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"Lumi, please! Open the door!"
The frantic knocking and shouting of her boyfriend and neighbor, Venti, on her apartment causes Lumine to go into a panic. As she rushes to the entrance, her heart is seized with fear and worry. She doesn't even think to check the peephole before slamming open the door. "Venti, what's wrong?!"
Lumine isn't sure what happened first - Venti desperately screaming her name or Venti jumping into her arms, causing the both of them to fall on the ground with him on top of her. He clings onto her neck, his body trembling. She wraps her arms around him and rubs his back, trying to soothe him. "Venti, it's okay. I'm here. It's okay now," she gently whispers.
"Just what is going on...? What happened to make him break down like this?" Lumine wonders, feeling her heart break into a million pieces as she watches him cry into her chest.
When Venti finally calms down, Lumine pats him on the back and urges him to get up from the floor. "Sorry, Lumi, I just..." he mumbles, as he gets off her. Lumine shakes her head and gives him a small smile. "It's okay. Let's just close the door first, and then let's talk about it over some tea. Wait a moment in the living room, won't you?"
"Yeah..."
"Are you being serious right now?!"
Lumine rubs her temples, trying hard to contain her growing anger. "Ehe..." Venti chuckles nervously as he cowers at the very edge of the sofa, placing as much distance as he possibly can between him and the blonde woman. He flinches when she lifts her face up and glares at him. "You seriously came banging on my apartment door while crying and screaming my name at 10:30PM because you read a horror story?!"
"It's not just a horror story - it's a cursed horror story!"
"That does not make any difference!"
Venti huffs. "It does! Here, I'll show it to you!" he retorts, whipping out his phone from his pocket. Lumine scoffs and rolls her eyes as she watches him tap away on the device, looking for the aforementioned story. She sighs. "I can't believe how worried I was," she mumbles, quiet enough for the boy not to hear her.
Just as Lumine lifts her cup to take another sip of her earl grey tea, Venti scoots over beside her and shows her the phone screen with a pensive expression. "Here! Read it for yourself!" he says in a huff, obviously feeling affronted that his girlfriend isn't taking his problem seriously. She almost laughs at how petulant he looks at the moment. "Fine."
Lumine reaches out to take the phone from Venti, but to her surprise, he suddenly snatches it away from her. She raises an eyebrow at him. "Um, aren't you going to show it to me?" she asks. He sighs before replying. "No, I just realized... if I let you read it, you'll get cursed too. I wouldn't want you to get hurt."
An amused smile begins to form on Lumine's lips. Venti really does strangely sweet things sometimes. "Venti, really. I'm sure the curse is fake. I'll be fine if I read it."
"We aren't sure if it's fake yet! It says the woman will visit at midnight, and we have like, an hour left!"
"Jeez, what woman? Well, if you don't want to let me read it, why don't you just give me a gist or something? I'm sure that wouldn't count," Lumine offers, placing her hand on top of Venti's. He looks at her, obviously hesitating, but eventually sighs and nods. "Well, just promise me you won't laugh at me, okay?! This really did terrify me, Lumi!" he exclaims, pouting. She nods and intertwines their fingers together, giving him a little squeeze. He feels a little bit of his fright melt away at her touch, and so he takes a deep breath before finally starting his tale.
"Okay, so the story starts with this woman who used to live in the countryside. She always dreamed of becoming an actress and making it big in the city, so she moved to the city to try her luck. On arrival, she immediately set to work trying to make connections and trying out for auditions. Unfortunately, she never passed any of them. Running out of money and refusing to give up her dream, she kept trying to look for more work. One day, an agency she's never heard of gave her a calling card while she was busking on the streets. She tried to look for information about the agency, but never found any."
Lumine frowns. "Well, that's suspicious."
"Yeah, it is! But she was getting really desperate, so she decided to give the agency a call as a last resort. A man answered her phone call and told her that she would be perfect for a themed photoshoot needed for a small magazine. She tried to ask for more details, but he only gave her a specified time and location for the shoot before hanging up."
"Don't tell me she actually went?"
"Well..."
"No, never mind, this is a horror story. Of course she went," Lumine says, sighing as she shakes her head. Venti throws her an annoyed glance and clicks his tongue. "Hey, no more side comments until I'm finished!"
"Okay, okay. Continue..."
"As I was saying! So she went to the specified location at the agreed-upon time, and it's just a normal house. Nothing creepy or seedy about it on first glance. When she knocks on the door, a man greets her and ushers her inside. Oddly enough, the house was mostly empty, except for a lone sofa in one room. She sat on it and was asked to wait for the other staff members to arrive. She was left waiting for around an hour before she began to grow impatient. Without standing up from the sofa, she takes out her cellphone to call the number on the calling card, to ask what's taking so long. It takes a few minutes before the same man she talked to before finally answers, but all he does is ask her to turn around. When she does, she was immediately struck in the head by a baseball bat and falls unconscious. Her attackers then began to torture her until she finally died from extreme blood loss."
