The Fourth Day and Contracts

When I had emerged from the hotel room that morning, who else lay await by the door than Makoto herself?

Today, a break from the usual, she dressed in a way I hadn’t seen the past few days. Makoto donned a more casual look, wearing a simple blue polyester jacket, dark shorts, and full leggings, with a small blue hat to top it off.

When I asked her about the outfit change, she simply shrugged it off, plain and simple:

“I already ran through my third set.”

She had three sets of that Miki-like outfit.

I’ve no idea why she would own three identical sets of that outfit, but I couldn’t help but applaud her for the effort. Of course, I wouldn’t dare or even think to demean her for it.

To be honest, there was no concrete plan on how I could set up the incense to converse with the yokai.

But instead, Makoto had something planned for both of us instead. I’d already told her that it would just be the two of us today.

“Is that so? Then there’s a place I wanna show you. It’s about time I did.”

Where was she planning on taking me? The way she worded it made it sound like she had plans to show me at some point, but didn’t work out the when.

I asked out the details of where we would be headed, but she was intent on keeping it secret.

“What’s with all the cloak and dagger?”

“Please. Let’s just go there. It’s important.”

I nodded in agreeance.

Her expression was a mix of pitiful and dead serious. Makoto wanted to make this trip so bad, the importance of it was palpable on her face, and from the way she subtly shook her body in anticipation.

“Alright. Lead the way.”

I messaged Jougasaki one more time before we went our way. It was best to leave him a note if something were to happen to me in a worst-case scenario.

“Message me back at noon. If I don’t respond, ring me and call.”

Exiting the hotel and heading to the nearest station, Makoto led me to a train line I hadn’t ridden before. Despite being in the morning, the route we took had fewer people than expected, considering how busy Tokyo train lines became in the morning.

The trip to our destination was silent, and took quite a bit of time. Almost 45 minutes of sitting in a train, flipping through our phones, checking the flow of our own lives, only sharing the occasional glance to make some small talk.

It was awkward. I didn’t know what to say to her, and neither did she have any idea on her end. All the while, I clutched a small pouch close to me—the pouch that held the yokai incense in secret.

Hopefully, neither she nor the yokai were on to me.

The sounds of the train announcer were nothing but a muffled blur to me. I was too focused on keeping a secret from Makoto, and anxious about what she had in store for me.

Eventually, the scenery outside the train changed. All the skyscrapers remained in the far-off distance, while our immediate vicinity was filled with small buildings, apartment complexes, and mom-and-pop establishments.

Were we still in Tokyo? I asked myself. The change in mood and scenery was so stark I could hardly believe this almost rustic area was still part of the Greater Tokyo Area.

We were approaching the terminus. Just a station short of the last, Makoto exited the train and led me out the station.

It was a scenery of green and pink. Trees spread out over hills and mountains. A gentle, flower-scented wind passed us, Makoto’s hair fluttering about in front of her face. It was cold—chilly even by spring standards.

People were sparse, and even sparser were tourists. It seemed that wherever we are, is a place hidden deeper within the mountains of Tokyo.

And so, began a long walk to a destination unknown, incense on hand and Makoto by my side.

***

“What is this place?” I asked Makoto.

She stepped forward and said, “Where it all began.”

Cherry blossom trees surrounded a small clearing, while a fragmented stone path led into a small torii gate. Beyond that gate was a run-down Shinto temple; the building’s interior looked thoroughly collapsed, and its wooden beams from the outside were rotted and broken.

Just to the side of this broken shrine was a much smaller shrine—its size being only slightly taller than a person, and just a bit wider. In contrast to its surroundings, this smaller shrine looked well maintained, as if someone was taking time to clean the dirt off it and make sure its supports stood.

Makoto walked up to the shrine and clasped her hands in prayer. I followed her and mimicked her, closing my eyes as well.

As I offered a thought to whatever guarded this shrine, I felt a nip in the air. It was a similar chill to the one I would feel when that yokai bore its fangs at me.

I opened one eye and looked at her.

Makoto looked contemplative like she was in deep prayer. I grasped the bag with the incense, but then she spoke.

“I must have caused you a lot of trouble,” she said. “I’m sorry. I guess I owe you an explanation.”

I relented and relaxed my arms, releasing the bag.

“No. It was… fun.”

“Fun?”

“I mean, yeah. Think about it, this whole yokai thing really spiced up my trip.”

She sighed and opened her eyes, looking at me.

“You don’t have to pretend you’re not the least bit miffed.”

It’s true. Though it wasn’t a complete lie to say that this trip was made just a little more interesting with the yokai thrown into the mix, I couldn’t lie about the stress this affair was giving me.

