clean their room!”

“Okay!”

I stopped as a lively voice reached my ears.

“Be quick about it. We have a new guest arriving in the evening.”

“Understood.”

A woman came running over. Tucking her brownish hair behind her ears, she turned to the couple and bowed deeply. When her head bobbed up again, I saw that her face was somewhat pale.

The instant I saw her, I recognized traces of Kaori in her features. I realized that my search for “Mama” was over.

 

After that, I carefully collected information.

Kaori’s mother’s name was Muramoto Akiho. Judging by her conversations with the other employees, she was a single mother, as well as a blood relative of the couple who ran the Hot Spring of Dreams—the older man of the couple I’d first seen was her uncle. She had started living at the inn a year prior, following the death of her husband.

She had been staying in a room for hot spring employees along with Kaori, her only daughter, who had been two years old when they arrived.

However, her daughter had gone missing several months ago. It had happened while the road to Nyuutou Onsen was blocked off by a fallen tree that had come down in a huge typhoon, the scale of which had rarely been seen in recent years. Kaori had suddenly disappeared while Akiho was repairing the windowpanes that had been shattered by the storm.

Akiho had asked the police to search for her, but the damage from the typhoon had been so great that, as one problem led to another and another, the police had kept putting off the search effort.

They conducted a search once the road had been reopened, but they had found no trace of Akiho’s daughter.

These were all the details I could gather on the incident.

“I see…” I nodded to myself as I secretly watched Akiho laboring away.

The day the typhoon struck, the spirit realm and the human world must have become connected by rare chance. In other words, Kaori had been “spirited away.”

The spirit realm and the human world are separated by a single, thin wall. In many cases, humans have accidentally stepped into the spirit realm and gone missing. When this happens, the human world says they have been spirited away.

Famous legends of such incidents include Samuto no Baba of Iwate, who disappeared as a young girl and returned thirty years later as a Yamauba mountain witch… Oh yes, and speaking of Akita, there is the tale of the peasant Saku no Jou. A Tengu said it would show him the future and promptly returned him to the human world eighty years after the point from which he had been taken. Neither outcome was satisfactory.

That kid really was lucky.

Thinking of Kaori and remembering how, right about now, she was being pampered and snuggled, I flicked my tails.

Well, never mind her. That child is being protected by Shinonome. Her safety is guaranteed. That means she’s less of a problem than…her mother.

“Where on Earth have you wandered off to, Kaori-chan?” one of the other employees of the inn suddenly murmured as she was washing tableware in the sink.

Akiho, who had been chatting with her, stopped what she was doing and gave her a sweet, invigorated smile. “It’s all right. Kaori’s alive! She’s just a bit lost, that’s all.”

With that, she returned to her work. Her colleague smiled vaguely and went back to washing dishes too.

My heart hurts. What’s with this woman?

Did she have proof that her daughter was actually safe? Even though the girl had been missing for months now?

She’s not acting like a normal person. I wonder if she’s gone a little crazy from the shock of losing her daughter?

At any rate, this woman was certainly Kaori’s mother. Even to a cat, it was clear that her brownish hair and chestnut eyes were the spitting image of Kaori’s. So what I should do now is bring Kaori back here, I suppose. But…

“Ack…ack, hack…”

“Are you okay? Do you want to take a break?”

“I-I’m fine. My uncle will just get mad and tell me not to be such a baby.”

“But…”

Akiho’s colleague gazed sympathetically at her as Akiho continued to work, still coughing away.

This doesn’t look good.

It would have been so very easy to bring everything to a close at this moment. But I couldn’t bring myself to act.

“I have to make absolutely sure,” I muttered to myself.

Letting out a sigh from the depths of my being, I leapt nimbly down from the tree.

 

When the inn’s guests had eaten, and the employees had finished cleaning up, it was finally their break time. Akiho had worked without stopping since sunrise, and it seemed she was in the habit of returning to her own room for a light meal and a nap until it was time for her to clean the baths.

I followed stealthily behind her, deep into the innermost part of the building. Akiho’s room was several steps down from ground level; that had probably been arranged so it couldn’t be seen by guests. Concealed by a partition screen, it looked more timeworn than the rest of the building. The paper stretched across the sliding screen door was black with mold; the steps were warped and looked as if she might put her foot through them at any moment.

I don’t think that door was fitted right. And she’s left it open—how careless.

Slipping through the door, which was slightly ajar, I entered the room. Inside, it was terribly musty. I thought the tatami might be rotting too. There was too much give in it, which made it extremely hard to walk on.

“Strange.”

I stopped in a place that gave me a full view of the room, which wasn’t terribly big. It was a six-tatami-mat Japanese-style room. It had no other nooks apart from a closet, but I couldn’t see Akiho.

My fur stood on end as a feeling of discomfort ran through me. Just then, I sensed a presence behind me, and I whipped round.

“Kittyyyy!”

A figure filled my field of vision. It was Akiho, swooping down on me, her eyes so full of greed that they were practically spinning in their sockets. I was thrown into confusion—and completely forgetting that I was in the human world, I let out an undisguised shriek.

“Eeek! You weirdooo!”

This was how I encountered Kaori’s mother, Akiho. And this was my first impression of her: that she was a strange woman.

 

***

 

“My head hurts…”

“I bet it does.”

This was the first thing anyone had told Kaori about her mother. At first, Kaori’s eyes had sparkled, but as I went on with my tale, she looked more and more unwell.

“My mother… You’re certain that was my mother, right?”

“I haven’t checked the family register or anything, but I’m pretty sure.”

Kaori’s shoulders slumped in disappointment, and she began to pick at the tatami. She seemed to have created her own mental image of her mother; she couldn’t stomach the gap between that image and the reality.

“Well…it’s too bad that Akiho was a bit strange,” I said.

“Isn’t it terrible to talk about her like that?!”

“It’s a fact, so there’s no way round it,” I chuckled, watching Kaori. “But she wasn’t a bad mother.”

“O-oh?” Kaori flushed slightly at my words. She clutched her knees, burying her face in them. “So my father died? That’s a shame. But my mother…” Kaori whispered, as if she was digesting the news. She closed her eyes.

Kaori’s own roots were becoming clear. They would have a profound effect on her.

Humans change easily. The Kaori who knew about her mother would be a different person from the Kaori she had been until yesterday. I wondered how the information I was about to give her would transform her.

It will be all right, won’t it? She’s an adult now. She’ll be fine, even if I tell her everything, I persuaded myself, trying to dispel the anxiety swirling about in my mind.

Slowly, Kaori opened her eyes. “Nyaa-san? Um… If I had a mother, why didn’t I know about her?” she asked me hesitantly. “Perhaps she’s still alive somewhere? Or…”

Her lips tightened as if she were bracing herself for something, and she asked me one more question.

“Did something happen to my mother?”

