From pixiv: "Autumn Days" (All 8 Episodes) ／ Episode 1: "A Trapped Bird in the Bosom" (https://www.pixiv.net/novel/show.php?id=9631066)
1. A Trapped Bird in the Bosom
This is a story I heard from Shisho.
It was the autumn of my second year in university. The summer, which had brought more bizarre incidents than the year before, had finally passed, and a chilly breeze was starting to set in. Looking back on all the strange occurrences I had experienced since meeting Shisho—whom people oddly called the "campus fairy"—they had certainly been bizarre, but each had seemed like an isolated event. Yet the incidents that had unfolded from this spring through the summer all seemed somehow connected.
The mannequin's arm buried in the nursery school playground. The Asunami family, tied to a vanished high treason incident that I learned about through a pre-WWII spirit photo uproar. That night when a swarm of evil spirits crossed the river. The victims of Giant Perception Syndrome. The entity that shattered the curse of the mask, a national treasure-level vengeful god. The invisible giant piercing through the clouds. The Inujin—dog-like people who hunt evil spirits. The former neighbor who vanished after calling himself Asunami.
Something was about to happen. I could feel at least that much. It manifested even in Shisho's slight gestures, taking the form of irritation. That somewhat unsettling atmosphere cast an indescribable, dark shadow over my own days as a bystander—or rather, the days of someone who desperately wanted to believe he was merely a bystander.
Yet, even in days like that, my most urgent concern was university credits. No matter how many times I stared at my course registration form, being held back a year was now an absolute certainty. I wasn't stupid; in fact, I figured I was probably much smarter than the people in my year, but I simply didn't have enough days of attendance. That was because, in addition to the occult-chasing days Shisho dragged me into, my part-time job at the Ogawa Detective Agency, a tiny private investigation firm, ruthlessly chipped away at my finite student time like wood shavings off a block.
That day, too, I had been holed up in my room, grudgingly finishing a report my professor had demanded if I wanted any hope of getting credit.
A Western-style room of about eight tatami mats, 1K layout, with a bath and toilet, costing thirty-something thousand yen a month in rent. That was the room I had been living in since my first year. Located in an area behind the campus popular with students, it was hot in the summer and cold in the winter. At any rate, it was my castle where I could finally enjoy the single life I'd longed for, but I spent so much time crashing at Shisho's place that I rarely felt like this was really my own room. So, while I was cooped up working on my report, all I could think about was finishing this grueling task as quickly as possible so I could go see Shisho.
Tap, tap.
I stopped the hand holding my pencil and looked up. The sound of someone knocking on the door came again. I checked the clock; it was a little past 8:00 PM.
Who could it be at this hour? Having no idea who might be visiting, assuming it was probably some salesperson or solicitor, I let out a heavy sigh, stood up, and headed for the door. "Yes? Who is it?" Thinking that if it was just another religious solicitor, I'd chase them off instantly, I opened the door. Standing there was a woman. And a familiar one at that.
"Can you let me stay the night?" She said. She looked exhausted.
"Eh?" Unable to grasp the situation, I stood there bewildered, but before I knew it, using the intonation of ordering a draft beer at a pub, I blurted out, "Well, come on in, anyway."
Looking relieved, she gave a slight nod and followed me into the room.
"Um—"
Without even having time to prepare a zabuton cushion, I stood there holding my head as she sat down near the wall. There was no way I could forget this face. It was definitely her. But why was she here?
Still in a state of confusion, she said to me, "Sorry." "Ah, no..."
My head was still spinning, completely unsure of how to handle this. "And while I'm at it... I have a favor to ask." "Huh?" "Something to eat..." "Pardon?" "I want you to share some."
I remembered. That woman, who had walked away that rainy night with her stomach letting out a magnificent growl.
The Archer. The culprit behind the serial slashings the prefectural police were hunting. And the descendant of ancient exorcists, an *Inujin*, whom Shisho was pursuing.
That monster was now sitting in front of me, hugging her knees and pleading. For food. It was no joke; she was truly in dire straits. Her face was etched with deep fatigue, and her cheeks looked sunken.
