Another, Vol. 2 (3 page)

“Seriously?”

“Misaki’s house was on the western outskirts of town, near Asamidai. There was testimony that a huge shooting star was seen falling near there that night. So people say that could have caused the fire. Though I’ve never heard that any trace of it was ever identified. So this is nothing more than another rumor, I suppose.”

“…Ah.”

“Those are the facts surrounding the death of Misaki Yomiyama twenty-six years ago as I remember them. However…” Mr. Chibiki’s eyes dropped to his hands. His voice grew even lower as he added, “However, I have no confidence that my memories are entirely correct.”

“What?”

“It could be that there’s a gap, or that a revision has been made to some part of them. Without my ever realizing it. And I don’t mean simply because the memories are from so long ago. How should I put it? If I don’t continually work very hard to pay attention, my memories of these events tend to get fuzzy. More than any of the other clutter in there. I don’t know why, but that’s how it seems. Though it may not quite click for the two of you even when I explain it.”

Feedback from “entering the realm of legend”—Those were the words and the image that popped suddenly into my mind.

“What about the group photo after graduation, where Misaki showed up even though he couldn’t possibly have been there?” I asked. “Sir…I mean, Mr. Chibiki, did you see it?”

“I did.”

Mr. Chibiki nodded, then cast his gaze up to the ceiling for a moment.

“I was in that photo, too, in the old classroom here in the former school building. A few days later, the students began to get stirred up and several of them brought the photo in question to me. They shoved it at me. It absolutely looked like the dead boy was in it. Misaki Yomiyama. In fact, I do believe that Ritsuko was one of the ones who came to me back then.”

“My mom?”

“As I remember it, that is.”

“Do you still have that photo?”

“No.” Mr. Chibiki’s mouth drew tight. “They made another print of it for me, but I threw it away. Seeing everything that happened after that, I got scared, to be honest. I even thought the disasters were happening because the thing existed.”

“Ah…” I sighed, and tiny goose bumps pricked both my arms.

“Let’s skip ahead, shall we?” Mr. Chibiki said, dropping his eyes to his hands once more. “The next year, I was in charge of a first-year class, so I only know what happened in third-year Class 3 that year from a third-person perspective. How they were short one desk and chair at the start of the first semester. How at least one of the students in the class or their relatives died each month. Even when I heard the stories, I never actively made the connection to what had happened the year before. All I did was feel sad at the terrible misfortunes they continued to suffer.

“In the end, sixteen people with a connection to the class lost their lives in that one year. Once the graduation ceremony was over, the teacher in charge of third-year Class 3 told me something. It seems that one extra student had made their way into the class for the year. That
an ‘extra person’ who couldn’t possibly have been there
had infiltrated the class. He said that as soon as the graduation ceremony was over, the student disappeared and that was when he finally realized.”

“That Misaki’s little brother was the ‘extra person who couldn’t possibly have been there,’ since he’d died the year before?”

“So it seems. But—”

The edges of Mr. Chibiki’s lips twitched, and he hesitated for several moments before answering.

“It feels more correct to tell you that in all honesty, I couldn’t say. Hasn’t Miss Misaki here told you? Those directly involved in this ‘phenomenon’ plaguing third-year Class 3 can’t hold on to their memories about who the ‘extra person’ in the class is for very long. The memory fades with time, and then it disappears.

“The fact is, by the time a month had passed, the teacher who revealed the situation to me had completely forgotten
what had occurred
, and even my memory of it was becoming unreliable. It’s only because I made notes about it in a notebook at the time that I even barely recall it.”

Suppose a levee breaks and water from the river floods the town. It’s like the water is finally receding…

The metaphor Mei had told me last week, heard from “someone.”

The fact that there was a flood remains, unquestionably, but after the water recedes, the memory of what got flooded and how badly starts to get fuzzy. It’s like that.

It’s more that they can’t help forgetting, not that they’re forced to forget, I guess.

