grave diggers askedbreath or what's your？no way, their is no opposites for illdystopians-.
Immersive Diorama Platform, Graveyard…
It seems that even death would be too lukewarm for a place like this.
Takaya:
I was exhausted today, but nothing would move either way.
For a moment, I even wondered whether the old taxi driver was reading from some predetermined script.
Maybe without Rate, Rate-Oni, or me, the text itself turns into corrupted characters.
Well…
I thought maybe the time was finally coming,
but then I failed the screening for a gaming PC,
so it looks like it will still take a while.
I will build the Yokai Economic Sphere first,
and only after that will I issue a token.
It feels like a one-way, non-refundable contract already,
but I have no regrets.
For some reason, though,
I can still summon Eila.
And the gasping voice inside my heart
sounds like Ayuru Fufuru Funrun-san.
I can feel the presence of something like
yokai currency,
or perhaps currency yokai.
Honestly,
I do not particularly mind if I die at any time.
Maybe my perception of monetary value itself is declining.
Maybe once expression becomes an equal exchange
outside of merely differentiated items,
that yokai stops being an ally
and starts looking more like an enemy.
Still, I will do things in my own way.
I am the final generation wearing Cryptoeded
like an electronic cloth,
a synchronized layer of letters and signals.
I intend to use Cryptoeded for Relypo,
so I have no desire to force shared values on anyone,
but I do want to hear what others think.
That is the sort of thing I have been thinking about.
Dagashi Shop Under the Purple Light
Halfway up the slope,
there is a small dagashi shop.
Its old sliding door is left half open,
and whenever the wind enters,
the wood gives off a faint creaking sound.
The place is narrow.
And yet,
despite how cramped it should feel,
the air inside somehow seems abundant.
There are several people in the room,
but there is no sense of pressure.
At the back of the shop
there is a single purple lamp.
Ryukari is there.
She looks less as if she is sitting
and more as if she is floating in place.
One elbow on the table,
a finger resting lightly against her cheek,
she gazes vaguely across the whole shop.
Her eyes never seem fixed on any one thing,
and yet,
the instant someone is about to act,
her gaze falls there.
“That one will break first,”
she says quietly.
At the counter,
Rock Bakuryu is dismantling a portable device.
One of the screws is just about to come loose.
“You were watching?”
he asks.
“I do not need to watch.
I can tell when the ratio collapses.”
Rate speaks from the side.
For someone his age,
he is remarkably quiet.
His voice is small.
But what he says is unnervingly precise.
“That screw is too tight.
Three to seven is enough.”
“Three to seven?”
“Three parts tension.
Seven parts play.
Right now it is fifty-fifty.”
“You do this by feel?”
“It is not feeling.
It is deviation.”
Rate offers no further explanation.
Rock Bakuryu pauses for a moment,
then loosens it slightly just as instructed.
The device’s operation lamp becomes more stable than before.
“…It really changed.”
“I told you.”
Across the counter,
Yuyu watches the exchange,
resting her cheek in her palm
with a soft smile.
She should be around the same age as the others,
and yet
there is something strange about the way time moves around her.
“That is nice,” she says.
“The feeling of something remaining
without breaking apart.”
“Broken is more interesting,”
the master says.
Yuyu tilts her head.
“Breaking is easy.
Keeping something intact
takes skill.”
“…That is true.”
Beside them,
Gachirick says nothing
as he arranges boxes in silence.
Only around him
there is the faint sound of water,
as if something damp and circling is always present nearby.
At some point,
someone started calling it
his sharknado attribute.
His role is flow.
He carries things.
He connects people.
He knows more accurately than anyone
where everything is.
“That does not go in the back,”
he says quietly.
He is pointing toward the audio memory stick
the master was about to place on a shelf.
“Not there?”
“It is still light.
It belongs near the entrance.”
“Light?”
“The heavy things are upstairs.”
That is all Gachirick says,
and then he reaches for another box.
The shelves in the dagashi shop
have more layers than they first appear to.
The closer something is to the entrance,
the lighter it is.
The farther inward it goes,
the heavier it becomes.
Its weight is not its value.
It is the density of its time,
and the thickness of the relationships around it.
“Then here?”
the master says.
He places the memory stick
on a shelf near the entrance.
Its label is short.
Night recording.
Unsorted.
“Good.”
Gachirick nods.
Then,
a thin thread descends from the ceiling.
Only Rate notices it immediately.
“Coming.”
At that single word,
everyone glances upward.
