Kamiya has been busy changing houses these days. He has to sign contracts and go through the formalities. In addition, he also has to start buying furniture and decorating his new home.
Although things were a bit trivial and troublesome, fortunately they were progressing relatively smoothly.
Kamiyagawa has officially settled in Arakawa.
This Sunday morning.
In the master bedroom on the second floor of Arakawa's new home, four installers who came to the house were skillfully assembling a king-size solid wood suspended bed with a bit of Nordic style.
"Young man, do you need to buy such a big bed for your home?"
"The room is big, and I personally like to sleep in bigger rooms."
Kamiyakawa stood at the door of the master bedroom, chatting with the masters.
When the bed was almost installed, Kamiya received a call.
It was Nagatomo Masao who called.
Xiao Pingtou said on the phone that he had cooperated with the Special Operations Countermeasures Room to complete all the transcript investigations, and the first physical examination and test had also been completed.
Now that I have regained some freedom, I said that I wanted to treat Kamiya to dinner tonight to express my gratitude, and asked Kamiya if he was free.
"Okay, see you tonight."
Kamiyakawa agreed casually.
…
Crowded train carriage.
Nagatomo Masao was standing with a bag containing desserts in one hand and holding the safety handle with the other, his body swaying with the slight tremors of the train.
From today on, he has regained some freedom of movement and does not have to stay in the special operations countermeasures room all the time.
Another piece of good news is that Xiao Pingtou's application to become an official spiritual exterminator seems to be approved.
The organization plans to let Changyou become a non-staff spiritual master first, and then decide whether to become a full-timer after a period of necessary assessment.
This is the normal process for becoming an official exorcist.
After all, situations like Kamiyagawa's are special cases.
Generally speaking, non-staff spiritualists will have an official spiritualist who acts as a guarantor and liaison.
What surprised Nagatomo was that his guarantor was the high-ranking member of the organization, Mr. Yuuki Makensuke.
As a senior member of the organization, Uncle Yuki would definitely have no problem guiding Nagatomo Masao to formally contact the spirit exterminator industry.
He originally had many management quotas for non-staff members, but most of them were not used. Before this, only Kamiyagawa's name had been hanging under him.
For Changyou, hanging out with the boss is also a good thing.
Easier to get ahead.
After standing there with random thoughts, Masao Nagatomo finally heard the announcement of the platform at his destination——
"The train is about to arrive at Azumabashi Station, please be careful of the gap between the train and the platform."
The train door slowly opened.
Passengers dressed in various clothes and with different expressions were all getting on and off the bus in a hurry.
Changyou followed the flow of people out of the train station.
He hadn't been to Azuma Bridge much before, but he came here this time to find someone.
Changyou raised his hand to lift the light bag of desserts, then dug into his pants pocket and took out a piece of red rope with a small bright silver piece on it.
This piece of red rope was brought back from the other world, Aokigahara.
It originally belonged to a kind-hearted housewife aunt, Kitaki Yono.
That aunt entered the other world at the same time as Changyou, but...she had no chance to come back.
Nagatomo Masao stood at the entrance of the subway station, staring at the red rope in his hand.
"Where should we go next?"
As Changyou asked the question softly, a small white shadow the size of a fingernail squirmed out from the silver piece hanging on the red string.
This thing is an extremely small fragment of a living soul.
Ever since the soul of the senior spiritual master entangled himself in his body, Changyou has become more and more sensitive to such supernatural things.
People in the countermeasures room have said that Changyou has a relatively rare "yin-receiving" physique.
After accommodating a relatively complete living soul, his body's potential was probably slowly developed.
"She said go left!"
The senior's voice sounded in my ears again.
"good."
Nagatomo looked around and could roughly see an extremely vague white shadow coming out of his body. Maybe in the near future, he will be able to see the complete appearance of this "senior" who has helped him a lot.
…
Nagatomo Masao walked up and down under the instructions. After walking for more than half an hour, he arrived at a building with red walls.
The name of this family is written on the sign at the door——
Bei Hui.
"It seems like this is it."
Changyou rang the doorbell.
After the bell rang three times, the door of this one-family building was opened from the inside. The person who opened the door was a man who looked to be in his forties and dressed casually.
"Hello, Mr. Beihui."
Nagatomo bowed slightly to the other party politely.
"Who are you?"
"This is the first time we meet. My name is Masao Nagatomo. Aunt Daino entrusted me to deliver something to your house."
