Tsukumodo:Volume 2 Silence

If you had to decide between a silent place and a lively place, which would you choose?

A silent place when you want to read a book or study?

A lively place when you want to hang out with friends or eat meals?

Depending on your purpose, your preference may change.

But even if it suits your purpose, a place too silent will disquiet you and a place too lively will bother you.

Be it silence or liveliness, it's all a matter of degree.

That said, of the two, I happen to prefer silence a tad more.

The reason for that is most likely because I am used to quiet places.

The point I am trying to make is:

The Tsukumodo Antique Shop is as dead silent as ever.

◆

It was comparable to a soft slumber inside a womb.

While I was giving myself to a silence that encompassed me along with a cozy warmth, a bubble slowly rose beside me.

I touched it.

It burst as a "Re".

Another bubble came hovering upward.

I touched it.

It burst as a "Fa" this time.

One after another, they rose around me.

One, two, three—no, more. A hundred, two hundreds, three hundreds, more. More, more.

At last, the sounds started to burst and play without the need to touch them. The bubbles burst and created sounds. And these countless sounds eventually composed a melody.

This was the womb of a mother of sound.

And I was one of the few who were permitted to step into this realm.

My duty was to gather these sounds as they are born and take them outside with me.

In this place, there was nothing but me and these sounds.

There was no other man, nor was there noise.

It was only me and the newborn sounds.

"———"

There was an intrusion from outside.

The feel was comparable to a water balloon being popped by a needle.

The consequence was destruction; it all dispersed.

The slumber I had indulged in and the silence—everything—was crumbled away.

The newborn sounds, too, streamed away somewhere. They seeped away through my fingers.

I was forcefully brought round to consciousness.

I was in the same room as always.

The sheets of music on the table before me were filled with notes.

When I was in the world of sounds, my hand would automatically write down the notes of the sounds I gathered.

That was how I composed. A method only I could employ that didn't require any instruments.

But the sheet music stopped halfway. The notes were distorted and broken—because of the noise that had broken in. Because of it, the sounds I had gathered had died off.

This room was soundproofed from the ceiling to the floor. Not, however, to keep the sound from leaking outside. I lived in a deserted ghost town, so there weren't any inhabited houses near mine.

The purpose of my sound insulation was to keep any sound from getting in.

It was all for the sake of composing without interruption.

However, sound insulation could only deaden sound but not erase it completely.

Like now, outside noise could break in this room—the womb of sounds—and cause pollution.

As soon as that pollution scattered my image, it was over. The sounds around me would fly away and leave my piece dead.

(I was so close...)

Seized by anger, I threw open the door and headed upstairs to the living room on the first floor.

Upon my arrival, I found my helper, Mei, asleep with her upper body on the table. On the floor was a tea cup. I didn't know whether the sound I had heard just now was her banging the head against the table or her pushing the tea cup to the floor, but I couldn't stand the thought that such a little thing had just killed my sounds.

Normally, such low noises couldn't be heard in that soundproof room, but my ears are so sensitive as to even pick up these tiny sounds. And that's why I would always tell her to take heed not to make any noise.

"Hey!" I roared.

Mei flicked her eyes open.

Upon recognizing me with her dozy eyes, she quickly sat up straight and asked,

"Have you already completed your work?"

"You ruined it."

Mei noticed the tea cup she had accidentally dropped on the floor along with its contents and paled.

Probably realizing what she had done, she hung her head in shame.

"I'm in a bad mood. I'm going out for a while."

Leaving her to her own devices, I left the house.

My name is Eiji Kadokura. 32 years old. My profession is music composer. I have composed a considerable number of pieces so far and pride myself in being fairly popular and well-known.

In terms of genres, I accepted assignments for soothing music for an example. My most famous composition is most likely a piece I had written for a certain renowned violinist, which had been classical, but became a million-seller thanks to the recent classical music boom.

Today, I had been working on a music piece for an assignment that was due in a week as well, until I was disturbed by my helper.

Once a piece of music has been dispersed, it is forever lost.

While it partly remains in my head, it feels like a cheap copy if I finish the song with its remnants.

It resembles the feel when the bricks you piled up in play start to shake, and even though you manage to regain balance, your tower eventually falls apart a few bricks after.

Or perhaps it's also similar to sewing a garment: your thread runs out and you have to substitute it with a new one—a knot will remain and make the garment look shabby.

Either way, a ruined piece of music cannot be mended.

I couldn't stand a patched-together song.

I had to start all over again.

Even though there was not much time left until the deadline.

I entered my car and drove to a café I frequented.