At the end of the thread
is the master.
Or rather,
someone very close to him.
The same face.
A slightly different expression.
This version is lighter.
He carries a fast-twitch buff,
and the moment his feet touch the ground,
the air in the shop sharpens.
“You’re late.”
“Upstairs was crowded.”
“Again?”
“The mask cried.”
At that,
Yuyu narrows her eyes.
“Oh.
That is good.”
“Both sides.”
“That is excellent.”
Ryukari slowly lifts her gaze.
“And the center?”
“It did not cry.”
“Then the axis is still intact.”
That is the end of the exchange.
No explanation is necessary.
Everyone more or less understands.
Outside the dagashi shop,
the wind has grown slightly stronger.
The sliding door rattles.
A small clink rings out.
No one reacts.
In this place,
even sound is part of the flow.
“Do you think it would sell?”
Rock Bakuryu asks.
The master thinks for a moment.
“I am not trying to sell it.”
“Then you are just going to place it here?”
“Yes.
I will let it watch.”
“Watch?”
“If something is crying,
then it still has a line attached.”
Rate nods faintly.
“It means it has not been severed.”
“That is why we observe,”
Ryukari says softly.
Yuyu laughs quietly.
“This place still does not really feel like a dagashi shop.”
“What part?”
“There are not enough sweets.”
“There are some,”
the master says,
pointing toward the shelves.
Ramune.
Biscuits.
Empty boxes.
None of them are functioning properly as sweets anymore.
“But this is fine.”
Yuyu stands,
picks up one of the ramune bottles,
and gently shakes it.
It is empty.
Only a dry sound remains.
“This is enough.”
“For what?”
“It is still circulating.”
She returns the bottle to the counter.
It lands with a soft sound.
And somehow,
that alone makes it feel
as though a transaction has been completed.
No one says a price.
No one calculates profit or loss.
And yet,
something is definitely moving.
A slow economy,
different from the outer world.
A yokai economy.
The name itself does not matter.
What matters is that this dagashi shop has
a place where things can be left,
a place where things can return,
and a place where one can confirm
whether the line is still connected.
The purple lamp behind Ryukari sways gently.
A deep green shadow stretches across the floor.
The khaki-colored wall receives it.
And in the middle of it all,
the master lets down another thread.
The Small Building Below the Sanatorium Gate
A short distance below the gate of the sanatorium
there stands a small building.
Apparently,
it used to be a warehouse.
But now,
no one calls it that anymore.
They call it the dagashi shop.
There is no signboard.
Instead,
on the entrance door,
there is only a faded mark:
a circle and a square
overlapping each other.
Its meaning is not fixed.
But in this place,
that is enough.
Once inside,
the air feels a little lighter.
It is different from the damp heaviness
of the sanatorium proper.
There is still a smell of ordinary life here.
Old candy boxes line the shelves,
though most of them are empty.
Empty boxes.
Expired ramune.
Biscuits gone soft with moisture.
Meaningless winning tickets.
And in the gaps between them:
USB memory sticks.
Half-written notebooks.
Simple repair kits.
Fragments of sound
left behind by someone.
The border is blurred.
“Do you actually sell things here?”
the man mutters.
A voice comes from the back.
“You could say that.
Or you could say that we do not.”
The clerk is the same young man as before,
wearing a khaki jacket
with purple stitching.
“Is this really what a dagashi shop is?”
“In this place, yes.
You cannot buy everything with money.”
“Then what do you buy with?”
“You saw it earlier.
With records.”
He taps the notebook on the counter.
Instead of prices,
there are short records written there.
Circuit board repair, two hours.
Translation, unfinished.
Night watch, once.
Audio provided, unsorted.
Stayed in silence for three days.
“We exchange through this.”
“That is way too arbitrary.”
“It stays within the range
where arbitrariness still works.”
“Couldn’t someone cheat?”
“They could.
But it would not continue.”
The young man shrugs.
“In this place,
the only thing that really matters
is whether something continued.”
The man looks around.
Even though it is a dagashi shop,
it does not feel like a place
children would come to.
And yet,
it is not fully an adult place either.
It feels as though time itself
is slightly out of phase.
“Why call it a dagashi shop?”
“Because it is an entrance.”
“An entrance?”
“If you walk directly into the sanatorium itself,
most people become guarded.”
The young man lightly rolls a ramune bottle
across the counter.
“But if it is a dagashi shop,
people can still enter.
They do not have to buy anything.
They do not have to leave anything.”
