Work Text:
Doumeki doesn't see the point of hanging out just for the sake of hanging out.
“Hey, Doumeki! You are going home?” Asakusa’s round smiling face shows in a doorway of Sound Effects Club’s room.
“Eh, yeah — no, not really actually. I was going on a kind of small exploration, I guess? Well, just a sound hunting, same as usual,” Doumeki mutters to herself, collecting equipment.
The only one word “exploration” is enough to light up Asakusa’s black eyes with excitement and joy.
“Really?! Can I go, too?”
Doumeki raises her eyes and casts a long look at her. If it were someone else, she would probably say no. Definitely, even. Doumeki isn’t a matey kind of a person, and it’s okay with her. But... Surprisingly, being around Asakusa isn’t half bad (not bad at all, really). So Doumeki just shrugs and nods:
“Yeah, okay. Just don’t be noisy.”
“Cool! I’ll tell Kanamori-shi and Midzusaki-san to go without me. Oh! And call my mum. Just a moment!”
Together the two of them leave the building of Motion Pictures Club. Doumeki protests but, nevertheless, Asakusa helps her to carry equipment. While the sun rolls across the horizon, they wade through Shibahama. Asakusa is too busy absorbing every little detail around them and slipping into her imaginary world. It’s only when her feet begin to ache, she finally asks:
“So what exactly do you wanna record?”
“Well, you know, there is that akiya home in the suburbs. They say that some really spooky sounds are heard from there. So I thought it won’t be bad to go see for myself.”
When sound very similar to chattering teeth comes from the side, Doumeki turns to Asakusa with a question in her eyes... only to find her trembling like a leaf in the wind and clutching a plush bunny to her chest (when did she even pull it out?!). With wild eyes she strives to cling to Doumeki’s sleeve and mutters:
“Wh-wh-what d-do you mean «spooky»? Don’t tell me that there are...” Asakusa becomes silent, looking around in distress.
“Ghosts?” Doumeki suggests with a bulletproof face.
“I said don’t tell me!” Asakusa cries out loudly, but Doumeki still continues. “No, I don’t think so. But I have to admit that the sound record of a real ghost would be a brilliant addition to my audio collection... Oh, look, we are here!”
All what Doumeki sees is a decrepit machiya style wooden townhouse. A picture seen by Asakusa with her own eyes is completely different. The grim and gloomy building is staring down at her in its suffocating silence. The doors and windows are covered with a thick layer of dust and look like they have been untouched for years. One of the glass windows is broken: shards of glass, sticking out of the frame, resemble ugly crooked teeth. Other windows of the house look back at Asakusa like the eyes of an empty soul, along with the front door that gives her the impression of a gateway to hell. Asakusa gulps nervously.
Doumeki puts on her headphones, tightly squeezes a boom microphone and at last takes a look at Asakusa:
“Are you coming?”
She is ready for a “no”, but Asakusa never fails to surprise her. She stands on full alert in light-up shoes, with a headlight on top of her camouflage hat and another flashlight in her hand. Although the other hand that is clutching the bunny still shakes a little bit, she shouts proudly:
“Ready for an expedition!”
Before they come closer to the front door, Asakusa carefully puts a flashlight in Doumeki’s open palm. In return Doumeki gives her a small reassuring smile. It’s a fair trade.
The door creaks, moving open a centimeter at a time. It probably could move faster, but the wood of the door may have grown moldy and soft with water and neglect, and Doumeki won’t risk pushing right through the door. Once inside, a thick layer of dust and mold coats everything. The smell of mildew, stale air, thick with dust, are unsettling. The room is dark — light hardly penetrates thick glass, covered in dust, — and empty. Doumeki steps forward and the floor creaks dryly and tearfully under her feet, on every step and then... A loud sneeze, able to shake the house to the ground, comes from behind.
“SH-H-H-H!” Doumeki glares at Asakusa furiously.
“Sorry, sorry!” Asakusa whispered back, frightened by herself. “I’ll be quieter.”
“You better be! I’m trying to pick something UP!...” One moment Doumeki is walking bravely in front of Asakusa and the next she is falling with a scream.
“Doumeki!” Asakusa screams bewildered, but Doumeki isn’t gone too far. She is still there... just dropped on a knee, one of her feet stuck in a hole in the floor.
“Not cool... I nearly dropped my mic...”
Asakusa is already there, helping her out of the hole. Her heavy backpack finds a place on a floor while Asakusa pulls out a band-aid and an antiseptic — just in case. Asakusa insists on stringing them together with a climbing rope and although Doumeki herself thinks that it’s too much, she doesn’t protest. Asakusa is antsy and scared but she still lends Doumeki a hand to help her out. And when Doumeki takes her hand, it’s shaken, but warm.
“Thanks”, she answers, pleasantly surprised.
