Ginzan-cho Fairy Tale (Episode 11)

Chapter 10: Utsunomiya University

When they told the woman at the reception desk in the office located at the main entrance of the Utsunomiya University building about their visit, they were asked to fill in their affiliation and name on a reception slip and were instructed to wait until someone came to guide them.
“We’re grown adults, so I think we could have found our way if they’d just told us where to go,”
Tanaka muttered in a low voice, but Takahashi didn’t answer. Before long, a slender woman with hair reaching her waist approached the two. She looked too composed to be a student.
“Are you Mr. Takahashi from the Ginzan-cho Town Office? My name is Sudo, and I assist the professor with her research. I will guide you, so could you please follow me?”
She didn’t seem very friendly, and after telling Takahashi this with an expressionless face, she turned on her heel without waiting for a reply. She didn’t seem to even notice Tanaka. The two were made aware that they were “uninvited guests.”
As they followed Sudo, who walked briskly through the school building, they stopped in front of an impressive door. Above the door, the words “First Reception Room” were displayed. When the door opened, bright sunlight could be seen illuminating the room from a large window in the front. The room was furnished with high-quality, calm-toned items, including a carpeted floor and furniture for guests.
Takahashi appeared calm, but Tanaka couldn’t hide his surprise. Sudo guided the two to sit on the sofa and said,
“Please wait a moment. I’m sorry you came from so far away, but if you are hoping for a donation of the collection the professor has gathered, please do not get your hopes up. The professor has turned down all such requests so far, including those from the Mayor of Utsunomiya. Please do not blame the professor if she cannot meet your expectations.”
She then disappeared. Tanaka spoke in a low voice.
“I thought we would be talking in the lobby or a laboratory, but this is VIP treatment.”
“I have no idea what her intentions are. But that secretary-like woman’s attitude is cold.”
The two stopped talking, feeling as if they had been bewitched. Since Sudo returned with four cups, they could anticipate that Inamura would be arriving soon. Sudo told them to wait while drinking tea and left the room, but neither of them felt like touching their cups, and they were enveloped in a heavy atmosphere.

