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“GYAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!”
Dizzy. Honami ‘s head was spinning undeniably- opening her eyes was like power lifting a million pounds- an impossible task to be asked of her.
“Heyyy, Honami!?!” A concerned voice full of energy cooed wearily.
Around her, somewhat familiar voices were calling out to her, and lightly shaking her arm, yet Honami still couldn’t find the strength to respond.
“Ah, maybe she’s alive, that would be a good thing...” An elegant voice sighed.
Of course she was alive, what a silly thing to ask… though she couldn’t exactly recall what happened to her to end up in this situation- if she had fainted, she would have recovered by now. Her fingertips were like icicles as she began to try and move them around, ensuring she wasn’t paralysed by some freak accident.
“Shizuku, her heart isn’t beating…” Another voice responded, moving her hand away from Honami’s neck.
Honami jumped right up upon hearing such preposterous information, rising like a vampire at the crack of dusk, giving the three girls around her a heart attack themselves from the sudden wake. That one sentence would be enough to jump start her heart again if it wasn’t actually beating, right?
“Gah! We didn’t mean to scare you! The pink haired girl she knew as Emu, jumped back while waving her hands with a worried smile on her face. “We wanted to know if you were okay!”
Honami couldn’t get any words out- it was as if her voice was crushed by a hand strangling her. She had so many questions that she wished could be answered immediately- never mind her disorientation with the bright lights around her that gleamed with a hue that reminded her of black light- though nothing was reflecting like a black light.
Shizuku knelt down in front of the girl- and it was there, upon seeing her ghostly white face, did Honami realise how much more different her friends looked since she last recalled seeing them. She smiled, giving Honami a better look of her face- her eyes were a haunting purple and parts of her face had a semi-transparent veil covering it. Her dress, although breathtaking, seemed like it belonged more to a ghost than an idol such as herself. The silver blue haired girl reached out her hands for Honami to hold onto, pulling her up with one quick heave.
“Are you feeling alright?” She gave her hands one small rub before letting go.
Honami was shaking now- her feet felt like they were going to give out, but weirdly enough, not from exhaustion, but from the sheer amount of fear she had realising ghosts were in fact… real. Adding one plus two together… the drummer deduced that she had in fact died . This conclusion didn’t account for her friends though- they looked so formal and important, like they worked somewhere. Her brain still couldn’t visualise what happened before this shock, what they had dawned before being nothing but a black blurry fog.
“I-I’m…!!!” She looked around her in shock, but not processing any of her surroundings.
“A ghost!” Emu exclaimed, suddenly up close to the girl again. She jumped and made a silly expression with her hands posed like a cute yet intimidating cat.
Right… a ghost, but how does that explain where she was- if these people were even her friends!
Suddenly, she felt something brush right past her feet, looking down… it was what seemed to be the existence of a ghost in the style of a cartoon- white, plump, white sheet, and… oddly cute the more she thought about it… but in the moment, she let out a terrified yelp, leaning right towards Shizuku who could only let out a chuckle.
“Ah, nevermind the other ghosts…” Mafuyu said.
Honami nodded carefully- now having the lingering fear of accidentally stepping on one of those little guys, if she did that Honami could never forgive herself, like when she almost stepped on Shiobao 3 years ago. Looking to her side, she saw an exquisite cart filled with teas, pastries, and desserts, all of them practically making her mouth water. They stood there right by a great door- looking about to be as tall as a vertical bus- with this sight she didn’t realise she hadn't even taken in her surroundings yet.
One of the other ghosts caught their eye at her thoughts through facial expressions alone, appearing right beside her and Shizuku within the blink of an eye.
“Welcome to the Phantasm Cafe, Honami,” Mafuyu greeted her with a slight smile that felt closer to a lie, as she never even recalls Mafuyu smiling like this before. “We’re sorry you had such a terrifying journey here, but please, stay with us.”
“Yeah! We could even use new help here, we Just get more and more visitors every single day!” Emu chimed in.
“Ghost cafe…?” Her eyebrows angled with a confused smile, this was quite the spectacle…
“No, Phantasm Cafe!“ Emu quickly interjected. “We’re a cafe for ghosts, by ghosts! We’re even better than all the other cafes in the human realm because we have wonderhoy additions like our ballroom for ghosts to dance and play!” She giggled, waving her comically large sleeves about- sleeves that almost reminded Honami of a gym leader in her brother’s magical monster game.
