Nodoka Scared Shitless
Kaede sat on the long sink countertop with her legs crossed at the ankles, socked feet rocking slowly back and forth as she held a fine liner stencil in one hand and a black powder brush in the other. The fourteen year old girl sat gingerly and waited for commands with a smile on her face. Acting like a nurse in a surgeon suite, she waited patiently to serve any orders issued by the conductor, be it fetching a required item, rummaging for a particular tool, or simply being a set of hands to spare. Beside her, an array of beauty supplies and cosmetic tools were displayed out on the flat surface, brushes, oils, stencils, scissors, liners, paints of every color, and the compartment bag to carry it all were arrayed across the flat bathroom surface.
If Kaede was an assistant, and the beauty products were scalpels, tweezers, and clamps, then the one and only Mai Sakurajima was the doctor standing at the helm of the sink, working on the beautiful patient reflected in the mirror. The seventeen year old child actress turned model turned national teenage heartthrob studied the mirror with intense focus while her hands moved with a near machine-level of detail, her face turning from a stoic, lifeless corpse to a bright, trained smile a moment's notice. For over an hour, Mai had been hard at work transforming herself from the unapproachable high school upperclassman into something new entirely, her work face, the one that accompanied hot new products along the countryside and loitered television breaks during all hours of the day. The only time she took a break was to turn her head ever so slightly to give a brief genuine smile to her boyfriend's sister, loyally sitting at her side.
"Wow, Mai." Kaede said, having witnessed every step of the transformation firsthand and with prime seating, "You're really good at this." Mai returned the kindness with an award-winning smile and thanks before exchanging her fine paintbrush for the powder brush in Kaede's hand.
Mai didn't know if her cosmetology skills were surprising to the common passersby. After all, she had never been in a situation to show them off to her peers, but she wasn't surprised by the praise. At its core, acting and modeling was all about presentation, and she would have gone nowhere in showbiz without being able to inspect and present herself to the cameras. Either through careful observation of cosmetologists for what did and didn't work as they prepared her for the cameras or just by osmosis of being worked on throughout her childhood, Mai had gained a keen eye for detail and the innate ability to transform herself into a manner of things using only the beauty section of the local drugstore.
The older girl took the knob with poofy hair and dipped it into the dark smoky powder in a compact container, rubbing the hair follicles in before bringing it up and dabbing it around her eyes. Completing the process, she set it down and looked over her work, glancing around at her reflection and inspecting the art she had created upon herself. Seeing a spot of paint that was just a bit too wet for her liking, she turned to the girl beside her and asked, "Kaede, could you go and get a disposable towel for me?"
"Yes ma'am!" she replied, and like a soldier, she slid off the countertop, set her utensils down, and then promptly marched to the door of the washroom. Mai watched as the back of her one piece panda pajamas approached the door, opened it up enough for her head to fit and check the outside. "No peeking, brother." She warned, and then slid the door open just enough to let her through and then immediately closed it. Mai smiled as the shadow darted past the misty glass door. Kaede was such a sweetheart; it was just a shame what had happened to make the poor girl such a shut-in.
Less like a lost puppy and more like a beast of burden awaiting a command, Sakuta was standing outside of the door, leaning against the washing machine as he waited on the two girls in the other room. Having been lectured by his sister, he watched as she hopped through the house and returned with a roll of paper towels, shutting the door immediately as she re-entered the lavatory. On top of her looks, Mai may have had the reserved and unapproachable queen-like demeanor that made her simply irresistible for all of the wrong reasons, but the way she had opened up and warmed herself to his baby sister made Sakuta's feelings of desire change to that of cherish. It was good to see Kaede having fun. For all that she had been through, she deserved it, but it still twisted his heart to think of it all.
