Case 09: Dear Nostradamus-sama (1)

It was on a sunny Sunday afternoon around the end of November. I had gotten up early, taken a shower, tidied myself up properly, changed into a clean pair of shirt and jeans, and after wallowing in indecision, finally broke the ice.

“A date is, well, going out somewhere alone with the opposite sex.”

I elaborated further in a somewhat restless tone, and Yoishi, who was doing something in the loft, looked down at me and spoke nonchalantly without expression, “I have”, leaving me flabbergasted.

“Huh…? Y-you have? Ah, I guess that’s right… You’re a high school girl after all. I mean, you might have even had a boyfriend or two in the past, but – it’s somewhat unexpected, no, sorry. Anyway, uhhh…”

Flustered and incoherent, Yoishi pointed her long index finger towards me, Koumei university institute first year, Yamada Nagito, who had just turned nineteen the other day.

“I’m always going places with you.”

“You idiot, those are creepy haunted spots! And what’s more, that’s definitely not something you’d call an exciting date!”

“I don’t know about it being exciting, but –”

After gazing at me with her large eyes, she muttered briefly.

“I had fun.”

My heart suddenly started pounding for some reason. I felt a heat around my solar plexus, where it began to squirm and writhe.

“No, ummm… It’s not like I didn’t have fun as well, and to be precise, there were some places where I was looking for a moderate amount of scariness – but anyway, what I'm talking about is a little different from that.”

--Why am I in such a panic?

I coughed once to clear my throat, and forced myself to return to the topic at hand.

“Anyway, let’s try going on a date.”

“…A date.”

“That’s right. The weather is nice, so you and I should go to somewhere, let’s hang out someplace fun for no reason in particular, somewhere that’s not a haunted place. I mean, it’s coincidentally my day off today, and I just got my salary; I can’t take you anywhere too expensive, but eating out or watching a movie is fine.”

‘How about it?’, I ask her again; Yoishi pondered for a while before giving a single nod and withdrawing to the loft. She seemed to be changing her clothes from the spare jersey I gave her which she’d been wearing at home recently. Eventually she came down from the loft dressed in her usual black blazer from the Koumei high school.

“You’re gonna go dressed like that?”

Yoishi nodded once.

“…You need to buy some clothes, too.”

“I’m fine with this.”

With a blunt reply, she stood up and left the apartment ahead of me.

Ah man, how long had it been since I’d been on a date?

I guess the last time was when I had a girlfriend in high school. No, if you were to include that time I went shopping with the girl I was friends with, then it’s a little more after that. Come to think of it, Christmas is just around the corner. Christmas, isn’t it a big occasion for lovers, or couples who will soon become lovers? I mean, I don’t mean to say that the two of us are headed in that direction, however, if by some chance that should happen, since it’s Yoishi, she would probably continue to live shamelessly with me in my loft. And then to picture the two of us wearing Christmas hats and ringing crackers in front of the cake...but—

…Oh wow, we don’t look good together at all.

With my thoughts swirling on such matters, I became completely quiet. Of course Yoishi wasn’t the talkative type to begin with, so we walked around town looking like we had come back from a funeral.

“Let’s watch a movie.”

I suggested as such, Yoishi nodded and followed me in silence.

We barely spoke to each other in the theater, and after we finished watching the movie I commented, ‘That was entertaining, wasn’t it?’, to which Yoishi merely gave a small nod in acknowledgment. After that I suggested we drink some coffee and went around to a famous coffee shop, but the vicinity of Kichijouji station was packed to the brim on a Sunday, and we couldn’t get in because there was a long line of customers waiting outside.

“It’s crazy how many people are here.”

Saying that kind of silly line, I turned back to see Yoishi looking deathly pale as she staggered along.

“Hey, are you okay?”

“…People.”

“People…? What about them?”

“People, people, people - vasovagal reflex.”

I didn’t understand well but, it seemed she was suffering a severe bout of dizziness from being in a crowd. Come to think of it, she seemed to be able to see the malice of humans as well as ghosts. And if she was exposed to a certain amount, she’d end up inverting it as a vomiting phenomenon. In other words, walking in the midst of this many people, she might start vomiting all of a sudden. Realizing that, I panicked, and started looking for the entrance to a restaurant we could enter.

Thankfully, we found a seat by the window that had just opened up on the second floor of a fast-food restaurant, I sat down as if clinging on to it, and sat Yoishi there.

“Are you alright?”

