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  Uncle Satoru always joked around on the phone like this. Wataru was used to the teasing. He usually laughed it off, but the girlfriend comment threw him for a loop. Wataru felt the heat creeping into his cheeks. When his uncle had said “any girl,” for the briefest of moments, the image of Kaori Daimatsu flashed through his mind. Those white cheeks. Those big, sad eyes.

  “O-of course not,” Wataru said quickly, turning his back to his parents at the table. “There isn’t a single cute girl in my class.”

  “Hmph, now there’s a tragedy.” Uncle Satoru hadn’t seemed to notice the wavering in Wataru’s voice. “So, is your mother home?”

  “She is, and dad’s home early too.”

  He heard an exclamation of surprise on the other end of the line. “Well, miracles happen every day. Get him on the phone, will you?”

  “It’s Uncle Lou,” Wataru began, but Akira was already there, reaching for the receiver.

  “Your uncle’s name is Satoru, not Lou.”

  Satoru Mitani was Akira’s elder brother by five years. He had dropped out of high school at the age of sixteen to take over the family business, and continued to work there to this day. In contrast to Akira, who went from college straight to life in Tokyo, Satoru would probably never leave the peninsula where they had grown up. He loved the sea, and boats, and fishing too much.

  Though they were brothers, their personalities were one hundred and eighty degrees apart. Uncle Satoru talked up a storm, never lingering on one topic for long. His address was far, far away from where logic lived. At times, he didn’t even appear to be aware of its existence.

  Nor did Akira and Satoru look at all alike. His father was of medium height, and slender, while his uncle was short and stocky. His father’s face was long, while his uncle’s was round and hardy. At forty-three, his uncle looked much the same as he had in preschool, which isn’t to say he looked young. Rather, he had looked like a jolly old geezer as a child, and now his age had finally caught up with his face.

  Whether that was the problem, or whether he was merely too self-absorbed, Uncle Satoru had never married. Rumor had it that Grandma had fretted about it for years, but Uncle Satoru himself seemed not in the least concerned. Why would anyone want to get married, he wondered. Still, it wasn’t that he disliked children. He always got along fabulously with Wataru, even slipping him money to buy things on the sly now and then.

  Wataru had two uncles on his mother’s side as well, so instead of just talking about his “uncle,” he had to call them all by different names to keep them apart. On his mother’s side, he would call his uncles by the place they lived, like “my uncle in Odawara,” or “my uncle in Itabashi.” But, for some reason, Uncle Satoru never became “my uncle in Chiba.” Wataru had called him Uncle Lou ever since he could remember, and continued to do so to this day, his father’s occasional reprimand notwithstanding.

  Uncle Satoru had been calling about a memorial service or some other serious matter. Akira spoke with him at length, and though Wataru wanted to talk to him again when they were finished, he was sent out of the living room to take a bath before that happened.

  His mother always said that she looked forward to baths as a time to relax. Most adults never had time alone, she said. Wataru knew it was the same for kids. Something about being in the tub sent the mind wandering places it couldn’t go during the busy day. Tonight, Wataru couldn’t help but think about Kaori Daimatsu—the silent princess in the tower. Had someone locked her up? Or was she hiding?

  You’re ripe for finding your first true love!

  Uncle Lou’s words played over and over again in his mind until Wataru saw his face redden, reflected in the water of the bath. He slapped at it, destroying the image with a sploosh that sent a wave rolling down the length of the tub.

  Chapter 3

  The Transfer Student

  He came to town just before spring break started-a silly time to transfer to a new school, all the girls agreed, whispering and giggling.

  “I hear he’s cute!”

  “He gets really good grades.”

  “I hear he’s fluent in English!”

  “They say his dad worked overseas.”

  The did-you-hears spread like wildfire until everyone knew everything there was to know, down to the last detail. But none of it was the sort of thing to make Wataru’s ears prick up with interest.