"Puberty Syndrome", that was the catchall term for the supernatural experiences that adolescents feel due to high amounts of conflict and stress in their lives. It was an urban legend, a ghost story told in the dark corners of the internet for lonely people to play make-believe about. It wasn't real… until Sakuta discovered that the venomous, biting words that Kaede's middle school class were saying about her on the internet manifested as spontaneous cuts and bruises across her body. But that was two years ago, the physical damage had healed, but the emotional wounds were still festering. Wanting to protect his sister from the pain, Sakuta was fine hiding Kaede within the safe confines of their apartment, taking all the time that she needed to recover and heal from the ordeal. Still, it was amazing to think how much progress Mai had made with Kaede in the few months that he had been dating her, much more than the two years that he had spent protecting her from the outside world. It was amazing to think that it all started on one lazy day when he caught a girl in a sexy bunny girl outfit out of the corner of his eye walking through the library, the sight oblivious to everyone else except him. Because of that, Kaede had a new role model in her life and Sakuta had his first girlfriend. So, maybe Puberty Syndrome wasn't all that bad, afteall.
Drifting off back into sleep, Sakuta shook himself awake, slapping his cheeks to wake himself up. He looked over the paper that Mai had given him and reviewed it for the 1000thtime, but sick of reading the instructions, he asked, "You know, I was happy to hear that you were heading home early, but are you sure you want to go through with… this?".
There was a moment of silence. Sakuta liked to think that it was hesitation, but knew that his girlfriend was probably focusing at the moment. "Yes." She answered, "For someone who was willing to declare their love in front of the whole school to see, it's bothersome to see you get cold feet now."
Kaede giggled at the reveal, whispering to Mai in the bathroom. "I assure you," he said, "I would first have to resort to burning coals to cool my feet off. I just wanted to point out that most people would send a card before going through all of this."
"You're right, Sakuta." She replied playfully, "but then again, you're not dating 'most people', are you?" She waited another moment, and then Sakuta could hear the distinct *clack* of a beauty tool being set down. The shadow in the glass from the other side of the bathroom began to move, becoming larger as it approached the door. "Is everything ready?" she asked.
"As ready as it will ever be." Sakuta replied.
A girlfriend-sized shadow covered the misty window of the door. The blob contorted as a hand reached out and grabbed ahold of the knob. Sakuta waited to see the sight of his pretty girlfriend who had called him at the early hours of the morning just to hide for an hour in his bathroom, but what he saw made him jump in his own skin.
"How do I look?" she asked.
"Terrifying."
Break
The image looped. The short black-and-white video was only about six seconds long, it consisted of a woman in the shower, then a split scene of someone standing outside of it, they pulled the curtain aside, the woman shrieked, and then it ended with the sight of a large kitchen knife raised in the air, poised to strike. Then, the bright red words "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" appeared in the center of the screen before the composition restarted again. In the tweet that the gif was attached was the emoji of a cake and the words, "An extra spooky birthday to you, Nodoka."
Nodoka gave a sigh and rolled her eyes. "Who would make something like that for someone's birthday?" she asked herself. The blonde girl with a side ponytail rolled over in her bed and thought of something to say. After failing to come up with something clever, she pulled up the keyboard on her phone and wrote, "Extra spooky indeed!" and posted an excessive amount spooky emojis. Sick of the predictable response, Nodoka rolled to the side of the bed and sat up. It was unfortunate, but she supposed the crossover messages came with the turf of being born on Halloween. Being a member of an idol group just amplified the problem. For as annoying as it was, engagement was the name of the game when it came to idols, and for as much as she wanted to move on, most of the morning was comprised of replying to fans and following the kayfabe responses to the other members of the band publically while privately thanking the genuine good wishes of her friends and family.
Nodoka stood up from the bed and walked into the living room of the apartment she shared with her half-sister. She took a seat on the couch and turned on the television to catch the morning news. Although she had her obligations to her phone, the morning was relatively free. So, enjoying what little time she had to herself before another day of singing practice and dance lessons, Nodoka sat with her casual attire of jean cutoffs and a simple tank top. Before she could even finish the first commercial break, her phone buzzed to life once more with alerts to new messages. She opened the Twitter app and couldn't help herself but sigh at the sight of more people reposting the same attachment from before.
She knew what it was, it was that one scene from the classic Hollywood movie, Psycho. She had watched it once when she was way too young and still had a fear of bathing alone. Why on earth did people think such a grotesque thing was an appropriate way to say, "Happy Birthday!"?