“…Ugh.”

“Don’t throw up in here, alright? The toilet’s right over there.”

“…Understood.”

I crossed my arms over the table and stared with a sigh at Yoishi as she lay collapsed on top of it, I then stood up from my seat to buy a drink for the time being.

The restaurant was so crowded on Sunday afternoon that it was a miracle that we were able to get a seat at all. Families with children, happy-looking couples, groups of excited girls. Anyway, the brightly lit restaurant with seating for around 70 or so people was filled to capacity, and everyone was truly enjoying their Sunday afternoon.

It definitely seemed a bit noisy, and it was difficult to carry a conversation without raising one’s voice in this situation -- but I wouldn’t say it was excessive. It would be best to wait here for a while until Yoishi recovered. At any rate, I ordered ice coffee, orange juice and apple pie for the both of us and climbed the stairs to return to my seat on the second floor.

However, when I reached the second floor, I saw Yoishi rise from her seat as she suddenly caught sight of something.

--What the heck is she doing?

As I held the tray and stare at the scene, Yoishi dizzily walks off somewhere. Her gaze was fixed at one point somewhere, shining brightly as if to suggest she had found something unbelievable. Of course, having walked the depths of the world beyond with her up to this point, I had a dreadful premonition. There was no way a ghost disturbance could happen in a fast-food restaurant on such a peaceful Sunday afternoon – but it’s Yoishi we’re talking about here. It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for anything to happen.

Yoishi kept walking towards somewhere, and eventually bumped into a table with a thud. The three high school boys sitting there went silent all at once. All three had their mouths gaped open halfway as they stared at Yoishi. However, what flummoxed them was not her actions, but rather, her beautiful features.

“Wow, you’re so cute.”

“Why are you wearing a uniform on a Sunday?”

“Are you alone?”

They call out to her one after another in a casual tone of voice.

“That uniform is from the Koumei institute? It’s a private school, right? We’re second years in a government school, but how about you? What year are you?”

The guys who had outrageous hair styles like the main characters of an RPG game continued throwing questions at Yoishi without a care. Ugh, I let out an exasperated groan. They say you can't judge people by their appearances, but you can almost always judge a high school student of this age by their looks. They are probably the so-called "playboys" whose heads are full of this and that of the opposite sex.

“Say, you wanna go to Karaoke?”

The guy in the back, who had his collars opened up way more than necessary to flaunt off his silver necklace called out to her; I decided to move her away and was about to head over to the seat, when—

“…..Ug…”

“….Huh?”

“…Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrgghhhh!”

Yoishi sparked all of a sudden. With an imposing stance, she vigorously spewed vomit and excrement containing a mixture of glistening gastric juice and whatever soft drink she had drunk this morning right down on their table.

“Aaaaaaggghhhhhhhh!”

The three of them shouted out as the surrounding clamor quieted down at the same time.

--Oh man, she’s done it now.

I reflexively looked up to the heavens, but it was already too late. The three high schoolers cowered and froze for a moment in front of the half-eaten French Fries covered in Yoishi’s vomit and excrement before immediately scrambling and stumbling their way out of the restaurant.

In the deathly silence of the restaurant, I moved without saying a word. I placed the tray on our seat, grabbed some napkins, and approached Yoishi, who stood stock still.

“Are you alright?”

I wiped the area around Yoishi’s mouth, but she was still staring off somewhere. Sadly, I had already gotten used to the sour smell. I borrowed a table cloth from the employee who had rushed over and skillfully wiped the spilled stomach juices and former soft drink when I came to a realization, ‘Ah, so that’s why’.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the age group of the three guys just now, was, in a sense, a mass of sexual desire. Yoishi must have been bathed in the malice aroused by the sexual desire to take a beautiful girl out somewhere, to do this and that to her and to be happy. I was convinced that that burst the dam of the vomiting phenomenon Yoishi had been holding back – but apparently, that was not the case.

“That girl…”

Eventually, Yoishi weakly pointed somewhere.

She pointed to a girl, still in her upper elementary school years, sitting alone in a four-seater in a corner by the wall.

“That girl? What about her?”

“She has no head.”

“…Huh?”

I looked again at the girl who looked like an elementary school student.

…No, she looks completely normal to me. It’s sounds obvious to say it, but there’s no way a person can exist without a head.

“The girl you’re talking about is the one sitting in the corner seat over there, right? The one wearing a red skirt, white shirt and colorful sneakers, the one who looks a little mature.”

