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Rumor has it, Ayase Momo’s school is haunted.
It’d been all that the students were talking about on the net for months now— ever since a girl claimed to have seen it herself.
It was a vampire, she said. Snow-white hair, red eyes, massive fangs and claws made for rending flesh. She’d encountered it in the school basement, and barely escaped with her life. Sure, her story sounded like a whole bunch of bullshit, but after that, tales of more encounters and rumors cropped up and were passed around amongst Kamigoe High School's entire student body.
They all tied in with one another perfectly, painting a detailed picture of this so-called ghost for anyone who bothered to pay attention.
The so-called vampire had once been a student with a serious fixation on all things occult, and as an unsurprising result they were bullied by their peers. In an attempt to get revenge, they performed a summoning ritual in a basement storage room, but it went poorly, and instead of getting some otherworldly help in their attempt to bite back at their bullies, the student was killed and turned into a vampire, after which their death was covered up to protect the school’s reputation.
After this point in the tale, the rumors got harder to track, but with a little help from her friends Miiko and Kei, Momo was pretty sure she’d found a way to find and speak to the vampire. All she needed was an offering.
“Today’s the day!” Momo proclaims to her friends as she settles in at her desk. She fishes through her backpack, then withdraws her prize; an old occult magazine she found at a secondhand store. Slamming it down on the top of her desk, Momo can’t help but grin. “I’m finding this vampire today. For sure.”
Kei turns in her seat to face Momo, eyeing the faded booklet with obvious skepticism. “That old thing? Momo, you dummy, vampires don’t care about books.” She narrows her eyes and smirks, trying to look mysterious, but her makeup and flowery hairclip offset it too much for Momo to take her seriously. “They want, like, virgin blood, or something like that. A.K.A, you know… yours. ”
Miiko nods, trying to engage in their conversation while simultaneously re-applying her lipgloss. “This… is the stupidest thing… you’ve ever… come up with.” She says in between swipes of the little plastic wand. Momo groans. “You’re supposed to be supporting me!” She complains, slumping down to rest her head on top of the magazine. “We are!” Kei says. “By pointing out how much of an idiot you are.”
Momo groans again. “You’re the worst,” She mutters. “Because we love you,” Retorts Miiko. “If you get in trouble, or, like, die, Kei and I will totally miss you.” And she’s got a point. If she dies, Momo will miss them too, but not really, because she’s going to haunt the absolute shit out of them for not trying hard enough to stop her.
“Whatever.” She says, putting the magazine away with a sulky little huff. Miiko and Kei lapse back into conversation, and Momo resolutely ignores them, too miffed to engage with the pair. The rest of the day feels like it drags by at a snail’s pace. No, even slower— every second is like torture. All she can think about is the ghost, or vampire, or whatever the hell it really is.
Finally, after what feels like at least a million years, school lets out. Momo hangs around the classroom for a bit, trying to look busy. She flips idly through her math textbook, a look of faux interest on her face, and when enough students have fucked off, she packs up her things and makes her move. No one stops her or even casts a glance her way as she wanders through the halls.
Her hands are trembling with sheer anticipation when she reaches the cramped staircase leading down to the basement. Her footsteps echo as she walks down, the noise fueling her excitement. She’s going to meet a real-life spirit! She turns left at the bottom of the stairs, then takes another left, and lets herself into storage closet C.
She flicks on the light, pulling the heavy door shut behind her, and finds it… completely empty. Empty, that is, except for a reddish stain on the wooden flooring. “Hmmm,” Momo hums, leaning down to inspect it. “Could be blood.” She concludes. Or it could be paint, or messed-up wood stain, or a spot where someone happened to spill their juice box. Who knows? Not Momo, that’s for sure.
She flicks off the lights again, then drops her backpack to the floor, rummaging through it for what she needs. She pulls out a lighter, several candles, the magazine, and a switchblade she’d maybe-sorta-definitely stolen from a classmate. He wasn’t supposed to have it on school grounds anyway, so Momo wasn’t really that bad for taking it from him. “Okay. Get ready, ghost.” She whispers.
