Chapter 65
Chapter 65
4. The God Who Is There
Maybe because of the gentle vibrations, I had an old dream.
When was the last time we all rode in the car as a family? Dad in the driver's seat, Mom in the passenger seat occasionally turning around to look at my older brother and me sleeping in the back.
I forgot where we were headed, but I remembered the glow of the night lights in the window, my parents' hushed voices, and the weight of my brother's head leaning on my shoulder.
I woke up as the car came to a stop.
The interior was dark with smoked windows. I was surprised to find myself sleeping surrounded by people from the countermeasure headquarters, but seeing Kirima rubbing his eyes beside me made me feel a little relieved.
Ryoko opened the door.
"You two get out first and take your time to rest."
Beyond the half-open door stood a large hospital, gleaming in the morning sun.
I got out of the car and rolled my stiff shoulders and arms. The early morning air was cold and clean, and it felt like the stagnation in my lungs had finally cleared.
"So, where are we?"
"This is where my wife is hospitalized."
Kirima walked confidently across the linoleum floor.
"My wife has a weak constitution."
His voice echoed through the quiet hospital, tinged with fatigue.
"While she's hospitalized, what about Rei-chan?"
"Usually my father-in-law watches her, but if she cries saying she doesn't want to be apart from her mom, he stays overnight. When that happens, I stay too."
"That's tough, being a dad."
Kirima stopped in front of a private room.
Through the glass window in the door, I saw a white bed. From the edge of the raised blanket peeked long black hair, and a small blanket was curled up nearby.
The moment Kirima opened the door, the blanket flew up.
"Daddy!"
Rei dashed out and clung to Kirima. She pressed her head against his stomach and pounded him repeatedly with her small fists.
"Why didn't you call even once!?"
Rei's tearful voice was so young and innocent. Even at her age, she probably understood her dad had a dangerous job.
"I'm sorry..."
Kirima stroked his daughter's hair.
There's no way Ryoko and the others dropped Kirima off in front of the hospital out of kindness. It was a threat — a hand at the throat of his family.
"I'm sorry," I muttered too.
As Kirima soothed his daughter, an old man, Rei's grandfather, arrived.
I watched from a short distance away.
The old man in a suit and hat must be Miyaki. His back was straight, and his gaze sharp — he radiated the authority of a politician or university professor. He was a heavyweight in the countermeasure headquarters, someone who knew countless truths I didn't.
As Miyaki held Rei's hand, he glanced at me for a moment. When I looked back, he averted his eyes and walked away.
Kirima looked at his daughter's retreating back and spoke.
"Wanna grab a bite?"
We ended up at the ramen shop we had visited before with Kirima and Rei.
The old red lanterns had lost their glow and swayed in the warming summer breeze.
I sat on a hard round stool and opened the sticky menu. When I wiped my hands with a cold towel, the dirt on my fingers melted into the fabric.
I ordered the same ramen and half-fried rice as before, and Kirima ordered the same. Probably because there wouldn't be any leftovers from his daughter today.
"Is Rei-chan okay?"
I tilted my glass of water. The condensation ran down my fingers like tears.
"More or less. I'll make it up to her later."
"With taiyaki again? The red bean kind?"
"You sure remember the useless stuff."
Kirima smirked.
As I slurped the ramen that had arrived, it sank heavily into my empty stomach. I washed down the greasy fried rice with water and opened my mouth.
"Hey, when you passed through that door... didn't you really meet someone?"
A piece of bamboo shoot slipped from Kirima's chopsticks. So he saw the same thing after all.
"I met something huge and humanoid holding a spear-like thing. Uyuu, you too?"
"Yeah. Did it talk to you?"
"Yeah, but I couldn't understand a word it said."
"What did you say back?"
"Just that I wanted to return safely, that's all."
"Me too."
Kirima looked down at his ramen bowl.
"You know Japanese mythology?"
"Only enough to know Oda Nobunaga."
Kirima looked exasperated and reached for a cigarette despite not finishing his food.
"In the Kojiki, it's said two gods stirred the chaotic earth with a spear and created the Japanese archipelago."
I gasped.
A spear that stirred the chaos outside the window. Even if it wasn't the same god that created Japan, it looked a lot like it. If that's the case, then it makes sense that it's an extremely dangerous god.
"Why don't Ryoko and the others know? Wouldn't they understand if they tried it themselves...?"
"They probably didn't try. They pushed the dangerous stuff onto people like us and watched from a safe place. Everyone who used the door saw Ryoko and the others as dangerous and didn't tell them. That's why they don't know."
"That's messed up. We're just disposable pawns..."
"That's how the countermeasure headquarters works."
