Full Summary: When her family move to Narusawa, fifteen-year-old otaku Korin Belododia couldn't be happier. Her father's work as a psychiatrist and counselor means that she finally gets to see one of the Yokai hotspots of Japan. One day, when Korin ventures into the Aokigahara forest in search of Yokai, she finds what she's looking for, but not in the way she expects. a young Kirin laying half-dead by the path, badly injured. She takes it upon herself to nurse it back to health without anyone else finding out, gaining the trust of the other Yokai as she does so. Will she be able to keep her spirit friends a secret, or will they be discovered and carted off for experiments in the name of science?
A/N: The protagonist's family are English-speaking. Therefore, I need a way to diffrentiate between the languages they are speaking. If they are speaking Japanese, it will be written in normal text. If they are speaking anything other than Japanese, it will be written in italics. Thank you, and please enjoy the story!
Chapter One
I step out of the taxi and grin broadly as I take in a deep breath of air- clean, fresh, country-side air, not like in London- twirling around and giggling in my elation. I'm finally here! Finally in Narusawa, my new hometown at the foot of Mount Fuji. What I saw of Tokyo was nice, but the air was as bad as in London- so bad, in fact, that I had to use my inhaler no less than seven times while I was there, from leaving the airport to getting to the train station.
Lost in my own otaku happiness, I don't notice that people are beginning to stare.
"Stop it, sis. You're embarrassing me." I stop spinning and stumble, slightly dizzy, towards the source of the voice, my eleven year old brother Xander. He's staring at me, an embarrassed flush lighting his porcelain cheeks and his big brown eyes pleading.
"Why should I hide my true self?" I ask, before poking my tongue out at him.
"He's right, Korin. You should try not to stand out too much. We don't want a repeat of the- ahem- 'incident' in Vienna, do we?" my father, Claudiu, says softly, raising his slender eyebrows slightly as he places a gentle hand on my shoulder.
My older brother, Jase, snorts, "We've barely been here five minutes and you're already getting told off. That's a first, even for you, Korey." I shrug off my father's hand and turn to glare at Jase.
"I swear to Yaoi, Jase, if you call me 'Korey' one more time I will-"
"Don't, Korin. It's not worth it." My twin brother Ezra says in barely more than a whisper, sliding his hand into mine and squeezing it slightly. I glance across at him and see calm reassurance in his silver-grey eyes.
"You're right, Ezra. I'll just have to get him back when he least expects it." I smile sweetly as Jase as I speak. Dad shakes his head.
"You two are impossible. Why couldn't you just get on, the way Ez and Xand do?" he asks as he scoops up his and Xander's suitcases. "Let's just get into the house. You can go into the garden to rip each other apart." I squeal excitedly.
"I can't believe we're actually in Japan!" I exclaim, punching the air and flashing a peace sign as I wink and turn my baseball cap back to front, Ash Ketchum style.
"Can you please leave the fangirling until we get into the house?" Jase asks, "That way, people won't realise my sister's a freak."
"I'm not a freak, I'm an otaku." I say, picking up my suitcase.
"You can argue when we get to the house. It's literally about thirty seconds away." Dad says, and begins to walk down the road towards what I recognise from the photos I've seen as our new house. Xander runs after him, smiling, and Ezra follows. Jase and I glare at each other before walking after them.
"Doesn't otaku mean 'crazy, obsessed nerd'?" Jase asks, and I roll my eyes.
"Technically, yes. But it's as much a label as anything else. Like how you're a prep, Ezra's a loner and Xander's a jock-in-training." We now discover that Dad was right: our house was only thirty seconds away. Dad drops the two suitcases and delves into his pocket, pulling out a key. He inserts it into the keyhole and turns it, before pushing the door open. He stands to the side, and gestures for us to enter.
"Bedrooms are first come, first serve, and two of you will be doubling up." When he mentions doubling up, his eyes flicker towards Jase so quickly I'm not sure if he actually did. In our last few homes, Jase was known as a bit of a player, so Dad will probably get him to double up as a deterrent for impressionable girls.
