In a wooden apartment over forty years old, in a room soaked with mold, drugs, and vomit, a man named Kai Kamon spends his days staring at the ceiling, unable to die. With social phobia and drug addiction, he has fallen out of society entirely.
One night, the ceiling tears open, and Princess Melissa of the Flamme Kingdom falls through. Exiled from her world and stripped of all magic by a transfer spell, she collapses on the filthy tatami floor. She looks around the rotting room and gives him a
Morning light fell slantwise across the grain of the tatami.
Kamon Kai opened his eyes.
His body was heavy. A languor seeped into the very marrow of his bones, as if he had spent the entire night trudging through mud. He looked up at the ceiling. That black stain—it wasn't there. The faint Impurity that had clung to the corner of the wall—that wasn't there either. The room was perfectly, immaculately clean.
*(A dream.)*
Kai slowly sat up.
Something still reverberated in the back of his head. That woman's voice. The gold and silver eyes. The capital city burning down. The debt collector's threats. The landlord's cloying smile. All of it was fading like the dregs of a dream. No—rather than fading, the outlines of those memories were dissolving and crumbling away, as if they had never existed in the first place.
*(What was that?)*
Kai pressed his hand against the tatami.
His fingertips were cold.
A sensation as if his own body heat had drained away from just that spot. He looked at his palm. His left hand, carved with countless burn scars. A faint sensation still lingered there, as if someone's fingers had traced over those scars.
*(That woman grabbed my wrist.)*
Kai tried to reel the memory back in. But the images slipped through his fingers like sand. Her face, her voice, her name—all of it. Only the light of gold and silver remained, seared onto the back of his retinas, refusing to fade.
His gaze dropped.
On the tatami lay a single golden thread.
It was thin. It caught the light and glittered. About ten centimeters long. Clearly not human hair. When he touched it, it felt ever so slightly warm.
Kai picked up the golden thread.
It coiled around his fingertips. Finer than silk, stronger than steel. It wouldn't break no matter how hard he pulled.
*(This is real.)*
Somewhere in his head, he understood that.
But what it meant—he didn't know. And the stronger feeling was that he didn't want to know. Kai sat motionless for a while, clutching the golden thread in his fist.
Outside the window, the morning light was growing stronger.
Light slanting through the gap in the curtains cast a long, thin shadow on the floor. That shadow moved, slowly.
Kai raised his head.
A toolbox sat against the wall.
A black, industrial-grade box. The lid was shut tight, and only the handle showed slight wear from use. Inside, there should be a well-worn scraper, industrial deodorizer, protective mask, rubber gloves, biohazard waste bags—all arranged in perfect order. Kai opened the box.
The contents were impeccably organized.
*(Did I do this?)*
He had no memory of last night. But the person who had cleaned this room was unquestionably himself. No one else would have organized the inside of the toolbox too.
*(Clean.)*
A voice.
It echoed directly from inside his head. A woman's voice. Low, cold, and yet somehow sweet.
*(Clean.)*
Kai closed his eyes.
The voice vanished immediately. But its reverberation still trembled deep in his ears.
*(I have to clean.)*
He didn't know why.
But his body was already trying to move.
――――
Stepping outside the Haishu Heights, the morning air bit into his skin.
A forty-three-year-old wooden apartment building. The paint on the walls was peeling, and the hallway railings were rusted. And yet, this morning's air felt somehow clear. No—rather than clear, it was more that something inside him *wanted* to feel this air as clear.
Kai hoisted the toolbox onto his shoulder.
The strap bit into his shoulder. That pain, strangely, felt good.
*(The sensation of pain is proof that I'm alive.)*
Kai started walking.
The morning in Haishu Ward was quiet.
Most of the shops along Yorimichi-dori shopping street still had their shutters closed. The only ones open were the bento and side-dish shop "Maruyoshi" and the coin laundry "Wash 24." Maruyoshi's owner, Maruyoshi Tae, was sweeping in front of her shop with a broom. The seventy-two-year-old woman paused for just a moment when she saw Kai.
"Oh my, Kamon-san. You're early today."
Kai gave a slight bow.
"...Yeah."
His voice came out low and hoarse. Even he thought it was an unpleasant voice for the morning. But Maruyoshi didn't seem to mind, smiling warmly.
"Working again today? Do your best."
Kai bowed once more and quickened his pace.
*(Work, huh.)*
He touched the golden thread in his pocket with his fingertip.
*(I'm going to look for work now.)*
That fact settled into him with a strange sense of rightness.
――――
The Misogi Services office was on the first floor of a mixed-use building, one alley off Yorimichi-dori.
An office-cum-warehouse of about eight tsubo. On the wall hung an old framed company motto: "Purify, Exorcise, Send Off." There was one office desk, two folding chairs for visitors, and along the wall, cleaning tools and chemical stock piled up in cardboard boxes.
Kai opened the door.
A bell jingled.
"Oh?"
An old man looked up from the desk in the back.
Kiryu Koichi. Sixty-seven years old. The president of Misogi Services, with a total staff of three including himself. Short hair streaked with gray, a face etched with deep wrinkles, a back slightly hunched. But his eyes alone were sharp, belying his age.
"Kamon-kun. What brings you here today?"
Kiryu removed his reading glasses and looked straight at Kai.
Kai stepped forward.
"...I want you to hire me."
His voice rang out, lifeless.
"Hire me as a cleaner."
Kiryu stared at Kai's face for several seconds.
Then he slowly stood up.
"May I see your toolbox?"
Kai lowered the toolbox from his shoulder and placed it on the desk.
He opened the lid.
Kiryu peered inside.
"Hoh."
