About a Place in the Kinki Region p.17: Interview transcript 2

Ah, yes. Iced coffee is fine.

I hadn't heard from F-san in a really long time so I was surprised when they contacted me. Yes. Apparently they're still a writer.
This interview is for that monthly magazine, 〇〇〇〇, correct? Oh, right, it's not published regularly anymore.
Is the editor from last time not going to be present today? Umm, it's been a decade now so I'm having trouble remembering their name... Ah, yes, that's it. K-san.
Oh? They left the company, huh...
To the point, why are you doing a follow-up interview on such an old story? I'd thought the article about my thesis work never got published.
Ah, no, don't worry, I'm not upset or anything. K-san set up an exorcism for me in exchange, I'm really thankful for that.
As a result, I'm still alive and well all these years later. I'm expecting my first child soon, even.
Though, well... Maybe I shouldn't be admitting this so early, but I doubt I would've taken this interview if it wasn't for F-san asking me to.
Back then, K-san acted kind of rude... No, please don't apologise, it had nothing to do with you. I understand why, I suppose. It was just business for them.
I was really desperate. Terrified, too. So when they said they could set up an exorcism for me, it really took a weight off my shoulders. From K-san's perspective, though, I was just one of countless sources.
I was asked all sorts of questions like, is all of this true; are you just lying for attention; could we exaggerate this bit because it's not engaging as-is. It felt to me like this terrifying experience was being made light of, as a piece of entertainment. It was pretty upsetting.
It should be obvious, but true horror stories are nothing but tragedy for the people actually involved. People who create horror media might slowly get numb to the reality of it, I suppose.
Me, though, I don't touch the stuff anymore. Not since I suffered my own horror story.
Ah, I'm not trying to say everyone who makes horror media is like that. Definitely not. I can tell you're genuinely listening to what I'm saying, so you don't need to worry about any of that.
Right. We're here to talk about what happened after that interview.
So, in exchange for doing the interview, K-san put me in contact with... how to put it, someone with spiritual power? Well, something along those lines.
It was at a temple near Tama. I'm not familiar with this sort of thing, but it's supposedly pretty well-known amongst those who are.
I remember as soon as I showed up, the monk sighed as if there was nothing he could do.
I pleaded with him and explained everything that'd happened to me. That this strange woman broke into my room because of my thesis work. That I was about to move and wanted to make sure she wouldn't be able to follow me.
The monk said he couldn't sense the woman at all, though. It seemed she had stopped haunting me.
Instead, she'd drawn something much worse to me. He told me my life could be in danger if I didn't do something.
I begged him to exorcise it on the spot, but apparently it's not that simple.
He said, the usual kinds of spirits could be laid to rest through exorcism, but the one haunting me was something much more powerful. To use Shintoism terminology, it was almost at the level of a deity.
Supposedly these sorts of things defy human understanding, so exorcisms are pointless. There was nothing he could do to deal with it.
It was kind of pathetic but I started crying and begging when he told me that.
I was desperately asking things like 'am I supposed to just let it kill me!?'
The monk looked deeply troubled by the whole situation, but I guess my begging eventually broke through. He sat in thought for a really long time and then told me:
"Keep animals near. Whether it's the right thing to do, you'll have to make your own judgement."
I was truly desperate, so I immediately headed to a pet shop.
I'd never had any pets so I asked someone at the shop what's easy to keep. I went with ricefish.
They also recommended I get some tiny shrimp to go with them. There's this type of shrimp called caridina shrimp. Have you heard of them? They eat the leftovers from the ricefish and help keep the water clean, so they have a great symbiotic relationship.
Ultimately I bought a few ricefish and shrimp, alongside a small tank and some gravel.
A few days after that, I finally moved in to my new apartment—a cheap place built for sole tenants. I was a working man now. The ricefish came with, of course.
Well, nothing significant really happened at first. I assumed the ricefish were protecting me from evil, and that's why the monk suggested it.
About a month later I think it was, I started to see something. It looked like a young boy.
Walking around town, I'd see it standing somewhere in the distance, staring blankly. I knew it wasn't a real, living kid. It looked normal—like a boy around grade-school age, always in the same t-shirt and shorts. Nobody else ever noticed it. Like they weren't even aware it existed. I was the only person who could see it.