I dropped my spoon into the bowl. There was still soup left, but I didn't feel like drinking it.
I searched my pocket and pulled out the cigarette Reizei gave me.
"Can I borrow your lighter?"
Kirima silently slid the lighter over. I lit the cigarette, and the heavy smoke rushed down my throat, making me cough.
"Are you a teenager?"
"Shut up. This one's heavier than usual."
Reizei's cigarettes were terrible. If only she had let me choose the brand. It felt like a thorn had lodged deep in my chest.
"Kirima, be careful not to get erased. Unlike me, you've got people who'd be sad if you were gone."
Kirima looked surprised.
"You're not completely alone either, are you?"
"Who? I don't really have family or friends."
"My daughter talked about you."
"Rei-chan did? What'd she say?"
Kirima didn't answer.
The shop owner came to clear the empty bowls. Ash from the cigarette fell onto the ring-stained table.
Kirima opened his wallet and pulled out something like a business card and two photos.
"What's that?"
"Reizei said that if the god takes you without anyone knowing, you might not be completely erased if there are records like documents or photos left behind. That's why I carried them."
I took the business card.
It said, "Imperial Household Agency Special Division – Renjirou Kirima."
"Imperial Household Agency?"
"They gave it to me when I joined the countermeasure headquarters. Our group is a top-secret agency. My father-in-law Miyaki is connected to a high-ranking official in the Imperial Household Agency, so for convenience, we fall under their jurisdiction. People who know will recognize it — it's like a police badge."
"Huh..."
Even on that document, his surname was still Kirima.
The cigarette burned out, and I crushed it in the ashtray.
"Let me borrow your lighter one more time."
Kirima tossed over a square piece of thick paper. It was a matchbook with a business hotel's name on the cover.
"Keep it."
"I'm not good with these..."
I wasted two matches before finally getting it lit.
With the cigarette in my mouth, I picked up the photo. The first one showed Kirima, a younger Rei, and a woman I didn't know at the beach.
"That was when we went to Atami."
In the photo, Kirima had his usual grumpy face. With the corners of his mouth slightly lifted, maybe that was his version of a smile.
"After my wife got sick, that was our last family trip."
"Once she gets better, you can go again."
Kirima lowered his eyes.
The second photo had a sepia tone, maybe taken with old equipment.
In front of a wall covered with documents stood an old door. It was that chapel. Six men and women were in the photo.
In the center were Kirima, Reizei, and Ryoko. The elderly woman in plain clothes was Ueda; I didn't recognize the man in a white coat or the one in military uniform.
"Who are these guys?"
"The one in the white coat is Umemura's father—the guy you punched. He was a psychiatrist. Apparently, he came to know about the god while treating patients possessed by fox spirits."
"Is he still alive?"
"He died of cancer. The one around now is his son."
"What about the one in the uniform?"
"That's Tsuga. He was my stepfather and researched The God Who Is There. He used it himself a few times, but later disappeared. Maybe he was erased."
Doubts began to surface as Kirima spoke in a flat tone.
"Japan doesn't even have a military anymore, right?"
Kirima let out a sound. His panic was obvious.
"No... no, but... Tsuga was in the military..."
The cigarette slipped from Kirima's hand and scorched the desk. He hurriedly put out the fire with a damp cloth, drenched in sweat.
"You okay?"
Kirima covered his mouth and spoke.
"Maybe our assumptions are wrong..."
"What do you mean?"
"Yesterday, I definitely heard the news that a missile had been launched toward Japan. But once I passed through the door, that fact was gone."
Kirima closed in on me and lowered his voice.
"The God Who Is There might be a god that alters reality based on the wishes of whoever enters."
The reason nothing seemed to happen was because no one outside the door could notice. It rewrites the entire world in a single day. If humans were to use such a god—
"It'd be seriously dangerous..."
Kirima nodded and took a cigarette with trembling hands. The flame flickered precariously.
"That god used to belong to the Miyaki family, right? Why did they let it go?"
"...My stepfather said he decided to donate it after his wife died. Thinking about it now, maybe he tried to change the world so she'd still be alive and failed. Maybe he realized death couldn't be undone and gave up."
Kirima pressed the cigarette to his lips.
"Anyway, don't tell anyone about this. If the countermeasure headquarters finds out how unusual that god is, it's over."
Kirima shoved the photo and business card into his jacket, and something like an earbud tumbled out of his inner pocket onto the desk.
"You dropped something. What is this?"
When I picked it up and handed it over, Kirima's face turned even paler. A small black device had a red light glowing on it.
"It's a bug..."
I remembered Ryoko had slipped her hand into Kirima's jacket.
This is the worst.