“Oh, uh, me too.” Sayane added half-heartedly. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to have an introduction, she still just found it a little bit weird. The spirits that she ran into didn’t have names or introductions or special shrines and pots of soil. They were just sorta hanging around, and if she ran into one she’d give them some food. If she didn’t, she left anyway since they were probably just hiding. It was normal to be nervous when some random person started stomping through your home.
Akina went to pick incense while Sayane rummaged through Eiji’s bottom desk drawer. Rummaging was actually a pretty strong word for it. Apart from the bag of candy there were only a couple other things in the drawer, neatly organized. Sayane pulled the chocolate out, silently cheering. She was gonna ask if she could have a piece anyways, not that Eiji seemed like the type to refuse.
She turned to the rest of the group, incense and sweets at the ready. She nodded to Eiji, flashing her a smile. “Let’s hope Kyo didn’t burn down the locker room while we were gone.” She joked, but that seemed like something they’d have to worry about.
"No, not mine. I don-" Miiko was cut off, very rudely, by quite the clamorous sound, something falling loudly to the floor from the direction of the showers. She froze instantly, mind racing to the possibilities. Maybe all of this spirit stuff was true, maybe there was a ghost haunting the locker room, maybe it was about to crawl out of the showers and come after the three of them and they would go missing next.
Or maybe something fell off a rack. She forced herself to calm down, looking between the two younger girls as they each showed signs of panic. This was a hobby club, they were investigating for fun and to set Chiasa's mind to ease. There wasn't anything in the showers, they just needed to let the camera run for a bit, come back to get it, and be done with it when they found the person who was taking stuff. She stepped towards Kyo, a nervous chuckle making its way from her lips. "Of course we're alone, no one was in here when we came in. Just- just set the camera down, and we'll come back for it later. Right?"
Miiko reached out her hand for the camera, keeping her eyes trained on the doorway to the showers.
“Well it looks like we got everything we needed,” Akina said, glancing over to see what all Sayane had managed to find as they followed Eiji out of her dorm room. From the looks of things she found some chocolate, which brought a smile to Akina’s lips. Hard to say no to chocolate, though any snacking would have to wait anyway. Still, she looked at Sayane with a little grin. “How about we set aside some candy for the rest of the club, that should make for a nice reward for the other girls once they finish up with the camera. So long as you would be okay with that Eiji?” Akina paused a moment for her to answer before she led the trio out of the school dorms.
The walk from the dorms to the construction site wasn’t a particularly long one, though the small talk was nice. Blue tarps were pulled tight over top construction supplies with a simple chain link fence cordoning off an area of ground where construction equipment sat under the shade of a large cherry blossom tree. Off to one side an older building sat between the construction area and the student dorms. “If I’m not mistaken that’s the old boiler room.” Akina said with a frown.
“Want to check that out first?”
—~~—~~—~~—
“There shouldn’t be, I mean everyone should have changed already, right?” Chiasa said, her voice a sharp whisper. The shadows swelled, its edges threatening to spill into the locker room, and Chiasa could only just imagine someone just standing there on the other side of the wall. Why were they there? Who was it? It had to be a girl, maybe she just heard their voices and was hiding because she didn’t recognize them? Some people didn’t like changing with others around so perhaps that would explain everything? That all made perfect sense, then, why did she feel so cold?
Plip… Plip… Plip…
Chiasa blinked at the sound of water dripping. She stared at the ground, but she couldn’t tell if the shadow had moved at all. She swallowed dryly and turned towards Miiko.
“Yeah, we just uh, need to put up the camera and we can leave.” Chiasa said. That’s right! They didn’t need to check on the weird sounds, and as long as the weird sounds kept on their side of the wall then everything would be fine.
Still, Chiasa wiggled in place as she took a little half step to the side. “A little peak wouldn’t be too bad, right?” She asked, mostly to herself.
//... into the dark she stepped, but never did she feel free of the gaze...//
"I don't think she would burn do-" Eiji stopped her response to Sayane about halfway through. It wasn't really kind to think that someone would burn down a locker room, was it? But then again, Kyo sort of seemed like the sort who might - not on purpose! But... no, actually, maybe on purpose.
Oh no these aren't kind thoughts. Eiji made herself take a breath and let it go again. "I... also hope nothing has happened to anyone." There. That was better. Truthful and kind. They started off, candy in hand, towards the construction zone, pausing as they passed along the fence. Akina asked if they should go check it out, which -
"I don't think we're allowed in there," Eiji pointed out, though her cautionary phrasing was somewhat belied by the fact that she was attempting to peer through the links in the fence at the time. "Maybe just... a peek?" A peek couldn't hurt, right?
Oh no, it's going to be us who burn down the locker room. I was worried about the wrong person.
Miiko, camera in hand, set it down gently, angled in such a way to capture as much of the locker room in frame as she could manage, all the while keeping a cautious eye on the doorway to the showers. Chiasa was creeping towards the shadows, towards the sound, mumbling about how surely they were alone. Yes, they had to be. It was after school hours, everything else had wrapped up for the day surely, it was just something falling off a shelf or something. No matter how many times she repeated something along those lines to herself, she couldn't shake the anxiety, and with the camera placed, she felt no need to stay here much longer.
She moved back over to Chiasa, grabbing her shoulder firmly, though only gently pulling her away from the showers. "N-no, I think we should just go. I put the camera down, we don't have- have to stay. Right Kyo? We're good to leave?" Miiko had no idea why she phrased the question that way. or why it had been phrased as a question at all. She was the eldest of the three, she should just say what they were going to do. "Let's go," she said, lacking any sort of conviction or confidence, nervously eyeing between the two other girls.