"Who is Daino?"
The eyes of the middle-aged man standing behind the door were confused, and then became blurry, as if he remembered something, and then seemed to remember nothing at all.
"dad!"
While he was hesitating, a very energetic child's voice sounded from behind.
A little boy wearing a baseball cap, who looked to be in his early ten years, jogged up behind Mr. Beiki and looked curiously at Masao Nagatomo at the door.
"Kid, are you Bei Hui's cousin?" Changyou tried his best to be friendly.
"Brother, do you know me?" The little boy blinked his big eyes.
"Yes." Changyou nodded, glanced at the red string in his hand, and then handed out the dessert bag in his other hand:
"This is a strawberry daifuku. Aunt Daino asked me to give it to you. She said she was sorry that she couldn't give it to you in person. She said she hoped you would grow up quickly and become a man like your father."
"oh……"
Beihui Qingji didn't know why the unknown elder brother outside the door suddenly said something strange, and he didn't know who the so-called Aunt Daino was.
I just vaguely felt that the name sounded familiar.
But the child didn't think so much. His attention was quickly attracted by the dessert bag handed over by Changyou, and he took it with shining eyes:
"Oh! Strawberry Daifuku! I like strawberry Daifuku the best!"
Mr. Beihui beside him originally wanted to stop his son from accepting the things given by strangers, but Nagatomo interrupted him: "Mr. Beihui, Aunt Daino asked me to give this to you."
As Xiao Pingtou said this, he handed over the red rope with silver pieces.
After this piece of red rope was brought back to reality, it was cleaned several times, and no obvious blood stains were visible on it.
Mr. Bei Hui stretched out his hand almost out of nowhere and took off the red rope that looked inexplicably familiar.
The moment the middle-aged gentleman touched the red rope, Changyou saw a small white shadow appear on the small bright silver piece again, squirming slightly, and completely dissipated as if his wish was over.
He didn't say any more unnecessary words, bowed slightly, turned and left.
Mr. Bei Hui stared at the red rope in his hand with confusion on his face. For some reason, he felt a sense of sadness for no reason.
"Wait a minute, who are you talking about Daino...?"
When he came to his senses and looked up again, he found that the young man with the flat hair was gone.
"Dad, that brother has left." Said Bei Hui Qingji next to him. He raised the dessert bag in his hand and ran towards the restaurant with excitement on his face, "Oh! I have a great fortune to eat!"
finally.
Mr. Bei Hui did not stop his son from eating food from strangers, nor did he throw away the red string of unknown origin.
In the alley outside this one-family building.
The little boy walked slowly among them, looking very worried.
After walking a few more steps, before he could completely walk out of the alley, he suddenly turned his head slightly, and Senior Shenghun spoke in his ear again:
"Nagatomo, the small piece of Kitayono's living soul said before it dissipated - she is very grateful to you."
…
In the evening, there is an izakaya called "Itoya".
With messy wires and ancient wooden boards, this izakaya looks a bit old and shabby on the outside. This is the place where Nagatomo asked Kamiyagawa to have dinner on the phone this morning.
Xiaopingtou arrived about 10 minutes early.
Although the Ito family looks shabby on the outside, the interior decoration is pretty good. Not as good as those expensive big stores, but warm and friendly.
After waiting for a short while, I saw Kamiyagawa opening the curtain at the door of the izakaya and walking in.
In Japan, some izakayas do not allow minors to enter without an adult.
However, there are also some izakayas that allow minors to eat skewers and drink drinks in the store, but they do not provide alcohol.
The "Ito family" belongs to the latter.
"Kamiya-kun, this way!"
After meeting, Kamiyagawa and Nagatomo Masao briefly exchanged greetings for a while.
The place where they were sitting was the corner of the izakaya.
In addition, the store is already very noisy. Most of them are elderly social workers here drinking, bragging, making loud noises, and venting their dissatisfaction with their daily work in this way.
Therefore, the conversation between Kamiya and Nagatomo can be a little more relaxed, and the people around them will not notice what they are saying.
Slowly, the dishes began to be brought to the table by the waiters.
The two chatted while eating.
One advantage of eating in this small izakaya is that compared to other places, the price of skewers here is relatively cheap, and you can eat all you want without spending too much money.
Kamiyagawa picked up a skewer of fat and thin grilled pork belly from the plate:
"So, Nagatomo, you are really going to work in the Special Operations Countermeasures Room, and you will also be an exorcist."