  The new kid wasn’t even going to be in Wataru’s class. This meant Wataru would have to go out of his way to find out anything about him, which meant he probably never would, and that was just fine. He also knew that, until the aura of the “new kid” faded and whoever it was became just another classmate, he could be the most simpleminded rube on the face of the earth, and he would look at least three times better than he really was in the eyes of the class.

  With the recent apartment-building boom in Wataru’s neighborhood, there were always lots of people coming and going. Wataru had seen four transfer students join them in his five years at Joto Elementary. He knew how it worked. The chances of the new kid being as incredible as everyone said at first were roughly equivalent to the chances of being struck on the head and killed by a meteorite while walking down the street. It was certainly nothing to get worked up over. Wataru, for his part, was far more interested in rumors of the haunted building. He hadn’t even properly committed to memory the name of the transfer student in the next class.

  This was why it took him so long to figure out what they were talking about.

  “They say that Mitsuru got a picture of the ghost!”

  “Did you see it? Did he show you?”

  “I didn’t see it myself, but they say it’s totally clear!”

  It had been a week since his run-in with the Daimatsu family. He shuffled into class that morning, stifling a yawn, to find five or six of his classmates huddled in the back of the classroom, buzzing with excitement. It didn’t take long for Wataru to join them. Since that night, when the indelible image of Kaori had been burned into his mind’s eye, his ears would tingle the moment he heard anyone say anything that sounded even remotely like “haunted,” or “ghost.”

  “Really? Someone got a picture?” Wataru wedged into the conversation. “When?”

  “In the afternoon, two days ago!” one of the girls replied.

  “During the day?”

  “Yeah, he went there to sketch something for art class.”

  Art class often had the students tromping all over town looking for flowers and trees to sketch.

  “He went to draw the azaleas at Mihashi Shrine,” she added.

  Wataru looked confused. “But our class didn’t go there.”

  “Like I said, it was Ashikawa who took the picture.”

  This was when Wataru realized that the subject of conversation was the transfer student from the next class.

  “The new kid?”

  “Yep. Mitsuru Ashikawa. He grew up overseas, you know,” one of the boys said self-importantly. He pronounced the name with all the vowels stretched out, so it sounded like “Meetsooroo Asheekawa.”

  The girls giggled. “Just pronouncing his name like an American doesn’t make him one!”

  Wataru couldn’t have cared less about the transfer student. He wanted to know more about this picture of the ghost. “You think he’d show me the picture if I asked?”

  One of the girls shook her head. “Mitsuru said it wasn’t good to cause a fuss over such a thing, so he took it home. They say he hasn’t shown the picture to anyone since then.”

  Wataru secretly rejoiced. Maybe he and this Mitsuru guy would get along. After all, that sounded suspiciously like something Wataru himself would say. In fact, if he had said something of the sort during that argument with those girls, maybe he would have come out looking better in the end. It was something to bear in mind.

  “Did anyone in his class see it before he took it home? How about the people that went with him for art class?”

  His classmates offered up the names o
f several people in the other class. Five had gone sketching to the shrine that day: three boys and two girls. One of the boys was the class president, Yutaro Miyahara. A stroke of luck—Wataru knew him.

  “I hear the camera belonged to Yutaro. They were taking pictures so they could work on the sketch details after they went home.”

  Apparently, Yutaro had brought a Polaroid, thinking that each of them could take one photo of the scene they wanted to sketch, so they could work on it at home. Mitsuru had chosen a shot from the shrine that took in the trees lining the grounds, looking out at the haunted building next door. Just as he was about to take a picture, something like a human face appeared above one of the azaleas.

  That was how it happened.

  “He noticed something weird, and that’s when the excitement started,” Wataru’s informant explained. “Everyone thought it was cool at first, but soon one of the girls started crying, and they all got scared and went home. I wonder what happened to the sketch assignment?”

