Compared with his calmness, Natsume Chie nervously clutched the hem of her clothes.
Although she still did not quite understand what these matters concerning gods and godspawn truly meant,
she knew
they were certainly not as simple as she had imagined.
Time passed bit by bit. Sitting in the back seat of the taxi, Su Wen and Natsume Chie finally arrived in Tokyo.
As they passed through a tunnel, the light suddenly dimmed, and tiny particles of dust drifted through the carriage. It was like a scene from Kawabata Yasunari's first encounter in Snow Country:
The schoolgirl gazed at the advertising signs flashing past outside the window. She saw neon tubes blur into hazy halos through the rain,
and crowds hurrying through the bustle and silence alike.
Ten minutes later,
she finally saw the blue-green sign of a 7-Eleven and the warm yellow lanterns of an izakaya flickering alternately through the darkness before her. Having only recently woken from her dizziness, she felt another wave of drowsiness wash over her:
"Teacher,
Tokyo gets dark so quickly."
"You silly girl, it's not that it gets dark quickly here. You've just been asleep for too long."
Su Wen did not look at her. He merely gazed toward the destination he was about to reach.
With a screech of brakes,
the taxi finally pulled up in the block where the tavern stood, allowing the faint scent of cooking oil in the air to drift into the car as well.
The izakaya's hanging lanterns swayed beneath the eaves,
and a faded handwritten Gochisou poster was pasted onto the red-lacquered wooden door. The fresh fragrance of kombu broth and the crisp chill of Dassai sake seeped through the Seam Gate.
A newspaper deliveryman in a raincoat splashed through puddles, and the scent of printer's ink