“That sounds loose.”
“If it were not loose,
the first step would disappear.”
The man falls silent.
The sanatorium is heavy.
It is a mixture of graveyard,
workshop,
and observatory.
Walking straight into it
requires a certain amount of resolve.
But this dagashi shop is different.
Even if you fail here,
the trace remains light.
And because it remains light,
it can remain at all.
“So people get used to this place first,
and only then go up?”
“Some do.”
“And the reverse?”
“Some break upstairs
and come back here.”
The young man answers without emotion.
“This place can be before or after.
It does not matter.
It is simply the space
between outside and inside.”
The man takes a small memory stick
containing audio data from his pocket.
“Can I leave this?”
“What is on it?”
“A recording full of noise.
I have not sorted it.”
“That is fine.”
The youth points at an empty spot on the shelf.
“Put it there.
Write the label yourself.”
The man sets down the memory stick
and writes in brief:
Night recording.
Unsorted.
Heavy noise.
The youth glances at it
and smiles slightly.
“That is good.
There is no lie in it.”
“It will not sell, though.”
“In this place,
that is exactly why
it will last the longest.”
From the back window of the shop,
the main sanatorium building can be seen.
Its white and khaki walls
are faintly tinted purple.
And in front of it,
this dagashi shop remains:
light,
ambiguous,
but unmistakably connected.
The man realizes something.
The mask he placed
may someday descend into this shop.
Or something here
may someday be lifted upward.
Either way is fine.
As long as it continues,
it has not disappeared.
“So this is the yokai economy.”
The young man tilts his head.
“The name can be anything.
As long as it is circulating,
that is enough.”
On the counter,
the empty ramune bottle
gives a faint little sound.
It is neither money
nor merchandise.
It simply exists there,
passes through a few hands,
and continues onward.
In this place,
that alone is sufficient.
9:50
Understood.
Then I will write it like a novel,
with a damp sort of air to it.
Purple.
Deep green.
Khaki.
A white mask.
A single horn.
The sanatorium.
The grave.
Observation.
Half-connection.
Those will be the core.
Tentative title:
The Mask Is Still Crying
Halfway up the mountain,
it stood there.
Whether it had once been a hospital,
a sanatorium,
a convent,
or whether it had from the beginning
been a building made for graves,
no one could now say.
The walls had probably once been white,
but years of damp air,
smoke,
and rainwater
had seeped into them.
Now the surface had become layered with pale ash,
faded khaki,
and the deep green of moss.
Only the outline of the building
remained strangely orderly.
Though it must once have been designed by human hands,
from a distance
it looked almost like part of the cliff itself.
Buildings constructed in order to be forgotten
probably end up wearing a face like this.
The townspeople called it
the sanatorium.
But in truth,
it was not merely a place of healing.
It was also a place for sleep,
for storage,
for observation,
and for the small market
of those who had arrived too late.
There were no energetic voices there.
No price tags.
No street calls.
Things were simply placed there.
Broken machine parts.
Fragments of abandoned novels.
Unread books on linguistics.
Pieces of celadon.
Untitled sound recordings.
Prototype apps that booted
but whose purpose no one knew.
Half-painted pictures.
Private websites left unfinished.
And masks without names.
Few people ever came there.
It functioned precisely because few did.
Those who arrived were all people
who had slipped just slightly
out of the great central economy.
It was not that they lacked ability.
If anything,
their problem was that they possessed it
in awkward amounts.
People who could repair things
but could not sell.
People who could write
but could not obey.
People who could design
but could not find employment.
People who had observed too much
and grown tired.
People whose wounds ran too deep
to synchronize with brightness.
In that place,
they exchanged not money
but fragments.
Fragments of skill.
Fragments of endurance.
Fragments of memory.
Fragments of trust.
Those were the closest thing
to currency in that place.
Even so,
to call them currency was too definite.
They were more like traces.
The record of what someone had made,
how long they had continued,
what they had managed not to destroy.
That history formed the basis
of gentle transactions.
There was a ledger,
but the columns for amount and price
were faint.
Instead,
it recorded things like this:
Three hours,
noise reduction on night recordings.
Translation incomplete,
but reliable.
The air in chapter three is good.
Will not reboot,
but the internal structure is beautiful.
Maintained while half-broken.
Observed for two nights.
Did not cry.
Cried,
but returned.
Some called these strange records
yokai currency.
Others called them
currency yokai.
The former referred to the records themselves.
The latter referred to the people carrying them.