Momo arranges the candles in a rough circle, lighting each one with care, then sets the magazine in the middle of the ring they make. She pauses to check her phone, just to make sure she’s following the ritual’s instructions properly. The next step is a chant that ghosts are supposed to find absolutely irresistible.
She reads it off slowly, giving it a few tries until she’s sure she’s pronouncing everything right. Then comes Momo’s least favorite part. A blood offering. Squeaking with anxiety, Momo presses the edge of the blade to her fingertip, and swipes it across just roughly enough to break the skin.
“Motherfucker!” She hisses, wiping the blood that leaked from the wound onto the floor, using it to make a second circle around the magazine. She begins the chant again, watching the ground intently. At first, nothing happens— is she making a fool of herself trying to do this?
Suddenly, the flames of the candles flicker, as if blown upon by a nonexistent wind. Momo gasps, then curses and resumes the chant. Moments later, right before her eyes, something moves. A hand, pale and spindly-fingered, reaches out of the darkness.
It rests its fingertips against the cover of the magazine, pointed fingernails glinting dangerously in the candlelight. Momo’s jaw drops. She watches in shocked silence as the hand lifts the magazine. Slowly, its owner becomes visible as well.
It… shit, it might be a vampire.
Momo stares up into a set of glaring red eyes, still gawking like an absolute idiot, and snaps her mouth shut to stifle a scream when the spirit moves closer. She crumples back onto the floor, paralyzed by fear, and the spirit’s looming form grows closer.
Its eyes narrow. Momo watches in horror as the set of large, blunt teeth part, as if it’s preparing to bite her. She squeezes her eyes shut, mentally apologizing to Miiko and Kei and her grandmother and just about everyone else she knows, when—
Suddenly, she hears the sharp clack of its maw shutting. Momo can feel it moving closer, bringing with it a bone-chilling coldness, as if its presence alone was sucking the heat out of the air. “Is this yours?” The spirit asks quietly. A few seconds pass, and Momo cracks one eye open. It’s holding out the magazine, an almost expectant look in its eyes.
What the fuck is she supposed to say?! Momo sits up again, pushing herself away from it by a few inches. “Um,” She says dumbly. “N… nooo…?” She’s trembling, with absolutely no idea what to say to this thing, and it’s just looking at her. It was about to kill her a couple seconds ago, but now it just looks nervous.
Could ghosts even get nervous? Momo would have to look that up some day. “Oh. H-Here, then… you should return it to whoever it belongs to.” The spirit says, its voice bizarrely soft and boyish for a yokai as intimidating as it was.
It puts the magazine in her lap, and Momo really does scream this time. The spirit flinches back, and the candlelight flares as it… changes? Momo watches in complete bewilderment as it tumbles down into the circle, flowing white hair darkening to messy black locks and losing the toothy mask entirely.
They stare at each other for a moment, the spirit too stunned for words, and Momo taking the time to study it before she does anything else. It’s a boy, she realizes, dressed in a somewhat dated uniform. Like this, he seems almost human, save for the red markings that still lie upon his face.
He’s… kinda cute, in a dorky sort of way. Momo winces a little at the thought, but she knows she’s not wrong. If he wasn’t literally dead, and she wasn’t scared out of her gourd, she may have been tempted to flirt a little. “Um.” He says finally, standing back up. He’s just a bit shorter than she is, she notices, and his uniform looks a little too large for him.
“I’m sorry if I scared you…” The boy whispers, shyly averting his eyes from Momo’s face. She gets to her feet, holding out the magazine again. “No way! I wasn’t scared, so don’t be like that.” She tells him, suddenly feeling rather confident thanks to his unexpectedly mousy nature. A guy like this wasn’t going to intimidate her!
He looks down at the magazine, then up to meet her gaze for a moment. “This is for you.” Says Momo, flapping it around a little bit. “Huh? Why?” He asks, his eyes going wide behind his shiny wire-frames. “You— you’re here to make fun of me, aren’t you?” He asks abruptly, taking a step back. Momo groans, readying herself to try and convince him she means well, but stops dead in her tracks when he begins to change again.