His fingers picked up one of the scrapers. Kai's favorite, its edge slightly rounded from heavy use. Kiryu gently ran his thumb along the blade.
"Well used. The wear on the blade is even. You take good care of your tools."
Kiryu returned the scraper to the box.
Next, he picked up the bottle of industrial deodorizer. The edge of the label was slightly peeling. Kiryu pressed the peel down with his fingertip.
"...Good tools. A person who takes care of his tools does careful work."
Kiryu closed the lid of the toolbox.
Then he looked at Kai's face.
"You're hired. However, not as a full-time employee—as an independent contractor. Pay is per job completed. Is that acceptable?"
"Fine."
Kai answered curtly.
Kiryu pulled documents out of his desk drawer.
An independent contractor agreement. Kai took it in his hand. He didn't have the energy to read the text. But Kiryu waited. For Kai to sign.
Kai picked up the provided pen.
That was when it happened.
Kiryu's finger tapped the desk—*ton*.
Precisely beside the signature line on the contract. No, that wasn't it. That position—it strangely overlapped with the spot on the tatami where the golden thread had fallen, where Kai had been sleeping until this morning.
*(Just now—)*
Kai's fingers stopped.
Something cold slid down his spine from the back of his neck.
*(Does this old man know something?)*
But Kiryu said nothing. He simply waited quietly for Kai's signature.
Kai exhaled.
With trembling fingertips, he wrote his name on the contract.
Kamon Kai.
"Good. Then the contract is concluded."
Kiryu took the contract and held out another sheet of paper.
"Your first job. The site is an old apartment near the Toei Haishu housing complex. One room, solitary death. Two weeks since death. The police examination is already finished, but the room is in terrible condition. I need you to restore it to its original state by the end of today."
Kai took the paper.
A map and a room number. Then some brief precautions.
"Understood."
Kai hoisted the toolbox back onto his shoulder.
"Ah, one more thing."
Kai turned at Kiryu's voice.
"When you clean, the air in a room changes. The hearts of the people living there become a little lighter, too. That is the only reward this work offers."
Kai left the office without a word.
――――
The site was in the southeast of Haishu Ward—a corner room on the second floor of an old wooden apartment building.
It was over fifty years old. The boards of the outer wall were warped, and the stairs creaked with every step. Yellow police tape still remained in front of the door. Kai stepped over it and opened the door.
A suffocating stench assaulted his nose.
An indescribable odor—rotting flesh, mold, dust, and human bodily fluids all mixed together. He should have been used to it, but his stomach still lurched.
*(It's fine.)*
Kai told himself.
*(This is just work.)*
The room was dark.
The windows were shut tight, the curtains yellowed. On the floor, dark stains spread. On the ceiling, on the walls—black stains. Impurity.
Kai could see it clearly.
Black haze, writhing slowly in the corner of the room.
*(This one is still here.)*
Kai pulled on rubber gloves. Put on his protective mask. Took the scraper in hand.
And began to clean.
First, he scraped away the dark stains on the floor with the scraper. The tatami soaked with bodily fluids was beyond saving. He tore it all up and stuffed it into garbage bags. For the stains on the walls, he sprayed industrial deodorizer and wiped them down with a rag. Again, and again, and again.
His arms grew heavy. His back ached. Sweat dripped down the inside of his protective mask.
But he didn't stop.
Only while cleaning did the voice in his head fall silent.
That woman's voice, the sticky whispers—all of it vanished.
He could focus on nothing but removing the filth.
*(This is enough for me.)*
Kai thought.
*(This is my work.)*
――――
How much time had passed?
The air in the room changed.
The stench of decay thinned. In its place, the smell of disinfectant and a faint scent, like after a rain shower. The black haze was thinning. The stains on the walls, the dark patches on the floor—little by little, little by little, they were disappearing.
*(The Impurity is vanishing.)*
Kai's left hand throbbed.
The burn scars. That memory from childhood.
—*Hot.*
—*It hurts.*
—*Help me.*
Flashback.
Kai's hand stopped for an instant.
But the pain vanished immediately.
What remained in his palm instead was the sensation of Impurity disappearing. The quiet, solid feedback of the moment when black haze scattered into nothing.
*(This is more certain than yesterday's dream.)*
Kai clenched his fist.
*(If I clean, the Impurity disappears. I know that.)*
Kai threw himself back into the cleaning.
――――
It was nearly evening by the time the cleaning was finished.
The room had been transformed.
The stains on the walls were gone, the floor had been re-laid with new tatami, and the setting sun streamed in through the window. The air was clear.
Kai packed up his toolbox and left the room.
As he descended the stairs, several housewives were standing in front of the apartment building.
"Oh my, you're done already?"
"That room's air has changed, hasn't it? It feels brighter somehow."
"Yes, yes. Before, just getting near it made you feel so gloomy."
The housewives weren't speaking directly to Kai. But their voices reached his ears clearly.
*(The air changed.)*
Kai walked on without stopping.
*(My cleaning really is changing the world.)*
That realization warmed something deep in his chest—small, but certain.
――――
As he walked along Yorimichi-dori, the sun was beginning to set.
The shopping street was slightly bustling with evening shoppers. Passing in front of Maruyoshi, he saw Maruyoshi Tae arranging fried foods.
"Oh my, Kamon-san. Welcome back. How was today?"
Kai gave a slight bow.
"...Nothing special."
Maruyoshi asked nothing further, just smiled.
Kai continued down the street.
That was when it happened.
A woman was walking toward him from ahead.
A young woman. Long black hair flowing in the wind. A white dress. With the setting sun behind her, he couldn't see her face clearly.
The moment they passed each other.
He caught a glimpse of her profile.
Kai stopped walking.
*(Huh—)*
His heart jumped.
*(Tha
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