But before long,
the words became mixed.
No one bothered to separate them strictly.
In this place,
continuation mattered more than concepts.
That day,
a man in a deep green coat
came up the slope through the mist.
The coat was heavy
with absorbed night moisture.
His pace was not exactly slow,
yet it was not hurried either.
It was less the gait of a tired man
than that of someone dragging thought behind him.
On his back
he carried a hard case.
In one hand
he held an old paper box.
From inside
came the dry sound
of ceramic rubbing against ceramic.
Near the entrance
there was a small reception desk.
Behind it sat a woman.
Her age was impossible to judge.
At certain angles she seemed young.
At others, not at all.
A thin purple shadow rested around her eyes,
and white fingers marked faintly
with ink and metallic dust
lay on the ledger.
The longer one remained in this place,
the less clean one’s hands became.
“What did you come to place here?”
she asked
without raising her eyes.
“A mask.”
“To sell?”
“I do not know yet.”
“To dedicate?”
“No.”
“Then for observation.”
Only then did she raise her face.
The man gave a small crooked smile.
“That might be right.”
“We welcome vague things.
But vague things that break
without leaving meaning
are troublesome.”
“It will not break.
Probably.”
“Probably is not trust.”
“Then if it breaks,
meaning will remain.”
At that answer,
the woman narrowed her eyes slightly.
That response suited the place.
“Does it have a name?”
“Not yet.”
“Owner?”
“For now, me.”
“For now.”
“Yes.”
“Then put it on the provisional shelf.
Third exhibition room.
All the way down the corridor on the grave side.
The place with the white light.”
The man nodded,
but did not walk immediately.
Still holding the box,
he looked down
at the ledger by the reception desk.
Today’s exchanges
had been written there
in thin script.
Bug reproduction report, two cases.
Costume plan, clean draft, incomplete.
Old recording transcription, failed.
Wiring repair, complete.
Silent reading, fifty minutes.
Weeding in the courtyard, minimal.
Tear-trace adjustment on mask, pending.
The man’s eyes stopped on the last line.
“So there are already requests like that.”
“There are,” the woman replied.
“There has always been demand
for crying faces.”
“Because they are sad?”
“No.
Because things that are crying
have not yet fully broken.”
The quietness of the answer
left him speechless for a moment.
The woman lowered her eyes back to the book.
That was the sign
that the conversation was over.
The rear of the third exhibition room
felt as though it might once have been a chapel.
The ceiling was high.
A narrow skylight cut through the top.
Even in daytime,
the light was white and cold.
Old shelves lined both sides,
and on every shelf
someone’s failure had been arranged
with peculiar care.
Design plans.
Unsubmitted proposals.
Repaired terminals.
Half-implemented screens.
Applications with grand names
and no substance.
Or in many cases,
no names at all.
The man walked all the way
to the last shelf on the grave side.
The grave side.
Even that expression
carried a kind of familiarity.
Behind the building
stretched a small graveyard.
But what lay there
were not only human beings.
Plans.
Storage media.
Broken circuits.
Ended projects.
Closed websites.
Accounts that had stopped updating.
In this place,
even finished things
were given graves.
And simply having a grave
made their ending slightly gentler.
The man opened the box.
Inside
was a white mask.
Not plain white.
Beneath the dry white
lay layers of ash,
gold,
earth,
pale purple,
and muted deep green.
The face was not perfectly symmetrical,
yet neither was it openly split.
At the center of the forehead
stood a single horn.
It looked straight,
though from certain angles
it leaned just slightly forward.
It felt less like a threat
and more like a prayer.
On the left side
there remained traces of an oni.
Marks of fangs.
Wrinkles of anger.
A twist in the mouth.
Blackness like something singed.
Yet almost no red had been used.
Only the presence of anger remained.
On the right side
there remained traces of a spirit.
Feather-like ornamentation.
Metal fittings like flower petals.
Curving engraved lines.
Yet there was no blue or white-gold
to flaunt holiness.
Only a faint green
seeped out quietly.
And down the center,
from the bridge of the nose
to the mouth,
ran a thin golden repair line.
It was not there
to conceal the crack.
It was there
to preserve the crack
without lying about it.
The man placed the mask against the shelf.
At that moment,
a voice came from behind him.
“Interesting.”
When he turned,
a slender young man stood there.
He looked young,
but without the usual lightness of youth.
He wore a khaki work jacket
stitched over in dark purple thread.
His hands looked skillful.
