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Published In:
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| Publication Date: April 4, 2025 | |
| Pages: 4 (full color) 28 (black and white) | |
Anime Adaptation:
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Manga
Keep a Secret
秘密をキープ
Himitsu o Kiipu
Mr. Sakai sits at his favorite bar, a place he has been coming to since it was under the ownership of the current owner's grandmother. The young barmaid congratulates Mr. Sakai on his son going abroad to study and as she refills his Johnnie Walker Black, notices that the bottle he keeps at the bar is nearly empty. Mr. Sakai smiles and says he'd like to set aside a fresh bottle of the same. When Mr. Sakai returns to the bar a month later, he is confused to see that the new bottle of Johnnie Walker he set aside at his last visit is aleady half empty. The young barmaid worries and says she thought the man that had been visiting every night was a friend of Mr. Sakai's because he pointed to the bottle and asked for it at each visit. Mr. Sakai, however, cannot imagine who this person could be. Suddenly the man appears in the seat next to Mr. Sakai, but he seems to be a ghost, as Mr. Sakai and see right through him.
Sakai quickly recognizes the ghostly figure next to him as Rokujo, a man who joined the company in the same year as Sakai decades ago. Rokujo was very popular with the ladies, all except the rather plain office lady Tamami, who Sakai wound up getting married to, though they are now divorced. Tamami, it seems, was never interested in pursuing Rokujo. Then, Sakai recalls it was Rokujo who originally brought him to this bar when they were young colleagues. Rokujo bought a bottle of Johnnie Walker for Sakai as a wedding gift, and then soon after he was head-hunted by another company and the two never saw one another again. In the wake of Rokujo leaving, the atmosphere among the office ladies at work became negative, but Sakai is puzzled about when Rokujo died and why he would come to the bar to haunt him. As the barmaid asks if they know one another, Rokujo sighs and then vanishes.
Later that evening, Sakai is back home, thinking back on if he could have done anything that would cause Rokujo's spirit to haunt him. He recalls no rumors about Rokujo and Tamami having a relationship and Rokujo even congratulated him with a bottle of Johnnie Walker when Sakai got married. Sakai thinks back to why his marriage failed- that he left Tamami home to raise their son, Hiroto, while he worked, and his elderly mother also lived with them, which caused a strain on their marriage. Sakai searches the internet to see if he can find anything about Rokujo's death, but nothing comes up. Days later he visits the bar again and finds Rokujo's ghost drinking. The barmaid explains that she tried to have him exorcised, but it does not seem to have worked and because Rokujo seemingly refuses to speak, she thought he might communicate through a Ouija board. The barmaid asks if Rokujo was murdered and the spirit moves the coin to "no". When Sakai asks what it is he wants to say to him, he spells out "Tamami", the name of Sakai's ex-wife. Suddenly Rokujo vanishes again, and the barmaid asks Sakai if Tamami could have murdered Rokujo. Sakai flatly says that if that was the case he would be haunting her instead of him.
After they divorced, Hiroto did not want to go live with his mother and change schools, so he stayed with Sakai. Instead Tamami married the president of the company and Sakai and she have not seen each other in seven years. When Sakai seeks her out, Tamami is much more stylish and sophisticated than when she was living at home taking care of his young son and mother. When Sakai asks Tamami if she remembers Rokujo she flinches, suggesting that she knows something. Tamami explains that she ran into Rokujo at a lounge and the two caught up, having not seen each other in twenty years. He left his business card with her, and she gives it to Sakai who decides to call the number listed on it.
Much to Sakai's shock, thanks to the phone call he finds that Rokujo is alive and in the hospital. Rokujo is surprised to see Sakai after twenty years, clearly having no knowledge of what this apparition has been doing in his stead. Sakai realizes that what he has seen must be a living, vengeful spirit belonging to Rokujo due to some grudge he has. When he asks Rokujo directly if he has done something to offend him, Rokujo seems indifferent, but when Sakai explains that his spirit visited and wrote "Tamami" Rokujo is noticably shaken. Rokujo explains that he had run into Tamami and heard about her divorce when they were catching up, and that was one the last things he heard before he collapsed and was hospitalized, so it must have made some impression on his living spirit to slip out and go visit Sakai. When Sakai asks why he is hospitalized, he says they have caught his illness early enough, but he lives alone and has no one else in his life. Sakai realizes that despite Rokujo's popularity he never married and must have been somewhat envious. Rokujo admits to feelings better after speaking with Sakai and Sakai feels assured that he has managed to successfully exorcise Rokujo's wandering spirit.
However, Rokujo's spirit shows up once more at the bar, still looking depressed and drinking from Sakai's reserved bottle. Frustrated, Sakai visits his ex-wife, Tamami, once again and brings her to the bar to meet with Rokujo's spirit. Confronted with the spirit she admits that she and Rokujo had an affair once and it seems that Rokujo, who has nearly died childless, thinks that Hiroto, Sakai's son, may actually be his. Stunned, but confident, Sakai takes out his cellphone and shows Rokujo a piciture of his pudgy-faced son who looks exactly like Sakai. Seeing that, Rokujo's spirit vanishes, seemingly satisfied. Tamami admits that when she ran into Rokujo before his hospitalization she showed him a pictue of a K-pop star and told him that was her son. Seeing the handsome boy, he presumed that there was no way it was really Sakai's son. Some days later, the real living and fully-recovered Rokujo shows up at the bar and flirts with the barmaid, still intent on having a family of his own while Sakai angrily tells him he should pay for all the alcohol his spirit drank.