4.6 Sensei, don't be mad Final Part

Junna found Nana and Hifumi in the library.

“I’m ready to head out. Can you come over and put some wards on my TV?”

Nana nodded multiple times. Junna became more anxious about showing Nana their sparse living conditions. Their apartment was old, but it would be clean enough, right…?

“I think that’s a good idea. Hifumi, we’re going to head back. Let’s go!”

Hifumi carefully closed the book she was reading and put it back on the shelf, eyes lingering on it reluctantly. Junna squinted and saw something about curses in the title.

That’s unusual. Although honestly, I was reading the same kind of thing at her age. If Hifumi was trying to help Kei gather information about Itsumise, the topic seemed relevant.

Junna left the shrine with Nana and Hifumi. Coincidentally, they bumped right into the Hachikuji siblings’ godfather on the way out. Almost literally, Junna had to reel backwards to avoid running into the Hawaiian shirt-wearing man. Kei’s fashion sense hadn’t changed at all.

“Whoa—oh, Jun, long time no see!”

“Your bold fashion sense remains the same…” Junna couldn’t help but smile. Kei had been an underclassman and close friend of the late Hachikuji parents, so even before they passed, he was basically family to the Hachikuji siblings.

“Hifumi, were you causing trouble for your sister?” Kei leaned around Junna, raising his eyebrows. Hifumi turned away and scooted behind Nana.

“It wasn’t any trouble,” Nana insisted. “We can talk about it later. Right now we’re going to Junna’s apartment so I can put up some wards around their TV.”

“You forgot to protect the TV?” Kei asked. Junna rubbed the back of their neck.

“I haven’t had a TV in a while, okay? And I got… kicked out of my apartment. And then scolded by Izanami. After that we got stuck on an Itsumise episode. Then I stayed the night at Nana’s house and today Doikawa lectured me.”

“Sheesh, you’ve had a rough 24 hours. Did Doikawa-san lecture you about Itsumise?”

“Ugh, yeah…”

“You and Kei should talk about it sometime. M-maybe you can go out for drinks? Since you can drink now!” Nana laughed nervously, her bright smile a little too wobbly. She knew that Junna hadn’t seen Kei yet.

Are you my mom, trying to make sure I socialize!? Nana, don’t give yourself that much work!

“Hey, yeah. You don’t have to make me drink soda while you have beer if we go for ramen anymore!” Junna did not want to talk to Kei about Itsumise. They especially didn’t want to do it now. They needed more preparation!

“True! Well, since Nana said Hifumi was here, I came by to pick her up. I’ll take her home. Message me when you want to grab some drinks, maybe get a bowl of ramen? I’ll send you what I found about Itsumise, too.”

“Kei. You are a lifesaver.” Junna bowed their head, grateful Kei had left scheduling up to them. “We’re gonna head out. I’ll message you.”

“No problem.”

Junna was exhausted. Nana initially walked next to them on their way back to the apartment, but she fell half a step behind by the time they got off the train at Nippori Station. She only caught up when she was squeezing in to peek over Junna’s shoulder after they opened their apartment door. The door had been closed but not locked; Junna didn’t even have their keys with them. They didn’t often lock their door anyways. Even a city as big as Tokyo was mostly safe from things that would heed physical locks.

“Oh… you haven’t bought much furniture yet, have you?” Nana’s polite tone still betrayed judgement. She might as well have said “bitch, you live like this?” Her brother sure would have.

“I’m still getting used to staying in one place for more than a week. I have a table and a futon and look: a TV.”

Nana slipped off her shoes and carefully approached the TV. Now that the sun was up, nothing looked unusual about it. It was hard to believe that Ibuki had crawled out of it the night before. It would be easy for most people to feel safer during the day, but Junna knew better.

“I have some blank ofuda. If you could just ward the TV and my bathroom mirror, that would be great…” Junna sighed. “Uh. Do you want some tea?”

“Oh, no, that’s okay…” Nana took one look at their micro-apartment style kitchen. She nodded lightly at the fridge and the gas burner that had been hooked up. She must have assumed the apartment didn’t come with those fixtures and Junna had bought them. She was wrong. Junna hadn’t even bought the table—the landlord had offered all of it to them.

While Nana sat down at the low table and drew some protective charms in her round, bubbly kanji, Junna discreetly tried to make sure the door to the Japanese style room in the back of the apartment was closed. That was their bedroom and it was depressingly empty (they did at least have a futon), but also it had the one thing Junna didn’t really want to explain.

Nana, always empathetic, pasted the completed talismans on the edges of Junna’s TV and excused herself. Junna only needed to take one look in the bathroom mirror (Nana had placed a ward on that as well) to know why; their eyes were rimmed in red and the bags under them looked heavier than ever. Once Nana had left, they put a pot of rice on the single burner gas stove while they took a quick shower. Washing their hair would have to wait.

Once they were half clean and the rice had finished cooking, Junna found some pickled vegetables in their near empty fridge. They made a dish out of it and took it to their bedroom, stepping over their futon to sit in front of the butsudan. Plenty of homes had butsudan, the Buddhist altars used for paying respects to the Buddha and maybe more importantly, dead relatives. Despite not being any more Buddhist than the average modern Japanese person, Junna had set theirs up to make it easier to deal with the aftereffects of using their abilities in exorcisms.

Junna’s altar was plain, a wooden platform they had picked up from some small shop that was half secondhand items, half antiques. Calling it a butsudan might have been a stretch; there wasn’t any actual Buddhist iconography in there. Just an incense burner, a strand of juzu beads Junna particularly liked, a pair of black lacquered chopsticks, and a round mirror with a plastic tortoiseshell back.

Junna sat on their knees in front of the altar and lit the incense. After the incense smoke had spread around their room, they picked up the bowl of rice and stuck the chopsticks in it vertically, like an offering to the dead.

Technically, that’s what it was. They placed it on the altar, clapped their hands together twice, and bowed their head.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t actually help either of you. I promise this isn’t any worse a fate than being forcibly purified; I wouldn’t keep you here if it was. And thank you for your help. It must have been scary, lying there while you bled out after getting hit by that car. Scary and painful. I don’t know if you had somewhere to be or if you just wanted help moving. I guess I’ll be carrying you now. And you, from the bathtub… that must have been scary too, in a different way. I hope someone found you soon, even if they were too late. I hope whoever found you cried for you. I can’t grieve for you properly, but I’ll definitely get the assholes that dragged you from your home after death.”

After saying their approximation of a prayer, Junna clapped their hands twice again and raised their head. They didn’t have any official prayers and they didn’t recite sutras. It wasn’t a funeral.

Looking at their reflection in the mirror, tired and pale, dark circles under their eyes, black hair long and straight, kimono disheveled, Junna wondered if maybe they were a ghost, too. They picked up the rice bowl and took the chopsticks back in hand. Snagging a piece of pickled vegetable with the rice, they quietly said “thanks for the meal” before eating the offerings to the ghosts inside them.