Free EDGE by Kôji Suzuki

What’s so weird about me?” she asked serenely.
    “You’re young, but the expressions you use are like an older person’s.”
    “How old do you think I am?”
    “Your late twenties, I guess.”
    “Plus ten.”
    At this, Hashiba pulled dramatically back away from the table, then leaned slowly back in, inspecting Saeko from different angles and distances as if trying to reconcile her actual age with how she looked.
    “You’ve got to be kidding.”
    “I’ll be thirty-six next year.”
    “Unbelievable. You’re the same age as me, then.”
    Now it was Saeko’s turn to be surprised. She had assumed Hashiba was younger than her.
    “We would have been in the same grade in school?” Suddenly, Saeko felt more comfortable with Hashiba. She let the formality melt from her speech.
    Hashiba began bringing up epoch-making events from their elementary, junior high, and senior high school years, trying to establish common ground. Saeko played along with the conversation, but inside she was beginning to wonder if Hashiba was married. She found herself imagining what it would be like to be alone in a room with him. For some reason his presence was comforting, and she felt her muscles relax. Maybe it was his robust build that made her feel secure, and she sensed a tough core behind his polite manner. The only thing that bothered her about him was the hint of an immature tendency to play up his abilities. But if that were merely a product of his efforts to make a good almost-first impression on Saeko, she supposed it was forgivable. Welcome, even.
    Saeko didn’t explicitly avoid the subject of her schoolgirl years, but she had a vague distaste for discussing that period. As Hashiba began to pick up on Saeko’s lukewarm responses, he shifted the topic of conversation back towards their project.
    “It’s being peddled as modern-day
kamikakushi
—the idea of people being spirited away by angry gods—but it could very well just be a series of coincidences. A cut-and-dry accident of some kind. If somehowthe case gets solved before we air the show, that’ll be the end of that.” Hashiba laughed weakly.
    But Saeko had a different perspective. “The concept of
kamikakushi
has existed since olden days in Japan, whenever people have disappeared mysteriously. When someone vanishes in the mountains we attribute it to ogres or the long-nosed demons,
tengu
. When they disappear near a river we blame it on
kappa
, water imps. There are various commonalities in the folklore pertaining to supernatural disappearances. For example,
kamikakushi
most often takes place in the springtime, usually at dusk. Before the disappearance takes place, a strong wind always blows. If the person who is spirited away is lucky enough to return home, he or she never retains any memory of where he or she has been. Naturally, that leads people to concoct all sorts of explanations for the mysterious experiences. The missing person is said to be abducted by a
tengu
, or tricked by a fox … But in my opinion, most of the time the person disappeared of their own accord or met with some kind of accident. When young brides vanished on the eve of their wedding day, they probably just ran away to avoid marriage. Sometimes the missing are believed to have vanished into some sort of utopia. Take the Taro Urashima folktale, for example.”
    Hashiba shifted into the role of the attentive listener, encouraging Saeko here and there with questions as she proceeded to regale him with detailed analyses of everything from world folklore regarding abductions to modern-day group disappearances, as well as specific methodologies pertaining to the pursuit of missing persons.
    “But this case doesn’t abide by any previously evident patterns,” Saeko concluded.
    “The locals in the area are calling it a modern-day case of
kamikakushi
.”
    “Of course. Whenever there’s a mysterious disappearance, people always call it that.”
    “How does it differ from existing