  This was all he needed to know. Wataru waited for the next break, then hurried over to the class next door. He looked in from the hallway to see Yutaro sitting way in the back by the windows, talking and laughing with a couple of classmates.

  Yutaro Miyahara was the top student in his class. Joto Elementary had long since abandoned the practice of hanging up report cards at the end of each year so everyone could see who had gotten the best grades, but still, word got around. Often, the students were more aware of their fellow classmates’ progress than their teachers were.

  Wataru recalled walking in on his parents one day as they were engaged in a debate on education. Akira had been throwing around a lot of rather difficult words, so Wataru only understood about half of what was said. But, out of the jumble of unfamiliar terminology, there had been one thing that was immediately understandable. It had stuck with Wataru ever since.

  “The best students, the gifted ones, they don’t have to sacrifice their lives and chain themselves to a desk studying all day to be the best,” Akira said. “Why? Because they’ve got ability.”

  When he heard that, the first image that had floated into Wataru’s mind, quite naturally, was the face of Yutaro. He was the one his father was talking about, no doubt about it. No matter when you saw him, Yutaro always looked bright, happy, and laid-back. Yet his grades were impeccable. He was good at sports too: first pick in the relay race, gifted swimmer, ace baseball pitcher. At the same time, he was popular because he somehow managed to watch all the right shows on television and knew a ton about video games. The teachers called him “dedicated,” and “a hard worker,” which Wataru didn’t get at all. Sure, Yutaro was a good kid, but he certainly wasn’t a hard worker. It was all so easy for him! Why couldn’t the teachers see that?

  Yutaro seemed engrossed in his discussion, and the classroom was pretty noisy. Wataru figured his chances of calling out softly enough to get his attention without making a scene were close to nil. He looked around for another in, but none of the other faces he could see in the classroom were familiar enough for him to start a conversation with.

  In Joto Elementary, if you were in a different class, you used a different water fountain, and that meant students from different classes rarely met. In fifth grade, some subjects like music or P.E. brought multiple classes together, or split them off into boys and girls, allowing a rare chance for cross-class communication, but like an unspoken rule, any friendship that developed lasted only for the duration of those periods, and no longer. Wataru knew Yutaro only because they were in the same class at cram school.

  Wataru drifted toward the entrance at the back of the classroom and lingered there for little while. Yutaro was still too involved in his discussion to notice him. Wataru had a timid streak that came to the surface at times like this, and he found himself unable to step boldly through that doorway into unfamiliar territory. Moments later, the bell rang to signal the end of break.

  Whatever, I’ll just talk to him tonight.

  Wataru spun on his heels to make for his own room, and walked right into something large and black looming before him.

  “Ow!”

  The thing he had collided with made no noise. It smelled faintly of cough syrup. It was a boy in a black sweatshirt. For a fleeting moment, Wataru thought he was looking in a mirror, so much did the boy resemble himself.

  “S-sorry,” he managed to say, and the illusion faded. The face bore some passing similarity to his own, but that was all. Too bad, because the boy was incredibly handsome. Wataru stood staring, his mouth gaping open. He had something of a reputation as a funny guy and he wore that title like a badge, always turning over a potential joke or a good comeback in the corner of his mind. It was like he had graduated from some sort of comedy boot camp and now, in overdrive, his brain crackled at super speed, turning over snappy oneliners in his head, considering and discarding one every thousandth of every millisecond.

  What is this? National Good-Looking Boys & Girls Week? He abandoned the line as soon as it occurred to him. Too smug. Then he noticed the name tag on the black sweatshirt: “Mitsuru Ashikawa.”

  “…Mitsuru Ashikawa. He grew up overseas, you know…”

  It’s him! The transfer student!

  Before Wataru could think of something clever to say, Ashikawa slipped past him into the classroom. He moved so swiftly that Wataru stood staring at the blank space where he had been standing for a full two seconds before he realized the boy was gone. When he finally turned around to look back into the room behind him, most of the students were seated at their desks, and the period bell (actually a computer-generated tone) tolled over the P.A. system for the last time, its final synthesized note shimmering and fading into silence.