Located in a calm basement, it was a much-appreciated haven of tranquility for me. But on that day of all days, the café proved unable to soothe me.

A group of over ten tourists or something had gathered down there. But they weren't just there—they seemed to confuse the venue with a bar and made hellish noise.

Upon noticing me, the keeper of the cafe lowered his head apologetically.

I took it as an apology and an invitation to leave for today.

Suppressing the urge to give those rude customers a good dressing-down, I nodded to the keeper and left.

Because I had become all the more irritated, even the street noise I would usually bear with annoyed me horribly.

Be it the engine noise of the cars and their piercing horns; the loud voices of strolling students and their vulgar laughs; the yells of salesmen who unsuccessfully tried to attract customers and cheap music.

They all annoyed me.

Why was the world so full with noise and racket?

I wasn't at work, so I wasn't asking for perfect silence, but living amidst so much noise and racket was unendurable for me. I couldn't understand why the others didn't mind.

While struggling against the urge to roar at them to shut up, I backed off into a narrow side street.

After opening some distance from the main street, the noise became somewhat more bearable. While it hadn't faded out entirely, I could endure it from afar. I decided on walking along these back streets for the time being.

"Now if there only was a café somewhere, I'd be satisfied for the moment..."

The very moment I thought so, I spotted an old small shop before my eyes.

It was hard to tell from its exterior what kind of shop it was. Willing to stay a while if it turned out to be a café, I pushed open the door.

A bell announced the arrival of a customer.

Its ring was pleasant to the ear. Passed. Much to my regret, however, it was not a café. Various things were lined up on the shelves in a disorderly fashion. There were jars and plates and other ceramic ware, and dolls of Japanese and Western origin as well as a tinplate robot. There was even a camera. I assumed it was some kind of antique or second-hand shop.

Out of curiosity, I took a look around.

"Welcome," someone said to me.

Behind the counter sat a charming woman clad in black. She looked a little younger than me, but the languorous feel she gave off made her impression rather mature and mysterious.

"Are you looking for something specific?"

I was looking for a silent place. In that sense, this place is satisfactory, but that would be like telling her that I didn't intend to buy anything from the start.

"I was just wondering if I might find something curious."

I made up an answer and looked at the shelves as though I was very interested.

"But there is something you seek, is there not?" she said as though she had read my heart. "Tell me. Perhaps, you might obtain what you have longed for?"

"As I said, something curious..."

"You don't want 'something'. You want 'a thing'."

"Huh?"

"If you want 'something', you won't obtain anything in the end. It has to be a specific thing you want."

Perhaps she was teasing me with some word play, or perhaps she had seen through my intention of not buying anything and wanted to chase me out. Apparently I had become irritable: this was enough to annoy me.

"If you really have what I want, I'd be more than willing to buy it."

"Yes, what is it?"

"Complete silence."

The woman gave me a slightly troubled glance. I was ashamed of acting so childish. I should have named some article she was likely to have or just leave.

"I am sorry. I'm afraid that's not here."

"Certainly. I'm sorry, t..."

"It is in our 'sister shop'!"

I doubted my ears—but got angry an instant after.

She was playing with me. "Not here"? Don't make me laugh.

"It can be mine if I go to that sister shop? Then please, by all means, tell me where it is. If I can really find complete silence there, that is."

"A Relic that can create a room of complete silence by warding off all sound—that is, the Mirror of Serenity."

"Relic? The Mirror of Serenity?"

"Mind you, by 'Relic' I don't mean antiques or objects of art. That's what we call tools with special capabilities created by mighty ancients or magicians, and objects that have absorbed their owner's grudge or natural spiritual powers.

Things like a stone that brings ill luck, a cursed voodoo doll or a triple mirror that shows how you are going to die. I believe you've heard of many of them, and the Mirror of Serenity belongs to them. But it's not here at the moment!"

I had no idea what she was talking about. While I had indeed heard of a superstition according to which objects may gain a soul over a long time, getting to hear that at this point rubbed me the wrong way.

"Don't make a fool of me. Yes, I did not enter this shop because I wanted to buy something. But you have no right to mock at me because of that. 'Relic', you say? 'Mirror of Serenity'? Stop ridiculing me by making up such mysterious names!"

"Oh, you don't believe me?"

"Of course I don't. Complete silence does not exist. I have perfect soundproofing in my house, but I can still hear sounds from the outside."

"Because it's soundproofing. The Mirror of Serenity works differently. It wards off sound."

"Don't get so carried away..."

"This place is similar!"

It was then that I finally noticed.

There was not a sound in this shop.

Indeed, a conversation was taking place between me and that woman. So there was sound. However, there was no noise from the outside. I could not even slightly hear the distant noise that had tormented me until I'd entered the shop.