Ignoring the vile celebration, Nodoka took to the search function and began typing. After finding Mai Sakurajima, she selected her half-sister's account and waited with a rising sense of excitement as the app refreshed, but immediately deflated once it read that she was still last online 12 hours ago. She was far too young to understand the complexities of family when she first learned that she had a sister, and to her young mind, all that it mattered was that it was HER sister; not half sister. At the time, she didn't care about the awkward situation that surrounded the mixed blood between the two, she just wanted to have another family member. It hurt her deep down inviting Mai to spend time with her or wanting to celebrate each other's birthdays together, but only being reserved to sending a card or a gift through the mail. Nodoka had hoped that, now that they were temporarily living together in this apartment, they would be able to share a holiday together, but it looked like work was going to barge into their family drama this time.
"Adult-ing sucks." She moaned. Switching back to the flood of incoming messages from fans that she would be inevitably responding to through the day. She was about to answer to the first message of Janet Leigh being stabbed by Anthony Perkins when, seemingly out of the blue, the guest buzzer split the air.
She stood and walked to the front door and cued up the automated doorman screen. Compounding the surprise, she was confused to see Mai's boyfriend, Sakuta standing at the glass door to the apartment. "Hi, Nadoka." He said, "Would you mind buzzing me through. I have something for you."
Confused, Nodoka complied and hit the button to open the door. She waited a few minutes, longer than she had expected to wait, until she finally heard someone knock on the door. As expected, Sakuta was waiting for her, the slightly older boy looking like his normal self with his brown bedhead hairstyle and very casual clothes on, but what had immediately caught her eye was what he had brought with him. Placed between the two teens was the apartment's community fridge-mover, and strapped into the industrial dolly was a massive giftwrapped box with a large bow taped to the top.
"Happy birthday, Nodoka." He said. Nodoka was flabbergasted for a moment, speechless as she took in the sight of the cartoonish-ly big box before her. She moved aside as Sakuta wheeled the gift in, careful to avoid bumping it into the doorway, walls, and furniture as he lead it into the center of the living room and unstrapped it from the fridge dolly. "It arrived at my place yesterday," he continued. "Mai wanted me to bring it over as soon as I could." He then took the unstrapped equipment and rolled it back towards the front door to the apartment, adding that he would put it back when he left.
Nodoka looked over the big box, taking in the size of the thing. It was almost 4 feet cubed! She checked the tag on the top and saw that it was indeed from Mai to her. "What do you think it is?" she asked.
"I'm not really sure." Sakuta said, "but she said that it was 'something you always wanted'."
"Huh?" she wondered, "what would that be?" she reached a hand down to grab ahold of the wrapping paper and rip it open, but before she could, Sakuta became animated and charged over with his hands up, saying, "Whoa, you can't open it just yet. She wants to be here first." Relief visibly washed over his face when she retreated from the big box, and remembering what else he brought, he pulled another, much smaller box from his back pocket. "I would hate to just leave you with a gift you have to look at for the next few days." He said, "So I brought the gift that Kaede got for you."
Nodoka's eyes brightened up at the prospect, "Aw, that's so sweet of her!" she said, but then was a little shocked at the prospect of what she saw. What Sakuta held was a small rectangular box, wrapped up like the much bigger box beside her, but this one looked like it was covered by and entire roll of masking tape.
"Yeah…" he added, "She wanted to wrap it herself, but I think she may have gone a little crazy with the tape…" Nodoka took the gift and began to peel it off with her fingernails, but gave up after having little progress. "Let's go find something to cut it with." Sakuta suggested, "I think I remember Mai saying that she kept her scissors in her wardrobe room."
Agreeing with the suggestion, and knowing that it was no man's place to walk through a woman's wardrobe, Nodoka left the living room and entered her sister's bedroom and then her walk-in closet. From there, she searched the drawers and shelves for a spare set of scissors to cut the tape. Although she was thinking of her mission, her mind drifted back to the big box that was now in the living room and what exactly could be contained within. The thing was so huge that half her mind thought that Mai had just mailed herself home.
After a few minutes of no luck, Nodoka heard Sakuta in the other room once more, and this time he claimed to have found something. She returned to the living room, but stopped herself in the doorway when she saw the sight of Sakuta standing in the center of the room with a large kitchen knife in one hand. She took a second to calm herself, and regrouped when she saw the wrapped gift in his other hand. Remembering the original predicament that she was in, she approached and took the kitchen knife and box and sliced through the layers of masking tape effortlessly before handing the knife back to her sister's boyfriend. After that, it was just a simple pull to separate the top from the bottom of the box.