Looking down at the brazier, I slowly picked up the story again.

 

***

 

“That was careless,” I scolded myself, holed up in the midst of a pile of zabuton in a corner of the room. Akiho was peeping through a gap in the zabuton, waving a cat toy to try and lure me out.

“Kitty… It’s amazing that you can speak! Won’t you talk to your big sister?”

“You’re not my big sister, you’re more like my aunt. In age, at least.”

“That’s harsh! But I get it.”

Tired of hiding, I turned defiant and started talking normally. Akiho cackled, drawing back the cat toy and holding something else out to me.

“Here you go—shrimp tempura. How’s that?”

I said nothing, but as the pleasant aroma wafted into my nostrils, I remembered that I hadn’t eaten in a while. At that moment, my stomach growled. I heaved a sigh. “That’s not fair…”

“You shouldn’t make fun of a human’s intelligence, you know.”

Although I was irritated by Akiho’s proud tone, I stuck my head out from the pile of zabuton. In front of my eyes was a small plate with tempura on it. I sank my teeth into it without hesitation.

But I immediately screwed up my face. “It’s cold.”

Having the tongue of a cat, I don’t eat piping hot food, but naturally I don’t go for cold tempura either.

When I complained about the hard coating and the oily texture, Akiho giggled and apologized. “It’s a guest’s leftovers. I’m sorry it’s not freshly cooked.”

“They make their employees eat food scraps at this inn?”

“Oh, no. It’s my choice—it saves on food expenses, you see. I’m a freeloader.”

Akiho bit into an even tougher-looking piece of sweet potato tempura. It didn’t look like it tasted very good. After eating a few bites, she put down her chopsticks.

“Don’t you have any money?” I asked pityingly.

Akiho gave a light laugh and shook her head. “I’m economizing. For the future.”

“All the same, what are you doing eating leftovers? Your husband died, right? Didn’t you get a life insurance payout or anything?”

“You know a lot about me, don’t you? Well… I did get quite a large sum. But a good friend of mine was having money troubles, so I lent it to them.”

“Have they paid any of it back?”

“No. We lost touch. I’m sure they’re busy.”

She’s such an easy mark… I was beginning to feel sorry for her instead of exasperated.

As I gazed at her, Akiho suddenly brought her face close to mine. Her eyes sparkled with all the curiosity of a child who had just discovered a new toy. “Hey. Never mind me—tell me about yourself! A talking cat? That’s amazing. And what’s more, you know about life insurance and everything, so you must be clever.”

Nimbly dodging the hand that Akiho stretched out toward me, I tried to change the subject. “There’s nothing much to tell.”

But Akiho didn’t give up. She sidled toward me. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll make up my own wild ideas. Ooh, perhaps you’re an extra-terrestrial? If I reported you to NASA, I’d get loads of money!”

A strange light shone in Akiho’s eyes. I broke out in a cold sweat. She’d just told me she didn’t have any money. I could hear her heavy breathing in my ears.

“Hey…wait. Calm down. You won’t get that money.”

“I could at least sell you to a circus. Right? Don’t you think?”

“Don’t ask me to agree with you! Are you stupid?!”

Akiho reached a hand toward me. I didn’t know what was going to happen if I didn’t do something. But she was Kaori’s mother; if I carelessly hit out at and injured her—

My thoughts went round and round in circles. My judgment was thoroughly unsound. Completely forgetting that I had sharp claws, I closed my eyes like a weak little kitten.

“Ack. Gack…”

But her hand never touched me. I could hear her coughing painfully. At the same time, a sweet smell drifted toward me, and I slowly opened my eyes.

A vivid liquid, the hue of ripe pomegranates, trickled through the gaps in Akiho’s fingers, dripping down and staining the worn-out tatami. Blood.

“Ack. Sorry, I got too excited…” Still coughing painfully, Akiho gave me an earnest smile.

I had no idea what kind of expression I should make.

Akiho lay down on the damp futon and flashed me another smile. “I’m sorry I startled you.”

“It’s okay,” I said, washing my face with my front paw.

“Any way you look at it, you just seem like a normal cat,” Akiho said curiously. “It’s strange. What are you, really?”

“Are you still thinking of selling me to NASA?”

“That was a joke. Or rather…” Akiho’s chestnut eyes half-closed as she smiled and said lightly, “I just wanted to check whether you were a shinigami.”

A god of death? Sucking in my breath, I looked hard at Akiho.

She’s awfully pale. And she looks gaunt, somehow. Kind of unappetizing. I bet she’s really thin underneath those clothes. She wouldn’t make a filling meal.

“Are you dying?” I went ahead and asked her.

Akiho looked straight at me. “Yes. I’m dying. I have terminal cancer.”

She said it so indifferently. A silence fell between us.

Akiho had lost her husband and been cheated out of his life insurance payout, and then—to crown her already dire circumstances—her daughter had gone missing. And she would be conscious of all this misfortune until her final hour.

What an unhappy, luckless, wretched life.

So why, despite this…are her eyes the only parts of her that aren’t dying?

I saw in them a fear that I didn’t understand. “Sorry, but I don’t do the tasteless work of collecting the souls of those who are about to die.” I said it jokingly, so she wouldn’t guess how my heart quaked.

Akiho looked disappointed. “That’s a shame.”

I cast a sidelong glance at the children’s toys that had been tidied away neatly in a corner of the room. “I’m just a spirit,” I said. “A cat spirit. Even so… There must be something wrong with you if you’re looking for a shinigami when you have a child.”

“I don’t think it’s that strange. I know that I’m dying, so I just wanted to know how long I have. I want to leave as much as I can for my child.”

“But I heard she’d gone missing?”

“You know a lot about me, don’t you?”

“Weren’t you handing out fliers?”

“Wow, so those fliers even reached monsters… That’s amazing!” Akiho suddenly brightened. Then she looked off into the distance and stroked her belly. “My daughter… She went missing the day the typhoon struck. You’d think I’d be in utter despair. Even my uncle got angry with me and told me to face the facts. But I know…she’s alive, somewhere, still.”

“Why do you think that?”

Akiho grinned, showing her white teeth. “Mother and child are connected by their bellies from the time of pregnancy onward. That’s how I know. The link between us hasn’t yet been cut.”

So, Akiho was absolutely confident that she would return.

“Instinct? You’re relying on something so uncertain?”

“The world is overflowing with more wonders than you could ever dream of. Look, even here.” Pointing at me, Akiho smiled impishly, like a child. I faltered, unsure of what to say; Akiho grinned proudly.

“You’re a strange woman…”

“I get that a lot.”

I had accidentally let my real feelings slip, but Akiho didn’t seem offended; she just coughed again.

Then, glancing at her watch, she began to grudgingly get up. “Oops, I was enjoying talking to you so much that I forgot. I have to go.”

“Where?”