Kyo glanced between Miiko and Chiasa. One wanted to leave, one wanted to stay. Well - from the sound of things, they both wanted to leave, but Chiasa also kind of wanted to stay, despite also wanting to leave. That was very curious to Kyo. Usually, once she knew what she wanted to do, she knew she wanted to do it. Second guessing her own thoughts wasn't really something she did. Which is why when the thought came into her head to be the brave hero and investigate the scary noise for the two obviously uncomfortable girls, well, she took it full throttle like it was the best idea she'd ever had.
Because every idea was the best she'd ever had. She was - she was like Yu Narukami, bravely facing the darkness, not just the real darkness, but the human mind darkness too!
"Scaredy cats," Kyo called out in a nasally sing-song. "It's probably just a janitor. Or maybe a serial killer. Or a janitor serial killer."
Walking nonchalantly towards the source of the noise, she waved at the darkness.
"Hello! Are you gonna kill me?"
Yesterday, upon the stair, I met a man who wasn't there! He wasn't there again today, Oh how I wish he'd go away!
“Oh, I doubt anything dangerous is lingering around school, there’d be rumors if there were, people are surprisingly sensitive to danger from the unknown.” Akina said, looking back over her shoulder to see if there were any others around before she rolled up the skirt of her kimono and tied it off so it would stay neatly out of the way on her thighs, she gave the same treatment to the white robe she wore underneath.
“A little peek sounds like good fun.” Akina said with a wink. She reached up, taking hold of a link well above her head before slipping one of her sandals into another link. With a grace that was perhaps at odds with her appearance, Akina scrambled her way up, slid her legs over the top, careful not to let her kimono get snagged on any of the links poking up, before she dropped down onto the other side. She stepped over to where a pile of sandbags held the fence in place and put her foot on them.
“Be careful, it’s a little wobbly on the top.” She said with a smile. This really was more fun with friends, wasn’t it?
~~—~~—~~—~~
It’s juuuuust a small little peek, right? Those couldn’t hurt, it was just a locker room! The scariest thing in locker rooms were cockroaches after all so this was all perfectly fine. As Chiasa leaned to the side, the shower stalls slowly creeping into view as she moved. Uniform doors cracked in uneven angles, motionless… only—
“Eeip!” Chiasa yelped, with a little half-jump as Kyō rushed past her into the shower room. She pressed a hand to her chest as she caught her breath sending a wide eyed look back over her shoulder to Miiko. Kyō was not doing a little peek! Not at all! Chiasa’s lips moved wordlessly with that thought, trying to get the point across to Miiko. They were in the same club, right? And Miiko wanted to leave, so Miiko should know what to do, right? Still, despite herself Chiasa shuffled another few steps closer to the doorway.
No voice returned from the stalls, or better yet no masked janitor jumped out with a sharpened broom. The metallic whine continued, accompanied by a strangled gurgle of water. It was from the last stall, wasn’t it?
“Do… do you see anyone?” Chiasa asked. No, wait no that wasn’t right at all! She cleared her throat. “We, uh, have the camera set up, if we want to go back to the club room?” She hadn’t meant it to be a question, but her voice lilted at the last moment as she poked her head through the doorway.
//... into the dark she stepped, but never did she feel free of the gaze...//
They were definitely going to be the ones getting into trouble.
Eiji was not used to this. She was not a getting into trouble sort of person. Eiji was quiet and respectful and followed the rules and - and - and Akina was over the fence.
Now what? Was she supposed to just stand here pretending that none of this was happening? Was she supposed to go ahead to the locker room? But Akina was her friend and one of the first people who didn't think Eiji was a horrible weirdo, and friends didn't abandon each other. Even if they were getting into trouble. Especially if they were getting into trouble.
"Oh, no, this is such a bad idea..." Eiji wasn't sure if she was saying that to herself or Sayane or Akina, but there really wasn't anything else to do, so she secured her bag a little more tightly, then moved up and climbed over the fence. Eiji was a good climber - she'd climbed a lot of trees. Or, mostly she'd climbed a lot of one tree, but she was still pretty good at it.
She landed on the other side, looking around for the inevitable source of them getting into trouble.
Akina suggested setting aside some of the chocolate for the rest of the club, which Sayane greatly appreciated. She’d already been eyeballing the candy, but was glad for the permission to swipe some before it was given to the spirits. She was prepared to return to the other girls as they passed by the construction site. It didn’t look too dissimilar from the abandoned buildings that Sayane liked exploring. Funny, how the only difference between abandoned buildings and ones under construction was just that the latter would eventually become the former.
A sly grin spread across Sayane’s face as Akina suggested checking out the construction site. Eiji halfheartedly tried to squash the idea, but Sayane could see her peering through the links as well. She came around quickly enough, though, and Akina led the charge up and over the fence with practiced ease. Sayane let out a low whistle of appreciation at the other girl’s skill, especially climbing in a kimono. In her early days, Sayane had snagged herself too many times on chain fences and wires. Not like anyone cared, but she’d liked some of those clothes.
Eiji also moved up and over the fence a lot easier than Sayane thought she would, with the standard worrying that seemed to be the girl’s trademark. After she’d made it over, Sayane launched herself at the fence, clambering up and over with little difficulty. She landed softly on the other side, grinning at the other girls.
“You’ve both done this before, haven’t you?” She chuckled softly as her gaze darted between the two.