Chapter 17 Part 1, Verse 18: Cicadas on the Eighth Day (18)

The woman fled quickly into the darkness and disappeared.I hurried to where she disappeared, and there was a door leading to a private house.Inside the open door was a woman who was unlocking the sliding door.I stood in front of the door and looked at the room carefully.Like the surrounding area, it is a bungalow.Stepping stones are dotted between the entrance from the main gate to the latticed sliding door.The bushes seemed to spread their branches freely around the house, and the weeds almost covered the stepping stones.Empty ice cream bags and milk cartons loomed vaguely in the light of the street lamps.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa—— Kaoru's voice seemed more desperate than before.Where did this little body make such a loud noise?Kaoru's mournful cry made my head go numb.Can't think about anything. The woman entered the house without saying a word.In front of me, there is only an open entrance.The orange light suddenly came on.As if lured by that light, I stepped on the stepping stone. As soon as you enter the entrance, there is a corridor.Side by side paper doors.The paper door at the far end on the right is open, and an orange light stream is also flowing out.I closed the sliding door of the entrance with my backhand, and while listening to Kaoru's crying, I slowly scanned the part that could be seen from the entrance.

This house is weird, I thought in a daze.Can't say it's weird.Where is the fault?I didn't move an inch, and moved my eyes to find out what was wrong.The old shoes that were taken off at the entrance, the cardboard boxes stacked in the corridor, and the black garbage bags.Glowing corridors, dust gathering in the corners, black telephones on telephone stands with faded dust jackets.silent. There's nothing weird about it.It's just an ordinary house inhabited by residents who don't care about cleanliness.But that indescribable weirdness still lingers in my heart. I put the travel bag in the shoe place, took off my shoes, and quietly entered the house.Walking along the corridor, from time to time, you can see holes in the floor.Looking at the open paper door, a woman still wrapped in a coat stood in the center of the room.Even if they saw me, they didn't invite me in or invite me to sit down, so I just stood there in the corridor, looking around the room.Faded tatami mats fill the four walls of equally faded wardrobes.Stacks of newspapers and magazines tied with rope were piled up here and there.It wasn't exactly clean, but it was at best, and there was nothing weird about it.But I always feel restless.

"Oh, I'm crying again, I'm crying again, hurry up and tell her not to cry." The woman suddenly let out a loud voice that was not inferior to Kaoru's crying, and I walked into the room startled. "It's either peeing or shitting, or it's just hungry." The woman looked like she was about to cry.I hurriedly took off my coat, undid the straps, laid Kaoru on the tatami, and unbuttoned the jumpsuit.The woman quickly turned on the heater, and approached slowly like a wild cat, looking at my hand. I took the wet wipes and new diaper out of the bag and opened the diaper on Kaoru's body, and the stench of excrement permeated immediately.

"Wow! It stinks!" the woman exclaimed, pinching her nose exaggeratedly.Obviously she asked me to change the diaper herself.I didn't bother to care about her and concentrated on wiping Kaoru's ass.