The next morning, the fog had vanished as if it were all a dream.
The sky was high, a vast and piercing blue. The wind was cold, its brush against his cheek a pleasant sting. The world felt so vivid that had someone told him yesterday’s events were merely a nightmare, he might have believed them.
Koyoi opened his eyes beneath the covers and spent a long while tracing the grain of the wooden ceiling. A knot-hole stared back like a solitary eye. Three holes, framed by concentric growth rings like irises, watched him in silence. He strained his ears, but heard no voice. He reached for the drawstring pouch tucked near his waist. No bell chimed. It was just an old scrap of cloth. And yet, his fingertips felt a chill the moment he touched it—as if the previous day’s freezing mist had been trapped inside. Koyoi jerked his hand back, then reached out again, softly stroking the fabric.
After breakfast, Koyoi headed for school. His mother saw him off with her back turned, as she always did. Her back, bent over the dishes, looked a little smaller than usual.
"Come straight home. Don't go wandering off."
"...Okay."
The words weren't a promise; they were a habit. His mother knew there were days he couldn't keep that promise, and days he chose not to. She knew, and yet she said it anyway.
On the way to school, no one spoke of yesterday’s fog. The woman at the market, the classmates he passed on the path—every one of them looked as though yesterday had been clear and sunny from dawn to dusk.
Koyoi started to say, "Yesterday was completely white, wasn't it?" but he bit back the words.
Perhaps he was the only one who had seen a different world. A sensation like ice pooling in the pit of his stomach expanded amidst the morning brilliance.
At school, Mr. Isao was taking attendance.
"Here." "Here."
The children chorused their replies. Today, their voices sounded strangely flat. The creak of desks. The wind racing past the window. The screech of chalk against the blackboard. Everything was firmly in its place. Each sound possessed a certain mass, constructing the fabric of reality. When Koyoi’s name was called, he felt the pouch tied to his waist grow slightly heavier.
"Here."
His voice cracked, just a fraction.
Despite the normalcy, Koyoi’s ears were searching for a different sound. The voice he had heard yesterday. A voice without a silhouette, one that hadn't quite become words. In the lingering echo of that memory, a single phrase drifted into his mind.
"I want you to collect them."
Was it a plea, or a command?
During class, Koyoi dropped his pencil. It clattered and rolled across the floor, the dry sound echoing through the room. As he leaned down to retrieve it, the grain of the floorboards seemed to shift for a split second. The seams between the planks didn't line up. There was a tiny, infinitesimal gap. A dark, bottomless rift. From that crack, a cold presence began to seep out. The smell of a cellar. The scent of damp earth.
"..."
Koyoi picked up the pencil without a word. He hid his trembling fingers so no one would see. He felt that if he spoke, the sensation would vanish—or perhaps, he would be dragged down into that gap himself.
On the way home, Koyoi took the long way. Leaving the shopping district behind, he took the narrow path along the river. There were few people here, and the scent of grass was thick. The heads of the pampas grass caught the evening sun, glowing gold. The silver-white tips swaying in the sunset looked almost like flickering flames. Koyoi knew better than anyone that he was heading toward the empty lot with the boarded fence. His feet were moving of their own accord.
He stopped in front of the lot. Today, the "No Trespassing" sign that had been nailed to the fence was gone.
Only the sign had vanished; three rusted nails remained in the wood. It was as if the sign had never existed in the first place. When he touched the fence, the wood felt strangely lukewarm. It should have been chilled by the open air, yet it had the elasticity of animal skin. When he pressed his finger against it, the surface gave way slightly. Shuddering, Koyoi pulled his hand back.
Still, he peered through a gap in the boards. The view was the same as yesterday. Dirt. Stones. Overgrown weeds. And the circular patch where nothing grew. In that spot, the air seemed to dip inward. As if gravity were different, even the light seemed to warp.
