“What the heck is wrong with you?”
“Look, I’m s’posed to be getting outta here and buying some drinks. Since I ran into you on the way, we might as well enjoy the haunted house together, right?”
We’d passed through the other side of the black curtain and were now on the landing together. Though I was back in hell, the sparkle in Iroha’s voice lessened my nerves and soothed my anxiety.
“This kinda feels like a weird twist of fate...”
“I can’t hear you. If you’ve got something to say, you need to share it with the class instead of whispering.”
“I just think it’s weird how we ended up together on the class trip.”
“Aren’t you glad it happened, though?”
“Not re— I mean, I dunno. It’s just super unlikely, is all, seeing as we’re in different year groups.”
“Yeeeah! Hee hee! Ha ha ha!”
“What’s so funny?”
“Heh heh heh! I dunno!” Iroha was grinning like she couldn’t physically hold back.
I’d appreciate it if she didn’t smile at me like that. It was the kind of smile to lead a virgin astray and get his hopes up. She seriously needed to save a smile like that for her actual crush. For the sake of my mental health if nothing else.
Her crush... Crush...
“Hrrrngh...”
“Senpai?”
“I-It’s nothing. I took an arrow to the knee yesterday, and it’s hurting. That’s all.”
“Oh, really? You sure you’re not just grinning ’cause you forgot how amazingly cute I am?”
“I-I’m sure! And I think you could stand to be a little less self-absorbed!”
“Hey, you’re shouting! That means I was right! Look, Senpai, there’s really nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Grrngh...”
I should’ve known Iroha would take a mile the second I gave her an inch. And because I now knew there was a small part of me absorbed by romantic feelings, I couldn’t completely deny what she was saying, dammit.
It was time to move on to my last resort. The forceful subject-changer, the ever-useful “by the way!” that could get me out of any uncomfortable topic.
“By the way, Iroha. H-How do you fare with scary stuff?”
“Pretty badly!”
See, it worked!
Honestly, I thought it was so obvious that she’d see right through me, but she didn’t say anything. Never underestimate the power of “by the way”!
I took advantage of the break in Iroha’s pestering to take a deep breath and calm myself before continuing. “Okay... That makes me a little less confident about what we’re gonna run into...”
“If we get attacked, I’m using you as a shield, Senpai! Quick, start doing bad stuff to raise their hatred levels!”
“Is that how ghosts work?”
What, they kept track of some kind of karma stat, where we’d be ignored if we were good, but hunted down if we were bad? Well, in that case, Iroha was screwed. Not only was she a delinquent who was skipping school, she also bullied her senpai.
But that made me a target too. Hopefully Buddha (or Jesus, since this place had more of a western feel to it) would save me. Personally, I wasn’t picky.
Although, I wasn’t exactly blameless either—I mean, I was a full-on asshole, deserving of capital punishment. I’d abandoned Mashiro, my original date, to finish off this romantic stroll through a haunted house with Iroha. At this point, it probably didn’t matter who I prayed to. I was better off waiting for whatever came after death and restarting there.
“That said, it’s only a haunted house,” Iroha said. “I know it’s still gonna be scary, but it should be bearable as long as we remember that all these ghosts are being played by humans. And luckily, we’re on the third floor. We’ve only got one floor left, so it’s not long now till we reach the goal. We’ll manage somehow.”
I guess she wasn’t wrong exactly. The fourth floor might have been scarier than the others, but we wouldn’t be experiencing it for as long as I had the first three floors, and we were past the midway point now. The goal was in sight.
Yeah... We could do this for sure!
“Nope, we’re screwed after all!”
“What the heck’s with this weird place? It’s like there’s no one around at all! This has gotta be illegal in some way!”
“I don’t think so, but I bet CERO’d have something to say about its age rating!”
“I thought this whole park was meant to be suitable for all ages!” Iroha wailed.
Here we were on the fourth floor of Ghost Mansion, our screams harmonizing while the floor and the walls dripped bright red blood(-like paint).
Countless ghosts had been coming at us without pause the very second we stepped foot onto this level.
First off, the fire door behind us closed with a bang. Then, handprints appeared all over the walls, and the doors started slamming closed and opening again repeatedly. Curses were being scrawled over the ceiling, like it actually had an inbuilt monitor or something.
“Gyaaaaaaaaah!”
We screamed in perfect unison. I couldn’t remember a single word of those mansion rules. As if I’d have the wherewithal to do so right now!
I mean, if your school gets attacked by terrorists, you’re gonna start running in the hallways, aren’t you? None of the teachers are gonna call you out for it in a situation like that either.
This. This was like that.
“I’m done! I’m done! I’m so done! Senpai! You’d better not leave me behind!” Sounding like she was on the brink of tears, Iroha clung to me.
“Nngh?!” I squeaked in surprise. “I-I won’t, don’t worry!”
She was...way too close to me. Closer than close; there wasn’t an inch between us.
Leaving aside what she was really like for a moment, the name “Kohinata Iroha” conjured images of the prettiest girl in school, while “Ooboshi Akiteru,” if you could even remember who he was, brought up the image of an average teenage boy. You didn’t even have to engage your brain to work out what would happen to that boy if he found himself pressed against that gorgeous girl.
What made things worse was that Kohinata Iroha, my friend’s little sister and my annoying kouhai, was somebody who (reasoning aside) I was overly conscious of right now.
Fear had frozen my mind but excitement overwrote that to make it start burning again, only for it to grow cold as the awkwardness and guilt set in—and then for the screams of the ghosts after us to get my blood pumping and raising my temperature yet again. The constant back-and-forth between fear and excitement was maddening.
“Which way are we even s’posed to go?” Iroha asked.
“W-We should just keep moving forward—I’m sure that’ll get us closer to the end! Look! There’s an elevator! That’s gotta be it, right?”