Case 06: Rororo (5)

The next day, during lunch break, Krishna-san looked at me and asked.

"Eh? Is that so...?"

Stroking my own face, I realized I was in a pleasant mood. Why was it, though? I wondered, and it came down to the beautiful girl in the coffee shop yesterday. 

'Oh, it's nothing', I muttered in embarrassment. Krishna-san didn't care for the subject anymore and was already taking out a lot of materials from the cabinet. For some reason, there was a tremendous amount of clutter in the usually neat and tidy club room.

"Did something happen?"

I asked, and Krishna-san replied with a disgruntled look.

"Well, a lot of things. But the main problem is the incident in Kichijouji yesterday."

"...Incident?"

"You didn't hear? It happened again, this time in the north entrance of Kichijouji station, a large number of tadpoles were seen hopping on the street."

"R-really? Is it the strange rain again?"

"We won't know if it's the real thing until we investigate. At any rate, be it a harbinger of a natural disaster, or an omen signaling the end of the earth, this kind of situation has brought out the trolls en masse on the message boards. The server is overloaded with all these mixtures of fact and fiction being posted. I can't even finish updating the damn site with the article you translated for me."

Continually grumbling about such things, 'Ah, where was it?' Krisna-san now began to rummage through the shelves.

"What are you looking for? I'll help."

"No, it's fine. This is a personal thing."

While saying that, 'But it's been so hot recently', Krishna-san wiped the sweat off her face with the towel around her neck. Her faintly flushed face was still childish, healthy, and cute as ever. The light blue checkered short-sleeved dress also looked really good on her. I guess I was relieved to see Krishna-san looking the same as always. I decided to casually broach the subject that was weighing on my mind.

"Um, is it ok if you ask you something?"

"...Hm?"

"It's about your master, the guy who came to my house before -- the one who lives in Aomori, is always wearing a Kinagashi, and is always acting smug with a smooth face."

"Oh, you mean Sako. What about him?"

"Is he someone you can trust?"

Krishna-san pushed up her slipping red glasses with her middle finger, and chuckled.

"Well, he's quite an odd one, but he's trustworthy."

"Which part, exactly?"

"Hmmm..."

The petite occult site manager folded her arms and pondered.

"When I think about it, yeah... There were many times when he offered me a treat but I ended up paying up instead, there were many books I lent him that he never returned, and there have been times when I was peeked at while in the bath."

"Wai--Peeked at? What do you mean?"

"Ah, it's not like that. See, I sometimes stay at Takita-san's shrine for spine correction. They have an open-air style bath over there."

In a panic, Krishna-san tried explain things, but jealousy flared up inside me in the face of her petite, yet voluptuous body.

"I-Isn't that completely untrustworthy?! Krishna-san, are you sure you're not being deceived? Aren't you being targeted as a woman?"

“No, you can trust that person when it comes to ghost related matters. The Okitachi Inari Shrine, where Takita-san is the chief priest, has been famous since ancient times for its ability to ward off evil spirits, but he himself is not from the original family of priests. In addition, he not only studies Shintoism, but all kinds of exorcism methods from all kinds of sects. In other words, um ...... The reason why he's so odd is probably due to his strict training."

"So, he's just a twisted man, after all."

"Well, I guess you could say that... but why are you asking about Takita-san, anyway?"

"E....Eh, That's--"

Being asked in reverse, I hesitated. And I remembered that bastard Sako not wanting to involve Krishna-san in this matter. I suppose it would be better to keep the fact that we met on campus yesterday a secret.

"Well... You see, now that I've become a member of 'Ikaigabuchi', I ought to know what kind of person the website's boss calls master."

"Ah, I see."

Krishna-san nodded, and then cast her eyes downwards.

Her face seen from the side, staring silently off into the distance, was seemingly sad, gentle, and wore a somewhat strange feeling of transparency. I wondered if I had asked something wrong, but at the same time, behind those eyes, I felt I caught a glimpse of Krishna-san that I didn't know, and I almost moved my hand to reach for her shoulder. I was about to shake her slender shoulders and blurt out something inappropriate like, 'Please don't keep secrets from me.'

However--

"A long time ago, another personality almost took over my body."

Eventually, Krishna-san muttered in a slightly trembling tone.

".....Huh?"

"That personality was extremely overpowering, to the point where I almost lost my true self. That person helped me back then -- well, at any rate, if he wasn't there for me back then, I'm sure I wouldn't be here talking to you like this. And then, I regularly have the airways in my spine adjusted. It's said that that's where the ghosts come in through.”

"What..."

What --- kind of incident was that?

I was about to ask, but those words failed to leave my mouth. That's just how dark and somber Krishna-san's face looked right now. For some reason, it reminded me of the remains of a fruit that had completely dried up into a crumbly heap. What was once a juicy, ripe fruit will always rot away once it leaves its roots and becomes abandoned. Right now, Krishna-san was perfectly healthy, but even this person was a living being, and her health was maintained by a precipitous balance -- such strange, tearful thoughts welled up inside me.

"Hey, what's the matter?"

She must have noticed the worried look on my face, as she smiled.

"I'm fine now. The only problems I have now are eating too much in my three meals a day, and when I feel ghosts close by, my heart is strong knowing that the living are much stronger. I'm no longer so weak as to be deceived by them anymore."

Then she patted me on the shoulder.

"You're the one I'm worried about."

"...Huh? Me?"

"Yeah. You seem to have adjusted to the university quite well, but keep in mind that you're still in the process of rehabilitation. You need to look at the world more broadly, not just the occult. Make friends, find a girlfriend, indulge in food, scenery, movies, books and music. Anything is fine. Move your heart with emotion."

"Move... my heart?"

"That's exactly right."

Krishna-san gave a broad grin.

"Everything that adds flair to your life will definitely strengthen your heart and make it stronger,"

Her soft smile filled my heart as if it were spreading throughout.