"Well, it's just a supernumerary. It's hard to say whether it can become official."
"It can be done. Uncle Yucheng is willing to be your guarantor himself. He must be very optimistic about you. I guess he may even want you to be his assistant... He has always been short of an assistant. And don't doubt Yucheng. The uncle’s vision, although he is sometimes a bit out of tune, is excellent.”
Kamiyagawa said this, thinking in his heart——
Well, that's right.
Uncle Yuuki must have a good vision.
After all, the last assistant he fell in love with was me.
"Really? But I..."
"Stop being pretentious and be more confident. My subordinates said that you performed very well in Aokigahara. The terrifying monsters there were no match for you. You defeated them to pieces."
"It's not that exaggerated." Xiao Pingtou smiled bitterly and shook his head.
Kamiyagawa did not delve further into this topic. He first took a mouthful of oily grilled pork belly, raised his head and took a sip of soda, and then said: "By the way, Nagatomo, where do you live?"
"Well, I was always in the Special Operations Countermeasures Room before."
"I mean now, tonight. Didn't you say you can leave relatively freely from there?"
"I plan to sleep in the Internet cafe tonight."
"You mean there's no place to live?"
"Yes……"
"How much money do you have left now?"
"I still had some cash with me, and I still had it when I came out of Aokigahara. When I left the countermeasures room today, Master Kanazawa lent me some more, and now I have almost 30,000 yen with me."
"Then you still want to treat me to dinner?"
Kamiya asked several questions in a short and powerful manner, as if he was well prepared.
"I have paid for this meal...because I want to properly express my gratitude to Kamiya-kun. Although a meal is definitely not enough, at least I have to express my gratitude first."
"As expected... But there's no need to rush this kind of thing." Kamiyakawa stretched out his hand and pressed his temples, "Well, I just moved recently. And I rented a not-so-large apartment near Kabuchō. , those who pay rent on a quarterly basis, there is still more than a month until this round of lease, how about you where to stay tonight?"
"Why is this so embarrassing?"
"What are you embarrassed about? I'm not going back to that apartment anymore. I originally planned to return the key directly in the next two days. Now it's just right, it's not a waste to let you live in it. Besides, the rent there is quite cheap. . If you don’t have anywhere to go, it’s not a bad idea to pay to renew your lease there next quarter.”
Nagatomo saw that Kamiyagawa didn't seem to be telling lies. There should really be a vacant house that had not yet expired. He declined twice more, and finally agreed with great gratitude.
"Originally, I wanted to thank you Kamiya-kun, but in the end I had to accept your help."
"Don't say that, we are all friends."
Xiao Pingtou had just disappeared from the other world. He had lost his identity and past in the real world. Everything he had originally had. If he hadn't been taken in by the Special Operations Countermeasures Room, he would have been completely helpless.
He had an attitude of helping Kamiya if he could, not to mention giving him the original house to live in, which was just a matter of convenience.
Kamiyagawa: "By the way, the non-staff exorcists in the countermeasures room won't get paid if they don't perform tasks, right?"
Nagatomo Masao: "Well, Mr. Yuki said he would arrange things for me as soon as possible."
"Then before you become a full-time employee, if you need to do odd jobs to make money when you have no tasks, you can go to the convenience store on the corner of the school. I used to work as a cashier there. I can introduce you to the lady boss."
"Kamiya-kun... I really don't know how to thank you."
"I said no thank you. If you need any help later, you can tell me."
Speaking of which, it is really a fate.
On Kamiyagawa's side of the real world, life was prosperous and moving in a better direction.
As for Nagatomo, because he was really unlucky, he wandered around in the other world, and when he came out, there was nothing.
After getting a little help from Kamiya River, maybe I will inherit some of Kamiya's previous living conditions, and then be forced to start life again.
The lights inside the Fujii Family Winery are yellow.
The middle-aged uncles who came to relieve their depression were still changing cups. Almost everyone drank until their cheeks turned red, enjoying the short-term mental happiness brought by alcohol paralysis and dopamine secretion.
There was a lot of noise.
Kamiyagawa drank the last sip of soda in the cup and glanced at Nagatomo opposite.
The latter didn't know if he had eaten enough. He was sitting in a daze. Perhaps affected by the surrounding atmosphere, his eyes were slightly depressed. Reflected by the yellow light above his head, he looked very lonely.
Kamiyachuan couldn't bear to see it.
"I'm talking about Nagatomo, about Ishino..."