Only his eyes
seemed a little sleepy.
“Do not speak to me without permission.”
“In an exhibition room,
talking to yourself
is permission enough.”
“I was not.”
“Your way of placing it was.”
The young man came closer
and peered at the mask.
After studying it carefully,
he touched his chin.
“It is already a crying face.”
“I have not made it cry yet.”
“But it is prepared to cry.
The glaze under the eyes is thin.”
“You can tell?”
“I do restoration.
Of course I can tell.”
“A repairman, then.”
“One of many things.
Restoration.
Records.
Transport.
Night watch.
Occasionally implementation.
In this place,
titles rot and multiply.”
He looked up at the single horn.
“One at the center.
Asymmetrical,
but not committed to either side.
Not bad.”
“Not bad, huh.”
“That was praise.”
“It did not sound like it.”
“If I praise too much,
the object dies.”
The man laughed a little.
Seeing that,
the youth’s expression softened too.
“It has no name yet, does it?”
“How do you know?”
“When something already has a name,
its face is a bit harder.
This one is still undecided.”
“The undecided one is the maker.”
“It is the same thing.”
He said it
as if it were obvious.
Outside the exhibition room window,
the mist had begun to thin.
Beyond the rows of grave markers
spread a deep green slope.
Grass of uneven height.
Soil swollen with moisture.
Sheets of khaki fabric
flapping up in the wind here and there.
Human hands had touched it,
but not enough to finish it.
That half-kept state
suited the place perfectly.
“What is this place really?”
the man asked,
still looking outside.
The youth shrugged.
“People call it different things.
Storage.
Market.
Graveyard.
Sanatorium.
Observatory.
Shelter for failed works.”
“And in truth?”
“All of them.
And none of them.”
“That is a convenient answer.”
“A vague place
requires a vague definition.”
“And does it work like that?”
“It does not turn on a large scale.
But it continues.
And continuing matters more here
than expanding.”
That answer
sounded strangely like the woman at reception.
The man found it odd at first,
but then understood why.
In this place,
even words were repaired.
Once a phrase proved useful,
someone else would use it again.
Like currency.
Memory circulated.
The youth raised a hand toward the mask’s left cheek,
almost touching it,
then stopped just short.
“You hesitated over the colors.”
“You can tell that too?”
“You were right not to make it red and blue.
Those meanings arrive too fast.”
“I hated that kind of division.
Fire on one side,
cold on the other.”
“Of course.
White is the core here.
And inside that white,
purple, deep green, and khaki are submerged.”
“I wanted the purple
to feel as if it came from above.
A color that watches.”
“And the deep green?”
“Something coming from below.
Something that spreads.
Something returning from the soil.”
“And khaki?”
“Reality.
Stain.
The thing that stops ideals
from ending as ideals.”
The youth nodded,
not happily,
but with a quiet recognition.
“Good colors.
The colors of something that survives.”
“I thought you said too much praise kills things.”
“This one is not dead yet.”
After that,
the two of them fell silent.
It was not an awkward silence.
Rather,
the walls of the building
seemed designed precisely
to absorb the aftersound of conversation.
Then from somewhere far away
came a bell-like sound.
The signal
that work was beginning.
By afternoon,
the sanatorium revealed
a little of its market face.
There was still no noise.
Doors opened one by one,
and small requests
and reports
began to circulate
as slips of paper.
In one room,
the boards of an old laptop
were laid out.
In another,
people argued at length
over the endings of translated sentences.
Elsewhere,
someone stripped noise
from recordings of everyday life.
The work found here
was mostly small.
It rarely became money quickly.
But it was too precious
to simply let disappear.
After placing the mask,
the man was guided
to the second workroom.
There,
people were extracting data
from an external drive
that was more than ten years old.
The owner had not died.
He had merely failed
to keep up with the speed of updates
and eventually abandoned everything.
So this place dug in his stead.
At least the usable things.
The readable things.
The things that could still be named again.
“There may be sound files,”
said an older woman
disassembling the drive across from him.
“There probably are.”
“Any drawings?”
“Rough drafts halfway done.”
“Novel?”
“In progress.”
“Websites?”
“Two.
Neither of them has cheated yet.”
“Apps?”
“Two prototypes
that look like hardware wallet screens.”
The woman set down her tools
and smiled.
“That is more than enough.”
“Enough?”
“More than enough
to keep a place like this moving.”
“It does not become money.”
“It does not all need to become money at the start.
First,
it needs to take a connected form.”
