Shiki Volume 2 Chapter 10 part4

4

Again there was the presence of somebody outside the window.

Natsuno left his desk and tried opening the curtain a bit. For some reason or other the window was closed. So all that he could see out the window was his own reflection in the glass.

A pattering noise came from within the room; he turned to see in the light of the lamp that the English dictionary he had left open on the desk had just closed. ---Yes, there would be no sound unless something moved.

Natsuno wasn't sure whether it was something that could rightly be called a presence. Those may have been more things like the sounds of breathing, the sounds of clothes rustling, or the sound of one moving about, those such sounds, and it might not have been his hearing that sensed it so much as his sense of smell. He wasn't particularly into the occult nor did he think this was anything supernatural. It was the feeling that it was probably something so slight as to not even pull at one's conscious thoughts, that nothing could indicate anything to specifically say "this" was it.

(...Someone's stare.)

Yes, even if 'presence' was understood as something like that, he didn't know how you could tel someone as staring at you. He certainly had had the feeling that he was being watched by someone, and turned around to in fact meet someone's gaze. He had the feeling from experience that a gaze was something that could be sensed but he didn't know why one could feel it. But certainly, he thought he could. And now that was what he was feeling.

Someone was watching. Possibly outside the window, lurking in the darkness, in the underbrush.

(......But, who is it?)

It isn't Tohru, he felt. If Tohru had come to say his farewells, then in that case, the someone watching Natsuno now wouldn't be Tohru. He had the feeling that coming by just once to say farewell was a very Tohru-like action. But coming twice to visit wasn't like Tohru. To always be so lingeringly regretful and full of lingering affection was completely out of character for Tohru.

(Then, who is it?)

What ended up floating to mind was Megumi after all. If it was once it wouldn't be Megumi. But if it was two or more times in a row, he had the feeling it was Megumi. If it wasn't Megumi herself it was someone like Megumi.

He put his face to the window but as expected he couldn't see any human shapes in the darkness. He moved away from the window, closed the curtain and breathed a sigh. He felt that something that was like a gaze being blocked off. That was a relief but it was terribly reminiscent of when he'd felt Megumi.

(But, Shimizu's dead...)

There was no Tohru, nor Megumi. There was no way they could come to see him. Returning to his desk, by chance he ended up looking at the disorganized box he had thrown a random assortment of things into. The dictionary's box. He had stuck it between his books to serve as a filing case.

Natsuno took out a single post card from within that. While thinking to throw it away, some how or another it ended up placed inhere.

Yuuki Natsuno-sama

The addressee's name was written with mindless pretension. An out-of-season late summer greeting card. Something that shouldn't have been delivered delivered right to Natsuno's hand.

Natsuno stared at that and moved to throw it into the trash when stopped by something. He returned it into its prior box carelessly. It wasn't like he had any intent to hold onto it. It was just that on the otherhand he didn't have any particular intent to throw it away either.

Natsuno perked up his ears, took a breath and opened up the closed dictionary once again. He still hadn't gotten through today's itinerary yet. To Natsuno this wasn't an act called "studying" it was a "price" he had to pay in order to get out of the village. If he didn't do it, then his wish would become all the more far off.

Closing off his awareness of anything outside the window, Natsuno began with his dictionary.

Chapter end