“I’ve got cleaning to do. The baths, specifically—so the guests can have a nice dip first thing in the morning.”

“But you’re ill. Can’t you ask someone else to do it?”

“No. This is my job. If I slack off, they’ll dock my pay. My uncle’s very strict in that regard.” Akiho put on a hanten emblazoned with the name of the inn and staggered out of the room.

Seeing her so pitifully exhausted, I couldn’t help asking, “Look, if you try your hardest and then die straightaway, what’s the point of that?”

Akiho paused with her hand on the doorframe and turned to look back at me. “I don’t care whether I live or die. I’m a mother. I’m earning money solely for my child’s sake. She’ll never be happy without money in today’s world…” She smiled. “Hey, kitty. Will you come back again? This is the first time I’ve ever had a monster for a friend. It’s fun.”

Then, without waiting for my reply, she left the room.

 

Slipping out of Akiho’s room, I returned at once to the spirit realm.

A dry wind blew as I made my way through the town. I stopped in front of the bookstore, where the lamps were glowing. Pushing open the badly fitted glass door, I entered the shop and heard lively voices coming from the living room.

“Read more, Shimomome!”

“Okay, okay! Hey, sit down!”

“Kaori, would you like a treat? I bought sweet dumplings.”

“Yes! Thank you, Momame!”

When Kaori had first come to the spirit realm, she had done nothing but cry; but once I brought her here, she’d seemed to finally grow accustomed to it. Her innocent laughter betrayed not the slightest trace of gloom.

Heart sinking, I padded slowly into the living room.

Kaori spotted me at once and came rushing over. “Nyaa-cha—san!”

I swiftly stepped out of the way before she could hug me. Her chubby cheeks swelled up like a balloon.

“Why won’t you let her hug you?”

“Shut up, apothecary.” Glaring at Noname, I picked the softest, fluffiest zabuton and curled up on top of it.

As I did, Shinonome said nervously, “So, how did it go?”

“How did what go?”

“Finding Kaori’s mother!”

I cast a sidelong glance at an irritated Shinonome and let out a long sigh. Just as I made to inform him that I’d located Akiho, I was surprised by the words that came out of my mouth. “I haven’t found her yet. I’m still investigating.”

“O-oh, I see…” When Shinonome heard this, he relaxed, his expression softening with relief.

What an idiotic face he’s making. It’s really annoying—almost as if he’s glad that I haven’t found her. Normally, I would have yelled at him, but this wasn’t the time.

Wait—what am I thinking?!

If I reported that I’d found Kaori’s mother and took the kid back with me, all of this bother would be over, so why was I delaying? I couldn’t for the life of me understand it, and the confusion made my head spin.

“Hey, Shimomome. The book…”

“Gotcha. Which one should I read?”

Taking no notice of me, Shinonome lifted Kaori onto his lap and began to read to her. As I listened to his soothing voice, I frantically analyzed my own feelings.

It’s possible that I don’t want to give her back to her mother.

I was conscious of my attachment to Kaori. I wasn’t in as deep as Shinonome, though. So why…?

“I’m a mother.”

At that moment, I recalled Akiho’s words, and all at once I understood.

Say that I was Kaori’s mother—I’d want her to come back to me, wouldn’t I?

I remembered my own children, with whom I had parted a long time ago. That had been back before I became a spirit. There had been three of them, black kittens who were the spitting image of me. I believed that, as a parent and as a cat, I’d drilled the rules of survival into them. In my own way, I’d taken great pains to ensure that my children would have an easy life.

A mother’s children are her pride and joy. Although Kaori was not my child, I saw the traces of my own children in her, and I cherished her to the extent that I unconsciously wished for her to be happy.

So, those thoughts had come from the part of me that was a mother.

It was precisely because I had come to understand Akiho’s thoughts and decisions as a mother that I was now disinclined to return her little daughter to a place where she would certainly end up unhappy.

Where on Earth does happiness wait for this human girl?

Realizing this, I spontaneously threw a question Kaori’s way. “Hey, Kaori, Are you happy?”

Kaori tipped her head suddenly to one side. “What does ‘happy’ mean?” she asked, entirely uncomprehending.

“Being able to eat your fill—or have a good sleep. Enjoying yourself. That kind of thing.”

That was what happiness was for cats, anyway.

“Hmm.” Kaori tilted her head, still puzzled. The next moment, her expression brightened suddenly. “The rice here is warm and tasty. You don’t have to add tea to it.”

“Tea? Why would you have to add tea to your rice?”

“Well…” In clumsy words, Kaori explained to me.

Apparently it wasn’t just Akiho who’d eaten leftovers at the inn. At that place, their meals were almost always cold, and if too much time had passed, they often solidified. In order to make them pleasant to eat, Akiho used tricks like pouring hot tea over the rice.

“And when I’m sleeping, cold wind doesn’t come through like whoosh. I love having tons of books to read. But…I get lonely sleeping without Mama.” Kaori’s shoulders drooped dejectedly, and she dragged her toes over the floor. Tears welled up in her eyes. She was trying desperately not to cry.

“What kind of environment was this child brought up in…?” Noname murmured.

“It sounds awful…” Shinonome agreed.

They cast their eyes downward, their faces grave.

Sighing, I asked Kaori another question. “Do you…love your Mama?”

Kaori beamed like a flower bursting into bloom, and said clearly, “Yep. Very much!”

“Uh-huh.” Bracing myself with that single word, I left the bookstore.

“Hey, what’s going on? What was with those questions? That’s not like you,” Shinonome called out, frantically rushing after me.

Glancing behind me, I saw Kaori sticking her head out of the bookstore’s porch, looking worried.

“That kid will catch a cold. Humans are much frailer than spirits. Go back to her.”

“But…”

I clicked my tongue at the flustered Shinonome. Turning my back on him, I said as if delivering a monologue, “Leave everything to me, and you look after her. Everything I’m doing is for the best.”

Shinonome was silent for a few moments before finally opening his mouth. “I’m counting on you.”

At the sound of his profoundly frail voice, I instinctively looked behind me. My eyes went wide with astonishment.

What’s going on?

Shinonome was bowing his head.

A single, carefree spirit who does as he pleases, emotionally invested in someone enough to bow to them?!

“Good grief.” Smiling slightly, I shook my head. “You’re quite moved, aren’t you. Despite being a spirit.”

He stiffened. “Th-there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ve become fond of her.”

I turned my back on Shinonome again and looked up at the sky. “You’re just like her father, you know.”

Then I headed off toward the human world. Who knows what expression Shinonome was making at that moment, but I thought idly that it was probably absolutely pitiful.

 

A week after that, I was once more in northern Akita Prefecture, around Lake Tazawa, where winter had come early. In a flash, the trees that had been dyed by the reddening of their leaves finished their preparations for winter; white snowflakes began to flutter down from the sky, and it became so cold that to be touched by the air outside was painful.