She continued. “You keep pretending this is all okay, but I know you well enough to know that it isn’t. We’ve known each other since we were kids, haven’t we?”

“That’s true.”

She took a step towards the shrine and held out her hand.

Before I even had the chance to react, she did something I could not expect

Makoto took out a pocket knife and cut her finger, letting a drop of blood spill on the surface of the shrine.

“Makoto!” I blurted out. “What the hell are you doing?”

My shout didn’t even faze her. She stared at me and shot me a serious look, as she stashed the knife back into her pocket.

“Fulfilling my end of the bargain.” She said calmly.

“Bargain? What? Why did you—”

“It’s a contract,” she said, facing the shrine again. “The great spirit of this shrine needs me to do this every now and then.”

“The great spirit… of the shrine?” I asked worryingly.

“Yes. It’s that thing you saw—the yokai. She’s the spirit of this shrine. She’s not just some monster.”

“What…?”

“This shrine called out to me one day, when I went to do some hiking to clear my head,” Makoto said, looking at the sky to reminisce. “A woman’s voice. I barely understood her, but it felt like I knew what she said.”

She ran her fingers across the shrine’s wooden bars as she went on.

“And that’s when I met her.”

I returned her a solemn look, curious about the circumstances of their meeting.

“And you made a contract with her?”

“Yeah.”

“But why? And why the blood-letting?”

Makoto winced. She made a sullen expression as she began to relate her thoughts.

“Well… would you accept it if I said I wanted talent?”

“Talent?”

“The spirit promised me she’d grant me the ability to become really good at something I wanted. That’s talent, isn’t it?”

Her claim threw me for a loop. She wanted talent. How can that be when she’s always known how to sing and play an instrument?

“I don’t get it. Back then, you were plenty talented. Makoto, I heard you sing so many times before.”

She shook her head in denial.

“As I said. Things have changed. I’ve changed.”

I looked away. I couldn’t bear to look Makoto in the eyes as she said those lines to me again. I let her continue.

“I stopped singing and playing the guitar after I left for Japan, you know? Adjusting to daily life here was too overwhelming at the start. I ended up going to a normal college too, instead of taking a musical course.”

Makoto started to pace back and forth in front of the shrine.

“I thought I’d be happy living a perfectly normal life here.”

“Then what happened?”

“I… didn’t want it, after all. I hated being a cog in the machine. It was only a year of busywork, and I couldn’t stand it.”

Her face warped into that of frustration and disappointment.

“So I picked up the guitar again. And I tried singing. I even auditioned for radio…” Makoto said. “...But that failed miserably. I wasn’t good enough.”

She continued. “I even ended up playing in Ueno and Yoyogi park… to not much success. I barely made back what I spent just to get a permit.”

It was rough.

She sounded like the textbook definition of a ‘hungry artist’. To think that she had to suffer like that despite how much I wanted to believe she had a real gift. A gift of this magical thing we called ‘talent’.

The more I heard, the more it dawned on me that she and I fell into similar circumstances. But there lay the rub—she endeavoured to struggle, but I didn’t even leave the start line.

“You made a contract with a spirit because of that?”

“Yeah,” Makoto said, smiling wistfully. “I realized that I wouldn’t make it like this. I’d be well over into my adult years before I could play music at an acceptable level. It sucks.”

Makoto turned to the shrine and continued to lay her story. “I had an argument with my parents a year ago, and ended up coming here to Okutama to clear my head. I already forgot what we fought over, too. That was the time I made a contract with the spirit.”

“Something still doesn’t add up,” I said. “What’s the deal with Miki, then? She’s totally you, right? But Miki already debuted before you made a contract.”

Makoto rubbed the sides of her temple.

“Tell me, then. When did you discover Miki Starsky?”

“Around a few months ago. Maybe five or 6.”

“You weren’t around for the debut?”

“I wasn’t.”

Makoto nodded, as if to confirm that the conversation had hit a nail in the head.

“That’s because I was no good. I sucked at marketing myself, and the algorithm was against me at every turn. I had no confidence. All I could do was stammer and sing like an amateur. My views were in the single digits, and I was nowhere near the level of success I have now.”

She held her finger cut as she spoke. “The spirit granted me all that. And it worked.”

I thought about the times I watched her previous content—ones before the point I came in.

Of which there were none.

I only watched Miki from the time I saw her up to her current content. It’s all true that I didn’t even bother to check out how she performed from way before.

It made me feel disloyal. It made me feel like an asshole.

I was resolute in my feelings that Miki Starsky would always be my numero uno girl, but had never bothered to check how she got where she was now.

I was just a regular consumer, at the end of the day.

I turned to Makoto and looked her in the eye.

