Chapter Text
“Hey, hey, did you hear!”
A familiar blue-haired girl called over her male friend. His eyes gleam with curiosity but are focused on the book in front of him.
“If you summon Kokkuri-san in classroom 3-E, she’ll answer any question you have!”
He pauses for a moment before looking up.
“You mean our classroom?”
She nods excitedly. “I heard she tells you the answer to everything! But for a price,”
The boy closes his book, a determined look in his eyes.
“Interesting,”
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“Kokkuri-san, do you hear me?”
In the corner of an empty classroom sits a 15-year old boy. His name is Yugi Amane and he is very interested in the paranormal. This was a more recent interest that sprung up in high school when he made friends with the preppy Akane Aoi. After one story, he was hooked. And the two had been friends ever since.
But he wasn’t thinking about Aoi-chan right now. He was thinking about Kokkuri-san.
The coin moves towards a ‘yes’. He flashes a small smile but he can’t get too excited. Not yet.
“Kokkuri-san, do you have a physical form?” He asks, serious.
The coin hesitates for a moment, seemingly going for the ‘no’ before heading back to the ‘yes’.
He raises his eyebrow before asking, “Kokkuri-san, Kokkuri-san, Kokkuri-san, please show me your physical form,”
A small gust of wind is in the air despite no windows being open. Items toss away from their desks and the open books have their pages flying everywhere. Amane feels himself being pushed back by this sudden gust of wind but keeps his ground, firmly planting his feet to the ground as the wind seems determined to push him back. Eventually, his legs give up and he’s pushed back a few feet as the wind still blows over him, determined in still blowing.
Eventually, it just dies down. Amane sits up, confused.
“Kokkuri-san?”
No response.
“Ah well… better luck tom-”
“I’m heeereeeee!~”
The voice came behind him. Amane swiftly turns behind him before getting up, stumbling as he goes. Once his vision is cleared enough, he looks and sees her.
She was wearing a traditional white and red hakama with her hair tied up in a high ponytail. With these, she looked like a simple shrine maiden. But something was different. Two orbs floated around her while she had the “fortune” kanji on both of her cheeks. Her hakama was ruffled and messed up, much different from the uniformed neatness of shrine maidens. She walked towards him in an eerie way that showed she wasn’t walking on the floor… more as if she was intimidating walking. She had a simple kind of beauty. One that haunted you as you tried your best to enjoy your night alone, wishing you had her in your arms but knowing that she was unreachable.
Kokkuri-san approaches him, teeth showing as she grinned at him and cornered him to the windows of the classroom. She leans up into his ear (she wasn’t too tall but she could float).
“Hi~” she giggles before pulling away. He takes a moment to open his mouth to say something before she covers his mouth.
“So rude. Say hello to me, first of all. And clean up this mess!” She scolded him, much like how a mother would to her child.
Without saying anything, he picks up some surrounding books and places them on the table where he summoned Kokkuri-san.
“K-Kokkuri-san?”
She giggles. “The one and only!” She raises her arms for the dramatics but she hits one of her orbs. “OW!” she exclaimed.
Amane stares at Kokkuri-san for a moment too long before laughing, “Wow… never knew that Kokkuri-san was… so lame.” He looks down out of habit and bursts into another fit of laughter.
“...she also apparently has daikon legs…,”
Instantly, she pouts and puffs up her cheeks, a small bit of steam popping from her head. “Daikon legs or not, I’m still Kokkuri-san!”
“Kokkuri-san…. I kind of expected a sexy lady,” He casually whistles out. This only seemed to stir her up more as she clenched her fists and used them to hit him. But, being a spirit, she couldn’t successfully do this. This wouldn’t stop her from trying, though.
“I can be a sexy lady! I’m a spirit! I can transform into something sexy!”
He laughs as he walks away and stretches casually. “I don’t think that’s possible,” Amane laughs again. “You would’ve transformed into something much sexier by now. Even if you were a sexy spirit, your daikon legs would still be the same,”
“DUMMY!” She yelled and a faint gust of wind hit him. He only laughed. “But I’m glad Kokkuri-san came to see me. I guess she’s already in love,” He winks at her. She squeals as she turns red, choosing to ignore his statement.
She sighs. “But yes! I am Kokkuri-san!” She floats over on top of a desk and twirls around, the small breeze she caused catching flowers and floating their petals around her. She turns to face him, her smile wide and alluring, as if she had just told him that she wanted to run away with him. And with the way his heart skipped, he would’ve said yes. But he couldn’t. Despite it feeling too soon, he felt as if he spent a lifetime with her.
“Do you have a question? Also, please tell me your name,”
He blinks, the moment is gone. Amane thinks for a moment, all questions he had stored inside disappearing. One simple one surfaced up though. And it was exactly what he was focused on right now.
“Yugi Amane. Will I be a paranormal investigator?”
She thinks for a moment before piping up with, “Let me ask my sources!”
She spins in a whole circle for whatever reason. For a moment, Amane sees fear in her eyes. But he doesn’t comment on it when her expression turns preppy once again.
“You will be!”
He puffs up his chest slightly in pride.
“Maybe we should start by investigating some cases right now? As a spirit, I know tons of other ghosts!”
“OK!”
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The two made their way towards the library, a hushed whisper among the students that seemed to be a permanent trait in Kamome Academy.
Kokkuri-san turns to Amane as they huddle behind a bookshelf, staring at Tsuchigomori-sensei, class A-3’s homeroom and dedicated science teacher. He looked as unassuming and bookish as usual. Amane looks at Kokkuri-san, raising an eyebrow.