In the midst of this, deep in the mountains at the dead of night, when the breaths I sighed out froze in the air, I met with Kawa-akago.

“Thanks to you, Cat-neesan, I haven’t finished preparing for winter yet… Good grief.”

“Never mind that. Just tell me.”

“Yes, yes. You’re scary when you get angry, Neesan, so I’ll inform you right away.”

At some point during our many meetings, Kawa-akago had branded me “sister,” and it had stuck. He rubbed his hands together, which looked like autumn leaves, and began to speak.

“I had a Kodama-nezumi look into the Hot Spring of Dreams.”

Kodama-nezumi are another kind of spirit from Akita. They take the round form of a house mouse, and they’re said to explode with a pop when the mountain gods are angry. It’s also said that some Matagi hunters turned into these spirits. They’re quite good at acting in secret.

Kawa-akago shook his head with a look of disgust. “The couple who run it aren’t human. They’re demons. Demons!”

“What do you mean? Don’t tell me they’re actually spirits.”

“It would be more fitting if they were! That woman, Akiho or whatever her name is, is ill, and she doesn’t have long left. The managers have already put in the paperwork to officially adopt her missing daughter.”

“Isn’t that natural? Someone needs to look after her once she’s found.”

“Well, that would be fine. Except they’ve taken away Akiho’s bank book on the pretext that they’ll be looking after her daughter after she dies. What’s more, they’ve already started using her accounts.”

“What did you say?”

Kawa-akago gave me a bitter smile that didn’t suit his round face. “It seems the business of running the inn isn’t going well,” he said, disgusted. “They’re making up their debt with Akiho’s savings.”

“That’s outrageous.”

I was already speechless, but Kawa-akago wasn’t finished.

“I want you to check this yourself, sister… I have a feeling that they were involved in the missing child case too.”

“Really?!” I pressed him, agitated.

Flinching slightly, he gave me a tight smile. “Check it yourself. Your complaints are going to be unbearable if I’m wrong.”

“Check it? What should I do?”

“According to Kodama-nezumi, on the day when that typhoon wind was howling, the woman was absolutely beside herself. Look—it was a day like today.”

At that moment, a wind so violent that it almost choked us gusted past. The trees shook, and everything around us grew turbulent. The silhouettes of the trees, illuminated by the starlight, writhed like monsters and seemed to sneer at us for being in the mountains in the dead of winter.

I gulped and listened intently to what Kawa-akago said.

“Go and look from under the floorboards in their bedroom. I bet you’ll get a nasty surprise.”

Nodding quietly, I rushed off through the howling wind toward the Hot Spring of Dreams.

 

I’m glad the snow hasn’t settled everywhere yet.

Crawling beneath the floorboards, enduring not only piles of dust and rubbish but the cold air that threatened to freeze me solid—and hardly able to bear the fact that the fur I was so proud of was getting dirty—I got into place and slowly closed my eyes.

Directly above me was the room where the couple who managed the inn lived. At present, it was a scene of complete carnage.

“Cut it out! It wouldn’t help even if you died!”

“No… Please don’t stop me! I can see the child. She’s coming for me!”

“There’s no one there. Get a hold of yourself!”

My face stiffened at the painful sound of a sharp slap. The man had hit his wife, perhaps to bring her to her senses. But far from stopping, his wife’s wailing only grew more intense.

“Arghh! I told you I hated it. Having a dying woman with a kid sponging off us. Scheming for the sake of a little money. This is all your fault. You’re the one who dragged me into it!”

“B-but we had no choice. This inn is all we have. If it went bankrupt, we’d be out on the streets. I did it because it was the only way for us to survive. Even you should be able to understand that!”

“But…a child…!”

“Shut up.”

As soon as the woman spoke that word, the man lowered his voice.

“What would happen if someone overheard us? We have guests, you know.”

“I-I’m sorry, dear…” the woman apologized timidly, seemingly coming to her senses. But unable to bear everything that was stored up in her heart, she began to cry bitterly. “I can’t forget pushing that child in. She was only three! She was too young to understand what was happening, and she struggled so fiercely. I-I put my hands around her slender neck…and I let her fall. Her small body, buffeted about by the wild river—until she disappeared from sight.”

“Never mind that. Get some sleep. You must be tired, huh?”

“I can still feel her in my hands… Oh, my dear, what can I do to be forgiven? Listen to how the wind howls. I can hear her screams in the sound of the wind…”

“No one’s going to forgive us. Not me, not you. Raising a child costs money. We couldn’t look after her. We just sent her on ahead to where her mother’s going. They’ll live quite happily in the next world…”

“Adopting her, even though we had no intention of bringing her up… What an unlucky pair they are.”

Once I’d heard all this, I left my spot under the floorboards.

Unbearable nausea surged through me, fueled by a dreadful rage.

Dashing through the garden, which at some point had been covered by a thin layer of snow, I crouched at the base of a tree. Everything in my stomach came roiling back up, and I vomited then and there.

What did I hear just now? Was it the truth? Calling those two “human” is a joke. Evil spirits, or man-eating rakshasa… I’m sure there’s been a mistake, and they’re one of the two.

I gasped.

Oh, I get it now.

In that moment, a question I had pondered for many years was answered.

Amongst the spirits, not an inconsiderable number were once human. The reason for this was a mystery to me. How could any human, who had lived in such a bright world up until the moment of their death, become a spirit?

But now I was sure of my answer. If you tore through the thin layer of a human’s skin, no matter what kind of human they were, you would find them packed with something dark and sticky. Muddy, thick. Every one of them carried within them a substance that no light could pass through.

And if for some reason a human became completely steeped in that ichor…they would be forever transformed into something else, something even uglier than a demon.

“Kitty?”

“Gah!”

At that moment, someone called out to me, startling me so much that I almost jumped into the air.

After schooling myself, I looked slowly behind me. I saw a face I recognized—but when I thought of how she must be struggling, I honestly wasn’t thrilled to be reunited with her.

“Have you come to visit me again?”

Yeah, she’s even thinner than she was a week ago.

Akiho stood before me. She was still steadily advancing toward the abyss of death, and she shone dimly pale in the starlight, wearing a faint smile.

 

Beckoning me into her musty room, she looked relieved as she told me that there were no reservations at the inn the next day. “That means I can do building repairs. There’s a lot that needs reinforcing before the snow really starts to pile up. I have to eat lots to keep my strength up—so that I’ll be all right whenever Kaori comes back.”

Akiho didn’t seem to get any days off. It was pitiful to see her chewing on a slightly bigger portion of cold rice than usual, telling me that she had to do manual labor come sunrise.

“I’m glad I got to see you again. There are so many mysterious things that we only get to encounter once, aren’t there? I did worry that we might never meet a second time.”

I stared at Akiho in silence as she spoke happily to me.