“The same sort of ‘phenomenon’ happened to the next year’s third-year Class 3 as well, and many people died. Those involved began to recognize that this was odd and that something was going on. And then—”

Mr. Chibiki tangled the fingers of his right hand in his straw-like hair, mussing it wildly.

“And then the year after that—in 1976, I was assigned to take charge of third-year Class 3 again. That was when I experienced
it
. As a member of the class that people had already begun to call cursed…”

The year before—1975—had been an “off year.” Clinging to the hope that perhaps those things weren’t going to happen anymore, Mr. Chibiki took over third-year Class 3 for 1976. However.

That was an “on year.”

The result was that in one year, five students from third-year Class 3 and nine of their immediate family members lost their lives: a total of fourteen people. Accident followed on illness, followed on suicide, then murder…There were many ways that they died.

Maybe it’s
this classroom
that’s “cursed,”
Mr. Chibiki thought. So he appealed to the school and tried changing to a different classroom. That had been right after summer break. But still the months of disasters never stopped. After the graduation ceremony in March, “the extra person who couldn’t possibly have been there” (i.e., “the casualty”) vanished.

And though he’d been the head teacher for the class, Mr. Chibiki said he simply couldn’t remember who the “extra person” had been. He’d collected information later on and found the name of a person
who seemed to be a likely candidate
, but the memories weren’t there as something he’d actually experienced. He’d forgotten. At that point he hadn’t fully grasped this problem with the memories of those involved…

As we listened to him tell the story, fifth period ended and the start of sixth period had left us far behind.

Outside, the rain continued to fall. Over the course of this hour, it had grown quite heavy. The old, grimy windows of the library shook in the wind and raindrops occasionally slapped against the glass.

“…And then three years after that, I once again had the chance to be head teacher for third-year Class 3. I considered quitting my job, but I wasn’t in a position to do it. I prayed for that year to be an ‘off year,’ but that’s not what happened.”

Mr. Chibiki continued his tale in a low voice, and Mei and I continued to listen, not moving a muscle.

“That year was the first that we tried a modest countermeasure suggested by the school. We changed the class designations from the old ‘Class 1,’ ‘Class 2,’ and so on to ‘Class A,’ ‘Class B,’ et cetera. Third-year Class 3 became third-year Class C. We thought that perhaps if the name of the ‘site’ were to change, the curse might be broken, but…”

So it hadn’t worked.

I’d heard that from Mei, so I already knew about it. They’d considered and implemented all kinds of different “countermeasures,” but none of them had had any effect. Because finally, after all the rest, they had found “an effective way to counter the situation”—namely,
this tactic
of “treating someone as if they’re ‘not there’ in place of the ‘extra person’ in the class.”

“…The result was the same. Many people died that year, too.”

Mr. Chibiki let out a long, frustrated sigh, then looked up through his bangs at us to gauge our reactions. All I could manage was a silent nod.

“
It seems
that the ‘extra person’ that year was a girl who’d died in third-year Class 3 in ’76. Once the graduation ceremony ended and that became apparent, I immediately made a note of her name. So that even after my memories about the ‘extra person’ had disappeared, I was able to assure myself that ‘that’s what it says happened.’ It was around this time that I also began to realize that the ‘extra person’ who infiltrated the class seemed to be a ‘casualty’ appearing at random from the ranks of people who had lost their lives in the ‘disasters’ brought about by the ‘phenomenon’ up to that point.”

Mr. Chibiki gave another long sigh.

“That was the last year before I quit being a teacher. It’s been eighteen years now. The principal at the time was adamant that talk of a curse or whatever this is not become public. But at the same time, he gave me what consideration he could and I was able to remain at the school as a librarian.

“I’ve been
in here
ever since.
In here
, just keeping an eye on things, as I still do. I decided I would observe each year’s ‘phenomenon’ as a third party. And, well, sometimes students pop up to talk with me, like you two did.”

Mr. Chibiki broke off and then once again looked up at us to gauge our reactions. His face showed that the tension he’d borne all through the conversation had eased considerably.

