Part-2 Ch-05 Ep-02

“W–wait, wait a second, Ichinose-san. This place is…”

“Yes, Nagase-san. It’s a haunted house.”

In contrast to my face twitching uncontrollably, Maki was grinning from ear to ear, barely suppressing the mischievous smile tugging at her lips. Before us stood a mansion deliberately styled to look old and dilapidated.

After Maki had dragged me around nonstop through scream rides and all sorts of attractions that sent us flying through the air, we had finally reached a break.

“I got a little too carried away, and it’s hot. So next, let’s go somewhere properly on the ground where we can cool down.”

She had said something like that, and so I followed her. And yet, for some reason, we were now standing in front of a haunted house.

“I–I, this kind of thing…”

“It’s fine. If you’re scared, you can hold on to me.”

“No, the problem is I don’t want to go in at all.”

I tried to resist a little, but in the end I lost at rock-paper-scissors, and we went in. Next, I really want to play peacefully on the merry-go-round.

“Alright then, to measure how surprised you get during the experience, please wear this device to track your heart rate.”

The staff handed us something resembling a digital wristwatch, and we put them on our wrists.

Apparently, it measured heart rate and would later show how startled we had been during the haunted house.

“Heh, that’s interesting. Then there’s a chance I might get more scared than the already frightened Mari, and my heart rate will be higher.”

“I can’t imagine you, Maki, laughing the whole way through something like this…”

The structure, designed to imitate a wooden mansion, recreated the feel of age convincingly and exuded an eerie atmosphere.

Stepping from the bright outdoors into the dark interior made my eyes fail to adjust, making everything feel unnecessarily darker. From behind us, unsettling background music and cold air drifted in.

“Mari, over here. Over here.”

For some reason, Maki, still smiling, walked ahead with a light, bouncy voice. I followed close behind her so I wouldn’t be left alone.

The heat I had felt just moments earlier was gone, replaced instead by chills running down my spine.

“Hyah!”

Something brushed against my head, and I jumped in place, my shoulders jerking upward.

“Ahaha. It’s fine. It’s just a decoration hanging from the ceiling.”

“Why is it right in the middle of the passage like thiiiis?”

“Well, to surprise the guests, obviously.”

Yes, that was true, I agreed silently, but frustration and fear clogged my throat, and I couldn’t respond properly.

“Mari, come here. I’m right here, so you’ll be fine.”

I gripped the hand Maki offered with all my strength. She smiled and gently pulled my hand, walking forward with ease.

“Something like this is good once in a while, right?”

She said it cheerfully, but I no longer had the composure to argue back.

“Uhyah!”

A sudden burst of air blew from the darkness, brushing my cheek. At the same time, countless blood-stained handprints appeared, slamming against a windowpane.

I jumped again.

“Ahahahahaha.”

Maki burst out laughing at the sight.

Subjectively, it felt like we had already been walking for a long time, but judging by the route, we probably had not even reached the halfway point.

After screaming our way through several passages, a long, straight wooden corridor appeared before us. The far end was pitch black and impossible to see clearly.

Timidly, I followed behind Maki onto the creaking corridor, the gishi, gishi of the floorboards echoing with every step.

That was when I noticed something.

In addition to the creaking of our own footsteps, from the tatami room on the right, separated by only a single wall, came faint mishiri, mishiri sounds.

Something was moving alongside us.

“T–Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuu—”

“Ah, there’s something there.”

“Why are you being so casual about it!?”

“Eh? That’s hilarious.”

It was not hilarious. What kind of mentality is that?

The footsteps in the tatami room gradually overtook us, then stopped abruptly. My heart pounding violently, I shifted my gaze forward.

Far ahead in the corridor, the sliding door on the right was slightly open.

I had a bad feeling.

Gishiri, gishiri, our footsteps echoed as we advanced.

The route only continued straight ahead. There was no choice but to pass by that open sliding door.

Gishiri, gishiri.

Even though the sound came from our own steps, it felt unnaturally loud, and I found myself tiptoeing, wondering if I could somehow silence them.

“If you’re scared, should I go ahead and check?”

“…No. Let’s go together.”

I hesitated. I truly hesitated. But it felt wrong to let Maki go alone here. If I was scared, then I would face it too. I gripped Maki’s hand tightly.

Gishiri, gishiri.

As we approached the open sliding door and reached directly in front of it,

“Uwa.”

“Kyaaaaaa!”

From inside the gap, a pale blue face peeked out.

The instant our eyes met, the sliding door flew open, and it began crawling toward us.

“Kyaa! Kyaaaaaaaaaa!”

“Ahahahahahahahahahahaha!”

My shrill screams and Maki’s uncontrollable laughter echoed throughout the mansion. Panting heavily, hands braced on my knees, I struggled to catch my breath.