“Alright, then. I don’t know enough to tell you what to do. But tell me something—you said this was a curse. What… did you pay for all this?”

Makoto curled her hand into a fist and let it rest at her side.

“To maintain the curse, I have to take care of this shrine. Make sure it doesn’t fall into disrepair. And secondly, I have to offer a drop of blood to the shrine.”

She cringed, an air of suffering visible on her expression.

“And when I do, I offer my lifespan to her.
I don’t know by how much. But that’s all I had to do to maintain the contract.”

Makoto had said this yesterday.

But hearing it again made my heart stop one more time.

For me, it was a horrendous deal. Every part of this deal was intensely immaterial.

There was no way to calculate how much ‘talent’ that spirit had infused into Makoto, if it ever actually did in the first place.

What if it was all a placebo? What if Makoto actually did improve a lot, and the algorithm finally worked in her favor after all this time?

Likewise, there was no quantifying how much of Makoto’s lifespan the yokai was taking from her. She could be taking seconds, minutes, hours. Or she could be taking months, or even years, every time she let her blood flow.

All I could say for sure was, Makoto needed a boost of confidence. Of that, I was certain.

This had to stop before Makoto would lose more than what she’d already bargained for.

“Makoto, please. Stop this,” I said, laying my hands on her shoulders. “I can’t possibly imagine how you felt all that time, but… you’re burning your life.”

Makoto stepped back, escaping my grasp.

“I know that. But if I don’t do something about me now, when will I?”

I stepped forward, asserting my will.

“You have every chance in the world! I’ve always looked up to what you can do, even when we were kids. You’ve always been the talented one of us both. You don’t need to trade your life away for this.”

“You don’t know that. If I hadn’t signed the contract, then none of this would’ve happened. You might’ve never even met me, or ever saw Miki!”

I stepped forward again, and she stepped back. I tried to gain more ground.

“You don’t know that either! How can you be so sure the yokai granted you all that, and that wasn’t just you succeeding on your own?”

“Well, you don’t know that too! You can’t be sure!” she shouted, stepping forward.

“Yeah, you’re right! I don’t know that either!” I shouted back. “But… the price you have to pay. It’s too much.”

She shifted from side-to-side, pouting. “Is it, though? I don’t care if my life burns quick. I just want it to mean something.”

“It does,” I said confidently. “Your life means something, with or without that cursed contract.”

“How can you say that so casually?” she said, planting her fist on her chest, clutching her blouse.

“I… don’t know to be honest. But your life means something to me. I don’t want to see your lifespan burn away like this.”

Makoto pouted and stepped back.

“You’re talking like you’re my boyfriend or something.”

I stepped forward.

“I am your boyfriend, Makoto.

You said so yourself. And now it’s my turn to enforce that part of our deal.”

She had nothing to say.

Makoto was the one to make the couple deal. She had enforced her presence on me this entire trip, and it was time to turn the tables.

I knew nothing about the inherent meaning of life.

I was talking out of my ass, merely repeating the concepts I’ve seen in action in so many anime and video games.

It sounded silly, but one has to remember people wrote all those things.

People understand people.

The human experience is universal.

And I was sure that, Makoto’s life meant something to me now.

It did before, and it still does now.

“Y-you’re so pushy!” Makoto said, her voice starting to crack.

A single tear ran down her cheek. And then more started to flow. Makoto sobbed, covering her face with her arm.

She continued, her voice continuing to crackle.

“You’re so stupid. Why are you so pushy? Even back then, you’ve been like this.”

I stood in front of her, resisting my urge to embrace her right then and there.

“I think that part of me didn’t change. I just forgot how to be like that for a long time, I guess.”

“Stupid,” Makoto said, rubbing her eyes. “You’re saying all this shit to a girl you haven’t met in over a decade.”

“I know that.” I said softly. “But I only have a few days to be with you. I had to speedrun the character development.”

“You’re still talking in terms…?”

“Yes.”

There has to be something I could do now. Makoto’s emotions overflowed, and I felt mine were also about to.

I held myself back as I clutched the bag that held the yokai incense once again. It was foolish to do it now—especially in enemy territory, but I had to be bold. I had to be brave.

I needed the balls to face this issue head-on.

“Hey, Makoto.”

“Huh…?” she uttered, looking at me with reddened eyes and ruined make-up.

I brought the incense out of my bag and presented it to her.

“What… is that?” She asked.

“It’s an incense. Someone important gave it to me. They said it’ll let me talk to spirits directly.”

Her eyes widened in bewilderment, as she tried to understand what I was getting at.

“What are you gonna do with that?”

“That’s easy. Makoto.
I’m gonna make a bargain with that accursed yokai of yours.”