Interlude

No, I’m not fired, I’ve not been exiled and I’m not currently furnishing Setsu’s office as a desk blotter.

I’ll spare you the details of the interview (I’ll try not to call it a scolding… woops, too late) I have been called for in the Minister’s office, to be reminded that being a state officer I have to be exemplary. I retorted parley was seldom if ever necessary when exemplary preventing yôkai, ghosts and other demons to put in two cents with thy neighbors.

So I ended with a “warning” -I can tell you my next family gathering will be killingly funny- and an obligation to apologize to Gekkô.

I think the Minister really blew up when I told him smiling that I’d rather be tied by the tongue to his car and dragged along on Tokyo’s belt highway during rush hours than to apologize. Retrospectively, I may have had a heavy hand with him, but nothing in the world would piss me more than licking this ill-omen-kyûbi’s boots, considering that I’m already more or less forced to do so.

Clearly, after this revolting morning, I came back slightly annoyed to my fifteen square meters flat in Yanaka, next to the cemetery. I selected this area because I like quietness, and also because of the abundance of temples. I don’t like my job, that’s a fact, but this type of district remains the cleanest -from a spiritual point of view- that can be done, thanks to the sacred building still standing. I’m in my element. And not being continuously bothered by local spirits when taking a shower or washing the dishes is quite pleasant too.

“I knew you’ll be back soon.”

She had to come from the garden’s door and sat on the stairs leading to the first floor. In her short blue dress, with her naked shoulders, she still looks like she’s twelve. She keeps on wearing her hair free and even her inquisitive gaze fails in giving her a stricter look. She has a pair of shadowed pits, black apples in which irises and pupils are melting. I don’t like when she looks straight at me because of them, she knows and she overdoes.

“You could have phoned, you would not have been obliged to wait,” I point out to her, playing with my keys.

I pass her and climb the stairs, not offering her to come with me.

“You should be the one phoning, Satoru…”

I don’t look back and put my key in the keyhole with a mocking smile. Women… instead of really sock it to you once and for all, they need to play it by escalating melodramatic tone.

Anyhow, Hana is very good at this game.

“Why? You think it would be better to see each other more often?”

“You never visit me, not a single drop by, and if I was not the one coming to you, I may not be able to remember what you look like anymore.”

“Sounds not so serious to me. Unless I’ve missed an event?”

“My birthday.”

Ouch. I didn’t realize I was this much on the blink… and it seems to be a little too late to make up for it, considering her face. For my defense, I seldom give any news to Hana, so much that she used to ask after me directly. Sometimes everything is well and we’re happy with a weather conversation, a perfect osmosis.

And sometimes she reminds me we barely manage to row each other.

“Ok.”

I turn to face her and raise my hands.

“Did you put a price on my head or just called for the cops?”

“Sounds not so funny to me.”

“Nothing sounds funny to you. And yet I remember it used to be so.”

“Same for you, don’t you think? You did not always used to be a twenty-two-years-old crone, perfectly unbearable in every way.”

Judging by the fact I’m as petty as she is, I recognize I may have a big “doll side”, too. This revelation does nothing to improve my mood.

“Look, Hana. You’d break my knees with a bat if you want, but not this morning. Not now. I just had a truly shitty morning so please, I beg you, I plead you, go home and come back to blame me when I have slept.

I probably look pathetic, I’m nearly whining her to leave me be. She stamps on the stairs a few seconds, gauging me, then she turns heels and I sigh heavily with relief.

“Hana…”

She freezes in the stairs, one of her black shoes –these I offered her last year, late, of course- on hold above the last step.

“I apologize. I just had a crazy week, I’m back from the minister’s office, I even didn’t take a breather… promised… I’ll make up for this.”

I can see her head moving slowly as she looks at me with her pitch black glance. I think she smiled to me.

“Okay. Didn’t know you were so rich.”

Not so far away from mine and not so much more popular among the family, what I like the most about her is her sense of humor. And her smile. She crosses the garden door and waves at me.

“See you, little brother!”

And she disappears at a fast pace round the street corner. I’ve never understood why my sister always looked like she was in a hurry, as I vaguely recon she does not work. But I always saw her in a rush, as if she was worried to be late, even if she knows punctuality is far away from being my best quality –whatever that jackass of Gekkô thinks-.

Entering my flat, I was totally worn out. And I swear for the thousandth time I shall immediately yield to the next girl scolding me. Less work for my nerves.
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