It felt like we had already walked and run a great deal. Surely the exit was close. But there was still something.

—I had that feeling.

“Come on, come on, let’s go. I’m going ooon.”

Still full of energy, Maki boldly opened the sliding door in front of us. The room beyond was so dark that you could not see anything without straining your eyes.

Once my vision adjusted slightly, I made out a very narrow tatami room with a writing desk tucked into one corner. In front of it sat something like a large black lump.

I strained my eyes harder from the doorway.

That black lump was a person. A person seated with their back to us, dressed entirely in pitch-black clothing.

“Hiu…”

I sucked in a breath and couldn’t let it out, frozen by the shock. The writing desk the figure sat at was diagonally opposite the door we had opened.

And the door that appeared to be the only exit from this room was directly behind that figure. In other words, to reach the door, we would have to pass right behind them.

“Eh… no way.”

Maki muttered softly.

Perhaps even Maki was finally feeling afraid.

Hearing those words, for the first time in my life, after agonizing over it, I forced out what could only be called the greatest courage I had ever mustered.

There was no time to hesitate.

This time, I grabbed Maki’s hand from my side with all my strength.

“Ah, eh, Mari?”

“I–I–I–it’s o–o–okay. S–s–so…”

“…Eh? You don’t look okay at all…”

Pretending not to hear her mutter, trembling like a newborn fawn, I held onto Maki’s hand and led us into the dim room.

As we approached the door, we also drew closer to the writing desk. And drawing closer to the desk meant drawing closer to the black-clad figure.

“…Ah… …na… …i…”

I realized they were muttering something continuously. Along with it came a scratching sound, like a pen scraping paper.

Just a little more. Just a little.

Even Maki seemed wary now, carefully following behind me. Step by step, we approached the door. The moment I placed my hand on it,

Gatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatata!

“Nigasanai, nigasanai, nigasanai.”

[T/N- 逃がさない (nigasanai) is the negative form of the verb 逃がす (nigasu), meaning "to let escape" or "to release." I got wrote that cause to make sense of Ah...na...I part before.]

Shouting, “I won’t let you escape,” the black-clad figure spun around violently and lunged toward us.

“Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

Thinking we were too close and about to be caught, I yanked Maki along and ran with all my might.

“Kyaaaaaaaaa!”

“Ahahahahaha!”

My heart felt like it would burst from sheer panic.

“Mari, wait, there’s nothing behind us anymore! Mari!”

I want out. I want out. I want out. I want out. I want out.

It doesn’t even have to be the exit anymore. Anywhere is fine. I just want to be outside.

I want out. I want out. I want out. I want out. I want out. I want out. I want to get outside.

The moment that desire surged so strongly it felt like the blood vessels in my brain might burst, a door suddenly appeared in the wall ahead.

I flung it open and tumbled through with Maki.

Beyond the door stretched a twilight sky, the sun nearly set. Somehow, we were outside the mansion.

“Hae?”

“Eh? No way. Is this outside?”

It was unmistakably outdoors, yet it did not look like the haunted house’s official exit. We both looked around in confusion. It resembled a back entrance entirely, leaving both Maki and me bewildered.

When we turned back, the door we had just passed through was gone without a trace.

Only an old wall remained.

“He?”

“Is this part of the haunted house too…?”

We glanced around at each other.

“Um… where do we go from here?”

For the time being, we followed the wall around to the front and called over a staff member. The staff assumed we had exited through the give-up exit, but I had no memory of seeing anything like that along the way.

What’s more, we had clearly passed through a door, yet when we looked back, there had only been a wall, the door having vanished completely.

“Still, I never expected we’d get out with Mari pulling my hand. Especially when you were that scared.”

“You were laughing the whole time in the end, weren’t you, Maki? In that last room, weren’t you scared? Didn’t you say ‘no way’?”

“Ah… well, considering the size of the room, the distance to that ghost-like person was really short, so I thought it would be bad if they touched me. I’m not good with being touched by strangers.”

It seemed she had been worried about something entirely different. I had summoned my courage, yet I felt thoroughly cheated.

“Fufu. Mari, thank you. For trying so hard.”

As I thought about how her mentality really was, I recalled Maki’s status values and found myself convinced.

—Even so.

At that moment, because I was so desperately wishing to get outside, I hadn’t properly looked at the door that suddenly appeared before me.

—Maybe it was just a bug in the attraction?

That thought lingered faintly in the back of my mind, but even later, the truth remained unclear.

As expected, when we checked the recorded heart rates, mine was nearly double Maki’s, which was honestly unbearable.

But since Maki seemed to be in high spirits regardless, after that, we were finally able to spend some peaceful time together on the merry-go-round.