Fumiko caught her breath as she stood in the doorway. "Whoof... I should have caught a picture of that... Imagine what the college social page would say if they saw that thing right outside campus..."
Of course, Fumiko knew deep in her heart that they would likely delete it immediately in order to keep up a nice appearance. Plus, it wasn't like she was going to stand still to get a nice picture of it. 'Maybe if Aya was around...' Fumiko hoped that something that crazy would be enough to warrant a picture from Aya. If not, Fumiko would have to reasses what kind of person Aya was.
Fumiko took her wrist back from Otoya. "...I'm going to need a baseball bat if those things are going to be hanging around that alleyway from now on." She mumbled. It was half joke, half truth. She really was going to look online for a baton once she got into her room.
Fumiko felt a shiver down her spine as her thoughts returned to the rats. Those things being that close to the sharehouse did not inspire good feelings in her. It was already far from airtight, and those things could probably just chew through the wall if they wanted to. Even if she did have a weapon, one of those in the dead of night... She didn't want to think about it.
The question about shoes gave Aya a brief pause. No, he didn't have her shoes. At least, she didn't think so. The baldie carried her out, after all. "Don't think she did." The simple reply came out.
"Well, if you hear anything, I got a photo of 'em on accident."
She left the car, thanking him for the lift with some words and a polite bow. She told him that she'd get a lift home. Either that, or she'd pass out inside of the dark room. One of the two. She entered Camera & Film through it's old, scratched door. Really, why was it open 24/7? Business at night wasn't exactly booming. Not like it was booming during the day, either. Aya couldn't really critique Tsunoda. It was his store and it wasn't ran into the ground just yet.
"Ojisan?" she loudly called. She had to get the key to use the dark room, after all.
"If something happens, I'll take you up on that offer," the detective replied, before raising the window shut. Soon enough, his car was swallowed up by the twisting streets of the district, leaving Aya alone on the side of the road.
It may have been a bit terrifying if she had found herself in the Southwestern or Central District at this time of night, but while many of the shops in the Western District were closed, the shopkeepers often lived on the second level of the buildings, and the sounds of family life could be heard so long as one focused their hearing enough. An old woman played with her grandchildren. Someone was deepfrying tempura shrimp. A puppy yipped against a window. Compared to the sound-proofed, sanitized buildings of their neighbors up north, Tenoroshi's "heritage site" had a warmth that persisted even at night.
And even then, this same district was one where a child could run, terrified of something, until they collapsed in the heat.
Camera & Film was predictably empty. As Aya entered the shop, she saw herself on a CCTV monitor extending downwards from the ceiling. The quality was as crisp as you'd expect out of a camera shop (though videography wasn't Tsunoda's specialty or interest), and the text on the bottom spoke with cheerful menace: 'Smile! You look great today!' The man himself, the only breathing lifeform amongst the aisles of lenses, cameras, film canisters, and tripods, was currently at the front counter, reclining on a faded leather sofa with his socked feet (his big toe poked out of the hole) on the counter. In his hands, he fiddled with an old Polaroid, parts of the case removed to reveal the machinery underneath. A mug of cold coffee sat by his feet, and a newspaper rested on his lap and stomach, where bits of metal and some small tools laid in a disorderly fashion.
"Sup, Aya," he said, not even looking up at the young woman.
The thudding of footsteps and the slamming of a door were, to even the most oblivious of inhabitants, pretty damn hard to ignore in a cramped, thin-walled sharehouse like this. For Iwao, straining his ears against his common sense for anything out of the ordinary, it had been like staring down rolling thunder.
He swallowed a quartet of orange caplets, having nearly had a minor drowning incident once the radio flickered back to life and began to describe a missing person report destined for, impossibly, the day to come. Black hair, square-framed glasses... fit Mochi. The problem was that, unlike his habitual standout scalp, those two descriptors described just about seventy-five percent of the young men that lived in Tenoroshi. As had as it spooked him, that could be anyone either missing already or bound to be.
Maybe it was him rushing through the entrance right now, scared of missing dinner and in no more danger than that.