A light knocking sound echoed from the entrance, and
“Sorry to have kept you waiting. This is Inamura.”
A bright voice followed. The two stood up in a hurry and waited for the owner of the voice to come to the front. Inamura, who was petite with short hair, spoke to the two with a smile.
“Thank you for coming all this way. Once again, I am Inamura, an associate professor in the Faculty of Letters at Utsunomiya University.
I’m happy to meet you, Mr. Takahashi. Nice to meet you, Mr. Tanaka; I was looking forward to talking with you. Please, have a seat.”
Takahashi and Tanaka introduced themselves and sat back down on the sofa. Prompted by Inamura, Sudo sat next to her. After taking a breath, Takahashi opened the conversation.
“Professor Inamura, I am sorry to take your time when you are so busy. Today, I have come with a consultation, or rather, a presumptuous request. Our town is currently planning a ‘Hometown Where Fairies Live Project,’ and as part of that, we are considering the construction of a ‘Fairy Museum.’ Therefore, I have come to ask if you would consider donating a portion of the fairy-related collection you have gathered. It is a very selfish request, but would you please consider it?”
Oily, cold sweat crawled over Takahashi and Tanaka’s bodies. Sudo’s expression became stern. Inamura brought her cup to her mouth once before setting it down quietly.
“Consider it or not, I have already reached a conclusion.”
Sudo wore a triumphant expression, and the blood drained from Takahashi and Tanaka’s faces. They hadn’t thought there would be absolutely no room for negotiation.
“I will fully cooperate with the Fairy Museum. We can discuss the details later, but I will give you the conclusion first.”
Two voices rang out.
“Professor, is that true?”
“Professor, is that true?”
Tanaka and Sudo said the same words, but their expressions were the polar opposites of joy and fury.
“The professor has never donated her collection to anyone before. Why to these people?”
Sudo’s eyes were narrowed in anger.
“All the world’s a stage, and all the people are merely players. We play various roles. So, I thought I might play Merlin, the wizard who helps the young hero Arthur.”
Inamura returned a smile as innocent as a young child’s, but Sudo’s face remained stern. Inamura turned to Tanaka and asked.
“Mr. Tanaka, why do you think fairies appear before humans?”
“Isn’t it because they want to be friends with humans?”
“Will you be friends with the fairies, Mr. Tanaka?”
“Yes, I want to be friends with the fairies and all the residents, and make Ginzan-cho a better place.”
“Thank you for the wonderful answer. It seems the fairies feel the same way. They seem to wish to ‘live happily’ with you, Mr. Tanaka, and Mr. Takahashi. So, rather than me donating the collection, it means the fairies themselves want to move to Ginzan-cho. May I ask one more question? Do you know what a fairy gift is?”
“It’s a gift from a fairy, like leaves turning into gold coins or water turning into sake. I read about it in your book, Professor.”
“Thank you. There have been several people who wanted me to donate my collection, but they were all people who wanted it for speculative purposes or to make it their own personal collection. I even got the impression from the Mayor of Utsunomiya that he was just looking for popularity and votes for the next mayoral election. There haven’t been many people like you, Mr. Tanaka, who studied fairies, tried to feel them, and sent me your thoughts on my books and wonderful photos.
Your letter conveyed your desire to ‘be friends with fairies.’ I felt that the fairies also wanted to be friends with you. So, would you accept it as a fairy gift?”
Despite her quiet tone, an unwavering firmness that left no room for objection was conveyed to the three. Takahashi squeezed out his voice, finding it difficult to speak.
“T-thank you very much for your kind words. I am very happy, and Tanaka will be rewarded as well. However, it is a very awkward question, but if you are to donate the collection, how much should we budget for it? Even a rough estimate would be fine, so if you could tell me the upper or lower limit, it would be helpful.”
Inamura opened her eyes wide in a look of exaggerated surprise.
“Since you are a government office, the budget is important, isn’t it? Of course, I have already decided on the budget. The upper limit and the lower limit are zero yen, free of charge. That is the condition for donating it.”
Tanaka and Sudo’s voices overlapped.
“Professor, no matter what, that is...”
“Professor, no matter what, that is...”
The two looked at each other, but Inamura, acting as if she didn’t know,
“Because, although I am keeping them now, many of them were gifts from seniors and friends, given out of goodwill and free of charge. It would be strange for me to take money for them; the fairies would scold me. Besides, the ones I purchased were all bought using the investment returns from assets left by my ancestors. I don’t want to turn my gratitude to my ancestors into money. As a resident born and raised in Utsunomiya City, I intend to donate the collection to Utsunomiya City eventually, but I intend to donate it for free then as well.”
Sudo spoke with a stern expression.
“If that is the professor’s will, it cannot be helped, but Professor, are you really sure? I am not in a position to offer my opinion, but to be honest, I cannot say I am convinced, or rather, I feel unsettled.”
Tanaka agreed with Sudo’s opinion.
“Professor Inamura, to be honest, I am not convinced either. I am so happy I could cry about what you praised me for earlier, and I am truly grateful from the bottom of my heart. But I don’t think I have done anything to deserve this much.”
Inamura let out a quiet sigh.
“Don’t bully me anymore, both of you. The story I am about to tell might be written as a tale, so it must be a secret. I will tell you the ‘fairy story’ inside me just this once.”
Inamura stood up, showed the three a compassionate smile, and began to speak as she walked.