Lumine furrows her brows. "That's... well, that's a rather sad and gruesome story," she says. "But what's so cursed about it?"
"Well, after the incident, the woman's remains were never found and she was officially classified as missing. The men were never arrested, but a month after the murder, each of them started receiving strange calls. It was just the sounds of muffled crying at first, but they all soon escalated into the sounds of the victim wailing and cursing them. Eventually, one by one, they started dying gruesome deaths. Beside their corpses, their phones were always found beside them. When the police looked through their call logs, they found out that they were all called by the same phone number the victim had at exactly midnight. And then... and then-!"
Lumine flinches when Venti suddenly slams his free fist on his lap, gritting his teeth angrily. "And then, the story finally tells you that it's cursed! Everyone who reads the story will be visited by the woman at midnight. First, she'll call you, and in the call, she'll tell you to turn around and when you do, she's right there behind you! Then you're dead! Why would you even tell people it's cursed at the very end?! I hate it when horror stories do that! I would never have read it if it said it was cursed right from the start, darn it!"
Lumine stops herself from laughing at her boyfriend's outburst. I promised not to laugh after all...
Instead, she wraps her arms around him in an attempt to placate him. "Oh, jeez, Venti. It's obviously not true; how would the person who wrote the story and put it up on the internet for you to see even know all those details? They should be dead by now. When was this even posted?" she says. Venti returns her embrace before replying, allowing himself to calm down in her arms. "...It was posted two days ago."
"And knowing this kinda internet forums, I bet the one who posted this story was still replying to comments weren't they?"
"Yeah. I commented when I finished reading earlier, and they replied."
Lumine chuckles. "See? They're not dead. There's no curse."
"They could be utilizing a ghostly loophole or something."
"Seriously? A ghostly loophole?"
Venti pulls away and pouts at Lumine. "Lumiiii... But what if it's actually true?" he whines. She sighs. Why does he even read horror stories if he's so deathly terrified of them?
Lumine hums as she thinks for a moment. "Ah. I got it. Just don't answer the phone if she calls you," she declares matter-of-factly. Venti gawks at her. "There's no way it's that easy," he retorts, but he only earns a scoff from his girlfriend. "I'm earnestly trying to help you out here, Venti," she says, crossing her arms across her chest and giving him an incredulous look.
"But it's a ghost! I'm sure it's gonna force me to answer regardless!"
"Well, if you're actually doomed no matter what, why did you even come here to my apartment?"
"Ehe... Well, you always make me feel safe so, I just... naturally came running here."
Despite the situation, Lumine feels a blush creep its way onto her cheeks. Jeez, this guy really says the most embarrassing things out of nowhere!
Venti notices her flustered reaction and smiles. Lumine huffs, turning her head away bashfully. "Well, if the ghost turned out to be real, then I don't think I'd be able to do anything. So you being here when the midnight call happens means you just doomed me too. There's no way the ghost will kill you and then spare me, you know."
Silence.
Huh, I expected him to answer back or something.
Lumine slowly turns her head to face Venti, who, to her shock, looks absolutely crestfallen. He is frozen in place and looks as if he is about to cry once more. She quickly holds his hands and frantically apologizes. "N-no, wait! I'm just kidding! Seriously, Venti! It's okay! It's not even real anyway!"
"No... You're right... I should go back to my apartment before it turns midnight... alone. I don't want you to get hurt on the off-chance it actually is real..."
Venti begins to stand up, but Lumine pulls on his arm. "No, really. Venti, I'm sorry. That was thoughtless of me to say. I'm sorry," she says, tears beginning to form in her golden eyes. Skepticism aside, she doesn't really want to add any stress to the visibly distraught Venti. She should not have said such a thing so carelessly, knowing how much he hates it when she gets hurt.
Venti sighs and pulls the blonde woman into his arms. "I know I'm just being childish being so scared over a horror story, but..." he trails off. Lumine looks up at him and shakes her head. "Well, you can't help but be scared. It's okay. Just stay over for tonight."
"But if I do receive a phone call -"
"We'll ignore it. And if you get forced to answer, well... I'll do my best to protect you. That's why I'm here, right? Ghost or not, I'll never know if I can beat it up unless I try."
Venti chuckles. "Ehe, such a violent girlfriend I have."
"Mm, well, there's no way I'm ever going to let you get hurt on my watch."
To Lumine's surprise, Venti plants a quick kiss on her lips. Her cheeks turn a bright shade of pink, making his lips form a happy grin. Such a cute reaction as always. "Thank you, Lumi!"
Still flustered, Lumine could only nod.
"Jeez, despite being so frightened a while ago, he's soundly sleeping without a care in the world right now."
Lumine watches Venti's sleeping form on the couch. I should wake him and make him move to the bed. He'll hurt his back if he stays here.