Gah! No this wasn’t the time to get off topic- it was like blacking out- what's gotten into her! Stay on track!
“Help with the Cafe?” Honami questioned- surely they can’t be serious.
“It would be lovely to have a new addition, Emu is right!” Shizuku hummed happily, walking away from the group of girls and towards the large doors that Honami could only assume were the doors to the aforementioned ballroom. This just left her wondering where the “cafe” part was located.
“What better do you have to do now?” Mafuyu added- it was if she could read Honami’s mind which made Honami feel so violated, why could she read her better than a book!?
“I have to make sure my friends are okay, my family, they must know I-”
“You can’t leave this building yet,” Mafuyu chuckled, “Sorry… only ghosts who have ‘lived’ long enough seem to only be the ones to pass the invisible barrier, it’s about XXXXXX if I recall, correct?”
The other two girls nodded.
“This is so sudden…” Her hands were still shaking- though her heart did not beat it felt like it was drumming inside of her head.
“We think you’d be an amazing fit for the cafe, Hona!” Emu assaulted her by launching herself right into the girl for a hug, almost wiping out Honami in the process. “Your food is amazing! It means we won’t have to start stealing the human realm’s food and start making ours in house!”
“Ever wondered what happened to those last few pieces of your cake, or pie?” Mafuyu smiled- this time with the smile that Honami was familiar with seeing in school. “We can take some items from humans and transfer them to the spirit realm, making those items disappear forever… so we always be careful about what we take.” She glanced at Emu, whose eyes were avoiding Mafuyu’s with a guilty smile as she moved off of Honami.
So that's why so many things go lost without exclamation Honami figured… Maybe one day she could finally reunite with her favourite hair scrunchie that disappeared one nightmarish afternoon ago. Looking around, she noticed the room that they were standing in was somewhat like a long hallway, with a few doors on the right side and moonlight shining through the windows on the left- barely covered by curtains blowing in the wind like they were possessed by ghosts themselves. The walls were a dark purple, filled with grand artworks that the drummer couldn’t wrap her head around- abstract, yet looked like paintings shes seen before within museums or the art room at school. Red velvet couches appeared every 20 meters, in between the doors down the hallways.
“That’s just more rooms in the castle! We haven’t figured out what to convert them to yet, I’ve been saying we should add a rollercoaster but these two say it’s impossible to build with just the three of us, hmph!” Emu put her hands on her hips, still avoiding the gaze of Mafuyu. Honami only looked more worried as another ghost read her mind, she had to be careful of what she thought about near the three girls Honami supposed… Emu seemed to have just as much energy dead as she was alive.
“It is a gracious offer… but…” Honami sighed, gripping her chest to mumble something new-
“Great! It’s a deal! Welcome to the team!” Emu took her hand right off her chest forcefully and shook it hard, stronger than a car salesman, with a little jump in her step.
“Hey! I didn’t agree yet!”
What felt like a fuzzy memory, Honami couldn’t quite recall when her hair ended up in a carefully wrapped up braided bun, but she remembers the feeling of Shizuku’s hands running through her hair carefully. The blackouts only became more concerning to the newbie ghost, only coming back to her senses truly when she ended up in a dress that looked like a kind ghost maid mixed with a baker in some sort. The oldest ghost gaze Honami a twirl in front of a mirror within a bedroom that eerily looked like hers before they were dead- the fact a castle could hold so many drastically different rooms was a fascinating puzzle.
“You look like such a lovely young lady, Hona,” Shizuku smiled while putting her hands together, fawning over her new uniform.
“This is your room, isn’t it, Shizuku?” The drummer asked, looking over her shoulder to the smiling idol.
“Mm! It’s quite cosy, yes?”
No answers there for the girl.
“Have you visited Shiho at all?”
“Shi? I still can’t leave the cafe yet but I think about her every single day… Every time a customer orders noodles of any kind it reminds me of her so much, I really do miss her but I think she knows I want her to move on and live her own life to the fullest. You know, seeing her on a huge stage one day was a dream of my own…”
Shizuku’s voice turned into muddled garbage. Honami's brain couldn’t comprehend it, and so it shut down into a deep sleep as if she were fainting.
