Looking Like You’ve Seen a Ghost

I panned the phone around, looking at the flood of [Yuri!], [Yuri!], [Yuri!] comments with a sense of speechlessness. All that happened was one person holding the phone while another helped them adjust the settings from behind. Was it really something to get so excited about? The fujoshi and yuri fans in our audience were having a field day.

Though, Yukino’s body really was so fragrant and soft. Even though her chest was flat as a board, indistinguishable from her back before she put on clothes, the feeling of her pressing against me was so…

No, I can’t think about it anymore. If I keep thinking about it, something is going to rise up and reveal my true gender on camera! That would be the worst kind of livestreaming accident!

So I reined in my scattered thoughts, smiled at the camera with Kiriko’s pure voice, and said, “Good morning, everyone~ Why morning, you ask? Because it’s one minute past midnight, which counts as the earliest morning of the next day~ Eh? You say that’s some genius-level logic? Thank you for the compliment~ Next up, as you can all see, the four of us are going to explore this abandoned girls’ dormitory for our ghost-hunting livestream…”

I panned the camera to Yukino, Exusiai, and Saber one by one, giving the viewers a good look at our party members, before finally showing the gloomy, abandoned dormitory in the night. Then, I brought the camera back to myself and began to recount the story of the student who fell from the building and the ghost legend associated with it, hamming it up like a seasoned storyteller.

The comments made it clear that no one believed such a clichéd legend. They were just excitedly discussing our looks and real genders. It seemed that for them, the ghost-hunting part was completely unimportant; they were just here for the pretty girls. As long as the streamer was a pretty girl, they would watch no matter what they were streaming. They would probably even watch them take a dump.

Sorry, my mistake. Pretty girls don’t poop.

“Hm? A private message?” Saber, who had been silently watching the camera with her monocle-adorned eye, suddenly said.

I opened the private message and saw that it was from our one and only die-hard fan from before. I smiled and replied, [We’re the same four DOTA streamers from before. What else could we be? It’s not like we ate the previous streamers~].

After replying, I glanced at the closed wooden door of the abandoned dormitory. “We should probably go in. I hope nothing really happens.”

“I think we should first hope,” Exusiai also looked over, “that this door isn’t locked.”

Just then, the sound of footsteps suddenly broke the silence of the night. A bright beam of a flashlight shone on us, followed by the rough voice of a middle-aged man. “What are you kids doing out here so late instead of being in your dorms?”

I jumped, startled, and looked towards the source of the voice. Behind the blinding flashlight, there was a middle-aged man in a faded T-shirt. He looked at us with a blank, stubbled face.

Probably a night patrol guard from the school… Just as I made this judgment, I heard Yukino say in an extremely calm voice, “Sorry, we’re leaving right now.”

As she spoke, she pulled me by my soft, dry palm and waved at Exusiai and Saber, leading us around to the other side of the dormitory building with the practiced ease of a ninja.

Even the nearest streetlight was a considerable distance from this abandoned dorm. The four of us huddled in the shadow of the corner, waiting for the flashlight beam and footsteps to fade away before stealthily returning to the front entrance.

The moonlight was cold, and shadows stitched themselves onto the decaying, unsettling old building. The occasional cry of a bird sounded lonely and shrill in the oppressive silence.

My phone was still streaming. Exusiai, Yukino, and Saber turned on their phone flashlights. Three beams of light shone together on the old, double-leaf wooden door, revealing its peeling, pale blue paint. The door looked tightly shut, but to my surprise, when I went up and gave it a casual push, the wooden doors swung open to the sides with a hair-raising “creak” that echoed in the night.

The main entrance was open.

The three beams of light from our phones instantly shot into the deathly silent, pitch-black doorway. The pale light stretched long, illuminating the dusty floor, the stairs leading to the upper levels, and a messy pile of desks, chairs, and other junk. It seemed that after the students had moved out, the school hadn’t bothered to clean or clear out the building, leaving all this clutter piled up like the hoard of a forgotten dragon.

“Achoo—” The cloud of dust that hit my face made me let out a small sneeze. Exusiai, who was standing close to me, also instinctively frowned and fanned the air in front of her with a slender hand.

“Let’s go in,” I said, tilting my head to signal the other three, and stepped into the dormitory first, feeling like the sacrificial lamb in a horror movie.

The building had a strange, unpleasant smell, a mixture of dust, decay, and something else I couldn’t place. The sound of my footsteps on the old tiles inside was also a bit creepy. I couldn’t help but slow my pace, as if instinctively worried about disturbing something that slumbered here.

I kept the stream running, glanced at the comments flying by—[This is actually kind of scary~]—and panned my phone’s camera around the dormitory’s front hall.

Above us was an old light bulb, hanging like a dead spider. On a long table next to it, a cracked blackboard leaned against the wall. Most of the writing on it had been erased, leaving behind a layer of white chalk dust. Only a small, corpse-like fragment of writing remained in the top left corner, probably an oversight by the person who had erased the board.

It read: [1-404 didn’t pay the electricity bill].

[1-404]… Room 404 Not Found. I thought with a grim chuckle. How appropriate.

I was about to say something when the same creaking sound as when we opened the door came from behind me, followed by the sound of the door gently bumping against the frame.

…Did someone close the door?

This classic, grade-A horror movie trope sent a chill down my spine. My back tensed up, and I whipped my head around, half-expecting to see a long-haired ghost standing there.

In the pale glow of the flashlights, Yukino, who had just taken her hands off the doorknobs, was looking at me with a puzzled expression. “Why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost?”

I let out a sigh of relief, a cold sweat breaking out all over me. “Why did you suddenly close the door… you scared me.”

“I was worried that guard from earlier might come back,” Yukino said, walking over and patting my shoulder. “If he came back and saw the door was open, wouldn’t he know we came in? Alright, let’s start exploring.”

As if wanting to vent all her anger from being cheated on onto the ghosts, she took the lead, stomping heavily across the front hall, as if afraid the ghosts wouldn’t know she was here. Saber also adjusted her monocle and followed, looking eager.

This left me behind. As I took a step to catch up, Exusiai, with one hand in her pocket, walked up beside me. She took my small hand, shone her phone’s light up at her own face from below, and said comfortingly, “Don’t be afraid. I’ll be with you.”

I looked at her face, which looked like a female ghost’s in the eerie, up-lit glow, and felt like I wanted to cry but had no tears. “That sentence, combined with this lighting effect, makes you sound like a ghost girl coming to claim my soul.”