Once upon a time, long ago.
When Japan was much poorer than it is now, there was a girl named “Chi-chan” in Utsunomiya City.
Chi-chan hated that her eyes were a slightly light color, so she grew her bangs to hide them, and she also grew her hair in the back very long. When Chi-chan was in the second grade of elementary school, her mother became seriously ill and was hospitalized, and Chi-chan was entrusted to her mother’s hometown, her grandparents’ house.
In that countryside, there was a legend that long ago, a woman with long hair who lived by the swamp—who was actually a terrifying giant snake (Orochi)—would attack and eat travelers, so all the girls in the village had short hair. Chi-chan, the only one with long hair, and furthermore, because she didn’t understand the local dialect, she remained silent and didn’t talk to anyone, so the children around her thought she was a creepy girl. Because of that, she started being bullied by the neighborhood bully in her class.
Even though she was being bullied, Chi-chan went to school looking forward to the day she could see her mom, but she was told that her mom, who had promised to come to the class observation day, could no longer come, and she thought,
“I believed she would come to the class observation, but she didn’t. Mom is a liar, Mom is a liar. The story that she would come to pick me up when she got better and that we would live together might also be a lie. I’ve been abandoned. Maybe I’ll never see Mom or Dad again for the rest of my life. If I’m just going to be bullied alone, there’s no point in living; I want to die. I’ll die and become a ghost, and take revenge on the bullies.”
Chi-chan, who thought about dying at a beautiful lake, snuck out of her grandfather’s house in the middle of the night and headed for the lake on the mountain. Since she was prepared to die, she walked through the dark night road without fear.
After arriving at the shore of the lake, she took off her shoes, and when she stepped into the lake water, she was surprised by how cold it was, and for the first time that night, she looked up at the sky. A large full moon was illuminating the lake from the heavens, and the refrain shining in gold and silver on the lake was sparkling and very beautiful, and she felt the silhouettes of the distant mountains gently, and moved by that beauty, Chi-chan shed tears.
Then, the sparkles whispered to Chi-chan in a very gentle voice.
“Don’t cry.”
“You mustn’t die.”
“If you don’t live properly, you can’t come to the fairy world. You can’t play with us.”
“Endure tonight, for there is no night that does not end.”
“Let’s play together someday, let’s dance happily.”
Encouraged by the gentle voice, Chi-chan stopped crying and stared at the sparkles, forgetting why she had come to the lake. Then, she began to see the figures of fairies wearing cute clothes in green, pink, and various colors within the sparkles.
The fairies all showed her a cute dance while smiling as if to encourage her. When the moon hid behind the clouds, the figures of the fairies disappeared.
Chi-chan whispered, “See you again, fairies,” and believing in tomorrow, she turned her back on the lake and went home.

The next day, Chi-chan’s faint hope that “maybe Mom will come to the class observation” was not fulfilled, and only her grandfather and grandmother came to watch the class.
After the class ended, just as Chi-chan was feeling sad that “nothing had changed,” the bullies came and jeered at her.
“Just as I thought, neither your dad nor your mom came. You’ve been abandoned. No dad, no mom, a ghost child, a child of a giant snake with strange eyes and strange words. Go back to the swamp, go back to the city.”
The bullies, who usually bullied her on the way home from school or in places where no one could see, were a little excited because they could go home early due to the class observation, and they jeered at Chi-chan in front of everyone. Chi-chan was so shocked that she couldn’t even raise her voice or stand up, and could only bury her face in her desk.
At that moment, another boy’s voice rang out.
“What’s wrong with your parents not being able to come? What’s wrong with your eyes or your words being different? There’s nothing wrong with that at all. And yet you bully her, what are you guys doing? Aren’t you ashamed?”
The voices of the bullies who were rebuked rang out in reply, and after arguing with the boy for a while, the bullies’ voices became smaller, and in the end, they ran away. And the boy who protected Chi-chan also went home, and the classroom became quiet.
From that day on, the bullying stopped, and Chi-chan was able to become friends with the other girls. Chi-chan’s mother’s illness also improved steadily, and in the middle of the second semester, Chi-chan was able to return to her original school and her original life.
On a summer night, after hearing the fairies’ whispers and seeing the fairies’ figures, Chi-chan’s world regained its light. Since then, Chi-chan has been thinking all the time.
“Maybe I died once that night. Maybe the fairies brought me back to life just once, and borrowed the boy’s form to help me the next day.”
Chi-chan, wanting to be able to thank the fairies someday, began to want to know more about fairies than anyone around her, read many books on fairies, collected materials, and became an adult fairy researcher.
However, the fact that she had transferred schools without being able to properly thank the fairies and the boy who protected her remained like a thorn in her heart.
The end.
 

