Case 07: The Portrait of a Lily (2)

I liked books, and I was relieved to be close to someone who understood my unique condition of being able to see people’s auras, but most of all, it was because I was charmed by the third-year student --- Ayana Takamura-san. She was someone who always gave me peace of mind. When I was confused about my future career path, she immediately replied: "Do what you love.”

“The thing that people love to do – Yes… the thing that they work on so hard that they forget to eat --- that is certainly the talent granted to them by heaven.”

Takamura-san often referred to the word ‘talent’ as ‘gift’.

I learned that in English-speaking countries, the word ‘gift’ took the meaning of ‘being granted something by heaven’.

“So, in a way - being able to see people's auras is also a gift of yours.”

She smiled at me.

“So, Kurimoto-san, what do you want to do in the future?”

“…Errr..uuhh…”

I hastily gathered the thoughts in my head.

“Well, I-I’d like to understand the things that I can see. Is it a sight-based phenomenon? A psychological phenomenon? Or some kind of cerebral phenomenon? I’m not sure, but at any rate, in the future I’d like to study in a place where I can specialize in such things.”

“That’s good. I’ll be cheering you on.”

Takamura-san smiled and patted me on the shoulder to encourage me.

After that, my life as a student changed completely.

I was still a bookworm, but I wasn’t just reading novels, I started reading a wide range of books – books on Psychology, Cognitive science, Auras in terms of the occult, and Ethnology. As my knowledge broadened, so did my interest in people. In myself, and in others. With that, I came to recognize that just as I was myself, other people were a group who established their own individuality. After all this time, I finally realized that everyone carried their own individual hardships, joys, and values. Perhaps it was because I was able to think like this that I started to talk to my classmates, whom I had been casually avoiding, and I think I became a little more active. I could still see people’s auras, but I was less likely to panic when I saw them. Of course, it was still scary, but not as scary as it had been.

“Say, Kurimoto-san.”

After school, I was organizing past club magazines in the literature club room when I was approached by Takamura-san, who was sorting through the shelves.

“Yes?”

“What do you think about this?”

Takamura-san held out her cellphone.

“Are you asking me about the cellphone’s design?”

“No, no. This message.”

Takamura-san laughed as she brought her cellphone close to my ear.

I heard something like a static buzzing sound, and a small bubbly sound you’d hear from an air pump in a fish tank.

“The reception is quite bad, isn’t it?” I answered, ‘Is that all?’ Takamura-san looked at me with amusement.

“You didn’t notice anything at all?”

While saying this, Takamura-san operated the cell phone and handed it to me again.

She seemed to set it up so that I could listen to it again from the beginning.

I pressed the receiver to my ears once again, and concentrated on listening to the sound in its entirety.

The bubbly sound and the electric buzzing sound. That really was all I could hear. I was about to say that out loud --- when I noticed. Beyond the noise, there was another sound; something else.

“…Huh?”

It was… a person’s voice. A slow, muttering voice, like a slow spinning record. A man’s voice. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but it's definitely someone talking about something—

The moment I realized that, I got startled.

Before I had realized, the interior of the room had grown dark.

No -- from my eyes, from my brain, the blood was rapidly draining away.

This wasn’t good. This was – I’d experienced it before. It was similar to the anemia that happened when I was exposed to the auras of too many people. I might lose consciousness at this rate. Fearing that, I tried to move my ear away from the cellphone.

But --- my fingers couldn’t move. The cellphone stayed clung to my ear just like that. Was this the ‘paralysis’ that people often spoke of? Everything in my body stopped moving as if rejecting its owner’s command. All I could do was remain still as the man’s muffled words poured into my ear. The sound of bubbles, which was supposed to be coming from only one ear, was now coming from both ears, making me feel as if I were submerged in the deep sea, and I felt suffocated. No, in fact, I became unable to breathe.

“Ku…Gu….Guwaaa.”

In tears, I reached out for help.

Towards my senpai who had saved me from the suffering of seeing auras ---- Towards Ayana Takamura-san.

However—

Senpai stood there – she looked at me with the same empty eyes I had seen once before. Ayana Takamura-san’s expression was cold, and she gazed at me as if… as if she were devouring me, me who was unable to breathe, shedding tears and asking for help. I felt something resembling a fierce appetite in those wide, open eyes. She stared at me in silence, as if to burn the image in her memory: The moment of me being swallowed up by a muddy stream, and drowning to death.

“S…Senpai…!”

Even so, as I desperately reached out to her with tears in my eyes –

Finally, Senpai reached out to me.

She brought her hand in front of mine, and slapped it with great force.

The sound made the air vibrate sharply, and tore up something. In an instant, my body became able to move. I moved my ears away from the cell phone, and collapsed on the floor, desperately trying to catch my breath.

“Sorry, sorry. You alright?”

Saying that, Takamura-san gently massaged my back.

My breathing slowly returned to normal, and the scenery regained its brightness and color.

However, I had no clue as to what had just taken place.

“I guess this was too soon.” Senpai said and smiled quietly.

I would learn much later, that it was not a wrong number or something like that –

Takamura-san had gone to a place in Okutama where suicides occurred frequently, and simply recorded the sound there.

“They… exist everywhere.”

“I have no idea where they come from.”

“And they're very sensitive to the fact that they're being watched."

After a while, when things finally calmed down, Senpai spoke those words.

“Senpai, what are ‘they’?” I asked.

“Ghosts.” Takamura-senpai simply replied.

“I’ve been able to see them since I was a child.”

“G-Ghosts?”

-- Ghosts -- you mean the ones under the willow trees?* Or the ones that have a grudge with their hands pointing downwards…… that kind of thing?

Senpai smiled in reply, ‘I think it’s a little different’.

“Not all of them have eyes, hands, or a human shape. Some of them are mere white shadows, and some of them are just sounds. However, I believe they were all originally the same thing. They are thoughts, fragments, and residues of what was once a person. And what's more, the biophotons you see. I think that’s them too.”

“H…huh? Huh? B-but Senpai. The things I see are just lights and--”

Senpai then put her long fingers to her chin and nodded.

“Listen carefully, Kurimoto-kun. The world is truly multi-faceted. What appears square-shaped to one might appear a sphere to another looking from another angle. In short, what you perceive as mere lights, look distinctly human in shape to me.”

“…”

“Well, for convenience’s sake, I call them ghosts -- but I'm not sure how to formally define them. However, it’s perfectly commonplace for them to be everywhere. I wish I could introduce them to you, but they are timid in their own way, and I don't really know what they are thinking.”

Ayana Takamura-senpai smiled, poured hot water into a cup, and handed it to me.

“Drink this, and then take slow, deep breaths. Put some strength in your stomach. Don’t worry, the living are much stronger than the dead. As long as we stay strong, they can’t interfere with us.”

I was abruptly being bombarded with such unbelievable things one after the other, but one thing became clear to me in my confused mind.

The reason why Senpai’s existence stood out among the other students.

The reason why she alone had a detached atmosphere about her, as if she was looking down on the world.

It was because the high school girl known as Ayana Takamura stood face to face with the world beyond.