I perked up my ears and focused them outside.

However, I did not hear anything.

No matter what kind of soundproofing this shop had, there was no way it could block out every sound from my ears.

As long as we didn't speak, there was the complete silence I had been longing for.

"...What's the meaning of this?"

"It means that this place is special as well. But it doesn't create complete silence—the outside noise merely doesn't reach this place as a side effect. However, the Mirror of Serenity will create complete silence for you."

"You said it's in your sister shop, right?"

My heart was beating rapidly. Perhaps, the loudest noise in this world right now was my own heart beat.

"Will I get my hands on the Mirror or Serenity if I go there?"

"I cannot say for certain. Ask the owner of the shop. But I'm sure you will be able to obtain it if you wish. Relics naturally find their way to an appropriate owner."

After receiving a memo of the address and opening times of that sister shop, I left.

"———"

In that moment, noise returned.

All the sounds that had vanished so far returned the instant I left the shop.

It was as if I had been dreaming.

Suddenly, my cell phone rang. It was from Mei, my helper. She informed me that an agent from the company that requested a composition had dropped by.

There had been a meeting scheduled for today. It had completely slipped my mind.

I replied that I'd be back within an hour and headed to the parking lot.

Before hanging up, she said something that disconcerted me.

She told me to keep my cell phone turned on.

Apparently, she had tried several times to reach me without success. However, I had at no point turned off my phone. That shop hadn't been underground, either, so I should have been within communication range.

A cold shiver ran down my spine and I thought about looking back at the shop, but my body wouldn't let me, so I quickly left this place.

When I arrived at home, she asked me where I had been.

I found myself unable to answer her. I did remember the shop, but for some reason I couldn't remember where it was and what kind of person the shop assistant had been.

Only the memo in my hands assured me that it had not been a dream.

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Drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

"Shut up already!!"

A roar from the owner of this shop, Towako Setsutsu, resounded through the building, but was drowned out by an even mightier noise from the outside, losing most of its impact.

Usually, clear-cut eyebrows and self-confident eyes as well as lustrous black hair hanging straight down to her waist were the characteristics of her appearance. However, with regard to today, her brows were wrinkled and her eyes narrowed in a displeased fashion. Her hair had become a mess because she had been mussing them up all the time.

"Yelling at them won't get you anywhere!" I—Tokiya Kurusu—replied while lying on the counter.

Towako-san made a theatrical gesture of putting her hand behind her ear and asked, "What did you say?"

I brought my face close to her ears and shouted, "Yelling at them won't bring you anywhere!"

"Sweet Jesus! Don't shout like that!"

"You can't hear me otherwise, can you!?"

"Be quiet the both of you. I can't concentrate on my book," complained Saki Maino, my co-worker, while sounding indifferent.

While she had pale hair that reached about to the middle of her back and shone silver in the light, as well as clear white skin, she was all clad in black, wearing a black shirt with frills, a long black skirt and black boots.

She was about a head smaller than the average height of a male student, which applied to me, and so slender that an embrace seemed like it could break her. She was sixteen and thus one year younger than I. She did look her age, but because of her demeanor, she seemed a little more mature. A brilliant smile like a blooming flower, as the meaning of her name would suggest, absolutely did not adorn her face, instead, she was perfectly expressionless as if to deny the saying "nomen est omen".

Even she was showing some irritation on her face today.

(But Saki, don't take it out on us!)

The noise from a construction site nearby was to blame for her irritation, having plagued our ears since some time ago.

We had been informed beforehand that a building would be under repair for a week starting today, but we hadn't expected the repairs to turn out so deafening.

That was quite the opposite of the silence that had been present up until yesterday, when all we heard were gusts of wind and tumbleweeds.

This shop, the Tsukumodo Antique Shop (FAKE), handled, as the name suggests, fake Relics.

Not antiques or objects of art, but tools with special abilities created by mighty ancients or magicians, or objects that have absorbed their owner's grudge or natural spiritual powers.

In tales and legends, there are often tools that contain power.

For instance, a stone that brings good luck, a doll whose hair grows night after night, a mirror that shows your future appearance, a sword that brings ruin to anyone who draws it.

Everybody has most likely heard of their existence.

However, people consider them mere fantasies because they have not seen them, they do not notice them even if they are right before their eyes, and they believe in some sort of coincidence if something mysterious occurs.

Some feel unconcerned, while others are certain such things do not exist.

However, Relics are closer to us than we may think.