It’s gruesome, honestly— his body contorts unnaturally, the sickening sound of bones cracking and dislocating filling the empty room. “Go away!” He shouts, his irises beginning to glow red as if lit from within. “I’m not here to bully you, you idiot!” Momo yells back, but he doesn’t seem interested in listening.
The fanged mask fits itself around the lower half of his face as his hair begins to change too, paling to bold shades of white and red. Maybe she should go away, because he’s seriously freaking her out right now. The boy rears up, jaw opening as if preparing to bite her, but she glares and he shies back, still afraid even in such a powerful form.
The yokai slinks away, literally backing himself into a corner. Shrouded in shadows, the only part of him she can see is his bright red eyes. “Go away.” He repeats, sounding tearful this time. Exasperated, Momo sighs, closing her eyes for a few seconds as she collects herself. “I didn’t summon you here to pick on you, I swear . I just want to talk.” She says plainly, crossing her arms.
For a while, the spirit is silent. Then— “Do you promise?” He asks shakily. Momo nods eagerly, crossing the room to stand in front of him. “I promise.” She agrees, offering him her hand. Warily, the spirit watches her, and after a few moments, reaches out to take it.
His skin is frigid, but solid, and when he clumsily shakes her hand, she’s almost sure she can feel his dislocated bones shifting. It’s awful, and kind of disgusting, but she holds her tongue and does her best to ignore how it made her slightly nauseous. He lets go with a little humming noise.
Right before her eyes, he shrinks back to his mostly-human form, the sickening sound of his bones popping back into place filling the room like the world’s most morbid percussion music. Momo presses a hand over her mouth to hide her grimace. His hair darkens and flops into his face again, and his glasses reflect the dim candlelight when he tips his face up a bit to meet her eyes.
“What is it you want, then?” He asks, frowning. Coughing slightly, Momo steps back so they’re not so close. She clears her throat. “I want you to tell me everything there is about being a ghost.” She tells him, beaming with excitement. The spirit’s thick eyebrows furrow, his mouth twitching.
“Uh, I… well… I suppose I can.” He concedes eventually. “Yes! Hold on a second.” Still grinning, Momo darts to the other side of the storage closet to put down the magazine and grab her notebook, as well as a pen. She flips it open to an empty page as she walks back. “Alright. First question— how’d you really die?” She asks eagerly, excited to find out how accurate the rumors were.
For a while, the boy says nothing, but he does look more upset than before. “Ask something else.” He grumbles, hunching over a bit. Seriously?! She understands that the topic might be hard for him to talk about, but it wouldn’t kill him to be less of a wet blanket about it. Well— it wouldn’t kill him again.
Already frustrated, Momo sighs hard through her nose. “ Okay. What’s your name?” That had to be a good start. It was simple, unlikely to upset him, and— “I don’t remember.” He admits, sounding slightly embarrassed. Momo grits her teeth.
“What do you mean you don’t remember?” She asks, genuinely surprised. The spirit adjusts his glasses again, color rising to the tops of his cheeks. “I just don’t remember! I just told you so. Don’t be a pest about it.” He huffs, turning his head to look at the wall rather than her.
As he moves, the vibrant red markings stretching across his face catch the light, almost as if they’re wet. Weird. “You seriously don’t know your own name?” She repeats, incredulous. Fidgeting, the boy glances at her for a moment.
“I don’t remember a lot about my life anymore. It’s… I-I don’t know. It’s been a long time since I died.” He bites his lip. “I remember everything about the day I died, but before that…” Momo scribbles down what he says, word-by-word. “It’s all a jumble.” He adjusts his glasses again, his hand slipping upwards to toy nervously with his fringe.
She considers him for a bit, her frustration melting away. She’d come here expecting a real yokai. Instead, all she found was some sad, awkward nerd, but she’s not too upset about it. He seems interesting. “Well, then, I guess I’ll just call you…” She trails off, tapping the end of the pen against her mouth as she thinks.