His knuckles had faded, despite only seconds passing since he'd swallowed the pills. The mind was a powerful thing indeed. Unwilling to let this uncertainty eat at him, given that and all, Arizawa ambled out of his room to greet the new arrivals and (hopefully [for once]) face the music for his destructive tendencies.
"Yo, shit."
...Seemed the only music he was facing was something punky. Rather than the still very much missingunaccounted for Mochizuki, he was met with the ragged breaths and wild eyes of Fumiko and Otoya. These two weren't lazy by any means, but he knew them well enough to know that neither looked at a dead sprint as their example of a lark.
"You guys alright?" He asked after a moment, eyes narrowing as he glanced between the pair before settling upon the door. Shit, if this disappearance thing was a bunch of abductions they'd just dodged...
His right hand, acting just below the level of a conscious command, curled itself into a loose fist at his side. There were a million reasons why it didn't need to. They were on campus, it wasn't even completely dark yet, you name it— but nonetheless, he could feel the idea growing in his head and shaping the unknown on the other side of that door into its image. Like a good horror movie, it didn't matter that it wasn't real.
"You look fuckin' spooked, somebody chase you?"
By the way, Pot, we really need to talk about what you've been saying to Kettle.
Shit was damn right. This day was shaping up to be a whole lot of it. As Fumiko fretted about, Otoya rested his hands on his knees, waiting to catch his breath.
“Giant rat,” he said, as if that explained everything. He heard how stupid that sounded and added, “It’s big.”
A groan as he hoisted the guitar case off his shoulder, letting it rest by the dinner table. Fumiko was right about needing a weapon. Where the hell was he gonna get one? Mentally running over the belongings he had in the sharehouse, there was next to nothing. His guitar was a hard ‘fuck no’. Spare drumsticks were too short. Stolen umbrella was too flimsy. Kitchen knives were communal and therefore sacred.
Ah, whatever. It was preparation for a ‘what if’ scenario, hardly a priority. If their luck held out, that obese nightmare would run out of food and be out of the block by morning.
Otoya peeked out the window hoping to see exactly that, only to narrow his eyes in annoyance.
"Gotta develop some photos," Aya told him, implicitly asking for the key. Even though Tsunoda forgot about every aspect of customer service, she couldn't bring herself to tease him or even bring it up. It's been so long that she'd expended practically every snide comment, playful remark, and honest opinion about how he treated his customers. Granted, he did have the only specialty camera store in the city. Sure, big-box stores carried cameras too. Specialty lenses, polaroids, and other items for hobbyists had to be imported at the cost the purchaser. It was the only place where the internet-challenged and those who feared shipping could get anything.
"Say, d'ya believe in ghosts?" Aya asked him. "Like if you took a photo of a bride 'n groom and there was just a ghost there, what'd you do?"
With the threat (?) of more obese rats scrambling about outside, no one had any interest left in heading outside. Aya being the exception, the rest turned in for the night, settling into their rooms and preparing for a peacefully eventful day tomorrow. Thoughts of self-defense and rodent extermination would have to wait until morning; now, it was best off just to whittle away the hours until sleep turned from an option to a necessity.
“Sell it, probably. Then fix my lens.” The desk rattled as Tsunoda awkwardly pulled open one of the drawers of his desk while still reclined. After some rummaging, he tossed a set of keys at Aya. “Take as long as y’need. Just don’t sleep in there.”
“Thank ya, thank ya,” Aya replied as she caught the keys. Not very gracefully, but she didn’t knock over anything as her arms outstretched and her body shifted. Entering the darkroom, she began the process of developing her pictures. After pouring out the solutions in measured trays and other such preparations, she placed the film under the lightbox. With the magnifying glass, she looked for the images that were good enough to put in the effort to develop. After all, blurry photos of a dark cat were a paranormal laughing stock.
After finding a good one, the image went through all of the processes. The dark red lights made for a familiar feeling as the picture developed.
The cat didn’t transfer.