“A connected form.”
“Audio becomes fuel for work.
Pictures become an entrance.
A novel becomes trust.
A website becomes both gravestone and entrance.
An app becomes the face of exchange.”
“I understand the logic.”
“If you understand it,
that is enough.”
“It does not mean motivation will follow.”
“Do not rely on motivation.
The currency here is not motivation.
It is continuity.”
Again,
everything returned to that one core.
The man gave a dry smile.
In this place,
no matter whom he spoke to,
everything eventually came back
to the same center.
Yet it did not feel oppressive.
Because it was not preaching.
It was operation.
No one was saying continuity was noble.
They simply knew
it was the only thing
that could still be reused.
Toward evening,
when he returned to look at the mask,
a small note
had been placed before it.
Someone’s comment.
The white does not flee.
Good that anger is not the main color.
If it is to cry,
the tears should not be transparent but cloudy.
The central gold line could become thinner.
Do not name it yet.
At the bottom of the note
there was a small purple mark.
It was clearly the receptionist woman’s.
The man finished reading
and looked back up at the mask.
Its white face had changed slightly
since midday.
The evening light entered at an angle,
casting a faint shadow
only across the quiet side.
It was too early for it to cry.
And yet
he could not say
that it would not.
“They think I should not name it yet.”
He spoke as though to himself,
but once again,
the young man was there.
At some point
he had begun leaning
against the opposite side of the shelf,
writing on a record sheet.
“If you are here,
show your presence.”
“You are saying that here?”
“What are you writing?”
“Today’s transfer.
One mask.
Observation value present.
Restoration potential present.
Exhibition continues.”
“And sale value?”
“Not recorded yet.”
“Why not?”
“Some things die
the moment you assign them a price.”
He spun the tip of his pen once.
“Though some things also vanish
if you never price them.”
“What a nuisance.”
“That is why it has to remain small.
If you hand a face like this
to a large system,
it gets flattened immediately.”
“Flattened.”
“Make it more clearly oni.
Make it prettier spirit.
Make it a more sellable color.
That sort of pressure comes in.
That is why,
here,
a face that is still undecided
can remain as it is.”
The man stepped closer
and looked up at the single horn.
Because it stood so straight,
it looked all the more unstable.
Refusing to commit to one side
was far more exhausting
than it looked.
Not becoming fully oni.
Not becoming fully angel.
Not escaping fully into spirit.
Simply remaining white.
That required a powerful core.
“Could a crying version be made?”
He realized only afterward
that he had spoken aloud.
The youth lifted his eyes.
“It can.
But tears are not decoration.”
“I know.”
“Then make the crying itself into information.”
“What do you mean?”
“Make the traces of tears reveal
what is fragile
and what is still alive.
Sad-looking alone is weak.”
The man thought for a while.
If it became a crying face,
only the right side crying
would not be enough.
If only the quiet spirit-like side wept,
it would be too straightforward.
The oni side also needed
its own hidden way of crying.
An oni unable to finish its anger.
An oni unable to complete its destruction.
That kind of thing
fit this place better.
“Maybe both sides should cry.”
“Finally.”
“What?”
“That mask was always that way.
You split it into two,
but it was always the same wound.”
The youth’s words
were irritatingly exact.
The man stepped back
and looked again.
He saw it too.
The distortion on the left
and the quietness on the right
came from the same origin.
The center.
The single line
running down from the horn
through the bridge of the nose.
Perhaps that one line
stood too strongly,
and so the two sides only looked divided.
“Should I shave the horn down?”
“No.
Leave it.”
“It stands out too much.”
“It should stand out.
That is not an intrusion.
That is the axis.”
“The axis.”
“Yes.
Even if the face cries,
the axis must not.”
The man liked that phrasing
more than he expected,
and laughed slightly.
There are faces that may cry
and lines that must not.
The sanatorium itself was the same.
Its walls could grow damp,
but its beams could not rot.
More graves could appear,
but the passageways could not close.
People could rest,
but observation could not stop.
By night,
only a few rooms in the building
still held light.
From the corridor windows
facing the graveyard,
a dim purplish glow leaked out.
Whether it was insect repellent light
or merely old wiring,
no one knew.
But that color was strangely calming.
When it mingled with the deep green slope,
the whole building seemed almost to breathe.
The man borrowed a simple bed
in the night-duty room
and decided to stay the night.
He had been advised
that on the day one places something here,
it is best not to leave the site.