“Occult-kun.” Momo decides. “Okarun for short.” The spirit’s eyes widen behind his glasses. “O-Okarun?” He echoes. She nods. “Because you’re into the occult. You like that sorta stuff, right?” Clearly embarrassed, the boy— no, Okarun ducks his head, trying to hide the way his face flushes pink.
He tangles his fingers together, glancing up at her and then back down at the floor a couple times. “You’re correct. If you really want to call me that…” He pushes up his glasses, which had begun to slip down his nose due to all the movement. “You can.” He says the last two words in a whisper.
If he were anyone else, Momo thinks she’d be annoyed by how shy he was. With him, though, it had become endearing. Why did she feel so attached to this kid despite only knowing him for twenty minutes? She watches him thoughtfully, studying the way he fidgets with his glasses.
“Do, um, do you have any other questions…?” He asks, letting his hands fall limply at his sides. Nodding, Momo brings her pen back down to the paper. “Yep. Hmm…” She runs down her mental list of questions, wondering what the least offensive thing would be to ask him. “Is that blood?” She jerks a thumb over her shoulder to point to the mystery stain on the floor.
He rises onto his tiptoes to see past her, his eyebrows raising slightly. “Oh. Yes. Mine, actually.” He confirms mildly. Jeez, how insensitive could Momo get? He probably died there, and only a short while ago Momo had been making silly speculations about it. Wincing, she writes down his answer.
After a bit more thought, she realizes that she doesn’t really have anything else to ask him other than how he wound up haunting the school, and that story surely involves his death, so she probably shouldn’t ask him about it. She wants to, though. So badly. Momo bites at the inside of her cheek to keep herself from blurting it out.
Still fidgeting nervously with his own fingers, Okarun looks her in the eye for a brief moment. “You still want to know how I died, don’t you?” He asks quietly. Momo blanches. How obvious was she?! Laughing awkwardly, she shakes her head hard and makes a dismissive sort of gesture with her pen.
“Who, me? Nah, no way. I would never ask you somethin’ like that.” She bluffs. Okarun giggles, raising a hand to push his glasses back into place. “You don’t have to lie to me.” He tells her. “I can tell you mean well, so…” Again, his cheeks flush, barely visible in the flickering candlelight.
“… I’ll tell you.” He completes, his voice little more than a nervous whisper. Momo nods, her eyes wide. “You’re sure? I won’t push you if you aren’t comfortable, really, it’s fine—“ He curls his fingers over the top of her notebook, pushing it down a bit to get her attention. Momo holds her breath, staring into his wide brown eyes.
“I trust you.” He murmurs, his blush darkening noticeably. Again, she nods, her heart throbbing in her chest. Good lord, he’s cute . “Thanks.” She says dumbly. He looks away, a little smile on his face, and releases her notebook. “Okay. U-Um… I guess it’s not too difficult to explain.”
He twists his fingers together, tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling. “My day started pretty normally. I ate breakfast, brought my sister to her elementary school, and then went to classes like usual.” Listening raptly, Momo almost forgets to write down his words until he starts speaking again.
“During lunch, though, a few of my classmates approached me, which was definitely out of the ordinary. They said they heard it was possible to summon a spirit in the basement, and since they knew I liked the occult, they wanted me to help them out.”
“But, um, at the time I actually didn’t believe in spirits and things like that. I believed in aliens, cryptids, and the like since they had material to them. Real proof that they existed. There was no such thing for spirits, of course, and so I had no reason to believe otherwise.” Now he’s really going. He doesn’t even pause to breathe, having no need for something like that by virtue of being dead, and Momo has a hard time keeping up with the pace of his story.
Her hands are trembling with excitement. She feels a little guilty for getting so worked up over a retelling of poor Okarun’s death, but this was so cool! A real-life yokai, telling his story to her! So, so cool…
“I tried to tell them that I wasn’t interested.” He admits, adjusting his glasses yet again. Momo wonders if they really need fixing, or if it’s just a nervous tic of his. “But they were… unkind to me. Pushy. T-They, um.” He swallows, taking hold of his glasses and not letting go. “Brought me down here. And. A-And threatened me, to get me to do it. They’d hurt me in the past, and I was afraid they’d do it again. So I agreed.”