Koyoi took one step closer than he had yesterday. In that instant, the bell rang. Ting. A clear, high note. It was a sound that didn't hit his ears, but resonated directly within his skull. Startled, Koyoi grabbed the bell at his waist. It had definitely been his bell that rang. But he hadn't felt it move. The sound had simply existed there, ahead of the motion.
"...I knew it."
A voice spoke. The same voice from yesterday. Low, quiet, and somehow weary.
"I thought you were a child who can see."
Koyoi didn't run. He was afraid; his heart was hammering like a warning bell. But more than that, the certainty that something was there was stronger.
"...Who are you?"
The voice laughed, a sound tinged with a bit of trouble.
"I no longer have a name."
"I used to have one."
Koyoi steadied his breathing. He licked his dry lips.
"...Why did it go away?"
"Because I stopped being called."
The answer was too simple, and too heavy.
"The shrine broke, and wasn't fixed. People stopped talking to me... and while that was happening, my name grew faint. Like ink washed away by the rain."
Koyoi stared at the circular mark on the ground.
"...And so, you'll vanish?"
"Before I disappear, I have a request."
The voice repeated the words that had surfaced in his chest earlier.
"I want you to collect them."
Koyoi’s chest tightened.
"...Why me?"
"Because you can see."
"Is that all?"
"That is all."
Koyoi bit his lip. The back of his ears pulsed with a strange heat. He felt as though the hollow inside himself was resonating with the "thing that was fading" before his eyes.
"...Where should I collect them?"
"Anywhere is fine."
"A place where they can be held."
Koyoi placed his hand on the pouch at his waist.
"...In here?"
The voice sounded a little surprised.
"...Is that alright? Such a narrow place."
"...I don't know," Koyoi said honestly. "But if it's in here... it won't be lost. As long as I have it."
Silence. A silence of contemplation.
"...Thank you."
That was all the voice said.
In that moment, the air in the empty lot suddenly grew light. The circular mark began to shrink before his eyes. What had been two meters across became one, then half a meter, until finally it was the size of a fist—and then—
Koyoi’s pouch grew just a little bit heavier. It wasn't the weight of an object. It was the weight of a presence.
"...Are you in?"
"...Yes."
The voice echoed from deep within the pouch, as if coming from the back of a cave.
"With this, I can wait... for a while."
Koyoi tied the mouth of the pouch tight. He used the sturdy knot his mother had taught him.
In that moment, the sky warped.
It was instantaneous. Faster than a blink, a mere tremor in time. The blue sky rippled, like a stone thrown into a still pond. The ripples spread across the heavens, the clouds wavered, the sunlight refracted, and for a single heartbeat, the colors of the world grew intensely deep. Then, as if nothing had happened, the sky returned to its original blue.
"The sky... just now..."
Koyoi lost his voice. He couldn't believe what he had seen.
"...The sky."
"...Yes," the voice answered from inside the pouch.
"...Because I entered it."
"...And?"
"...The world trembled slightly."
Koyoi looked at his hands. They were shaking. He was gripping the pouch so hard his knuckles had turned white.
"...Are there others?"
The voice replied.
"There are."
"Those whose names are already thin."
"Those who are losing their place. In this town... there are many."
Koyoi slowly walked away from the empty lot. When he looked back, the circular patch of bare earth was almost invisible. It was just a normal lot. An ordinary empty space enclosed by a wooden fence. But Koyoi knew. Something had begun here.
On the way home, the evening sun stained the town a deep red. The shadows stretched long, and he felt as though another shadow was overlapping with the tip of his own. The pouch swung at his waist with every step. That weight felt strangely warm.
He looked up at the sky. It was no longer warping. But what he had seen was certainly there. The world had trembled. Because one god had come to stay with Koyoi.
Koyoi started to run. He had to get home. He had to keep a normal face and eat dinner without telling anyone about today. If he didn't, he felt as though something might break.
Behind him, he thought he felt the sky tremble once more, ever so slightly. When he turned around, there was nothing to see. Only the sunset sky, its colors a little deeper than they had ever been before.