She stopped trying to pick up a piece of daikon radish and put her chopsticks down. “Hey, kitty.”

Her next words were terribly quiet. Yet her eyes, underscored by circles that were even darker than before, were as peaceful as a waveless ocean.

“I think there’s a meaning to our meeting.” Akiho turned so that she was facing me directly, and she peered straight into my eyes. “Forgive me if I’m wrong… But you know where Kaori is, don’t you?”

At that moment, the wind howled. As if in response, the worn building trembled, and the windows rattled loudly.

I sighed. “How did you find me out? Did I say something weird?”

Akiho frowned, troubled, then spoke with great anticipation. “You…didn’t deny it. That’s how. I think you know where Kaori is, and that’s why you came to see me.”

“Give up. Face the facts.”

The people around Akiho had cruelly flung those words at her. Because of that, she had realized the truth simply from the fact that I deliberately hadn’t denied them.

I let my guard down.

I was pained by the thought of my own stupidity, but when I remembered that I had come with the intention of telling her about Kaori, my attitude shifted. It was just coming out a bit sooner than I had planned.

“You’re right. Kaori is…with an acquaintance of mine. In the spirit realm—a world crawling with monsters like me.”

The sparkle returned to Akiho’s eyes. Her ashen face regained its color; she opened and closed her mouth as if she couldn’t properly form words, and her eyes blurred with tears. “I-I knew she was alive! Is she well? Is Kaori well?!”

“She’s alive. She’s living a happy life in a much better environment than this.”

“Ohhh…God…!” Akiho trembled with joy.

In contrast, my heart felt totally frozen. Then I said the cruelest possible thing. “Sorry, but I’m not giving her back.”

“Huh?”

“She was given to me. I’ve taken a liking to her. She’s mine.”

Akiho’s expression suddenly changed, suddenly furious as she shouted. “Why?! What for?!” She pressed me frantically, flaring up as if she’d quite forgotten my uncanny appearance. There was no trace of her former calm. “Kaori is my child, my precious, only daughter! So give her back. Please, kitty! Give her back to me… She’s not a toy. She’s not something you can be given…”

As Akiho pleaded with me through tears, telling me that Kaori was her reason for living, her treasure, I stared coldly at her.

“I don’t want to,” I said. “It wouldn’t be good to bring her back here.”

“Wh-what?”

“What do you intend to happen to your child after you die?” I asked.

Regaining a little of her composure, Akiho glared at me. “Of course I’ve made preparations. The couple who manages this inn will look after her. I’ve even given them money for it. And my life insurance payout… That won’t amount to much, but they’ll use it for Kaori’s sake. So she’ll be all right. Now please, give Kaori back to me.”

“Hmm. Hey, have you checked the contents of the bank accounts you left them in charge of?”

“What?” Akiho blinked, staring at me in puzzlement.

I ground the point home. “I said, have you checked your balance?”

“Um… Well, I handed my cash card and my bank book over to my uncle.”

“So you wouldn’t know if they’ve taken money out of your accounts, then.”

“What do you mean?” Akiho went pale before my eyes.

“That couple. They’re embezzling your savings,” I said mercilessly.

“You’re lying. That’s impossible…” Akiho’s gaze roamed frantically, unable to settle.

I stretched my body and whispered ominously in her ear, as if to deliberately stir her unease. “So you don’t want to believe it? What a fool you are, trusting monsters like them. If you’re a mother, face the facts. Look…” I glanced around the little room and let out a sharp sigh. “Given the way those two treat you, you don’t seriously think they care about you, do you?”

“Um…” Akiho swallowed her words.

I flicked my tail from side to side. “Your husband is dead, and the only relatives you have to rely on are those people. Your best friend is never going to pay you back. You’re going to die any day now. I’ll ask you one more time: What do you intend to happen to Kaori?”

“Look…” The shock of the truth about her uncle and his wife had smashed Akiho’s confidence to pieces.

But I don’t think I’ll reveal who’s responsible for Kaori’s disappearance.

That would be too dangerous. I had a feeling that if Akiho found out the truth, the tranquil woman I knew would vanish, and she would transform instead into some kind of wrathful deity like a Shura.

A child is more important than anything to a mother, and if she finds out someone has hurt them, she cannot remain as she is.

I looked up at Akiho, who was white as a sheet as she hung her head. We had only just met one another, but for some reason, I liked this human.

“This is the first time I’ve ever had a monster for a friend. It’s fun.”

Akiho had spoken those words with such nonchalance. Perhaps she had even been happy.

Well, Akiho. Have you thought about it? Have you realized what you need to do in order for Kaori to be happy? The biggest obstacle in her clear path to happiness…is you, her mother.

Akiho still stood there, pale and silent, her eyes downcast. Her tightly clenched fists trembled slightly, and she bit her lip so hard it had gone white.

I began to speak to her, careful to use a gentle tone. To an onlooker, it would probably have seemed like the murmurings of a devil. But I am a spirit—an inhuman monster—so they wouldn’t necessarily have been wrong.

“There are entities in the spirit realm who’ve grown fond of the child. They can take care of all her needs without a problem. They can give her warm rice to eat instead of leftovers, and they can prepare a bed for her that isn’t cold. Hey, Akiho, you’re Kaori’s mother. What do you think?”

I deliberately emphasized the word.

Carefully thinking through my next words, I asked, “Despite all that, do you want to spend the short time before your death with your child?”

If I do return Kaori to Akiho… The time leading up to Akiho’s death will be irreplaceably precious. Maybe Akiho will even be able to die without regrets.

But what would become of Kaori when she was left behind? What could Akiho bequeath to her? The only thing left for that sweet, innocent child would be her mother’s cold corpse.

At that moment, I realized that Akiho’s shoulders were shivering slightly. The tremors grew bigger and bigger until at last they were joined by a laugh that startled me.

“Ha…ha ha…”

“Akiho?” I asked, concerned that she had finally lost it.

In the next moment, Akiho looked up with a gentle, exhausted smile. “Thanks for everything, kitty.”

“Why are you thanking me? Idiot,” I snapped. That’s not what you say to someone who’s trying to steal your child!

Akiho was such a soft touch, it was disconcerting.

She picked up a book in the corner of the room. “I’ve loved books for a long time.”

I cocked my head at this abrupt, meaningless statement.

Akiho stroked the cover. “This book is Kaori’s favorite,” she said as she showed it to me. “She loves stories, just like me. I’ve read it to her over and over…”

It was a children’s picture book, a famous one about mouse brothers who work together to make a pancake. The cover depicted two mice who looked like they got along well.

The book was slightly dirty all over, and it was crawling with fingerprints. The cover was ripped, and I could see where it had been repaired with tape. Many of the pages were torn as well. I could tell that it had been read many times.