Momo winces when she notices how shiny and wet-looking his eyes have become. He makes a weak little sniffling noise, but forges on. “They tried to call out for the spirit a few times, but when nothing happened, they got mad. They blamed it on me, s-since I was weird, and nobody… really liked me…” He ducks his head with another sad, sniffly sound.
“And then they tried to give me to the spirit, as some sort of… s-sacrifice? I think they were just joking, but, i-it— it— it worked.” Momo’s heart clenches. Fuck, she feels so bad for him. She lets her pen drop to the floor and holds out her hand for him to take. He whimpers, clasping her hand in his own frigid set.
“The spirit came, and she was so mad.” A ragged, almost pained noise tears itself out of him. Momo squeezes his hand. “You don’t have to keep telling me this.” She says, her own voice weak. She’s close to crying, too. Okarun went through so much, and he didn’t even get to go to the afterlife.
He shakes his head. “I’m okay. It’s just… h-hard t’ think about…” He warbles, and Momo can see his tears glistening in the candlelight as they slip down his cheeks. “M-My. Mmh… My classmates ran. They shut me in here.” His voice goes quiet, fearful. Momo blinks back tears of her own. “With her.”
He swipes at his face, scrubbing away tears that only wind up replaced as more spring forth. Momo squeezes his hand again. “S-Sh— she possessed me— and made me…” He retches, releasing her hands to grab at his throat. “I‘m sorry , I can’t—“ He slumps down to the floor, sobbing openly now. Momo drops onto her knees next to him, pulling him into a hug without pausing to consider if she should or not.
He melts into her hold, letting Momo wrap her arms tightly around his shivering frame. “I’m so sorry...” She says quietly. Comforting others has never really been her forte, but he needs it, and Momo knows she wouldn’t be able to forgive herself if she just left him like this. “It’s not your fault.” Momo whispers, reaching up to pat the back of his head.
He sniffles, pressing his face into the crook of her neck. “You didn’t deserve that.” She mumbles, hoping she sounds as genuine as means to be. “I might have,” Sobs Okarun, trembling against her. His skin is cold where it touches the exposed line of her neck, and his tears are even colder.
If she focuses hard enough, she can ignore the ghostly frigidity of his body, uncomfortable as it is. “No way. It’s not your fault that some of the kids in your class were assholes. You’re super cool, anyways, I bet your friends loved you.” She intends it to be comforting, but he just sobs harder, curling his fingers into the front of her sweater.
He lifts his head off of her shoulder a bit, sniffling pathetically. “I didn’t have any friends,” He mumbles. “And I don’t deserve any, I-I’m a creepy otaku who nobody wants to be around, no one would ever like me—“ He’s rambling, and getting tears all over Momo’s clothes, so she grabs him by the shoulders and pulls him up to look him in the eyes.
She yelps a little bit when she sees him. The tears pouring down his face are pinkish, somehow, and when she looks a little closer to figure out why, she makes a horrifying realization. The vibrant red lines on his face aren’t natural markings like she’d initially assumed, but rather carvings. A set of shallow wounds that glimmered with blood, the same stuff that was dripping in rivulets down Okarun’s cheeks, and had likely gotten onto her sweater.
“Oh, man.” She says without meaning to. He whimpers, and she hugs him again, squeezing hard like she could press all her sympathy right into him that way. “I’m really sorry, Okarun.” She sighs. “That really is the pits.”
He nods shakily, turning his gaze downwards to where his hands are twisting together in his lap. Momo follows it for a moment, then looks back up at his face. Even teary-eyed and bloodied, he still looks so sweet. He’s undeserving of this fate, and Momo wishes she knew how to make things better for him.