  Wataru sprinted back to his own classroom. His heart was racing.

  After school, Wataru walked home, and then headed back out to cram school a bit earlier than usual. He knew that Yutaro often came early as well, and could be found quietly studying in a corner.

  Kasuga Seminars was a five-minute bike ride away, and occupied the entire third floor of a four-story building. It was divided into three classrooms, and Wataru’s fifth-grade class met three times a week in the northernmost corner room. He attended a two-hour class focusing on Japanese and math.

  He arrived to find Yutaro sitting by himself, as expected, in his favorite place in the corner of the classroom. He was looking at a textbook, with his handwritten notes on pieces of paper spread out in a strange pattern on the desk around him. It looked like he was studying math.

  In the Miyahara household, Yutaro was the oldest of three children. Their father ran a gasoline stand. Yutaro’s younger brother was in preschool, and his sister was still in diapers. Miyahara’s mother had divorced his father some time ago, and his siblings were children from his mother’s second marriage.

  Yutaro was studying at cram school because it was too noisy at his house to get any work done. The instructor understood his dilemma, and let him use the room prior to classes. He got special treatment not because he had younger siblings—plenty of other students were in the same boat—but because Yutaro was the only one among them who would actually go out of his way to study. Everyone else just used noisy brothers and sisters as an excuse to goof off.

  Wataru walked into the classroom, and Yutaro looked up. He twitched and glanced at the clock on the wall. He must’ve thought it was time for class to begin already.

  Wataru waved and made his way over to the other side of the room. “Do you have a second to talk?” he asked.

  “Sure. What is it?” Yutaro said, bluntly.

  Wataru paused. Now that he was here, he realized he couldn’t just blurt out that he had come to ask him about the picture of the ghost. That would sound too childish. Still, after a bit of small talk, he managed to get around to the topic at hand.

  “Oh, that!” Yutaro said, his face brightening. “It’s the talk of the school these days, I hear.”

  “So was it really a ghost in
the picture?”

  “Nah,” Yutaro leaned back in his chair and ran his fingers through his perfectly combed hair. He was still smiling. “Sure, there was something that looked kind of like a face above this one particular azalea. But it could’ve been anything. We all acted like it was a ghost and had a good laugh about it, but I don’t think anyone really believes it.”

  “You know the rumors that the half-built building next to the Mihashi Shrine is haunted, right?”

  “Sure, everybody knows that.”

  “You think there’s a connection?”

  “A connection between a rumored supernatural presence and a smudge on Mitsuru’s Polaroid? Not a clue!” Yutaro laughed out loud. “I never figured you were the type to fall for that kind of talk, Mitani!”

  Wataru’s face reddened. Suddenly, he felt embarrassed and defensive. He wanted to shout that he hadn’t believed the rumors at all from the beginning. He restrained himself, and instead told Yutaro about the incident where he had won the ire of the girls in his class by insisting they check the facts before assuming anything about the haunting.

  “Heh,” Yutaro chuckled, nodding. His smile slowly faded. “I don’t believe in ghosts and all that stuff either. Those girls were just being dumb. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  Wataru was mollified, but the conversation had ended before he heard everything he wanted to know. He wondered if he should tell Yutaro about Kaori Daimatsu. About how pretty she had been, and about how he couldn’t get her out of his mind. Yutaro would understand. He wouldn’t laugh at him, or tease him about it. Wataru opened his mouth, but the words that came out were, “So what’s Mitsuru Ashikawa like?”

  Yutaro blinked, plainly startled. “What’s he like? What do you mean?”

  “I saw him for the first time this morning. He looks kind of too perfect, like a…like a mannequin, you know what I mean?” Their encounter that morning had definitely been a “saw” not a “met.” Wataru wasn’t entirely convinced Mitsuru had even noticed him.