“Yeah, now let’s stay closer to walls.”
And so they go: the eyes looking out for other holes and hands on the wall. Creepy creaking conveniently distracts from hypothetical stains of mold. Everything is relatively okay until that moment when Asakusa starts to suspect that weird vibration from under her fingers is not from her trembling hand. She squeaks and tugs on the sleeve of Doumeki’s hoodie. Doumeki is about to snap back, but Asakusa’s rapid gesticulation alarms her. She turns her microphone to the wall... and hears faint buzzing. The two of them exchange troubled looks. Flashlight beam travels across the wooden wall and yes, there definitely is some mold, but what’s more important: they spot a couple of tiny round holes. Suddenly from one of them black trembling antennae comes out. A yellow bid eyed head follows.
“Wasps!”
Girls simultaneously back away from the wall, clutching each other.
“I don’t like it here”, Asakusa whines, and Doumeki has to admit that she understands why: “Me too.”
Maybe they should leave the house... Instead they choose to leave the room. The uncommonly narrow stairs are slapped against the chipboard wallpaper. Covered in dust, dark wood seems even darker. Asakusa and Doumeki stand at the foot of the stairways and cannot find enough courage to move. The thing is, that although hole in the floor and wasps, living in he walls, are pretty unpleasant, but the sounds coming from the second store are absolutely terrifying. They wouldn’t like to admit it, but the sound, in fact, can be only described as a howling of restless and tortured souls. From the blackness come noises no living thing could ever make. It perhaps was once alive but rendered into a spirit, contorted with pain, anger, hatred... Oh, and also they can hear steps. God, somebody is definitely walking upstairs. Chill goes up and down their spines. It seems like their skin has turned into goosebumps. Both hearts beat so fast and desperate as if wanting to break free and escape this creepy house themselves. Asakusa is unusually quiet — it cannot be a good sign.
“You know you can just wait here? Or outside? It’s really okay”, Doumeki suggests although she doesn’t believe in her own words. Her voice sounds unsteady.
“No! Wh-wh-what am I gonna do if you are eaten by a ghost or-or a demon?! I have a knife! S-so I can protect you!.. Maybe...”
Doumeki doesn’t understand how exactly Asakusa is planning to stab a ghost or why does she even has a knife in her backpack, so she just nods and tries to smile. Together they start climbing the stairs, leaving dusty footprints behind.
The room on the second floor seems smaller, maybe because it is stuffed with dusty furniture and a bunch of similarly useless stuff. The sun outside apparently sets down, long shadows take the most bizarre shapes. The howling reaches every dark corner of the room. The air rapidly becomes chillier. Doumeki and Asakusa snuggle back to back while paranormal breath of a ghost around them. They slowly turn around clutching flashlights like a lifeline.
“Wait a minute...” Suddenly Doumeki whispers to herself and leaves Asakusa, almost giving her a heart attack.
But before Asakusa has a chance to ask what’s going on or at least to faint, Doumeki goes to a small window and closes it. Just like that there is no more rumbling or groaning.
“What?! Don’t tell me it was just the wind...”
Doumeki looks just as surprised as Asakusa.
“Helmholtz resonator, ” She mutters, “Like, you know, when you blow perpendicularly to a glass bottle opening and it makes a humming sound. So when turbulent airflow passes through an opening in the room, it excites Helmholtz resonance — that’s where the creepy sounds are from. Infrasound can even vibrate our internal organs. This explains nausea, anxiety, and coldness.”
Both of them exhale and even smile to each other.
And then there are rapid steps behind them. The screams echo down the stairs while two bewildered girls try to climb onto each other. A stack of papers, scattered around the floor, makes it clear that it’s not just a trick of imagination. Somehow Doumeki’s brown skin becomes way paler, and Asakusa holds her breath in a silent panic. Finally, to the light of flashlights comes out...
“Oh, look, it’s a raccoon! Thank god! I’m so-o-o happy to see you, little thing!”
Asakusa nearly bursts into tears of joy, while Doumeki wipes sweat from her forehead with a sigh. Finally, she pulls off her headphones.
“Okay, that’s enough for today. Lets get out.”
On their way back floorboards creak but this time not in the creepy horror movie kind of a way, but more of in the "oh shit, I should probably get out of here before this thing collapses on me" kind of a way.
Fresh wind outside is a blessing. The sun already can’t be seen behind the roofs of the houses — it’s a dawn. Dark navy clouds are floating across the strikingly beautiful sky, painted mild yellow and lime-green. Hand in hand, Doumeki and Asakusa walk down the street, leaving the house behind. Together they are not scared of anything — not anymore.
Doumeki doesn't see the point of hanging out just for the sake of hanging out. But with Asakusa it’s always something more than just hanging out. And really, she doesn’t mind at all.