Chapter 17

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“Are you by chance Shouma Hanashima?”

In the gently drizzling rain, the boy called out to Shouma, stopping him on his way to Tendou’s office. When Shouma looked in the direction of the voice, he saw a young boy, not much older than him, standing there.

He was holding a plate of tofu with a small reddish maple leaf on top of it in his hand while water dripped from his sedge-woven hat. His kimono had a horned owl pattern on it.

The boy’s child-like eyes flickered as he looked up at Shouma.

“Please, somehow, help me find my father!”

Bowing deeply, the stranger offered the tofu he was clutching.

This was the first encounter between Shouma and the Tofu Boy. [1]

—

“Hey, didn’t you hear the sound of bamboo leaves rustling around there?”

“What’s this all of sudden?”

It was Yoshihiro who replied astoundedly.

Shouma was in the University’s cafeteria. Across the desk from him was the usual gang, his friends Yoshihiro and Yamato.

Yoshihiro was eating the cafeteria’s daily set meal while Yamato was nibbling on a piece of yakisoba bread. In front of Shouma was his usual bento box. Today’s menu for him was the leftovers from dinner, Japanese hamburg steak and potato salad. He made some sauteed burdock root and prepared nitamago [2] from his leftovers. The spinach with sesame paste was served with a side of fried tofu.

Yamato licked the sauce from his fingers and now took out the melon pan.

“Does this bamboo grass have anything to do with the Tanabata? [3] It’s only mid-June, you know.”

“No, it has nothing to do with it…”

“If it’s not Tanabata, then why are these bamboos important?”

“The sound of the bamboo is more important than the bamboo itself.”

“The sound?”

Both Yoshihiro and Yamato tilted their heads at the same time. Both looked like they didn’t know what their friend was talking about.

Shouma took the Japanese style steak into his mouth. He chewed it with a pensive expression on his face, then swallowed it.

“Well, I will just change the question then. Have you seen a big man around there? Or do you happen to know any rumors of that sort?”

“How big is this guy?”

“Like… a house?”

“What the hell. That’s more like a monster.”

“It could feel like that…” nodded Shouma.

In situations like this, he still didn’t know how to properly ask these kinds of questions.

Shouma was looking for a giant kaii, called the Mikoshi Nyuudou. [4]

It all traced back to two days ago, when everything began.

Since he started working as a collector of the kaii, it had become a daily routine for Shouma to visit the office after his University lectures. Of course he didn’t go on days when he had another of his part-time jobs, but on other days he tried to show up as much as possible. All of this was done in order to successfully repay the 3 million yen for his protection charm.

After catching the Fusu-Saburo, Shouma got his recompense by Tendou as he promised. The amount was 20,000 yen. This amount of money for a few hours of actual work was exceptional. However, even if he used the entire amount to pay off his debt, there was still 2,980,000 yen remaining.

The salary from his other part-time job was used for living expenses, so the repayment of the 3 million dollars had to be paid back basically through the part-time job of collecting the kaii.

His debt of 3 million yen will never be paid back if he just keeps on slogging. Even if not right away, he at least wanted to finish it during his University life.

So, Shouma had tried to collect as many kaii as possible, and jammed himself into the office, all for one purpose, to pay off his debt.

However, being in Tendou’s office was surprisingly comfortable.

Shouma could just study and write his reports in his spare time. Tendou liked his dramas so he didn’t move away from the TV all day long which meant he didn’t come to disturb him.

The high school girl who also worked in the office – Fuyuka Okuda – was also very kind to him.

She may look quite flashy, but she was a good girl who always paid attention to minor details.

Two days ago, Shouma was on his usual way to Tendou’s office. On the way there, he was stopped by a young boy he had never seen before.

He introduced himself as the ’Tofu Boy’.

When he took the boy to the office and asked Tendou about him, he told Shouma that the Tofu Boy was basically a harmless kaii, who usually appears on the streets, with a piece of tofu in his hands.

The Tofu Boy had come to ask a favour from Shouma.

He wanted him to find his father, Mikoshi Nyuudou, and if Shouma were to find it, he would happily return back to the Collected Records along with him.

It seemed that since the incident of Saburo, Shouma’s name somehow became more and more famous among the kaii. The fact that Saburo told him his name was also a big factor and he seemed to have been labeled as a ’trustworthy person’ among them. [5]

Tofu Boy also said that he had relied on those rumors and came to seek Shouma’s help as a result.

(And yet, there aren’t any positive results at all…)

Shouma bite into the nitamago that had been soaked for two days. Its color was good, but the taste seemed lighter than usual, perhaps because it also was dispirited just like him.

The Mikoshi Nyuudou was a kaii that appears as an ordinary monk at first but grows larger the more one looks at it. It is said to be also known as ’Miage Nyuudou’. [6]

Not to mention, when the Mikoshi Nyuudou appeared, there was always the sound of rustling bamboo grass. So, Shouma posed the aforementioned questions to his friends, even though the result was another crushing failure.

—–

Translator’s Notes:

[1] 豆腐小僧 A harmless and weak yokai who sometimes tend to follow people on the streets on rainy nights. They are mostly servants of other yokai, and in some illustrations they appear with only one eye. (example)

[2] Boiled and peeled egg marinated in soy sauce.

[3] At the night of Tanabata most Japanese people write wishes on small papers which they later hang on bamboo grass, even one of the traditional Tanabata song begins with ’bamboo leaves rustle’

[4] 見越入道 ’anticipating priest/monk’ A particularly aggressive yokai which appears as an ordinary monk at first on empty streets at night, attacking lonely travelers. The more a person looks at it the bigger it gets and when the person tumbles backwards to look at it, the creature has an opportunity to bite out the victim’s throat. (example)

[5] Since the Fusuma got a name the author labeled the creature as a ‘he’, for this reason I will use this from now on and will eventually do the same with the other kaii’s if their ‘proper’ name gets introduced.

[6] 見上げ入道 The name literally means ’look up priest/monk’

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