Inamura sat back down on the sofa after finishing her story.
“Don’t tell anyone this story, it’s just between us. Hey, Mr. Tanaka, if Chi-chan, the protagonist of this fairy tale, were to grow up and be reunited with the boy who saved her, what do you think she would do?”
Tanaka relaxed a little and answered, puffing out his chest.
“I think she would want to convey her gratitude and thank him. It’s a fairy’s repayment, isn’t it?”
“A fairy’s repayment is to return many times over to the person who received the favor, isn’t it? Yes, I think she would want to do everything she could. And, this story has a continuation today.”

Chi-chan continued her fairy research while thinking, I want to repay the fairies and the boy who saved me someday. Time passed, and when she became an adult, on June 22nd, the night when the night is shortest, the day Chi-chan saw the fairies, the boy visited her as an adult, and Chi-chan was very happy.
With this, it is truly the end.

“It’s a very convenient development, but since it’s a fairy tale, please laugh and forgive me. But the summer solstice is the day that becomes the stage for a midsummer night’s dream, isn’t it? Don’t you think it wouldn’t be strange for any mysterious thing to happen? Mr. Takahashi, thank you so much for coming. I’ve wanted to say this for a long time.
I am truly grateful from the bottom of my heart, thank you very much.
Please use my collection for ‘Ginzan-cho, the Town Where Fairies Live.’”
Inamura bowed her head with a quiet smile, and Sudo and Tanaka’s expressions were frozen. Takahashi shivered and then opened his mouth.
“I don’t intend to interrupt the professor’s story, but as a realistic matter, isn’t it possible that the boy didn’t save Chi-chan, but was just a boy from a single-parent family or something, and he talked back to the bully out of frustration or loneliness because his mother couldn’t take time off work to come to the class observation? If he just got angry for his own reasons, I feel like Chi-chan doesn’t need to be grateful.”
Inamura responded with a gentle, bodhisattva-like smile.
“Mr. Takahashi, you are a realist, aren’t you? I don’t know the boy’s true feelings, but Chi-chan has been thinking about it all this time. The fairies brought me back to life just once, and borrowed the boy’s form to help me. That is the true story in this fairy tale.
And, a fairy’s repayment is to return many times over to the person who received the favor. I will say it one more time, but since I might write this story as a tale someday, please don’t tell anyone. It’s a secret just between us. The tea has gone cold, Sudo, could you brew some more?”
Sudo quietly collected the cups and left the reception room.
Takahashi wiped his eyes with a handkerchief while looking down, then looked up and confirmed with Inamura.
“Is it okay to make public the story that the reason Professor Inamura is cooperating with the town is that you saw the photos Tanaka sent and felt ‘fairies live in this town,’ and you wanted to store and exhibit your collection in Ginzan-cho? It fits with the professor’s story and the concept of a hometown where fairies live.”
“Mr. Takahashi, you really are a realist. You may announce it that way. But I am sorry for the later addition, actually, my collection is almost unorganized. I have asked Sudo to organize and list them starting this year, but it seems it will take some time, so could you give me some time to list the items to be donated to Ginzan-cho? I will report the progress of the work through Sudo as appropriate.”
“That is, of course, fine. There may be various other administrative tasks, but we will work on them so that the burden on the professor is minimized.”
Following Takahashi’s words, Tanaka continued.
“Professor Inamura, I know it will only be on weekends, but please let me help with organizing the collection as well. It is trivial compared to your kindness, but I want to repay you even a little.”
The door to the reception room opened, and Sudo entered quietly.
“In that case, perhaps I should have Mr. Tanaka help as well. There are heavy items, so I was worried about Sudo alone. It would be helpful if you could help even when you can come. It might be good for you to see the collection that will be donated.”
“I will do it, please let me do it. Gladly.”
Sudo placed the tea on the table, not knowing that the story she was involved in was progressing.

On an early summer afternoon, soft, warm sunlight was streaming into the reception room from outside.

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