“Why are we stalking Tsuchigomori-sensei?”
“Because! He’s an odd fellow, isn’t he? His nails are always so sharp!”
“That’s because he doesn’t clip his nails properly. He’s almost thirty with no wife,” Amane sighs. “Can we go? I want to investi-,”
“Look! Look at what he’s doing!” Kokkuri-san had floated over to him and looked with wonder as he pulled out his phone, “We didn’t have these! They’re so cool!”
He sighed again before casually walking out.
“Wait! I have another place!”
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“A tree?”
“Not just any tree!” Gushed Kokkuri-san. “A confessing tree! Look! Here comes a couple right now!”
Yamabuki Lemon and Aoi Akane approach the tree, both of them in a huff.
“You really decided to want to confess to her the EXACT same time I wanted to?”
“Look, man,” Lemon sighed, clearly annoyed but also apathetic, “She’s a popular girl. The only reason people haven’t confessed to her is that you always threaten to bash their heads in,”
“And you’ll be next if you continue this!”
Amane didn’t bother to stay for the rest of the hour-long argument that the two were commonly known to be having.
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“The school store?”
“The sweets he-!”
He didn’t even bother.
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They were back in their classroom after twenty minutes of “investigating”. Amane sighs, feeling played with. Kokkuri-san looks concerned. This was apparent because of how she hovered over him.
“I swear they’re all true ghost stories! They’re called School Mysteries and-!”
He looked at her harshly and she stopped talking. “I didn’t really see anything though. Nothing suspicious at all. For all I know, you could just be some weird girl in a hakama,” Amane sighed. Now he wanted to apologize but he still felt too hurt to really say sorry. He was tricked. He had trusted this random ghost with his locked-up dream and he didn’t get the result he wanted. Yeah, he was being a bit childish but it was something so personal and dear to him. He hated being hurt.
He hated it.
Before bitter memories surfaced, he felt a gentle tapping on his head. It was Kokkuri-san with both orbs in hand.
“If you’re so upset… here,” She handed them to him, they buzzed with excitement.
“Clink them together three times. You’ll be transported to my boundary,” She laughed nervously. “My domain. A piece of reality where I control,”
His eyes looked huge as he looked up at Kokkuri-san and nodded, mumbling a thank you as he clinked them three times.
He blinked and before he knew it, he teleported somewhere. The first thing his eyes saw was sunlight. And lots of it. He rubbed his eyes before opening them again, pleasantly surprised to find that he was in a garden.
“Kokkuri-san?” He called out. No response. But the orbs seemed to be buzzing happily.
Amane took a step forward, surprised once again to find water. He raised an eyebrow at that but continued walking forward, noting that the water didn’t make his feet wet at all.
The garden was beautiful, to say the least. It wasn’t like the traditional Japanese tea gardens. More of a Western fairy tale garden. The grass was lush and wildflowers of various colors sprinkled in with it. Surrounding the corners of the garden were bunches of poppies, tulips, daffodils and more. Western flowers. Hm. Interesting.
Surrounding the garden was a white picket fence. There didn’t seem to be a house or a gate. Just a small square of field. He raised an eyebrow at this, also noticing the shadow outside of the sunny patch of garden.
What he didn’t notice was a thick, black vine approaching under him. It was coming closer… and closer… and…
It snatched him. It dragged his feet deeper and deeper into the darkness.
And his first reaction?
“KOKKURI-SAN!” He yells out.
In a blinding light, Amane feels himself being tugged up. It took him a minute to realize there was a rope tied around his torso despite him having no recollection of it being there. He looks up and sees…
A nervously smiling Kokkuri-san.
“If I took you seriously, Yugi-kun, I would have been in big trouble with God. See? His angel came to punish us,” She gestures to the ever-growing vine.
“Yugi-kun, how strong is your stomach?”
“Strong. Why?”
She nods before grinning at him. “You’ll be my weapon today,”
“What?”
Before he could say anything else, he was being spun. Kokkuri-san had reached the end of her rope and begun spinning him like some kind of rope javelin. He screamed but the moment his body touched the dark vine, it poofed out of existence.
Kokkuri-san threw him into the arm before catching him and landing down. He was stunned.
“How was that for an introduction to the spirits?” Kokkuri-san grinned. Amane could only scramble to the ground and start hugging it.
“We’d better get going. It’s late in the human’s world,” She clapped once and they were back in the classroom.
He swallowed, his stomach sick. But he felt sicker once he saw Kokkuri-san’s worried expression.
“Are you upset? Do you not want to be a paranormal investigator anymore?”
He shook his head rapidly. “No! I do! It’s just… that was a lot to take in,”
She held her head high. “I’m sorry! I’ll be sure to make it up to you somehow!”
He looked at her, seeing the opportunity ahead of him. “Then… can I visit you every day, Kokkuri-san?”
Her eyes widened. He gulped, noticing that he could see his uncertain expression in her eyes. Amane looked down anyways. “I just… think it’d be nice to see you.” He lied.
“Like a friend?”
“Like a friend,” Another lie.
Before he knew it, she had looped her arms around his neck and brought her face close, her eyes big and her smile wide, the small breeze causing the flowers to float around again. She looked at him as if he were the moon and stars and everything in between. He gulped before noticing that he could feel her oddly warm touch. He wanted her to look at him like that again and again. Until he was reduced into stardust.
“Then as my friend… you’ll come visit every day, right?”
“O-of course,”
She leaned into his ear.
“Then…,” She paused for a bit.
“Will you be my assistant too?”
“What?”