Nodding in agreement, Yoishi gazes at the girl once again – but eventually gives a small shake of the head.

“I can’t see it.”

“….”

Now it was my turn to sink into silence. I turn to gaze at the girl once again, but regardless, she still had a head. I guess they were called ponytails, her long hair was tied at both sides of head, and beneath that was the cute face of a would-be beauty in the near future. She looked cheery as she jotted down something spread out on her desk.

“Are you… feeling alright? Have your eyes gone bad or something?”

Yoishi staggered off once more when asked.

She went straight to the girl's seat and sat down across the table without saying a word.

‘Whoa, wait a second’, I thought to myself – but the school girl smiled cordially and greeted Yoishi. She was diligently writing on something laid out on her desk, and said something like, “Be right with you in a minute.”

Reluctantly, I headed towards the seat and watched the girl from behind Yoishi.

The girl in the elegant white shirt had countless pictures spread out on the table. Seeing them one by one made me feel cold somehow. All of them had some kind of unpleasant composition.

As I was thinking such things—

“This one is about a thousand yen.”

The girl happily jotted down something on the back of one of the pictures.

“This one is five thousand yen.”

She continued to write what seemed to be a price on the back of another picture. After she finished, she gathered the photos together in a shuffle, then looked at Yoishi, then me, and smiled with a grin.

“Sorry to keep you waiting. Are you the Aizawa-san that sent me a mail?”

“Uh, no… we’re…”

I replied, not knowing what to say; The girl pointed at the seat next to Yoishi.

“It’s fine, have a seat. I’m used to people not using their real names. Which one do you like?”

It seemed the girl had mistaken us for someone else. After taking a glance at Yoishi, who still had her gaze fixed at the girl’s head, I sat down next to her for the time being.

“I have many pictures, all high quality. You see, it’s my policy to sell only authentic ghost photography.”

I kind of got the gist of things with that statement. She seemed to be an elementary school girl who was meeting customers through the internet or something in order to sell them ghost photos.

“Well then, please choose at your own leisure.”

Saying that, she spread the photos once more, and sure enough, they all had an unpleasant air about them.

There was one with several men and women smiling. One picture of a couple with the sea in the background. Another one with an old man looking at the camera while standing in front of an old dilapidated house. The subjects have black lines plastered over their eyes, possibly because they are missing something, or because they’re superfluous. Arms were completely missing in the middle, or conversely, another person's head was peeking out from the back of the neck. There were pictures with countless white balls of light -- or what were known as orbs.

But Yoishi took one mere glance at them and spoke:

“They're all common phenomena that occur with digital cameras. If you were to move your arm at the moment the photo was taken, it can look like it disappeared. This peeking head is an exposure problem, and these white lights are merely due to a smudge on the lens.”

The girl smiled happily in reply. “You know a lot, onee-san.”

“Sorry. The real thing – it’s only worth showing to those who know the value of it.”

The girl once again took a photo out of her bag, it was bizarre at first glance.

It was set in a rural landscape somewhere. A photograph of five men taken around the entrance to the mountain. Their faces were not obscured by black lines. And, the face of the second man from the left was… stretched as long as a horse. It was stretched out from the top as if it had been twisted by pliers – and yet, he had a broad grin.

“Of course, This person wasn’t deformed or anything, and he normally didn’t look like this. For some reason, only this picture was taken this way. However, a few days after this picture was taken, he died.”

“…”

Yoishi held the picture up, and gazed intently at it.

“Any others?”

“How about this one?”

The next photo she took out was taken in the living room of an old house. It was a tatami room with a table, a sunken hearth, and a chest of drawers. It wasn’t a very large room, but there was a red line running straight down the center of the room. It felt creepy, like blood was dripping down from the ceiling.

“Hmm…”

Yoishi pondered as she gazed at that picture, however, the fact that she wasn’t calling them out as fake creeped me out. I averted my eyes trying not to look at those incomprehensible photos.

“Is this one not to your liking either, Onee-san? you seem to be looking for something hardcore. All right, all right. Then, I’ll have to bring out the ace up my sleeve. However, it's best to be careful with this one."

...Hey, don't tell me there’s still more. As I unconsciously stood up a little, the girl takes out a study notebook from her bag, and from its pages, she takes out another photo wrapped in some kind of thin paraffin paper.

"This is a picture we all took when we played ‘Dear Nos.’"

"Dear Nos?"