Just before Lumine reaches to shake him awake, she freezes. Her eyes quickly dart to the time on her phone screen. 11:58PM.
It's only two more minutes before midnight. I'll wake him when it's past midnight.
Lumine sits herself on the carpeted floor, in front of the sofa where Venti is sleeping. Taking out her phone, she starts scrolling away. Despite her skepticism, she finds herself counting the seconds, waiting for the clock to shift to the next hour. Curiously, she tries looking for the horror story Venti mentioned, but without the actual title, it's proving difficult to search for the post in the forums. "They should really optimize the search function," she mutters, tutting.
While viewing a photo of a bear swimming in the river, Lumine sees her phone clock display the long-awaited time: 00:00. Lumine freezes in place, waiting for a ringtone to play from either Venti's or her own phone. When the clock turns 00:01 however, she lets out the breath she hadn't realized she had even been holding. Maybe the story got to me a little after all...
After waiting for at least ten more minutes, Lumine finally turns to look at Venti still peacefully sleeping on the couch. She gently shakes him awake. "Hey, you should move to the bed. Your back will hate you if you stay here. We aren't growing any younger."
Venti sleepily opens his eyes. Upon seeing Lumine, he smiles, but his expression soon turns to that of alarm. He hastily sits up and frantically looks around for his phone. "What time is it, Lumi?!"
Lumine watches the frenzied man with an amused expression, opting not to answer. Instead, she patiently waits for him to finally find his phone, open the screen, and check the time. She chuckles at the visible relief that washes over his face. He looks up at her. "N-no one called?"
"Nope. Not a single one. Looked around a bit too; no strange woman wanting to kill us as far as I know."
Venti grasps at his chest and heaves a heavy sigh of relief. "Oh, sheesh... So I wasn't doomed after all," he mumbles. His girlfriend laughs and takes a seat beside him, patting him on the back. "Told you. Feeling better?" she asks, and he enthusiastically nods, his boyish cheerfulness finally returning back to him. "Ehe, guess I completely overreacted after all! Or maybe my strong girlfriend just scared the ghost off!"
Venti pulls Lumine in a sudden hug, squeezing her tightly. "Thank you, Lumi," he says, taking her aback with how heartfelt and sincere he had sounded. She reciprocates the embrace. "I didn't really do anything, but you're welcome I guess. Promise me one thing though."
Venti pulls away and tilts his head to the side curiously. Lumine can't help but be reminded of a puppy. "What is it?"
"If you're so scared of these, just stop reading horror stories off the internet already."
Venti pouts. "Whaaaat? No way. I like reading these kinda stuff!"
"Are you serious? You thought you were about to die tonight and came running to me. I thought something terrible had happened when you came banging on my door, crying out my name!"
"Like I said, I only got scared because it said it was cursed! If the author had just said it was cursed from the beginning, I would not have read it and I would not have been scared!"
Lumine sighs as Venti looks at her defiantly. "Ugh. Sure. Whatever you say, Venti. It's too late to argue about this. Let's just go to sleep now," she says, shaking her head. She stands up and starts cleaning the table, walking off to the kitchen to wash the teacups they had used. Venti follows her and hums as he wordlessly helps her dry off the ceramics. As he puts them back in their proper place, he throws a hesitant glance at her. "So... now that we're sure I'm not actually cursed, I'm still allowed to stay here for the night?"
Lumine raises a brow at him. "Of course. Why? Did you want me to kick you out?"
"Wha- no, of course not! I mean, you could if you wanted to, since I literally live next door, but ya know... I was just making sure, ehe."
Lumine smiles and places a quick kiss on his cheek, earning her a surprised yelp from the flustered Venti. "I could kick you out, but... I think I want to be super sure no woman's coming to take you away from me after all. I'll only be sure if you stay with me 'til the sun finally comes up."
"I didn't realize my girlfriend was also the jealous type."
"Hah, you probably only realize that now because this is the first time another woman's actually coming after you, even if she is just a fictional ghost."
"Sheesh, Lumi, that's kinda mean. Are you saying I'm not popular with the ladies?!"
Lumine sticks out her tongue. "Maybe," she replies and laughs when Venti mocks hurt. "Just kidding, Venti. I mean, I'm willing to fight a ghost for you, aren't I? I wouldn't do that if you weren't so lovable," she says, pinching his cheek playfully. "Now come on, let's get to bed already. I'm really, really sleepy."
That night, Venti experiences the best sleep of his life so far. No curse, no ghosts - just him comfortably lying in Lumine's arms and entangling his legs with hers.
"Maybe I should find another cursed horror story so I can get an excuse to sleep in her bed again tonight," he mumbles to himself in the morning as the two of them eat breakfast. Lumine glances up at him. "Sorry, did you say something?"
"Nothing, Lumi. Ehe!"