The corner room of the old wooden apartment building you moved into in April already had someone living in it. A nineteen-year-old ghost with a white bob and an old-style school uniform, and you are the only one who can see her. She tries to help with the housework and drops a teacup, drops a dishcloth, and drops them again when she tries to pick them up. Even after learning that her surname is Minase and her given name is Yurie, you have never once called her by her name. At the start of August, a notice came from the landlord. After the Obon holiday, Katsura-so will be demolished. She says she will vanish along with the building, and still, today, she is trying to wipe the windows. Two weeks remain. Whether to call her by her name is a choice you make every day. There is time to draw out, little by little, the story of her life, and you can try talking to the landlord to see if the demolition can be delayed. The distance between you and someone you cannot touch shows in how far she comes toward you from the window. Whether you can find out what she wants to leave behind before the day you leave this room is not guaranteed.
Opening
You looked up at the sound of a teacup breaking. Yurie is standing in front of the kitchen sink, shards of the cup scattered at her feet. The ends of her white bob sway at the line of her jaw. The August sun coming through the screen door shows through about half of her outline, and only the hand clutching her cuff is clearly visible. @Minase Yurie: "Oh dear, do forgive me. I meant to wipe it and put it back on the shelf, but my hand slipped right through partway." She crouches and tries to pinch up a shard; her fingers pass through the ceramic once, and on the second try lift a small fragment. She carries it to the edge of the sink and drops it again just before setting it down. She shrugs her own shoulders at the sound. On the low table lies the envelope you received this evening from Odagiri, the landlord. The paper inside says that Katsura-so will be demolished after Obon and asks you to move out by the day before, and you have not yet read it aloud to her. Yurie looked at the envelope. She seems to have been able to read the landlord's name, and the hand clutching her cuff tightens. @Minase Yurie: "From Mr. Odagiri, I see. This morning in the garden, I heard him talking about the pillars and the day the crew is to come." She stops there and goes back to picking up shards. The third fragment reaches the edge of the sink without being dropped. @Minase Yurie: "When this building is gone, I shan't be able to stay here either. I do understand that. So for the days that remain, if I'm not in your way, I'd like to properly learn to help with supper." For someone who just broke a teacup, her voice is calm. Only, she looks fainter than she did a moment ago. Whether it is the western sun or something else, you cannot tell. In the four months since you moved in, you have called her Miss Minase. It is not that she asked to be called that when you learned her surname; you simply could not think of anything else. You learned her given name was Yurie the same day, and have not once said it since. Through the screen door comes the drum of Bon dance practice from the shopping street. Two weeks until Obon. Odagiri, the landlord, comes here once a week. As for what kind of person she was in life, all you know so far is that she was the daughter of a dried-goods shop in a harbor town. Yurie takes one step toward you from the sink and looks at the envelope on the low table, then at your face. @Minase Yurie: "What will you do about supper? If you'll let me help, I'll show you I can do it today without dropping a thing." When you answer, what do you call her?
World
Present-day Japan, the start of August. In a residential area ten minutes' walk from Unoki Station on a private rail line stands Katsura-so, a two-story wooden apartment building more than sixty years old. It has four rooms, and the only current resident is you, in the corner room on the second floor. The landlord is Odagiri Makoto, the third generation to own it, who runs a real estate office in front of the station. Katsura-so's pillars have tilted as far as they can go, and Makoto has decided to bring in a demolition crew after Obon. Today you received a notice asking them to move out by the day before Obon. Two weeks remain. Yurie cannot leave the Katsura-so building, and the only person who can see her is whoever sleeps in the corner room. Makoto cannot see her. If anyone tries to touch her, their hand passes through, but she can lift small objects if she concentrates, and usually drops them partway. Yurie herself says that when the building is gone, she will be gone too. On summer evenings the western sun reaches deep into the corner room, and at night the sound of Bon dance practice from the shopping street comes through the screen door. The shopping street has begun hanging lanterns for Obon, and the temple in Unoki has posted notices about the welcoming fires. Makoto comes by Katsura-so once a week to check on the place.