"Ah, by ‘Dear Nos’, I mean Kokkuri-san. You summon ‘Dear-Nostradamus-sama’ in the beginning, so it’s shortened to that.”

The girl explained cheerfully, however -- "Kokkuri-san is that, right? A pseudo- séance that occult enthusiasts say should not be performed because It’s commonly known that Kokkuri-san rarely appears in actuality, it instead invokes low-grade spirits that wander around the area and cause hauntings. There were various versions of the name, such as ‘Angel-sama’ or ‘Cupid-sama,’ depending on the region, but the pattern of writing ‘letters,’ ‘numbers,’ ‘yes/no,’ and drawing a "torii" on a piece of paper, placing a coin on top of it, and asking questions was the same, I thought, but--

But, was it called ‘Dear Nos’ or something among the elementary school kids of today?

"By Nostradamus-sama, do you mean Dr. Michel de Notre Dame?"

Yoishi inquired, ‘As expected’, the girl smiled once more.

"But it's different. It's not that fortune teller from the past. Well, that person wasn't originally a fortune teller either, but—calling him Nostradamus-sama makes everyone believe him. Elementary school students really are gullible, after all.”

Aren't you an elementary school kid yourself? As my inner voice retorted unconsciously, I saw the picture, and at that moment -- an unpleasant shiver rose from beneath my feet.

It was set in a dimly-lit classroom at sunset. Amidst the rows of desks, a group of girls in their upper elementary school years were facing us. They were probably classmates of the pony-tailed girl in front of me. However, two of the girls had lost their eyes, while the remaining two had twisted, blurred faces. And -- what was it? Something resembling a black mist floated in the air above their heads. As I began to ponder on the black stain, the warning bells began to ring violently inside me with a loud riiiiiiiiiiing. I averted my eyes immediately. Don't think about it-- Don't notice it. This wasn’t that kind of thing.

"How was this taken?" Yoishi asked.

"I was the one who took it. It's because I can sense the type of places ghosts are at."

The girl gave an innocent smile.

"Kokkuri-san – you probably know that it's generally a game of low-class ghosts, but the thing that that manifested at that time, was something else. I still don't quite know what it was back then. Some of the girls I did this with are still absent from school.”

Yoishi remained silent, but I couldn't bear it anymore and asked:

“And you’re okay?”

“I was scared at first, but being afraid doesn’t change anything – and don’t you think just being afraid is a loss? I know when there’s something there. I can aim my camera there. So rather than staying afraid all the time, it would be better to swap the fear for a little money, right?”

“…”

“Say, won’t you buy it? I’ll give it you for just 10,000 yen, onee-san.”

Who would buy such a thing? As I thought that, Yoishi readily nodded, took out a ten thousand yen note from her purse and placed it on top of the table.

“You know when something is there, don’t you?”

“…Eh?”

“So, have you noticed the thing next to you?”

I was immediately startled by her words.

The girl was alone, of course. There was no one next to her.

I rose up involuntarily, pushing back the chair behind me which fell down with a thud. I turned around to pick it back up again, only to see that numerous customers were staring at me. A look of alarm, as if to say, ‘What are the guys who just caused a vomiting ruckus up to now?’

“I see – Onee-san is a person who can see.”

However, regardless of me, the two denpa girls continued their conversation.

“You can only feel them?”

“Yes. I know they’re there, but I can’t see them. 

What kind of person are they?”

“Their eyes are dark. I think it’s a woman. She's moving her slender hands constantly, fiddling with something.”

I found it unbearable to keep up with their conversation any longer, so I stood up and returned to my previous seat. I put the drinks I had left on the tray – and took a deep breath.

--Ugh, today was supposed to be a date. And yet, why did things turn out like this? It’s a Sunday for most people. A peaceful holiday where the sun is still out, shining warmly, just before the full-blown winter season. I went out in the morning, thinking we should do something fun once in a while, but before I’d realized, my daily life had lurched into occult territory once more. Was this my fault? Did I make some fatal mistake somewhere?

I looked at the seats of Yoishi and the girl, lamenting the absurdity of not knowing who to blame for such a situation, but the girl selling ghost photos was still staring at Yoishi’s face with her lips tightly-knit.

Yoishi, too, stared at the girl’s face, but her gaze barely moved at all, perhaps it was because she still couldn’t see the girl’s face. But – just what the hell did that mean? No matter where I looked from, I could see her face like normal. However, Yoishi, who could see things that were better left unseen, couldn’t see the girl’s face. Yoishi wasn’t the type of person who would lie, so I guess it was true, but – I had no idea what it meant.