No, despite appearing clear as day on the negatives, the cat didn’t appear on the developed pictures. One may say that it was a disappointing affair, but it was, to Aya, an incredibly supernatural event. She had a ghost cat that possessed her photos. Or it was seared onto the negatives. Either way, it was interesting.
Leaving the dark room, she paid her respects to Tsunoda and, on behest of the detective, called for an Uber on the way back.
Hiroyuki returned a couple hours later, tossing his overcoat in a heap before slipping into the shower room.
Mochizuki did not return at night. Mochizuki did not return in the morning either.
It was a quiet morning, either from lack of sleep or lack of coffee. There was a pot of instant that was too hot to drink, and there was cheap natto to mix in with fresh rice as well. Leftovers from the snapper was reheated, and miso soup with diced tofu had been set up as well. Sayuri’s cooking, of course. It was warm in the sharehouse, an electric fan already humming away, but the weather forecast buzzing from the radio promised clouds today and cooler temperatures as a result. Not that it meant anything, really.
Hiroyuki reclined on the sofa, dressed as well as always in slate gray slacks and a pinstripe shirt. A manila folder was opened up in his hand, a few sheets of print paper inside. If he seemed considered about Mochizuki not returning or answering his phone, he didn’t show it.
“Well,” he addressed the breakfast-eaters. “As always, we’ve gotta get some club activities done to show off to the university. Picked out some places over the week, so, mm, check these out, pick one, and let’s do some exploring, shall we?”
Or trespassing, depending on how harsh of a light one used to view the club’s activities.
With that, he pulled the sheets out, handing them around to the rest. Each had a picture of the area, a name, as well as some other extraneous details, from address to historical detail. There was Yajirui-Kan, a seventh-generation ryokan that had been shut down a decade past due to declining customers, leaving naught but a boarded up facility in a corner of the Northwestern District no one visited. There was the new apartment complex being constructed at the behest of the Paraiso Conglomerate up in the Northern District, sporting a fascinating mix of Regency-style and Brutalist architecture by the up-and-coming designer, Fukugawa Boris. Construction crews had Sundays off, so all they’d have to do would be to sneak past ground-level security. And of course, on the safer side of things, they could head down to Southeastern District instead, to scout out the fabled warehouse where parts for fighter jets were being made and see if they can get any Instagrammable from giant machines and clanking gears.
The handouts made their way around the circle of university students.
There were a fair few words circling around Iwao's head as he accepted the pamphlet with a nod, chewing through his umami-inundated tofu.
Loose. Limber. Luxurious.
Forget his hands, parts of him that had been sore for so long he'd forgotten about 'em had eased up after last night. You'd have thought all that stress from the rats, the dishes, the fuckin' radio, that all of it woulda compounded into no rest at all— but here he was, fresh as a daisy and ready to go a full twelve.
Maybe it's because I didn't run. Give the body a break a break for a change.
Eyes narrowing momentarily in thought, he set down his utensil and flexed his grip, as if he still need to reconfirm that those small joints wouldn't pull in some unpleasant and awful way.
Then looked down at his bowl. It'd have been pretty damn useful last night, wouldn't it? Woulda kept a better grip on a certain absentee's property...
There was no getting around it. He'd have to go and apologize. Face what you do like a man, if you feel so great. Use the condition while you've got it.
For now, club stuff.
"I like the ryokan." he ventured after a moment. "Seems kinda low-key."
Hiroyuki nodded, mentally tallying Iwao's vote in, before waiting for anyone else to speak up. Ten seconds passed. Thirty seconds. A whole minute. He raised a brow, scrutinizing the others, then shrugged. "Well, Yajirui-Kan it is," the sharply dressed man said without much ceremony. "Let's get going, neh?"
Placing his own bowl in the kitchen sink, he slipped the manila folder into his dark, leather bag, visited the refrigerator for a couple bottles of chilled spring water, and waited for the others by the door. It took various shufflings of possessions and toilet visits before everyone was good to go, but once they were, the group moved with relative unison. After a couple months of these sorts of trips, they fell into predictable clumps. Hiroyuki helming the front with Sayuri. Otoya meandering about as he wished. Fumiko trailing behind at a respectful distance. Aya being a curious nuisance who scrambled to catch up once her detours caused her to lag behind. And then there was Mochizuki, chatting with Iwao in the middle of the pack, just two dudes bonding over lacking aspirations and romances.