Sometimes it'd be standing in the middle of a crowd of people, sometimes hiding in the shadow of a telephone pole, and one time I even saw it standing on the rooftop of a nearby building, visible from my office's window.
It was always staring right at me, expression totally blank. Its head was always tilted to the side, too.
Mhmm. It was terrifying. I'd never seen a ghost before. With the woman, I'd only been told about it, never actually saw it myself. I called the temple to ask for their help. The same monk told me, so long as I keep a living creature, I'll be okay. That was all they said.
The thing never did anything. Just stared at me. So I pretended not to notice it.
I did just as that man who could sense spirits advised: "it's best to pretend you didn't see anything."
But then it happened. One night, after I'd gotten home from work.
So, when I get home, the first thing I do is take off my shoes and socks. I'd just thrown my socks into the washing machine and was walking past the fish tank.
I felt something beneath my foot. I looked down, and saw the floor was wet. But that wasn't it—I'd stepped on something else.
I had to take a close look to see it, but it was one of the shrimp. Dead on the floor.
Well, I'm not sure if me stepping on it was what killed it or if it was already dead.
There was a lot of water on the floor. The tank sat about half full. The ricefish and the remaining shrimp were swimming about without much space.
There wasn't anything like an earthquake that day. I had no idea how half the tank managed to spill onto the floor.
My best guess was that my clothes had caught on something and knocked it around when I was leaving in the morning and the shrimp had just fallen out along with the water.
It was a small thing, really, but it was a life all the same. I felt sorry for it and gave it a prayer.
I suppose that's where everything really began.
The boy kept watching me from afar, like it always did.
A month after that, one of the ricefish died.
I'd gotten up late at night to use the bathroom. When I lifted the toilet seat, it was there—floating dead in the toilet bowl.
That's when I realised something was going on.
I still had plenty of ricefish and shrimp left in the tank, though.
Everything was normal for a few months after that. The boy hadn't gone away, but nothing else happened.
Then, one evening, I was walking home from a nearby convenience store. I'd just bought a quick dinner there.
I saw it again, far away.
This time standing in the middle of the road under a streetlight, head tilted to the side as always.
I was about to turn away and act like I hadn't seen it as usual.
That's when it suddenly started running.
It sprinted right towards me with wild, rapid steps.
Same blank expression, but its head was swinging back and forth and side to side as it ran.
It hadn't been tilting its head this whole time like I thought—rather, it simply couldn't hold it up.
I ran away, rushing straight to my apartment.
Very fortunately, I'd left the door unlocked since I was only heading out for a few minutes.
I threw open my door like I was some kind of battering ram, then slammed it shut behind me and flipped the lock.
Bambambambambambambam!
It started wildly banging on my door.
With way more strength than you'd think possible from a young boy.
I lived in a cheap apartment, so the door wasn't solidly built. It shook like crazy.
I was worried it was going to break down the thing at this rate, but then it stopped all of a sudden.
Still, it took me a long time to move from that spot.
After several minutes, I mustered up the courage to slowly crack the door open and peek outside. It was gone.
Instead, the only thing I found was the corpse of a large gecko, crushed to death by the door itself, likely when I'd forcefully swung it open or shut.
The ricefish and the shrimp were swimming about the tank as if nothing had happened.
After that, I made the swift decision to move somewhere that allowed pets.
Of course, entirely so I could keep one.
I got myself a hamster.
About a year later, it started hibernating one day and never woke up.
Next, a parakeet.
That one lived for almost three years. It passed eventually, after flying into the window and breaking its wing.
Around that time I got married, and we moved into a proper house.
Last year our cat passed away. We'd had it for a whole six years. It started throwing up blood out of nowhere, and that was it.
My wife was really broken up about it.
And now, we've got a dog. A little golden retriever puppy.
The boy? Yes. I still see it, even now. Look, out that window—there, over on the other side of the road. It's looking right at us. Can you see it? Right, of course not. Hahah.

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Translation Notes 17-24
The translation notes are organised by part. Please be careful of spoiling yourself by reading ahead.


This is an amateur translation of the web novel 近畿地方のある場所について as posted to kakuyomu.jp by the author 背筋. The web novel is freely accessible to the public, and this translation has no relation to any other adaptions. I claim no rights or ownership of the content presented.