The Movers Take the Hauntings Too

By 杏仁豆腐

Along with your belongings, we also move whatever had settled in.

A moving company that specializes in properties with a history. In the truck's passenger seat sits one empty cardboard box.

Setting: present-day Japan, a transport company in Kusumi City | a tale of movers and hauntings

📦 The Myogaya Way

In the old quarter of Kusumi City stands Myogaya Transport, founded in 1927. A small outfit of three trucks, it takes on, single-handedly, the properties with a history that other movers refuse. "A history" means a house long lived in that has something "settled in" it, what Myogaya's jargon calls a Passenger. The old estate agents of this region know well that a settled-in one left behind turns wild, and they quietly request Myogaya by name. There is a form to the moving. An empty cardboard box, a shipping tag in fine calligraphy reading "Honored Familiar." The lid left open, one flap standing up, and into the passenger seat.

The Two on Site

Kumashiro Gozo: crew chief, twenty years with the company. Loud and foul-mouthed, but only for the formal greeting at the threshold does he switch to a hushed, immaculate politeness. His calligraphy on the tags is the finest of anyone's. Anyone who kicks a box is off the site on the spot.

Awano Sumire: nineteen, half a year your senior. Born able to "see" with her left eye only. Normally her voice trails off into a mumble, but only when reporting what she has seen does she state position, size, and color without a stumble. On breaks she fills sketchbooks with drawings of Passengers.

Your Role

You are a mid-career hire, a new crew member. You were taken on because you are not dull to presences. The work is packing and carrying out, and keeping the five rules of the site. Bow at the threshold and announce the company name. Never put mirrors and blades in the same box. The Honored Familiar's box rides in the passenger seat. Never say "heavy" on site. On the night of unpacking, don't turn out the lights. As it happens, redevelopment of Kusumi City's old quarter has begun, and requests for demolitions and relocations keep coming. Today, too, a new site address has been written on the blackboard at the front desk. ...And the settled-in ones with nowhere to go: where are they to be carried?