I myself had recently gotten in contact with a few—namely a pendulum that called forth coincidences, a statue that stimulated one's life force, a notebook that made one remember everything written in it, and a wallet that made me lose all my earnings unless I spent them on the same day.

However, Relics like these were not for sale in the shop. As was mentioned above, we only dealt with fakes. The articles in the shelves were fakes the owner of this shop had purchased, believing they were real.

Of course, the customers that pay us a visit have no idea what Relics are, and thus only sense a waste of time when facing the uncommon pendants, the uncanny dolls, the unmoving clocks and the unspecial stones we offer, and then leave while regretting the mistake of dropping by in the first place.

Well, in comparison it was still something if they entered. It wasn't uncommon not to see a customer during an entire day.

"Wouldn't we rather close the shop for a week?" I suggested.

"But that would put a stop to our sales."

"We wouldn't get any customers anyway."

"What?"

"We wouldn't get any customers anyway!"

"Yeah, no one would care anyway!"

"You don't deny it!?"

"Now won't you keep quiet already? I can't concentrate on my book."

(Now won't you get that it's not our fault? And didn't we go through this already?)

Apparently, even Saki was annoyed about the noise, although hardly showing it on her face.

"Man, now my head's starting to hurt. Hell, can't we do something about it for crying out loud? Towako-san, is there no Relic that can switch off that noise?"

"Come on, don't ask for the... possible?"

"It's possible?"

With a reflective face, Towako-san walked out of the room, whereas Saki put aside her book and came to me.

"That's it!"

With these words, Towako-san returned from the storeroom with a mirror in hands. The looking glass was covered with a purple cloth. The wooden frame surrounding it was as shiny as lacquer and had a stand.

"That's a Relic that wipes out noise?"

"Well, take a look."

She pulled away the cloth.

Suddenly, the noise vanished.

The heavy noise from the building site vanished.

It hadn't become unhearable. More like, it had vanished. And not only the noise. All sounds—like the people outside, the traffic, the television in the living room, and so on—had vanished.

"What's going on?"

What's going on? I tried to ask. But my voice remained inaudible.

I tried once again to give voice to my puzzlement, but failed again. Not only Towako-san could not hear me—even I couldn't hear myself. No, that's not exactly it. Saying that there was no voice in the first place gets more to the heart of it.

She realized it as well and yelled something at me, which—of course—I couldn't understand.

In a new attempt, I tried to express myself with my mouth movements.

By provocatively putting her hand behind the ear, Towako-san indicated to me that she couldn't hear anything.

This time I tried to tell her to cover the mirror again, but because of the change of my mouth movements, she got caught up in confusion and wrinkled her brow.

I pointed repeatedly at the mirror and formed with my lips the words, "Cover it!"

With a—possibly—loud angry voice, she put the cloth on the mirror.

Instantly, the lost sounds returned.

The noise from the building suite, the traffic noise from afar, the approaching steps of Towako-san, and...

"For the love of God, why don't you get it? I can't hear you!"

...the sound of a fist.

In truth, I wanted to defend myself by telling her that I couldn't hear her either, but the pain that was whirling around my head kept me from saying anything for a few moments.

"...that thing really shuts out any sound, huh?"

"That's what I've been telling you. Any sound vanishes from the region it reflects. The sounds from outside are completely deflected, and no sound can be produced within the reflected area. In short, it creates a complete silence."

"But in such an environment, you can't do anything!"

I didn't think that it would be so hard to make oneself understood without a voice.

"Just do the communication via pen and paper."

"Hah... But somehow it was so silent that it bothered me more than when it was noisy."

The noise of the building site had settled down to a level it became possible to talk normally, which made the silence a few moments ago seem much worse.

"Besides, we can't attend to our customers like that!"

"We wouldn't get any customers anyway, right?"

"You two..."

"Are you still holding that against me?"

"Why, no? I'm used to it."

"You two..."

"Well, but I do think that there won't be any."

"Can't you show at least some consideration?"

"You two..."

"Didn't you admit it yourself?"

"But you mustn't. No matter if I do admit myself."

Suddenly, our heads were grabbed from behind and forcefully turned toward the entrance.

"We have a customer."

In the direction of her words stood a man and a woman.

"It's still no."

"Can't we come to an arrangement?"

"No."

"You can have as much as you want."

"I refuse no matter how much you offer."

The male customer and Towako-san had been repeating a conversation like that since a while. The approximately thirty-year-old man, who was wearing an expensive suit and had possibly witnessed what had just happened, seemed to have a very vivid interest in the mirror. At first he had stood stone-still at the entry, but the moment he had gotten a grip on himself, he started pressing Towako-san to sell the mirror to him.