Xander sprints into the house, and the race is on. I run in, lose time unlacing and taking off my riding boots. I run in the opposite direction to my brothers and open every door I pass. Finally, I find a room containing a bed. I guess it belonged to a boy the last time a family lived here, because the wallpaper is dark blue and still adorned with posters from some of the greatest Shonen animes of all time: Naruto, Pokémon, Death Note… I like the person who used to have this room.
I dump my suitcase on the bed and open it. I pull out my t-shirts and sort them into three categories: fandom, plain and other. I open the wardrobe and slide each pile into a separate section of the hanging clothes holder thingy. I continue to sort and put away the few clothes I have until my suitcase is empty.
I slip my hand around the curtains and open the window slightly, letting in a cool breeze. I start to look around the room at the things its previous owner left behind. There are a few Pokémon figurines on the mantelpiece, alongside a plastic Pokéball. I walk back to the wardrobe and look inside. At the bottom sits a small wooden box. I open it as slowly and carefully as I can.
Seeing what's inside, I gasp. A pile of photos, all of similar things, and all with scribbles on them. Yokai. Every single picture is of a Yokai. Some of them have the species written on them, but most just have a question mark or a vague category. 'Bakemono', 'Yurei', 'Tsukumogami'. A tingle of fear lights up in my body, electrifying me. One of the things I was most excited about when I discovered we were moving here was that it's so close to a Yokai hotspot. Now I have photos of them, as well as inspiration to find them. I squeal excitedly and begin leafing through the photos, trying to take in as much information as possible.
I'm jolted sharply out of my studying by my bedroom door flying open. In the doorway, Xander groans.
"No fair, Korey. This is a boy bedroom, and you stole it from me." I turn to look at him, raising my eyebrows.
"I believe Dad said it was first come, first serve. You should have been faster." I say, shrugging.
"But I was faster! I got a room, but then Jase came and threw me out of it!"
I sigh, "I'm sure Ezra won't mind you sharing with him. This is my room, and I'm going to fill it with anime merchandise and cover the walls with pictures of Hetalians and Vocaloids. As long as you're okay with that, you can share with me, but I think Ezra would be a better roommate." Xander hangs his head.
"Sorry, Korey." he says, and then giggles. "That rhymes!" I shake my head and hold my arms out for a hug. Xander snuggles into my chest, his brown curls tickling my neck.
"We'll be happy here, and Dad will get lots of business, and then we'll be able to go back to London. For real, this time."
"You won't want to go back, Korin. You can watch the animes when they first come out here." Xander says, his voice muffled slightly by the loose cotton t-shirt I'm wearing.
"I can always move back here when I'm older," I say, "I can be a Yokai expert and give guided tours of the forest." Xander giggles.
"You're such a nerd," he says, pulling out of the hug and stepping backwards. He glances towards the box of photos next to me and tilts his head to the side. "What are those?" I explain them to him, telling him some of what I know about each Yokai.
"I guess the person who had this room before me must have been into a lot of the same things as me. The posters were all here already." I say, and Xander's smile widens.
"That's so cool! Do you think there's any way to find the person who used to live here? You could be friends with them!" I smile at his excitement.
"I'm going to be studying these Yokai a lot, because I want to find them, so always make sure you knock on the door before you come in so that I can make sure you don't see anything scary. Xander nods.
"I will! I'm gonna find Ezra now. I can share with him." With that, he turns and races out of my room. I remember something.
"Take your shoes off, Xander!" I yell, hoping he hears me and does as I say. Now that I'm alone in my room, I can start studying these Yokai.
"We've got visitors, Korin. Dad says you have to socialise." Ezra says quietly, sliding the door open and sticking his head around it. I sigh, and nod, putting the lid on my pen and setting it down on top of my notebook, still full of my class notes from my old school in London. I push myself to my feet and walk to the door.
"How do you like the house?" I ask Ezra, and he shrugs.
"It's okay. We need to get a piano, though." I shake my head, laughing, as the two of us begin to walk towards the living room.
"You're obsessed." I say, and Ezra raises his eyebrows at me.
"My relationship with pianos is no different from your relationship with anime," he chuckles, shoving me lightly. "What were you making notes on just then?"
"Yokai." I say, smirking as Ezra face-palms.
