Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Fiction
vr 3.00
2008-02-16
"When She Says, 'Osuwari,' Sit." by Abraxas | 2006-06-08
Chapter Four
“Seventy-five hundred yen a day,” said Hojo after a sip of the ice-cold glass of soda.
Noguichi tapped a bundle of fries into the tub of ketchup. His wide eyes were distant and unfocused. “Seventy-five hundred yen and how many days?” he asked bringing the fries into his mouth.
“I don’t know. It depends.” The vocal traffic of the WacDonald’s had been loud with that lunch-time high school crowd but, then and there, the din quieted and Hojo felt and looked oppression. Nervous. Cautious. He stuttered as he continued: “It depends on you, kid. On your ability to handle it. The house looks like it’s been abandoned and it’s been, really, for a long time. And it’s gained the reputation about the neighborhood that it’s haunted.” Through his glasses he stared squarely at his student. “It’s a lot to ask of anybody – to stay there day and night – and there are other, aspects, of the job that will be difficult.”
“How many others have you asked already, teach?”
Hojo smiled. He enjoyed talking with Noguichi. The student could be informal when the situation allowed it and the teacher needed that relaxed-feel for what he was telling him was not easy to say.
“It’s imperative that the house is watched. Always. It can’t be left alone for a moment. Oh, there must have been, ten, twenty boys I’ve asked over the years. Keh, when I was young I volunteered myself. I would be doing it still but the way we’ve arrange it, at any given time at least one of us two must be free and working full-time. I must have told you guys a million times it’s money that makes the world go round.” And here he mused more for himself than for his student: “Were it five hundred years ago it could have been different.”
“One of you makes the money and finds the boys? And the other one?”
Hojo laughed.
“It seems like fetishism? It’s important that the volunteers be boys, teenagers like you. Yours is the right build, the right face, Noguichi, and I trust you. I’ve known you since grammar school let alone high school. I’ve followed and guided your career, so to speak. You’re strong and inventive and can handle it. I know you can handle it. You’ll survive because you know the difference between what’s real and what’s imagined.”
“But aren’t there other ways to handle the problem? What about universities? Hospitals?”
Hojo was about to reply when another student tapped his shoulder.
Noguichi was usually a calm and patient boy, very mature for his fifteen years of age. But as he ate his ketchup-soaked fries, as he gazed nonchalantly while his teacher talked about his latest history assignment, he was filled with an attitude of impatience that colored with seriousness his otherwise-sweet and effeminate features. Time was passing and patience was thinning – and he wondered, rather all too cynically, why Mr. Hojo was taking that much time explaining such a little assignment.
“It’s, it’s just easier this way.” Hojo continued just at the moment his student was losing his reserved. “The family is old and proud and though it’s hit hard times and it’s a heavy, undue burden, we want it to be this way to avoid the public scandal. We can’t afford any better protection.”
“Protection?” He sighed. He was out of fries and out of nuggets. To be honest, as much as he respected Mr. Hojo, Noguichi was skeptical of the story. It was so bizarre, so outlandish, it could not have been real. Maybe it was that cynical, see-through vision of his that his teacher referred to as one of his best, most desirable qualities. Anyway, even if were real, there must have been a thousand other ways to handle the problem. Logical ways! As opposed to the methods that had been proposed. “Haunted houses can protect themselves, can’t they? Assuming houses can be haunted.”
“It is haunted but by forces that are very much human.” The teacher’s lunch remained in its paper, cold and unopened, and he pushed it away. “Life? Death? Limbo? I don’t know what it is anymore. It’s just a different state of being all together. Keh, when we think of hell, we picture demons from beyond antiquity. The truth’s that there are things about this world that are just as monstrous as anything conjured up by the devil’s dreams. And they’re just as real and as human as any of us.”
“But how, exactly, is it protected?”
“By placating it. Noguichi. It’s surprisingly simple what it needs.”
END OF CHAPTER
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