For a bit, Yuuki sat at his son's bedside, time lapsing as he sat dumbfounded, before at last rising up and calling for Azusa. He had Azusa who was in much the same dumbfounded daze make the call. Toshio who had rushed over once called looked at Yuuki with a terribly complicated expression and then issued a death certificate reading blood poisoning due to renal failure. Yuuki got the feeling that Toshio was blaming him. He couldn't help thinking he was on the verge of asking why he didn't bring him to see a doctor sooner.
"He was doing well. When he fell. He even told a joke, he laughed. He was doing very well. So---"
Is that so, was all Toshio said.
"……So what will you do?"
Yuuki blinked.
"You'll have to bury your son won't you? In these cases the village directly calls the temple and the mourning crew manager but is there a certain undertaker anyplace you'd like to use?"
Yuuki hung his head. On the one hand there was the traditional method of calling on an undertaker to handle the burial but on the other hand there was the custom of the village he had moved to.
"……What would be best?"
"I'd think you would want to go through with cremation, wouldn't you? Yuuki-san had been originally living in a place where that was the custom."
Yuuki felt his back stiffen. If he cremated him, there really was no turning back, he had thought, strangely. But there was "no going back" about anything. Natsuno's dead body was already confirmed. Nobody could change the results of that. Yuuki had accepted as much gravely and yet he couldn't help but think that cremating him would be accepting his death, welcoming it to cross the gap into his ordinary factual reality.
"The Mourning Crew, please."
"But, you know."
"My son… I want him to be buried here as a member of the village. He'd found a home here. I want to send him off as a part of the village. I think that is also what Natsuno wants."
"……Is that so," Toshio sighed deeply. "In that case, I will be the one to call the manager. What about the temple?"
Yuuki thought for a while when Toshio spoke. "You aren't really parishioners but if you will be burying him in the village, you will need to rent a plot from the temple. Yuuki-san, you do not have a plot. Of course it isn't as if you can't seek and request one, by all means, but it might be best to consider how extremely complicated the process of getting permission can be. Already for the last ten years or so there haven't been any new grave lots approved."
"A plot needs to be approved?"
"You need the prefectural governor's approval. It'd be faster to rely on the temple than to take the legal formalities of buying one."
"Then---Please do."
Toshio nodded. "Then, I'll be the one to contact the temple. The Caretaker Manager will see to the rest of things."
Yes, Yuuki nodded. Yuuki remained like that sitting at his son's bedside. He couldn't think of what to do next. After some time had lapsed since Toshio left, a voice came from the entryway. Not feeling like getting up, the source of the voice let themselves in and came looking for Yuuki.
"Yuuk-san---Ah." The door opened. When Yuuki turned around, there were Hirosawa and Mutou.
"I was called by Mutou-san."
Mutou nodded to what Hirosawa said. Toshio had called him. Told that he would probably need help, he took the day off from work and invited Hirosawa who lived in the same Mourning Crew territory before hurrying over.
Yuuki sat in place lethargic, his son laid out on the bed. A father who had lost his son. It revived a painful struggle still all too raw in Mutou himself.
After watching Mutou pat Yuuki's back, nodding several times, Hirosawa stood up. He decided it was best to leave Yuuki to Mutou. There was likely a certain understanding between fellow fathers who had lost a child. There was nothing he could say as one with no such shared experience. ---And moreover, Hirosawa thought as he left the room. The preparations for the funeral had to be done. Before long the manager would likely come but even before that there were a great number of things to be done.
Walking through the house he found Azusa in the living room. Azusa too seemed defenseless, sitting there in the room.
"Uhm, I'm sorry to disturb you at a time like this, but do you have a Family Shrine? If so, we will have to close it up with calligraphy paper, but."
"No," Azusa answered despondently.
"Does Natsuno-kun have a yukata or something like a night dress?"
Too this too she gave an absent minded no. Hirosawa looked down on Azusa sympathetically, then began to rifle through the house himself, saying that he would be using their phone. He called his house and asked his wife to prepare the bare minimums, then sought the bathroom for washing and preparing the corpse.
Azusa was left alone in the living room as Hirosawa left. Sitting fixedly, she didn't know why she was bracing herself so much for something, and so she tried to understand the reason for her tension.
It took a bit of time for her to remember that her son was dead. The word "dead" had floated into Azusa's gapingly empty thoughts, isolated from any emotion or thoughts to accompany it.
"……I'll have to call."
That thought floated up utterly separately from the thought of the word "dead." Azusa looked to the clock and picked up the phone. She called the school.
After about ten calls, at last a clerk answered, she spoke in an inorganic voice.
"Tenth grader Koide---No, this is Yuuki's mother, but."
Ah, the clerk answered. The clerk remembered Natsuno, whose parents weren't in the same family register, quite well.
Azusa's mouth opened. Without even needing to think of the words they slipped out. She was aware of her own voice seeming strange.
"My son will be transferring. We'll be moving away from here very suddenly. My son will be coming with me. I will send the paper for his dropping out in a few days."
The clerk tried to say something but it didn't reach Azusa's ears. She said what she was supposed to say, so with no further concern she hung up the phone. For a while she just stared into space.
She was very worn, and it all lacked a sense of reality.
While having such a feeling, Azusa moved her hand. She scratched at her elbow hidden beneath her sleeve. There were two small marks, like bug bites, and they were very itchy.