"Well, if bread is okay..." I glanced around the room and handed her a sweet red-bean bun. She immediately tore open the package and started eating.
I opened the fridge to check inside, but there was nothing decent in there. Come to think of it, I couldn't remember the last time I actually cooked for myself. I got out some leftover barley tea, poured it into a glass, and brought it over. "Thanks." Having already finished the bread, she took the glass and gulped it down immediately.
"I'll go buy something else to eat." "Please do." She nodded.
I looked at her properly once more. She wasn't wearing the raincoat she'd had on the times we'd met before. She was in a light green jumper and dark blue soft denim. A small rucksack she'd taken off her back sat nearby.
The jumper and rucksack were noticeably dirty. Her face, aside from the fatigue, had a film of grime on it. Yet, there was still an undeniable air of dignity about her. A nobility that refused to vanish, even as she exposed herself in such a pathetic state. What on earth was it that created that impression?
Her bangs were cut short, a hairstyle that gave her a somewhat childlike appearance, but the left eye beneath them gazed at me with a somewhat unfocused look. The place where her right eye should have been was covered entirely in a puckered scar, bearing the memory of the brutal ordeal she had suffered.
*Thank you.* The movement with which she had accepted the glass. It had been smooth, not looking at all like someone with a severe visual impairment. Yet I knew for a fact. She was a registered Class 1 physically disabled person, completely blind ever since kidnappers had gouged out both her eyeballs.
*“That girl imagines the surrounding scenery inside her head. And those images almost entirely match the real world.”* I remembered the words her grandfather had spoken.
Facing her in person like this, I had no choice but to nod at those impossible words. Twenty-two years old. Three years older than me. Her half-life was overshadowed by years of kidnapping and confinement, followed by the harsh days of being half-abandoned by her own parents. I had also heard that she ended up crashing at a yakuza's place and was forced to service clients. I couldn't properly imagine the past she had been through.
"Well, I'll go down to the convenience store." Wanting some time to calm down, I made to leave. To my back as I crossed the threshold, she said, "Don't tell that woman."
A chill ran through me. She had seen right through the thought crossing my mind.
I closed the door and stepped outside, the cold wind hitting my cheeks. It was already fully an autumn breeze. I should have told Shisho. The Archer, Asumi Yamada, was a murderer. I should have even told the police. But...
*“Can't we cooperate?”* I was bound by the words I had spoken back then. Words that Shisho had rejected.
I thought to myself. In the world Asumi Yamada saw, no murders were taking place. She was merely shooting down evil spirits lurking in the city, carrying a cursed destiny inherited from her ancestors as an *Inujin*. Was I just empathizing too much because I knew about her half-life? Should I ask Shisho to make the decision on what to do?
As I walked toward the convenience store, I turned it over in my mind, but no answer came. But one thing was certain: if I brought Shisho back with me to the room, Asumi Yamada would be gone.
When she had approached the Ogawa Detective Agency chasing a client while scattering bone-chilling malice, she had sensed Shisho's presence and left the scene. Even when we met after that, she always detected us before we noticed her. Was it because of her special "eyes"? I didn't know for sure, but it was certain that she was an existence deviating from the laws of this world.
In the end, I had no choice. I bought a boxed bento at the convenience store and returned to the room.
As my hand touched the door knob, I suddenly imagined that she might have vanished as if she had never been there at all.
"I'm back," I said as I opened the door. She was still there. Deep in the room, she was peering outside through a gap in the balcony curtains.
I put down the convenience store bag and walked closer. Without looking away from the outside, she said, "Thank you." "Is there something out there?" As I tried to look outside alongside her, she answered, "Nothing."
Then she continued.
"My oldest memory is of playing alone on the second floor of a machine shop that smelled of iron and oil. In that memory, there are neither father nor mother. I'm just in a given room, playing with stuffed animals and building blocks, listening to the sound of machinery echoing intermittently from beneath my feet. The stuffed animals were a bear and a rabbit with one broken ear. The bear says, *‘There are no triangular blocks.’* The rabbit says, *‘Triangular ones don't make good foundations, so we don't need them.’* I say, *‘Triangular blocks become the roof.’* The clank-clank of metal echoes through the room bathed in the setting sun, and eventually, we fall silent. *‘Look outside at night. There's one black cloud.’* The bear says that, and places a square block on top as a roof. *‘Yeah.’* I don't remember anymore if I actually saw a cloud like that back then. But even now, I look up out the window, searching the sky for just one black cloud."