"Of course you were." Ezra slides open a door and I can already see him beginning to shrink into himself. He steps into the room and I follow. Dad, Xander and Jase all turn to look at us, as well as five people I've never met, a forty-something couple and three people around our age who I guess are their children.
"There you are, Korin. I thought we agreed on the plane that you would all be back in here by seven o'clock." Dad says, his tone teasing, and I wave my hand slightly.
"I was studying." I say, and he raises his eyebrows, but doesn't comment.
"Anyway, Korin, this is the Akiyama family. They live next door," he turns to the family of five. "This is my daughter, Korin." The only female child, who seems to be close to my age, smiles and waves at me.
"Hey! I'm Megumi," she says, her voice bubbly and her tone cheerful. "How old are you?"
"Fifteen." I say, and Megumi grins.
"Me too! Will you be going to Subarashi Gakuen?" I nod. "That's where I go! You'll be in my class. We've been told we've got two new people coming. I can show you around!" I nod, hoping my nervousness about being around someone as open and bubbly as Megumi isn't showing.
"That sounds great. Thank you." Megumi proceeds to introduce me to her brothers, Satoshi (sixteen years old, already making friends with Jase) and Takeshi (Megumi's twin, almost as quiet as Ezra but clearly not as shy).
"You don't happen to know who lived here before us, do you?" I ask, and the Akiyamas all visibly tense. Takeshi sighs.
"The last family lived here about six years ago. They'd moved from Ireland a few years before. They were a young couple- in their early thirties- and they had a son and a daughter. The boy was eleven, and the girl nine. The boy spent all his time either out in the forest, taking photos, or locked in his room, studying yokai. One night, he didn't come home at the time he was supposed to, and his parents went out looking for him, leaving his sister at home. She snuck out to try and find him and…" he closes his eyes, trailing off. "And… The boy was returned home safely, but his sister was found dead the next day, her body intact, aside from the finger-shaped bruises on her neck. The coroner said it was murder. The culprit still hasn't been caught. A few weeks later, the boy was found dead, too. He had killed himself out of grief and guilt over his sister's death. She'd been trying to find him, so he thought it was his fault." I feel a tear slide down my cheek when I hear the story. The boy who used to have my room killed himself. The fact that his parents let him become miserable enough for that to happen makes me feel sick.
"Why did you want to know?" Satoshi asks, his tone bright and cheerful, but forced. He was probably friends with the boy. I shake my head.
"No reason." I say, and Xander points at me.
"Liar!" he accuses, and then turns to Satoshi. "She found photos of yokai in a box in her room and she started studying them."
"Do you like yokai?" Megumi asks, her voice suddenly icy. I nod slightly.
"I think they're pretty cool. They must get lonely, though, what with everyone being afraid of them." I say truthfully. Five pairs of eyes lock onto me, each holding obvious disapproval.
Jase laughs nervously, "You should probably shut up now, Korin. The Akiyamas are onmyoji." he says in English, and understanding clicks in my mind. Of course onmyoji would hate the fact that I like yokai.
"Oh," I say. "Sorry." Megumi shakes her head.
"It's fine, Korin-san. You've probably just seen animes with yokai as protagonists and thought they were like that in real life." she says, and my brothers burst out laughing, causing looks of confusion to form on the Akiyamas' faces.
"I believe, Megumi, that you just summed up my daughter in one sentence." Dad says, a hint of amusement in his voice. The Akiyamas all relax visibly. Satoshi turns back to his conversation with Jase, and I catch a few of the words they mutter. Satoshi seems to be just as much of a 'ladies' man' as Jase, and they're already discussing flirting tactics. Xander seems to be trying to talk to Takeshi, who is obviously dandere.
"So, Korin-san, what animes do you like?" Megumi asks, poking my cheek. I grin and release myself into full fangirl mode.
A/N: I hope you enjoyed the first chapter! I already have up to chapter 24 written, and I've got more posted on Wattpad. I won't post it all at once, though. Either every day or every other day. Yay! I won't ask you to review, because I hardly ever do, but all comments are welcome! Also, before correcting my spelling, please bear in mind that I am English and therefore use British English rather than American English. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed it and decide to read on!