“I used to imagine it all the time before I got married, you know—reading my child all sorts of stories, and putting together fine bookshelves for her, and choosing books together with her before she went to bed…”

A single tear dropped onto the book.

Akiho’s lip wobbled, and she continued in a hoarse voice. “But then my husband died, and money became tight. I couldn’t afford to buy books. That…was when I realized it for the first time. Books are a luxury. Here, deep in the mountains, we can’t even go to a library. Reading itself became difficult…”

She gripped the book tightly. Perhaps it was a side effect of her medication, but her nails were ragged and black, as if they were stained with ink.

“When I’d read the same book to her over and over, even Kaori said she was getting fed up with it. She wanted a new one. But I couldn’t buy it for her. I couldn’t…buy her anything at all.”

Crouching down, she let out a tearful wail. “Why am I so useless…?!”

Akiho’s face screwed up in pain, and gazing up at the empty sky, she continued through her tears. “Even my late husband used to say that to me. You’re too trusting, he told me. But I can be suspicious of people too. The best friend who started talking to me as soon as I received the payout… I thought she might never pay me back. And I thought it was suspicious when my uncle and his wife wouldn’t return my bank book. But…”

Her chestnut eyes were wet. In an instant, there were more tears than her eyes could hold, and they slipped down her gaunt cheeks and onto her clothes, where the drops burst and disappeared.

“I knew how kind, how good they could all be. So I didn’t want to think that they might be tricking me. But people change when money is involved. I understood that, even though no one told me. It was obvious.”

At that moment, Akiho began to cough terribly; merely breathing seemed to hurt her. When the cough subsided, she gazed at the hand that had been covering her mouth and muttered, “I’m alone, going around in circles, wringing my own neck, and there’s no way out. I’m such a fool. I always make the wrong choices. Before I became a parent, I used to think that I wasn’t fit to be a person. Argh…”

Akiho looked at me with a feeble smile. “I wanted to have been born a cat, you know. Lying in a sunny spot, napping to my heart’s content… To curl up and sleep in what seemed to be the symbol of happiness. Not having a trace of worry…”

Akiho’s hand was brightly stained with blood. Her expression tightened, and, as if she were at her wits’ end, she asked me, “My child really…really is living a good life, without too much or too little of anything, isn’t she?”

I nodded vigorously. “With an eccentric but trustworthy guy,” I reassured her, speaking with conviction.

But Akiho looked like a lost child. “No. I don’t believe any of it. I’d hate myself.” She crouched down, clutching her knees.

I frantically suppressed the laugh that was about to burst out of me. “Idiot. If you start talking about believing me in this situation, there’s no help for you.”

“I-I guess.” Akiho gazed at me, her eyes overflowing with tears, and sighed. “Kitty, you’re so kind and gentle. If I can, I want to trust you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” My gaze darted about, and I hastily turned my back on Akiho. My heart felt restless. A faint warmth was spreading out from my stomach, and my head was light. Come to think of it, this is probably the longest I’ve spent with a human in a long time.

My heart suddenly ached as I realized that it felt like returning to the time when I was just a cat.

At some point, I had started living separately from humans.

In the past, I’d harbored genuine affection for the people who looked after me, and I’d enjoyed being pet. But once I became a spirit, I’d forgotten that before I realized it, and I’d become convinced that I had to live alone.

That sensation of entrusting someone with my heart and being entrusted with theirs. I had missed it so much.

As I woke once more to this curious kindness, I turned to Akiho.

“I guess I have no choice.” I shook myself lightly, letting power flow through my whole body. Then, with a creaking sound, I grew. I grew and grew until I had transformed to the size of a tiger and was wreathed in flames. In that shape, I loomed over Akiho and brought my face close to hers. “In which case, I’ll let you trust me. Come with me.”

“Kitty… You really were a monster…” Akiho blurted out stupidly.

As my pins and needles wore off, I brought my body low to the ground and urged her onto my back. “My moods shift quickly, you know. Get on quick, before I change my mind.”

“B-but… The bathroom cleaning…”

“Listen, is there really any need for you to fulfill your duties toward the pieces of crap embezzling your money?” I glared sidelong at Akiho.

“Pfft,” she snorted, supremely amused. “There isn’t, is there?” With that, Akiho excitedly put on her coat and wound her scarf about her neck. She spoke eagerly, her eyes shining with childlike curiosity as she climbed onto my back. “Come to think of it, riding on the back of a giant animal was a dream of mine.”

“I’m glad your dream came true, then.”

I sighed inwardly at how light she was in comparison to the size of my body, then flew out of the open window.

“Whoa. We’re flying!”

Kicking the air, I raced through the winter sky. As the freezing air wrapped itself around my whole body, I found myself longing for a warm room. But Akiho didn’t seem to care.

“It’s like swimming in an ocean of stars…” she murmured as if she were dreaming, and she gazed in fascination at the winter sky, totally absorbed in the sight.

 

The whole time we were on the move, Akiho was in high spirits.

As we passed through the scorching heat of hell, she yelled, “It’s hot!” and waved at each of the demons we passed. When we reached the spirit realm, she stared in wonder at the glimmerflies who flocked to her, and she let out a sigh at the old townscape that emanated a sense of history.

“Come to think of it, I haven’t even been on any trips recently…”

I don’t really know whether or not Akiho understood the situation that she was in, but she seemed to enjoy the journey.

We landed on the roof of the building in front of the bookstore, and I made the flames around my body flicker so as to hide Akiho’s presence.

“Here?”

“That’s right, this is where Kaori is.”

Akiho’s expression grew serious, and she hid in my shadow as she gazed at the building, which seemed more worn than its neighbors.

“Books for loan…” She stared at the sight beyond the glass door. Seeing the rows of books all lined up, she let out a hot breath of surprise.

That’s when it happened.

“Waaaaahhh…”

The voice of a child crying emerged from the bookstore, along with the extremely flustered voice of a man. No sooner had we heard a hurried clattering than Shinonome stumbled out of the shop, dressed in a large hanten.

“Kaori!” Akiho gasped at the sight of her daughter crying in Shinonome’s hanten, and she started to climb down from my back.

“What do you intend to do?” I asked as I stopped her.

Frowning in pain, Akiho reluctantly sat down again, resigning herself to intently watching Kaori and Shinonome.

“Waaaugh!” In the meantime, Kaori continued to cry, red-faced. She seemed to be throwing a tantrum. “Mamaaaaaaa! Mamaaa!”

She missed her mother. She stretched out her little hands and screamed.

As she watched, Akiho clasped her hands together so tightly it looked painful. “It’s no good. When she gets like this, there’s nothing to be done. If I don’t hug her, she’ll cry forever. Aaghh…”

Akiho wanted to hold Kaori right that instant. She fidgeted, unable to settle. But if she went over to Kaori now, everything would be ruined. She had to hold on.