He adjusts his glasses, glancing at her for a moment. And, suddenly, an idea pops into Momo’s head. “Okarun!” She cries, grabbing his hands. He jumps, flinching back, but Momo holds fast. “What if I was your friend?” She asks, fighting back a grin.
Okarun meets her eyes, his own going wide and bright. He fidgets a little, rocking from side to side, then looks down at their joined hands. “You… want to be my friend?” He asks, his voice small. She nods so hard that her earrings clatter noisily, and he nods too, albeit much more cautiously.
“Absolutely. I can already tell that you’re a seriously great person, so obviously you’ll be a great friend too.” She explains, hoping it’s enough to convince him. Again, he nods, this time with more enthusiasm. “We can do all the cool friendship stuff you missed out on,” She continues, beaming uncontrollably. “And I’ll visit you here whenever I can.”
Okarun is still crying, but at the same time, he’s beginning to smile. “I-I’d like that.” He whispers, his hands trembling next to hers. He leans against her again, resting his forehead on her shoulder with a shuddering exhale. “Thank you. Thank you so much…” He quiets, then sits up, a rather serious look on his face.
He squirms a little. “Um. You never…” His cheeks reddening, he averts his eyes to stare down at the floor. “You never told me your name.” He mumbles. And shit, wait, he’s right! How the hell did she manage to forget something as important as her own damn name? “I’m so sorry, oh my gosh.” Momo says hurriedly, feeling her skin grow hot all the way from her neck to the very top of her head.
“It’s Ayase Momo.” She tells him, a little bashful. He stares at her for a moment, then nods. “Ayase Momo-san.” He repeats softly, and Momo decides she likes the way her name sounds in his mouth.
She smiles, and so does he, grinning so widely that Momo thinks it must hurt. Idly, she wonders how long they’ve been talking for. It felt like no time at all, but still, she should probably check her phone. “I’ll be right back,” She says, releasing his hands and getting to her feet. He nods, following behind her despite her assurances that she’s not going to leave.
She grabs her phone off the floor, turns it on, and almost drops it right back onto the ground when she sees how late it is. “Fuck,” She says aloud. Somehow, it’s already quarter to six. Goddamn it, her grandmother is going to kill her!
“Okarun, I’m so sorry, but I have to get home. It’s really late.” She tells him reluctantly. In an instant, his expression changes from poorly-disguised interest to something akin to that of a kicked puppy. “You’re leaving?” He asks quietly.
“I’m sorry. I don’t want to, but I’ll probably be in trouble if I don’t…” She trails off, and he nods somberly. “I understand.” He mumbles. Momo kneels to tuck her notebook, pen, and cell phone into her backpack, and when she stands again, she’s holding the magazine. “This is still for you, you know.” She says wryly, and Okarun’s face goes pink.
“You—You’re sure?” Wringing his hands together nervously, he makes no move to take the magazine. “Positive.” Momo affirms. Slowly, he reaches out with trembling hands, as if he’s afraid it’ll burn his skin when he makes contact.
He takes hold of it. Nothing happens, but their fingertips do brush together, and Momo smiles when the brief touch renders him a flustered mess, clutching the magazine to his chest and mumbling apologies.
Eventually he calms, meeting her eyes for a moment. “And… do you promise… t-to come again tomorrow?” He asks shyly. “Cross my heart, I’ll be back here.” She proclaims. He smiles.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Ayase-san,” He tells her, and the moment after the words leave his lips, all the candles go out. She curses, practically blind in the darkness, and waves her hands in the general direction of the door until she finds the light switch. She flicks it on.
The room is empty.
Even the candles she’d brought were gone, leaving behind nothing but Momo and Okarun’s bloodstain. For a moment, it’s all she can do to stand and stare at the ground in stunned silence.
“Holy shit,” She breathes. She just met a ghost. She just made friends with a ghost! “See you tomorrow, Okarun!” She tells the empty room, and as she leaves, she truly can’t get the thought of meeting him again off her mind. She’s so excited. What should they talk about? What part of the modern world should she show him first?
She might not want to wait for tomorrow, but she’ll certainly have plenty of ways to pass the time until then.