Sitting in paper stuffing were two shiny cellphone charms, one a ruby red and pearly white lollipop and the other a small silver bullet. It took her no time to make the connection between the two charms and the allusion to the name of the Idol group that she was a part of, Sweet Bullet.
"She saw you perform on television and had me search every store for those two exact charms." Sakuta added.
Nodoka smiled. She knew about Kaede's condition and how she didn't even leave the apartment anymore or answer the phone to anyone besides Sakuta. "That was awfully nice of her. I'll have to thank her next time sister and I come over to your home."
"Good. Until then, I'll tell her you liked her gift." He then paused for a moment, and then nervously asked, "Hey, may I borrow your phone? Kaede was sleeping when I left and I have to… go get something."
Nodoka's brow furrowed and head tilted as she put her hands on her hips, "Let me guess, you forgot that today was your girlfriend's sister's birthday and you need to run to the store to buy something, right?" Sakuta said "No." but the blush, lack of eye contact and nervous rubbing on the back of his head said otherwise. Regardless, Nodoka pulled out her phone, unlocked it, and opened the phone app before handing it over.
Sakuta thanked her and dialed the phone, walking out of the living room and into the restroom for privacy. Nodoka waited in the living room, hearing half the conversation as he talked with his sister. When he was done, he opened the door to the bathroom and thanked her once more.
He returned to the fridge dolly that he left at the front door and wheeled it around to leave the apartment. As he did so, he said, "Well, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day." He then paused for a moment, and then like he remembered something, he added, "You know, we never did finish 'The Oni'. Maybe when Mai returns, we can sit down and watch it together?"
The mere mention of that movie made Nodoka squirm. Like Mai, Sakuta and his sister, Nodoka had experienced Puberty Syndrome as well. Before moving in to spend more time with her half-sister, her anomaly had manifested from her envy of her successful older sibling and had caused the two to swap appearances. Nodoka, as Mai, was stuck in the middle of her sister's obligations of filming a television advertisement and was absolutely hopeless when it came to pulling off her million dollar smile. Desperate, she and Sakuta had resorted to trying to copy her face in advertisements and her roles in films. Why they had resorted to watching a film in which her sister starred as a ghost gleefully stabbing women in the shower was beyond her. Then again, that was just a really bizarre week in general. Suffice to say, her answer was a firm, "no."
Shaking his head, Sakuta opened the door and began to leave with the heavy lifting equipment, but before he left, Nodoka noticed that she was missing something, and soon after realized that her phone was gone. Stopping him from possibly leaving with it, she questioned him on the device, and he responded by apologizing and saying that he left it on the counter in the bathroom.
Rolling her eyes, Nodoka turned to the open bathroom door and walked inside. Sakuta began to close the door behind him, but stopped before it would lock. Quietly, he opened it up once more and looked inside, releasing a long held breath and covering his face, muttering to himself, "Wow, Mai makes that look easy…"
Break
As sure as the sun rises, Nodoka's phone was lying face down against the tiles on the bathroom countertop. Nodoka rolled her eyes as she walked in. Mai's boyfriend was such a doof, who borrows something and just leaves it behind like that? Maybe there was something else there, but she didn't know what Mai saw in the dork.
Walking past the shower the dark combination shower and bathtub, she noticed that the door to the front facing medicine cabinet was left open. She knew that she hadn't used it, so that only left him. What right did he have to poke through Mai's personal belongings like that? Such a dork. With one hand she closed the cabinet and with the other, she reached for the phone. In her listless annoyance at her sister's suitor, she didn't notice the hand slowly pushing the bathroom door closed.
She picked the phone up and flipped it over, surprised to see that the screen was still active, and that it was also opened up to her Twitter app. She was about to curse Sakuta again at the audacity of nosing through her private account, but stopped when she noticed something that confused her. He hadn't just been snooping around on her phone, but instead, it looked like he had tried to post under her account. The unsent message sitting in the text box made her anger change to confusion as she took the time to read it.