Kaori’s cries echoed through the silent spirit realm town. It seemed as if she would go on crying forever. Just as I was growing irritated, Shinonome finally moved.

“Argh, damn it. I’m sorry, I’m lousy at comforting you.” With clumsy movements, Shinonome hugged Kaori tightly and patted her on the back. “Was this it? Let’s see…”

Clearly nervous, he started to rock her rhythmically.

To and fro, to and fro. To and fro, to…and fro, to…and…fro…

Had someone taught him how to comfort a baby? Rocking her irregularly, he brought his mouth close to Kaori’s ear. “Don’t cry,” he said gently. “Don’t cry, it’s all right.” Closing his eyes slowly, he continued to speak to her, all quiet and calm. “There’s nooothing to worry about. I’m here. I’m here…”

But she wasn’t going to stop crying all at once. As Kaori sobbed, he kept on talking to her, ever so patient.

It went on like this for a good while.

At last, Kaori stopped crying and looked up at Shinonome, her eyes sore and red. He seemed sincerely relieved. The corners of his eyes crinkled as he smiled, overjoyed.

“Good girl. You’re a good girl, Kaori.”

As he turned and walked back toward the bookstore entrance, he spoke in a lively tone. “How about I read you a book? I’ll tuck you up in your futon and read you any one you like. How about it?”

Kaori’s face brightened at once. “The mouse book!” she said energetically. “The one where they bake pancakes.”

“That one, huh? You really love that book, don’t you, Kaori?”

“Yeah!”

Smiling at each other, they disappeared back inside the shop. The sliding door banged shut behind them, and the spirit realm returned to silence once more.

The glimmerflies flitted lightly around us. I followed them with my eyes as they gave off their bright light, and I nestled close to Akiho, whose shoulders shook silently. Akiho hugged me tightly to her. Hot tears dripped down her face and slid off my coat.

As I turned my gaze up at the red sky over the spirit realm, I said, as if to myself, “My children became independent more quickly.”

A frail voice replied. “We’re not like cats… It takes longer for humans to become independent.”

Smiling a little, I continued to talk to myself. “There’s no need to be the same as everyone else. I don’t really mind. What’s certain is that Akiho, a human, did a splendid job of raising that child until now. You really did your best.”

Akiho gasped, upset. She hugged me even more tightly and said in a shaky voice, “Even so, I wanted to be a mother… I still wanted to watch over her…”

Lifting her head, she looked up at the red sky, so different from the one over the human world.

“I wanted to be at her side when she was having a rough time. I wanted to praise her when she did well. I wanted to rejoice as she grew. I wanted to cook her delicious meals. Whether we were laughing or crying, even if we were suffering or sad, I wanted to be with her!”

Tears fell from those eyes, which looked so like Kaori’s.

“My life has been nothing but mistakes. Why…do I have to die? Why do I have to die and leave behind my lovely daughter…?!”

Akiho wailed over her own misfortune. With a desperate expression, she turned to me and pleaded. “Kitty, become her mother in my place.”

“Akiho…”

“Look, please. Make her happy. Protect her. It might be absurd for me to ask this of you so soon after meeting you, but there’s no one else I can ask… I’m begging you!”

Distracted by her fleeting tears, which disappeared as they fell, I shook my head slightly.

“I can’t. I’m a cat. She’s a human. There’s no way to change that.”

“That’s a stupid way of looking at things. I’m desperate! Why?! Surely you can grant the wish of a dying woman?!” Akiho threw a tantrum just like Kaori had before her.

I sighed and licked her face.

“Ack!” At the touch of my tongue, which was not only rough like any cat’s but significantly larger, Akiho’s whole body broke out in goosebumps, and she froze, her face stiffening.

I put my forehead against hers and spoke slowly. “No one else is her mother. You are.”

Flinching, Akiho drew into herself. “Then what should I do?” she asked, her voice shaking slightly. “I want to do something for her, but I’m good for nothing!” She hung her head.

I nuzzled my forehead against hers. When she looked up, I gazed straight at her and smiled. “I’ll…become Kaori’s friend.”

Akiho’s eyes went wide with surprise.

“When someone has neither parents nor siblings, the closest person to them is a friend. I’ll be by her side.” I blinked slowly. “It’s all right—I’m a spirit. Unlike humans, we’re not dazzled by money.”

When I alluded to the people who had betrayed her, Akiho looked at me in amazement for a moment before immediately crumpling back into tears. Burying her face in my fur, she said weakly, “Really?”

“I don’t lie.”

“You have to promise me!”

“I promise. I’ll be by her side until the day she dies. So that she isn’t unhappy. So that she can always wear a smile like a ray of sunshine. Because that child…” I hesitated for a moment and looked away. “…Is the precious child of my friend.”

“Huh?!”

When I’d said what I wanted to say, I took Akiho by the scruff of the neck and tossed her up onto my back.

“Eep! Wh-what? What’s this?”

Checking to make sure that Akiho was clinging to my back, I soared up into the night sky, brooking no argument.

The ground fell away, and the stars grew closer. Accompanied by the glowing butterflies that had gathered around us, attracted by Akiho’s human scent, I rushed up through the sky. At last, when the houses of the spirit realm were no larger than grains of rice, I stopped climbing.

“Kitty? Wh-where are we going?!”

“Who knows?”

“Are we going back to my uncle’s inn…?” she asked in a frightened voice.

I grinned impishly. “Oh, did you want to go back?”

Akiho shook her head vigorously. “Now that I’ve made sure that Kaori’s safe, I never want to see those thieves ever again.” Drawing in a great, deep breath, she yelled, “I won’t stand for being exploited anymore! I’m not a slave!”

“That’s the spirit!”

Smiling, I steered to the south and began to fly in that direction. “Hey, Akiho. In that case, let me spirit you away.”

“Huh?” she said stupidly.

“If you haven’t got long left, I’ll keep you company until then. You haven’t been on a trip recently, right? Don’t you want to go somewhere you’ve never been? I’ll take you with me. I’ll stay with you on your deathbed. And…” I paused for a moment, considering. But I’m a spirit, so I soon picked up where I’d left off. “I’ll eat your remains.”

“Agh!”

I could tell Akiho was perturbed, but I carried on, as if indifferent.

“Did you know? There’s only one way spirits can hold a funeral service for someone. While mourning their death and looking back over the time we spent together, we take their remains into ourselves. By eating their bones and flesh, we carve their feelings into our own. That’s why I’ll eat you. That way, your thoughts and wishes will be by Kaori’s side.”

She might refuse. I had said it all in the space of one breath, and I felt a slight sense of regret.

I knew that, according to human sensibilities, such an act was unthinkable. Although I had done my best to choose pleasant-sounding words, there was a high chance that Akiho would be viscerally unable to accept. If that happened, there was nothing I could do. I let out a slightly self-deprecating laugh and awaited Akiho’s reply.