“She’s gonna be okay! She just needs a second, Shizuku caught her!” An energetic voice rang out like an echoed bell.
Her consciousness faded in again, now at a random point in time- has any time passed? An eternity, a week, a month, a year, an hour? It was all the same by this point. She found herself cutting apples into slices in a large kitchen- yet somehow it felt so cosy as if it were in a little old bakery with its wooden walls and warm lighting, a pleasant change from the purple lights that strained her eyes. A soft smile grew on her face upon the remembrance that she was baking an apple pie for the staff to celebrate the success of the cafe. More customers have been attracted to the food and the dazzling ballroom, a sparkling hall that allowed them to just be free with themselves. Within the kitchen she couldn’t hear the music which she grew to appreciate more and more- as lots of the music came from the sixties, likely the largest demographic of ghosts in the area.
“Honami~!” Emu swung around the doorframe.
“GYAH!” She jumped, dropping the knife on the cutting board in the process.
“Ah- SORRY!” Swinging right in, Emu went into the fridge to grab the pie dish, already lined with the dough. “I just wanted to say I wanted to help, I didn’t mean to give you the startle…”
“A…Ah..!” Honami set the knife to the side properly, hopping right back into the action in order to gain her composure back. She soaked each apple in an apple and cinnamon mix before lining the pie dish with Emu standing there, watching expectantly with eyes as big as a curious cat.
More time passed with no further memory recollection from the girl. She sat at a circle table, her friends all smiling warmly at her with party hats dawned upon their heads and noisemakers.
“Congrats to the Phantasm Cafe!” Shizuku blew into the party horn, followed by the other two girls who all giggled together.
“Cut the pie, Hona! You’re the talented baker who made it anyway!!” Emu stood up with her hands on the table, oh how much did the pink hair girl remind her of an expectant little child.
“We wouldn’t have made it this far without your help,” Mafuyu added.
“To the future and beyond!” Shizuku cheered, raising up her water glass.
With no control, Honami stood up, she felt as if she was watching herself from a different perspective now, out of her body. Whoever was in front of her couldn’t have been the real her, but an imposter of some sorts. The Honami in front of her… happily cut the apple pie and handed out large slices to her friends. The drummer tried to scream, but nothing came out and no one had noticed a thing. Something had to have gone wrong, she had a gut feeling that the imposter wasn’t real. She tried again to get their attention. Again. Again. Again. Nothing came out as her voice was being choked out again. Her panic began to set in even more when they took the first few bites of the “delicious” cake, her head spinning and the voices of distant ghosts growing louder and louder, pounding on her head like a furious police offer. The flames only seemed to glow brighter, the faint candles starting to snuff out and any electrical lights were flickering gradually.
“Ah…” Honami squeaked out, opening her eyes. The light above her flashed her brightly, making her eyes shut tightly in response, hiding like a hermit crab. The off-white light dimmed a dramatic amount as she felt something soft drag across her face.
“Honami-chan?” Shizuku moved her hair back, tucking it behind her ears as her worried face blocked the nurse's light.
“Wuh…” Was she finally awake? Alive?
“I think you should’ve held back a little bit, Mizuki,” Mafuyu said coldly.
“Yeah yeah, it was my fault! I didn’t think she was startled that easily, Enanan just told me she was a little skittish sometimes.”
“Careful, careful…” Shizuki held the back of Honami’s head as she sat up slowly, keeping the support there until she fully sat up, rubbing her eyes. The dizziness never truly went away, not even after… dying for an amount of time.
“Hona-chan was working really hard helping us set up the haunted house, I don’t think she drank enough water?” Emu shrugged.
“Ah… yeah.” Honami sighed deep enough to exhale any spirits trapped within her. Emu handed the poor girl a plastic water bottle, to which Honami wrestled with the cap before tilting her head back, chugging the water at an alarming rate.
“I’m so glad Saki-chan and I were right with you when Akiyama-san scared you, you would’ve hit your head on the floor and feel worse than you already do.”
“Where's Saki now..?” Honami gasped as she finished the entire bottle.
“Covering for MIzuki,” Mafuyu answered.
“So… no more scaring Mochizuki-san for a little while?” Mizuki snickered.