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“Have you heard of Yashiro-san?”
She was pretty and cold, like snow, though she looked warm - her eyes were ruby-gold and her braided hair was a soft cream color, woven through with baby-pink flowers - but she terrified Umeko. The spring twilight was warm and bright and there was a sleepy sort of happiness settled over Kamome Gakuen, even here - especially here, with the bird’s nests and the thickets of pink roses - and somehow this pretty little thing, standing so still and looking so curiously at Umeko, had something to do with it; it shouldn’t have made Umeko’s chest seize up or her blood run cold, and she couldn’t imagine why it did -
“They say she’s the ghost of a girl who went to school here, a long time ago.”
“Yashiro-san?” Umeko said quietly once she’d gathered her composure. The girl had sat down on the rope-swing, crossing her ankles together and resting her chin in her palms, her face soft in the pale sunset.
“She doesn’t grant wishes, or keep records of the future, or turn back time, but-”
“Yes.” Her voice was younger than Umeko had expected, and blurred at the edges, like she was speaking through an old radio or telephone. Her slender hands were crossed in her lap - her skin was pearly, with the faintest hint of pink, and her interlaced fingers glowed against the crinkling silver satin of her skirt. She wore a delicate little tea-party dress, grey as moonlight with ribbons the same blushing rosy color of the flowers in her hair, and Umeko didn’t dare wonder why she hadn’t been wearing her school uniform when she’d died.
“-if you go to the garden you can summon her by covering your eyes and spinning around three times before chanting, ‘Yashiro-san, Yashiro-san, my heart is breaking’-”
“I-” Umeko stepped forwards shakily, and wondered suddenly whether this girl, no older than her but so, so ancient, remembered how to feel anything at all. She crossed her fingers and hid them in the folds of her skirt, hoping.
“- she’ll appear before you, right there in the garden. And then…”
“I - I heard that you could help me,” Umeko admitted, letting her gaze trail down to the grass - soft and thick and fresh green, where it had been trampled and muddy, still withered by frost, before she’d summoned Yashiro-san here. “I… I think… I like someone.” She looked up and found Yashiro-san still gazing back at her.
“And then, she’ll make your crush fall in love with you.”
Yashiro-san hummed, tipping her head back and staring unblinkingly into the lavender sky. “Everyone likes someone.”
“Nobody knows how she does it - but you have to tell her first, that you like someone, and she’ll ask you-”
“What makes you so special?” Even though she’d braced for them, something spiked and cold bit into Uemko’s chest at those words. Yashiro-san was neither gentle nor harsh, she was simply asking a question, and the neutrality of it was terrifying. Because it meant she hadn’t decided yet whether Umeko is worth it - and if she hadn’t decided, there was still hope. Umeko had never realized how scary hope could be.
“You have to answer with what’s in your heart, though. She can tell if you don’t.”
“I-” Her eyes brimmed suddenly and she blinked at her shoes, once, twice, willing away the tears. Umeko had felt embarrassed before, for crying, but the hot twist in her stomach is something stronger, and she tastes shame at the back of her throat. Was it wrong of her, to stand here, in front of a ghost, and cry over something as simple as her own feelings? She doesn’t know anything about Yashiro-san, and a part of her still believes she’s dreaming all of this, but is it wrong of her to think she’s suffering when a dead girl is looking her in the eye?
“Maybe there’s no right answer. Or maybe you’re meant to say something specific.”
“My name is Suzuki Umeko,” She whispers, “and I fell in love because I don’t want to be alone anymore.”
“There’s a price - there’s always a price - but she’ll tell you before, so you can always back out.”
Yashiro-san is very still, and as the very last sunbeams brush the little glade with gold Umeko’s breath catches, because they fall straight through Yashiro-san, no dimmer than they were.
“You know, some people say-”
Yashiro-san reaches up, and catches a ruffled blossom drifting from a flowering white tree somewhere, twirling it in her fingers. She smiles, a hidden little curve of her mouth that aches in Umeko’s chest, and she realizes why Yashiro-san is so frightening.
“- that the price will be something so kind you don’t even realize it’s a price.”
“I will help you, Suzuki Umeko…”
This girl…
“...if you just remember to always love yourself before you sacrifice your soul for a boy.”
…should never have been fated to die.
"Hey, hey, have you heard of Yashiro-san of the garden? They say that girl from our class, Suzuki, went to visit her everyday, by the pink rosebush... she actually believed she could see her. And you know what's strange? It started exactly a year before she disappeared.
Oh! Did you hear that new story about the ghost who sits on the rooftop at midnight?"