Finished 第一章 part 三.
Thoughts on first three parts of chapter 2 and speculation
The mysterious late-comer still doesn’t interact with anyone but Jun.
The warning woman is in fact a fortune-teller herself, and apparently a pupil of the famous psychic that met her doom on the island.
The warning signs continue when the three arrive on the island, with the ryokan refusing them the room they booked, the weather turning bad, an old lady interestingly confusing them with that TV crew from long ago, and a man warning them to stay indoors tomorrow, the day of the prophecy.
They do find a room in a modern guesthouse after all, one strangely run by a man from Tokyo who quit the corporate life and randomly(?) moved to Mukui to open an inn. Not the most touristy place to choose, I’d say. And of course he’s not welcomed by the locals and doesn’t fit in at all, despite his attempts at Kansai-ben. The inn is filled with kuromushi, which is supposed to protect from the mountain spirit.
They are all curious about the kuromushi, but as far as we know only Jun feels unsettled by it. Jun is also the one who completely rejects anything supernatural. I still kind of suspect he’s in denial, and there’s something about him that’s connected to the island and that mountain spirit, hence his aversion to the kuromushi, his sudden homesickness when he gets on the island even if he says he doesn’t believe the prophecy, the fortune-teller saying he has powerful protection, and the mysterious woman only interacting with him. We’ll see.