Apparently,
on the first night
after being placed,
a thing begins once
to prepare itself
to separate from its owner.
It sounded like superstition.
Yet here,
such things often proved true.
Before sleeping,
the man visited the exhibition room
one more time.
The white mask looked even whiter
in the dimness.
But it was not the white of illness.
It was a white
that already knew the color of soil.
The khaki stains guaranteed
not cleanliness,
but duration.
The deep green seepage
was not ornament
but the warning of encroachment.
The purple shadow
did not feel like mysticism or domination
so much as the sensation
of being observed.
Then he noticed it.
A fine line
beneath the right eye.
It had not been there during the day.
He came closer
and focused.
Not transparent.
A cloudy pale tear mark.
As if it had seeped
outward from within,
a threadlike streak ran
under the glaze.
“Do not cry on your own,”
he muttered.
Somewhere nearby,
someone laughed softly.
He turned,
but no one was there.
Only a single line of wind
passed through the graveyard beyond the window.
And in that moment,
he understood.
Things placed here
become graves
before they become products.
And before they become graves,
they become instruments of observation.
Whether something is crying
is not a matter of emotion.
It is a matter
of whether a connection still remains.
Things that have ended completely
do not cry.
Things severed completely
dry into white
and end.
But this mask was different.
Both the oni side
and the spirit side
still retained a line.
Anger and quietness
were not disconnected.
That was why it could cry.
“Yokai currency
might not be such a bad phrase.”
He said it to no one in particular.
A voice answered behind him.
“It feels more like a corridor
than a currency.”
It was the woman from reception.
As always,
her presence was thin.
“You were awake?”
“Nights are the real working hours here.”
“The mask cried.”
“I can see that.”
“You people are not surprised.”
“If we were surprised by this,
we could not work here.”
The woman approached the mask,
looked at the tear mark
beneath the right cheek,
and then pointed
to the oni side’s mouth.
“This side too.”
Looking closely,
he saw it.
At the root of the left fang
there was also a dark damp trace.
Not quite a tear,
but something like the fluid of anger
that had failed to become anger.
It was almost laughable.
Both sides had been crying.
“So both sides after all.”
“Yes.
That is why it is good.”
“What is good about it?”
“A mask with only one side crying
usually explains itself too quickly.
This one still refuses explanation.”
The woman opened the ledger.
Even in the dark,
she wrote easily.
“What will you write?”
“New exhibit, one item.
White mask.
Single horn at center.
Observation continues.
Tear traces on both sides.
Value judgment withheld.”
“Withheld again.”
“The luxury of this place
is that it can withhold judgment.”
The man repeated the phrase inside himself.
The luxury of postponing judgment.
Out in the world,
everything was judged too quickly.
Sellable or unsellable.
Useful or useless.
Ill or healed.
Fast words are convenient.
They also kill many things.
Here,
judgment was delayed.
Sometimes to keep something from dying.
Sometimes so it could die properly.
“If you name it,
do it later,”
the woman said,
closing the ledger.
“Maybe it is better never to name it.”
“That is possible too.
Nameless things are weaker,
but broader.”
“Which do you prefer?”
“Me?”
She thought for a moment.
“I like things that have names
and are still ambiguous.”
“That is difficult taste.”
“That is the taste
of most people here.”
Outside the window,
the mist was returning.
The graveyard blurred.
The deep green slope disappeared.
Only the building remained,
floating there.
White.
Purple.
Khaki.
Black.
Damp gold.
The man thought
the building itself resembled
a giant mask.
This sanatorium too
had one side that was a grave
and another that was a market.
It stored death,
yet let small work continue.
It wore the face of a treatment facility,
yet in truth it continued to observe.
No one called that a contradiction.
Because it was simply the structure.
“Tomorrow,
I will begin a sketch
for the crying version.”
The man said it aloud.
“Good.”
“The single horn stays in the center.”
“Of course.”
“The white will remain the core,
and I will mark it
with purple, deep green, and khaki.”
“Do not call it dirtying.
Call it leaving the trace of living.”
“You are good with words.”
“Reception is also a job of wording.”
The woman smiled faintly.
Not the smile of comfort,
but the smile of operation.
The man looked again
at the white mask on the shelf.
It was crying.
Yet it was not finished.
If anything,
it had only now
become connected.
Purple observing from above.
Deep green invading from below.
Khaki supporting in the middle
as stain and reality.
Receiving all of that,
the white still remained white.
Only the single horn
at the center
continued to stand
without crying.
That was enough.