Not today though. Today, Iwao walked alone, the spring in his step counteracted by the quiet that dominated his vicinity. Cicadas cried in the shadows of trees, and the sea crashed against the shores in the distance, the sounds of nature slowly gradating into the sounds of civilization as they walked deeper into the heart of the Central District. A group of young men and women nodded at them as they passed by, their formal attire and Bibles marking them out as the small Protestant denomination that met up every Sunday for worship. A salaryman, newspaper over his face, snored loudly on the bench of an inner-city park, still sleeping off last night's drunkeness. Taxis, as well as an athletic woman pulling a rickshaw, waited for customers, but the weather wasn't bad enough and the time not urgent enough to require their services yet. For the Urban Exploration Club, the train line would do anyhow. They stepped underground, enjoyed the roar of cold, dry wind as the automated announcer spoke up, and took a short ride to the glitzy suburbs of the Northwestern District.
Northwestern District
It had been a steep walk up to where the closed-down ryokan was situated, but there was respite to be found in the plum trees lining the path up, at least. Stone stairs were cut into the side of the hill, a total of twenty-two steps before they reached the top, and the view that was provided to the group as they turned around was...rather mundane, really. Taking shelter in the shade, Hiroyuki twisted open one of the water bottles he brought along, sipping at it calmly, and then handed it to Sayuri to share. For all his many layers of fashionable clothing, he hadn't sweated at all during the stair-climbing. Was he secretly a badass with bombass glutes?!
Probably not. He wasn't the good Captain, after all.
Up close, Yajirui-Kan looked like any of the other old buildings that one may have once seen in the Northwestern District. The wind carried the suggestion of cypress wood, and the front of the entrance held the shadow of the establishment's nameplate. Two stories tall with a tiled roof that peaked upwards, it held all the charm and homeliness of any multi-generational storefront, marred with garrish plywood planks nailed over any conceivable entrance. Rather than looking haunted or anything, it just looked despondent. Too old to survive the era, too distant to be renovated like the rest of them. Hiroyuki let out a whistle, and circled around the back, motioning the others over.
Behind, after ignoring the 'No Trespassing' sign and vaulting over the yellowed bamboo wall, the group landed in a disheveled Zen garden, the sand and gravel long having lost their orderly patterns and lines. Plywood still boarded up the windows here, but one of the doors, leading perhaps to a hallway or corridor, was left exposed. Holes where nails had once been pounded in marked the frame of the sliding door, and when tested, it didn't offer any resistance either. It did end up opening to a ground-level hallway with old signs pointing to the direction of the bathroom, the dining area, and the lobby, as well as the staircase leading to the private bedrooms. The notes had pointed out the existence of a small attic (perhaps in the space of the peaked roof?) and a cellar (promising the possibility of real 'treasure) as well.
"Well, I'll watch our escape. Everyone's got their phones, yeah?" Hiroyuki waited for an answer, but didn't seem all that concerned either way. "Have fun, y'all. Hit me up if you find a hidden room, please."
NAGAKU OTOYA - Northwestern District: Yajirui-Kan @Crowvette Let’s just get it out of the way. Otoya wasn’t a fan of that golden boy taking the club’s helm. He didn’t like the way he dressed, the way he talked. Guy was like a spotlight shining directly into his eye. Though Sayuri, bless her heart, always had some praise (or excuse) for him, Otoya was never swayed. He knew what that type was like.
So he abstained, his seat half-turned away from the group as he plucked a countermelody to the beat in his earphones. A small show of rebellion that brought him a little satisfaction, even if no one else visibly gave a shit. He didn’t pack anything large, once again just slinging his guitar case over his back.
He scratched at a bruise through Hiroyuki’s little spiel. Simple enough.
“Oi, wanna check the basement with me, Fumiko?” he asked, jerking his chin down the hall.