But she confounded all my expectations. I’d forgotten. That’s right—this woman is strange!

“That’s amazing! All right!” Akiho cried excitedly, throwing her arms around my neck with all her strength. “I was so angry with my uncle and his wife. Seeing how they’ve been carrying on, I’m sure they’re planning to steal my own life insurance. I’ll be spirited away. That way, they won’t be able to confirm my death within the seven-year limit, and there won’t even be a payout! Serves them right!”

Akiho scrambled up onto my back. Climbing up toward my neck, she dangled down, almost covering my face. Just as I was about to complain that what she was doing was dangerous and she needed to stop, Akiho entered my line of sight and smiled as brightly as the sun.

“This way, no one will mourn my death. Kitty, you’ve done nothing but help me. Thank you so much…”

Once again, she began to cry big round tears. As they were blown away by the cold winter wind, her tears took in the light of the glimmerflies flitting around us and reflected the red sky of the spirit realm. They gleamed a deep scarlet and looked just like rubies. Those tears, which held within them blood and heat and all the radiance of life, shone more nobly than any tears I had yet seen as they streamed out behind us on the wind.

Aahhh! How—how pretty they are…!

In a wink, I found myself fascinated with them. I smiled. “No need to thank me. Well, shall we go? We don’t have much time. There must be many things in this world that you’ve never seen before, Akiho.”

“Yep!”

We flew against the whistling wind through the spirit realm sky. Kicking at the air, I aimed for the stars and the moon as I bounded along. With each leap, Akiho smiled, and I triumphantly leapt even farther next time.

Akiho gazed ecstatically at the scene below us and at the butterflies that surrounded her. “Kitty, the world is beautiful… It’s so lovely! I want to show it to Kaori too, someday!”

“It’s all right, just leave it to me. I’ll absolutely show it to her.”

“Hey, kitty. Come to think of it, what’s your name?” Akiho asked me merrily.

I pondered for a moment before I told her. And when I did…

“Nyaa! What a lovely name. It might not be for long, but I’m looking forward to spending time with you, Nyaa-chan!” Akiho said, gazing happily at the moon that hung suspended in the sky.

It’s a cold, cold winter’s night. Being a cat, I’ve had enough of the cold.

But that day alone, the cold was surprisingly pleasant.

We were feverish with excitement about all the things we hadn’t yet seen. The sky through which I flew, my irreplaceable friend on my back, helped to cool us down.

 

***

 

Oh, Kaori’s crying.

She wept in a manner that was much more mature than she had as a child. She knew her mother’s fate now.

What had Akiho said then? Oh, right.

“If I don’t hug her, she’ll cry forever,” she had restlessly told me.

I wonder if Kaori can stop crying by herself these days…

This reaction was probably from the shock of her mother’s death. When Kaori had finished listening to my tale, she had suddenly hugged me and begun to cry. To a certain extent, I’d expected this—I was speaking about her mother, after all—but it seemed like she was going to need some time to accept my words as fact.

The warmth of her body heat enveloped me as I continued in a matter-of-fact tone. “After that, I went on a journey with Akiho. We traveled all over the place. In the spirit realm, and in the human world too. Akiho’s condition wasn’t good, but we didn’t stop until the end.”

In the meantime, Akiho told me about herself: her memories of her childhood, the things she had studied at school, what she liked these days, what she had liked in the past, things she enjoyed, her first love, how she met her late husband, the time she had first held Kaori…

That had been Akiho’s life. A warm, happy, painful, lonely, very normal life, with all its ups and downs. I’m sure those were the parts of herself that she had wanted to leave to Kaori, and they’d come from the heart. Everything Akiho said to me in those days was for Kaori.

As soon as I realized that, I engraved it all in my memory so that I wouldn’t forget even a single word.

“Akiho told me…that someday, when you were an adult, Kaori, and your heart had grown strong enough to accept such things, she wanted me to tell you about her.” I smiled awkwardly as I spoke to Kaori, who was still crying. “I’m sorry for not saying anything until now. I stole your mother from you.”

I’d meant well. I’d thought, at the time, that this was the right answer. But now, I thought my judgment might have been mistaken. I’d never guessed how much it would trouble Kaori to know nothing about her birth mother.

It’s all my fault. I should have returned you to the human world, even if it was only for a while. That way, Kaori might have had some memories of her mother. If my intuition had been a little more human, I would never have made such a mistake.

In the end, however hard I might try to change my ways, I was still a spirit. And Kaori was a human.

“It’s all right for you to resent me,” I said. “I don’t even mind if you hate me. But even so, I can’t stop watching over you, Kaori. I’m sorry. I made a promise to my friend.”

An important promise, one I couldn’t break.

Whatever Kaori might think of me, I have a duty to protect her until her dying day.

Slipping out of Kaori’s arms, I tried to leave the room; I thought that the two of us would need some time to reconcile.

But she immediately embraced me from behind, stopping me in my tracks.

“Kaori?”

Until this point, Kaori had only cried and said nothing. Now she finally spoke. “Nyaa…san. What did…my mother say?”

“Huh?”

“At the end…did my mother leave any words for me?”

My chest clenched painfully as I remembered Akiho’s last moments.

Her life had only lasted for a few months after that fateful night. She’d passed away before the spring arrived, and as I’d promised, I ate her. Because of that, Akiho’s feelings still slept within me.

I sat down where I was. Outside the window, a great moon hung in the winter sky. Gazing at it, I released the feelings that drifted in the depths of my being as if in a tranquil ocean.

“Kaori,” I said, speaking the words my friend had spoken at the moment of her death. It was as if Akiho herself were calling the name of the daughter who was more precious to her than anything.

She’d spoken gently, infusing each individual word with love, like the wind that invites the spring into the chilly winter.

“Kaori…be happy.”

In the back of my mind, I could see Akiho’s face, peaceful in death. She had breathed her last as if she were sleeping. She had been so thin that, in comparison, her sorry state when I first met her had been the bloom of health. But she had kept smiling until the very end.

“Please, be happier than anyone…”

I’m not asking for much. I just want her to live a life of contentment. That was Akiho’s last wish. And now…it was my wish.

“Uh-huh,” said Kaori, and nothing more. Sniffling, she hugged me tightly and rubbed her cheek against mine.

“Hey, Kaori. Aren’t you angry?” I asked.

“Why should I be angry? I don’t really see the need.” Kaori wore an ambivalent expression that could have been either laughing or crying, and she shed lovely tears, like gemstones. “All I know from what you’ve just told me is that I’ve been loved by many, many people.”

Her face looked far too much like Akiho’s. I asked her automatically, “Kaori, are you happy?”

Kaori replied without pause. “Of course. I’m definitely happy.”

“Okay.”

I waved my tails slowly back and forth and looked up at the sky. It was identical to the one through which I had flown with Akiho back then. I let out a single meow.