A Certain Mutually Beneficial Understanding

Exusiai still held her phone under her fair face, letting the eerie light dance across her handsome features. Her one visible, ruby-red eye looked at me, sparkling with mischief. “A ghost girl like me… you don’t like it?”

I was genuinely getting creeped out. My sanity points were taking a nosedive. “I like you, I like you, just please stop… You’re going to give me a heart attack before the real ghosts even show up!”

“Pfft… alright, I’ll stop teasing you.” She gave my hand a pull. “Let’s go, or we’ll lose sight of Yukino and Saber.”

She pulled me along as we quickened our pace to catch up to the two slender figures ahead.

At first, I was confused. Although Exusiai and I had a good relationship before the transformation, we weren’t ‘no homo bro’ enough to hold hands. I didn’t understand why she was acting so out of character by holding my hand this time. But as we were chasing after Yukino and Saber, I very clearly felt her thumb caressing the back of my smooth hand, her palm flexibly kneading my delicate palm, just like I had seen her do when she was taking advantage of girls before her transformation. I suddenly understood.

This one was holding my hand just to cop a feel! She was using the scary atmosphere as an excuse to get handsy!

During class today, I had secretly felt my own Kiriko-hands. The smooth skin, the beautiful palm lines, the soft fingertips… I really couldn’t put them down. I spent two whole classes just playing with my own hands and still wasn’t satisfied. But thinking about the other places I hadn’t played with yet, I reluctantly saved the rest of the fun for later.

And now, this little hand, which only I had played with so far, had fallen into the clutches of Exusiai, the champion of the player-regatta, the old rogue. One could only imagine the ravaging it would endure. She was probably going to rub a layer of skin off!

I originally wanted to pull my hand away, but then I suddenly felt that the sensation of her anime-girl-like hand was in no way inferior to my own. Her hand was slightly cooler than mine, and her delicate skin felt like the cool, smooth skin on top of a double-boiled milk pudding, incredibly textured. I rubbed her thin hand back with my thumb, gently moving the skin that felt like condensed milk, feeling the delicate, craft-like bones beneath.

Holding a hand so beautiful and smooth, kneading each other’s palms, I felt like I could do this all day without doing anything else. The thought of pulling my hand away had long been kicked out of my mind, sent flying to the horizon. After all, I am a person who values friendship. I would never do something like shaking off my own brother’s hand and make him lose face.

I adjusted my grip, weaving each of my fingers through Exusiai’s soft, smooth ones, lacing them over the back of her hand, interlocking our fingers.

The two of us had reached a certain mutually beneficial understanding.

We passed through the front hall. The stairs leading up were right in front of us, but Yukino and Saber, who were ahead, didn’t go straight up. Instead, they turned left into a corridor and began to search the first floor. They weren’t walking fast, so Exusiai and I, hand in hand, quickly caught up.

My other hand held my phone. The stream was filled with comments like [It’s yuri!], [No, it’s yaoi!], [It’s definitely yuri!], [It’s yaoi!!], all because both Exusiai and I were rather androgynous, causing a holy war among the hundreds of viewers.

But have none of you considered the possibility that we’re actually a boy and a girl?

As expected, compared to normal romance, yuri and yaoi were far more appealing.

As we jogged, the beam from the flashlight in Exusiai’s outer hand shone on the worn-out floor tiles far ahead, swaying with our movements like a creeping, snow-white monster hand.

On both sides of the corridor were narrow, closed wooden doors. The doorplates, [1-101], [1-102], were mostly faded. It felt like we were making footsteps in an old, discarded photograph.

After catching up to Yukino and Saber, I saw Yukino push a door with her dainty fingers. The dusty door didn’t budge.

Yukino shook her head, her clear eyes looking at me. “All the doors are locked. They won’t open.”

“They’re all locked…” I bit my lip. “If all the doors are locked, then there’s nothing for us to explore. And it smells awful in here.”

The abandoned dormitory was like a prison with its gates shut tight, a place of dead silence and darkness. The pale flashlight beams on the peeling walls were eerie and frightening.

Saber fiddled with the thin chain of her monocle, her delicate, pretty face expressionless. She said in her heroic voice, “Just walking around in silence like this is pretty creepy.”

That’s how tough guys are. Even if they feel fear, they don’t hide it. They say it out loud, face it directly, and ultimately conquer it.

Saber asked very calmly, “During the rest of the exploration, can I hum a song to lighten the mood?”

“Sure,” I said. “What’s wrong with that?”

Yukino dusted off her hands and pointed towards the thick darkness ahead that even the flashlights couldn’t penetrate. “Let’s keep going. I hope we find an open room, otherwise this will be too boring.”

I could see it now. Yukino, whose mood was even worse than mine due to the green light of love, really wanted some excitement tonight. She wouldn’t rest until she saw a ghost.

We set off again down the deep, dark corridor. Soon, Saber’s heroic singing voice rang out, full of misplaced confidence:

“Pork-fat-bone~ take-it-to-braise~ you-forgot-to-wash-the-eggs-again… but-I~ cooked-a-bag~ of-instant-noodles~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~”

“Stop with the misheard lyrics! Are you some kind of demon?!! That’s not how ‘Gurenge’ goes!” I couldn’t help but shout.

“Wait!” Yukino, who was walking at the very front, suddenly stopped, her body tense.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, as the light from Exusiai’s phone also shone on Yukino.

I saw Miss Yukino gently lift the heel of her canvas shoe, the slender, white ankle beneath her cuffed pants tensing. She squatted down, her light-colored straight-leg jeans clinging tightly to her small buttocks, outlining a breathtakingly beautiful curve.

My hand, holding Exusiai’s cool, smooth one, tightened.

Yukino picked up an empty mineral water bottle, still with its label, from beside her foot. She stood up and shone her flashlight on the empty plastic bottle, observing it carefully.

I was a bit confused. “Isn’t it just a water bottle? This place is a mess, it’s normal for there to be trash like this.”

But Yukino shook her head, her black hair swaying gently on her slender shoulders. She held the bottle up in front of us, illuminating it with the pale light. “Look, it’s a water bottle without a cap, but it’s not completely empty inside. There are still some wet water stains.”

I leaned in for a closer look. Sure enough, there was a small puddle of water at the bottom of the bottle. I had a sudden realization. “If this water bottle was left here before the dormitory was abandoned, the water inside should have dried up long ago. But it’s wet now. Does that mean this bottle was left here recently?”

Yukino gave a small nod, her fair eyelids lowered. “And I just checked the production date on the bottle. It was from the month before last. Mineral water has a long shelf life, so we can’t be sure it was thrown here at that time, but the time frame is definitely from the month before last until today. During this period, someone has been in this abandoned girls’ dormitory.”

Her words fell, echoing like a phantom in the dark corridor. When the echo faded, the entire prison-like dormitory fell silent as a tomb.