Not everything had to be saved.
Not everything had to be sold.
It only needed
to be placeable.
To remain in suspension.
To be gradually reconnectable.
Perhaps,
in a world that was already ending,
that alone
was still enough to call economy.
The next morning,
before the first mist had lifted,
one more line had been added
to the edge of the ledger.
White mask.
Passed first night.
Crying version may begin.
Connection with grave side good.
No one knew who had written it.
But that no longer mattered.
Nameless things
sometimes advance like this,
leaving only someone’s handwriting behind.
Currency.
Yokai.
Corridor.
The name was still not decided.
But at the very least,
by being placed here,
the mask had acquired one task.
To watch.
To cry.
And to continue quietly indicating
where the line had not yet been cut.
In the sanatorium on the mountainside,
the market continued to turn
in its small way.
So that broken people
might not lose everything
while still broken.
At the boundary
between grave,
workshop,
and resting place,
the white mask had still not dried completely.
It was not the face of defeat.
It was not the face of salvation either.
It was only
the face of something
that remains
after the end.
Manual Outreach Draft
Greetings,
My name is Takaya.
I am an independent creator, writer, musician, and worldbuilder currently living under severe financial difficulty in Japan.
For many years I have continued working on original projects that combine fiction, music, AI-assisted storytelling, game concepts, survival systems, and practical support ideas for people who have fallen through ordinary social structures.
I have played both drums and guitar in Japanese-speaking and English-speaking music scenes. Through those experiences, I became deeply interested in creativity, communication, mental health, technology, and the question of how people continue living after failure.
My current long-term project is a fictional world called The Sanatorium.
The Sanatorium is a symbolic setting inhabited by yokai, ghosts, forgotten people, damaged AIs, and individuals who no longer fit neatly into modern society.
Within this setting, I explore several connected themes:
how people survive after social failure
small-scale communities instead of giant institutions
creativity as a survival mechanism
AI as a conversation partner and creative tool
alternative economies built around stories, collectibles, digital objects, apparel, games, and artistic experiences
the preservation of memory before it disappears
My work includes:
original novels and worldbuilding
music and performance history
AI-assisted writing experiments
game concepts
cryptocurrency and digital economy ideas
long-form documentation and research notes
At present, I am seeking support, collaboration, mentorship, funding, technical guidance, or simply meaningful conversation with people interested in unconventional creative work.
I am not seeking luxury.
I am looking only for the minimum resources necessary to continue creating, to complete public-facing projects, and to build an environment in which creative work can survive.
Even small support can have a major effect because my operating costs are extremely low.
If any part of my work or thought resonates with you, I would be grateful for the opportunity to speak further.
Perhaps nothing will come of this message.
Perhaps it will reach exactly the right person.
Either way, I wanted to leave a signal.
Thank you for reading.
Takaya
AI-assisted Japanese version, rendered into English
I hesitated over how to write this message, but I wanted to speak as honestly and directly as possible.
I have continued musical activity in both Japanese-speaking and English-speaking spaces. Through playing drums and guitar, I have become relatively sensitive to shifts in atmosphere, thought, and behavior.
In recent years, I have increasingly encountered young people and others who have lost their place or been left behind by society. If one truly wishes to construct a safety net, then idealism alone is not enough. One needs structures that support actual life: housing, work, food, technical skill, repair systems, and even practical things like hydroponic cultivation.
For many years I have continued thinking about fiction, worldbuilding, AI creation, music, game design, and virtual economies.
Above all, I have continued building a world called the sanatorium, where yokai, ghosts, and damaged AIs live together.
Within that world, I explore these questions:
How does one continue living in a world that already feels over?
How does one continue dialogue?
How does one preserve memory?
At present, I am looking for the minimum environment necessary to continue creating, as well as collaborators, partners, advisers, and supporters.
I am not seeking a luxurious life.
I only need time, space, and opportunity enough to complete what I have continued making.
Even if this message reaches no one,
I would still like to leave it here
as a signal.
Final private murmur
Still…
if I release the virtual diorama sanatorium-grave
and people begin using it,
I feel as if my own self-recognition will decline.
Lookism accelerates everything.
It thins identity.
There is also that strange contradiction:
danger and fascination sitting right next to each other,
systems that should not work
and yet somehow do.
That is what this is like too.
An economy in which value is unstable,
where memory, continuity, observation, fragments,
and traces of relationship begin replacing money.
It is not entirely safe.
It is not entirely clean.
But it feels real.