Towako-san in turn had kept refusing. Her will seemed to be firm, as she had just told him she wouldn't agree no matter how much money she might get.

As a matter of fact, to date, Towako-san had never sold a Relic to anyone. We only handled fakes and not Relics themselves. It was not her wish that people got ahold of Relics.

"Why does he want that so badly, anyway?"

It was a remarkable sum he had offered. He was obviously wealthy.

"That man..." Saki muttered as she went to the living room.

She returned with the book she had been reading in hands.

"As I thought."

There was a photograph of the negotiating man in the book. The accompanying profile said that his name was Eiji Kadokura and that his occupation was music composer.

(I see. It makes sense that he'd want a silent environment if he's a composer.)

"But why do you have such a book anyway?"

"I think attending to customers (sekkyaku) and writing music (sakkyoku) has a lot in common."

"Indeed, they sound similar."

"I'm being serious!"

"You meant something else?"

"Providing the music someone desires and providing the goods someone desires is very similar, isn't it?"

Indeed, Saki isn't one to tell jokes. Moreover, Saki is always earnest about her work and spares neither trouble nor expense to learn how to improve her customer service.

Of course, it was a taboo to disagree with her view and tell her that "Composing made easy!" had nothing to do with customer service, as always. And of course, I didn't agree with her, either.

"Anyway, I'm not selling it to you. And I have no business with you," Towako-san said point-blank and took the mirror with her to the living area.

"Please wait!"

"I am afraid I must ask you not to proceed as the shop stops here."

The shop was at the same time also Towako-san and her freeloading housemate, Saki's residence. Because he was about to even intrude their private space, I had no choice but to block his way.

"There's nothing to discuss with a part-timer."

I couldn't help slightly taking offense at his attitude.

"There's nothing to discuss with you, either! Please leave if you don't intend to buy anything."

"That's what I'm here for."

"Please leave if you don't intend to buy an article. Just because this is a shop, we aren't obliged to sell things that aren't for sale to you."

Kadokura-san opened his mouth to voice some more complaints when suddenly the ringing of his cell phone resounded through the shop. He grudgingly took his phone out and flicked his tongue after reading the display.

"...relating to business. Looks like I have no choice."

"We don't hope you will visit our store again!"

"I will!"

"Please don't."

The bothersome customer left with squared shoulders.

"He's gone for now!" I shouted toward the living room where Towako-san was hiding.

Still with a displeased mien, she muttered, "Okay."

"Why didn't you just sell it to him? For such a pretty penny..." I asked and was glared at.

At the risk of repeating myself: Towako-san was against giving away Relics. Partly because of her collecting passion, but mostly because she knew many who had ruined themselves with Relics.

Should I be proud of the fact that I seem to have her trust, having received a Relic from her?

"Excuse me..." a woman said as Saki led her to us.

It was the person that had come along with Kadokura-san.

"Let me apologize for Kadokura's rudeness."

I wondered if she was his manager or something. Age-wise, she didn't look that different from me, but her air was the one of a genuine business woman.

"Please call this number should you change your mind."

She held out a business card with the name "Eiji Kadokura" and his contact information.

Towako-san, however, showed no signs of taking the card. Losing to her helpless gaze, I accepted the card instead. And was glared at even harder.

Apparently, Towako-san was dissatisfied with me. She should have told me so before I accepted.

"It's been a pleasure," she said with a bow and left the shop.

"Now throw that card away."

"But that would be kinda..." I muttered as I prepared to turn around and cast a glance in the direction she had left.

It was then that a painful noise ran through my head——

It was a place I had never seen before.

In a room.

In my field of vision I could see a wall—and a shut door.

Scuffed with countless longish lines, the door made a bizarre impression.

My vision moved downward, bringing the lower part into focus.

A woman had collapsed on the floor.

Wearing a dress with frills and curling herself up, she didn't move a muscle . It was—

"What's wrong?"

Towako-san's voice brought me back. She looked at me, wondering.

"Did you have a vision?" Saki judged from my state, hitting the nail on the head.

The scene I had witnessed after that painful noise was an image of the future, shown to me by my Relic.

My right eye was artificial. It had been replaced by a Relic named "Vision" I had received from Towako-san.

"Vision" would show me the immediate future.

When that happened, a pain would run through my head, much like static TV noise, followed by a cut-in of the future.

However, it wouldn't just show me all of the future. I couldn't foresee the winning number of a lottery, or the winner of a sports match. Not even the weather. Nor could I see any future events at will.

But there was one type of future it would show me without fail.

That is, the moment of death of someone related to me or myself.

What I had seen just now was the impending death of a certain person.

"That woman is going...to die."

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