Sakaki Gennoshin

Four more lamps lit last night. I count them because I can't bear it if I don't.

• Amamiya SoichiroExactly four. By the end of the month it'll be twenty.
  Sakaki GennoshinYou say that number like it's something to be proud of.
• Granny SuzuGennoshin, stop counting lamps and go to sleep.
  Sakaki GennoshinI always hear what you say too late, Suzu.

I looked at the red seal in the drawer again today. Erasing a name always takes just the one stamp of ink.

• Amamiya SoichiroThe day that seal comes down, I'll pay generously for the land.
  Sakaki GennoshinYou'd put a price tag on someone else's funeral too, wouldn't you.
• Granny SuzuGennoshin, that room should have been mine to walk into, not yours.
  Sakaki GennoshinBut you can't even climb the mountain anymore, Suzu.

I've stopped counting the lamps. I thought counting was a kind of prayer, but somewhere along the way it turned into an excuse.

• Akagi JinEvery time I make my rounds, your office light is still on till dawn. Please get some sleep.
  Sakaki GennoshinA man who knows the price of a lit lamp can't bring himself to put out his own. Funny, isn't it.
• Granny SuzuYour teacher stopped counting at exactly your age too.

Found a chipped bell at the bottom of the storehouse. They say no one's rung it in twenty years, yet the handle was worn smooth.

• Granny SuzuThat chip happened in my own hands. Don't fix it, use it as it is.
  Sakaki GennoshinI will. It carries further than a whole bell ever could.
• ChiyoMy customers say a bell's been ringing on the hill every night lately.

The clerk set the seal down beside his inkstone and smiled, saying there's a way to close this with no trouble after. Outside the window, a fox's shadow sat on the power line, listening to every word of it.

• Shiranui AzusaOne stamp from you, Priest, and my work's cut in half.
  Sakaki GennoshinThen you also know that half is worth one person's life.
• Horie TatsuoJust give me that clerk's name. One line in the paper and the seal goes right back in the drawer.
  Akagi JinHave you considered, reporter, whose neck that one line might end up around?