She closed the curtain, turned to face me, and smiled faintly. "That's how it is."
Shisho and I had been tracing her life. She knew that. She had answered one of the questions I would likely have held. I understood that much. However, I didn't know which question that was an answer to. Nor did I understand the meaning of that answer. But I did know one thing: it was her own way of showing sincerity, or perhaps gratitude for a meal and a roof over her head.
My eyes suddenly pricked with hot tears, and I hurriedly opened the convenience store bag and took out the bento. "Ah, go ahead. Before it gets cold." "Thank you."
With those words, she sat down in front of the bento placed on the low table and fidgeted awkwardly. "Um... I don't have any money right now." "Ah, yeah. It's fine, my treat. It's no big deal."
I already knew she must be quite destitute to come seeking help at my place. Her father's allowance and her disability pension were pocketed by her mother, and she had run away from home. Just imagining what kind of life she was leading made my chest ache.
"Sorry." Watching her eagerly wolf down the bento, I felt a surge of frustration. Thinking about her harsh life, and her days of running from the police while fighting calamities and evil spirits in this city all by herself. Evil spirits and all that—they weren't just the ravings of a madman. We knew that, didn't we? At least we did.
I was silently pleading to Shisho in my heart.
When she finished eating, she asked if she could borrow the bath. Of course, I let her. After coming out of the bath, she stood naked in front of me, saying it was a token of her thanks. I was so angry I almost yelled. Not at her, but at her life.
At a life that had led her to mistakenly believe, through painful misunderstanding, that I wouldn't hold her because she was a "defiled woman"!
When she turned off the lights and went to sleep, she said "Thank you" once more. Wrapped in a blanket I pulled out from the closet, I listened to those words from the corner of the room. And as I listened, I cried.
The next morning, waking up drowsy wrapped in the blanket, feeling a wave of depression at the thought *Ah, I have to do my report,* I suddenly bolted upright.
What about Asumi Yamada? Looking around the room, I saw her standing in front of the mirror attached to the wardrobe. Examining herself intently, as if she were looking into a mirror for the first time in years, she said "Morning" while still in that state.
It really hadn't been a dream. Relieved, I folded my blanket.
"That woman is beautiful." "Eh?"
The "woman" Asumi Yamada was referring to had to be Shisho. "I'm ugly, after all." Asumi Yamada muttered this as she looked into the mirror.
The profile visible to me was her unscarred half, as symmetrical as an antique doll. Was she talking about her other, scarred half, or was she talking about "herself in the world she imagines"? It was surely the latter. As she looked into the mirror, the cheek she was touching with her hand was the unscarred one.
I imagined it. A mother who complained about how looks and social standing were ruined by a scar. A loan shark—a pimp—who screamed that the only thing her face was good for was making money on the side. And "herself as she imagined," shaped by having those words hammered into her over and over.
What she was seeing in the mirror right now was that kind of self.
"Thanks. I'm going now." Asumi Yamada turned back toward me and said that.
There was so much I wanted to ask. So much I wanted to say. As she hoisted her rucksack and started to leave, not a single word came out to stop her.
Passing through the doorway, she tapped the ground a few times with the toe of her shoe, then looked back. "You guys, don't meddle with that thing. Only I can kill it."
When she made that declaration, she was no longer a trapped bird that had flown into my bosom. An aura of murderous intent, like roaring flames, poured out of her entire body. It was almost as if I could hear the sound of the air burning around her.
Even so, I should have said it. Gritting my teeth, "Can't we cooperate?"
Without changing her expression amidst the flames, she simply said, "I'll repay my debts." And then she vanished, leaving not even a trace of smoke.
Related Story: Triangular Blocks Continues to Autumn Days Episode 2: "Constellation Cetus"
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