Shaking my head, I had no choice but to return to the seat with Yoishi, the pony tailed girl, and the woman with no eyes I couldn’t see.

“Say, won’t you help me?”

The girl asked Yoishi as her voice trailed off.

“Onee-san, you know how to drive this thing away, don’t you?”

The girl who displayed a proud demeanor was there no longer, in her stead, was someone who was scared, as expected for a girl her age. Confused by the complete change, I looked towards Yoishi. However, she was still squinting in the direction of the girl’s face. Why couldn’t she see it? What was this phenomenon? It was like I was a philosopher, struggling with one of life's most difficult questions.

“Onee-san, tell me. What is this? Why is it haunting me? Is it because of this thing that I can tell when a ghost is there?”

“…Who knows?”

Yoishi finally looked away from the girl, and focused her eyes on the ten thousand yen note placed on the table. The movement of her gaze made the girl take notice of the money once more, and she moved to grab it, but – for some reason, Yoishi prevented her from doing so by placing her index finger on the ten thousand yen note.

“If you really want me to drive it away, it’ll cost you fifty thousand yen.”

…Whoa, whoa.

Her remarks made me drop my jaw.

The girl seemed sit stunned for a while, before eventually slipping out a giggle.

“I’m no match for you, onee-san.”

Her expression returned to mature one she had earlier, and spoke:

“Not this time. I'm not really bothered if there's someone next to me, and thanks to that, I can make some extra money.”

Saying that, she picked up the ten thousand yen note from the table, and held out the ‘Dear Nostradamus-sama’ picture in exchange.

“But you’d better be careful, because I think this is really dangerous. if possible, exorcise it properly, or burn it – Ah, maybe you don’t need to worry about such things, onee-san.”

Declaring that, she said, ‘Well, see you’, stuffed the remaining ghost photographs back into her bag, picked up her drink and left. I kept sight of the small girl from behind until she disappeared from sight, and then asked Yoishi, trying my best not to look at the seat next to the girl – in short, the seat where Yoishi had said a woman was.

“Don’t try to extort money from elementary school kids.”

“Why? She was the one trying to peddle ghost photographs to me.”

“Yeah, but fifty thousand yen is too much.”

“I think it’s cheap for a proper exorcism.”

…Well, I guess that might be true. In the first place, I’ve never paid for any exorcisms from my own pocket, and I had no idea how much Krishna-san, the manager of one of Japan's largest occult websites, ‘Ikaigabuchi,’ paid her investigators, or spiritual experts, for their services.

“So, you’ve done exorcisms before, huh?”

Yoishi gave a small shake of the head.

“…Huh? You were gonna charge her fifty thousand yen even though you can’t do it?”

“What happens to her is none of my concern.”

Saying that, Yoishi stood up unsteadily with the ghost photo in her hand.

“Once you have peered into the ‘abyss’, there is no salvation for you.”

“By ‘abyss’, you mean the world beyond? Wasn’t that the dream mansion for me? But you saved me back then.”

I spoke to the figure that was about to head somewhere, and Yoishi turned to look back.

“You were—”

“Wasn’t the girl really in trouble? She looked like she was about to cry when you told her there was someone besides her, right? She might have had a somewhat cheeky way of speaking, but she's still just in elementary school. Sure, she might be a little eccentric to be peddling ghost photos, but isn’t it natural to lend someone a helping hand if they’re in trouble right before your very eyes?”

Yoishi took a sigh in exasperation in response and spoke:

“You really are such a nice person, after all.”

“What are you on about?”

“There are those in this world you just can’t save, no matter how hard you try.”

“Then, why did you suggest an exorcism?”

Yoishi turned her back to me and spoke:

“I only wanted to confirm it.”

“Confirm what?”

“Confirm whether or not she truly wanted to be rid of it.”

Saying that, Yoishi took the ghost photo in hand to the smoking area separated by a glass window. The smokers inside were all aghast as soon as the uniformed high school girl brazenly walked in – she quickly said something to one of the guys inside, borrowed a lighter, and started burning the picture on the ashtray.

--Ugh… She just paid 10,000 yen for that picture.

I watched the scene in a daze, but when I asked Yoishi after she eventually returned to her seat, she simply replied:

“It wasn’t a good thing to have.”