“Um,” I interjected. “Can I ask you something?”

“What’s that?”

“Misaki told me that while the ‘extra person’—‘the casualty’—is hiding in the class, records and memories seem to get tampered with all over the place. So the details that would normally never make sense
do
make sense and no one realizes the true identity of ‘the casualty.’ Does that really happen?”

“It really does.”

I didn’t detect even a breath of hesitation in Mr. Chibiki’s answer.

“But it’s no use asking why or how it’s done. Because no matter how much you question it, it can’t be explained with perfect logic. All you can do is tell yourself,
that’s how the ‘phenomenon’ works
.”

I couldn’t say anything.

“Maybe you don’t believe that.”

“Well, it doesn’t make me doubt the idea any more than I already did.”

“I see-e-e.”

Mr. Chibiki languidly removed his glasses, and then dug around in a pocket of his pants before pulling out a wrinkled handkerchief. He wiped his lenses clean for a long moment; then—

“Well, then—” Lifting his head, he restored his glasses to their place and fixed his eyes on us. “Yes, I may as well show
it
to you. That’s probably the fastest way.”

Then he opened a drawer in the desk built into the other side of the counter. After rummaging noisily through its contents for a few moments, he took something out.

It was a binder with a dark black cover.

“Have a look at these examples. They illustrate the situation pretty well.”

Mr. Chibiki held the binder out to us across the counter. I took it from him, my fingers resting nervously on the cover.

“I keep copies of the third-year Class 3 class lists in here. Twenty-seven years’ worth, from 1972 through this year. They’re filed in order with the newest lists on top, so the years go backward.”

I turned back the cover as he explained his system.

And he was right: The first two pages were for 1998—in other words, the class list for the current third-year Class 3. Mr. Kubodera and Ms. Mikami—the names of the head teacher and the assistant teacher—were proclaimed clearly, and below that stretched the list of students’ last names.

My name, Koichi Sakakibara, had been handwritten in the very last row on page two. Because I was a transfer student who’d started late. And then—

To the left of two names—Yukari Sakuragi and Ikuo Takabayashi—an
X
had been written in red pen. Their names and contact information were on the list, and in the space to the right someone had written in beside Sakuragi “May 26—accident at school” and “Same day—mother (Mieko)—car accident”; and beside Takabayashi “June 6—illness.” There was one other: in the space to the right of Takeru Mizuno’s row was written “June 3—older sister (Sanae)—accident at work.”

“Take a look at the year before last.”

Last year had been an “off year.” That must be why he told me to look up the year before, I reasoned. I did as I was told and opened to the page where the class list from 1996 had been filed.

“I’m sure you’ve already realized this, but the names with a red
X
beside them are the people who died that year. There are also notes on the date and manner of their deaths. There are also similar notes when family members have died, you see?”

“Yes…”

I counted the number of
X
s next to students’ names for that year and found there were four. Three names of family members who died. So altogether there were seven people…

“You see the name written in at the very bottom of the second page, in blue ink?”

“…Uh, yes.”

Mami Asakura

That was the name.

“That was the ‘casualty’ that year,” Mr. Chibiki said.

At my side, Mei’s body jerked closer to me to examine the file in my hands. I could feel her breath right against me, which scattered my thoughts in all directions.

“The girl named Mami Asakura was a student mixed up in the class from the beginning of April all the way to the graduation ceremony in March the following year. Without anyone ever realizing that she was an ‘extra person’ who couldn’t possibly have been there.”

“Um, Mr. Chibiki?” I asked. “There are seven people who died that year. Meaning that it wasn’t ‘at least one person dying a month,’ right?”

“Ah, yes. That’s because they enacted the ‘countermeasure’ that year.”

“They did?”

“It was the
talisman
I believe you’ve become quite familiar with by now. They treated someone in the class as if they were ‘not there.’”

“Oh, right.”

“They were successful, too, so no one died in the first half of the year. But then soon after the second semester began, something unexpected occurred.”