"Behind you…"
"Behind me?" she said aloud, looking up, but gasped as soon as her vision reached eye level. Almost like an inner deity judging her conscious, Nodoka noticed a dark presence over her shoulder. It was almost like a tumor in her eye, a blind spot where the world ceased to exist, almost like the form behind her was a black hole sucking in the light and the world around it.
Nodoka turned, her hand subconsciously grabbing the hand towels hanging on the rack beside the sink. Her heart skipped a beat, the air in her lungs stopped dead in its tracks, making her feel like her entire body had stopped in that single moment. Like the warning on car mirrors, the image in the reflection was closer than it had appeared. A white burial shroud covered its body faded from years of transitioning between the lands of the dead and the living. Its inky black hair consumed the light around it, parting in the middle and acting like a set of drapes for the dead soul within.
Hidden within the dark shadow of its hair, a dark, slit-like grin rested on its mouth, almost like that of a great shark before it throws its maw open to eviscerate its pray with rows of razorlike teeth. The eyes though, that was what Nodoka found herself fixated on. Almost as if its body was a magnet for all of the color in the world, sucking it away into the corporeal space that it occupied, the eyes were the focal point of the anomaly's existence. While her body was made of the dead rot of un-life, her eyes showed a manifestation of pure carnal emotions, blinding white focus that contrasted against the drab existence that accompanied it, a dark magenta iris that was consumed by a primal hunger and glee that didn't belong in civilized society. It was the visage of a once beautiful girl, warped and twisted by the hate and malice of an unspeakable evil from a place that was outside of human comprehension.
For a moment, Nodoka thought that she was dreaming, that everything she saw was a strange manifestation in her mind or the consequence of dreaming after consuming too much dairy. In her mind, she began to justify this existence by saying that no matter what happened, she would wake up and it would all be nothing but a nightmare. But before her mind could calm itself, the specter raised its hand, revealing a large, shining blade that reflected her own terrified reflection at her, and in an almost playfully singsong voice, it said, "Sing for me."
Like a dam breaking against the sudden surge of millions of gallons of water, the air in Nodoka's throat broke free. The raw, untamed power of a trained idol singer unleashed as she screamed with all of her might for the cry that someone save her.
A small crystal dish, placed before a fancy squirt bottle of high-end lotion, intended to catch any late discharge from the latter, rumbled on the countertop, shaking against the power and resonance of the soundwaves emanating from the shrieking human larynx in the room until it became too much and the glass shattered on the countertop.
Nodoka fell to the ground, hand still holding the towels in a deathgrip as she slipped into an upwards fetal position. She brought her legs up into her chest and covered her head with her arms. In her blinding fear, she was unable to create coherent thoughts, but through an abstract approximation, she prayed that the Grim Reaper existed, and that if he had come for her in that moment, she would gladly take his hand and allow him to take her away from here and to spare her from the pain and torment of what was to come.
She shook, trembling within her own skin and whimpered like a trapped animal. She begged that whatever happened next be over quickly and that she not suffer in pain. It felt like an eternity had passed, like a sadistic tormentor enjoying the pain it could inflict without physically harming its victim, and then finally she felt something, and she jumped once more.
In her mind, she had subconsciously awaited the hot dig of a knife penetrating throughout her form, and for a moment she believed it. But her brain waited for the physical shock of a wound that would never come. Instead of a sharp jolt into her body, she felt a soft presence against her forehead, and then two warm hands against her exposed back. Was that the embrace of the reaper that she had wished for instead of a brutal execution? Slowly, she opened her eyes, and was greeted by a dark nothingness in the world.
Was she dead, now? She didn't know.
Polyester stretched and fell upon the tile floor of the bathroom, and almost like a rebirthing, the light of the world returned to Nodoka. Her heart felt as if it was about to burst out of her chest. She slowly raised her head and discovered that not much of the world had changed from a few moments prior. The only difference now was the unbound spirit sitting on its knees beside her.
The shroud of the old tattered dress settled on the ground, the cheap fabric had once been settled upon Nodoka, but now that the one wearing it had pulled away, they followed her lead. Nodoka looked at the spirit beside her on the floor and confirmed that she had not imagined the previous events, and that she indeed had been visited by a ghost who had wanted to make her sing. But something was different now. Her eyes no longer held a cold reflection of absorbed light, and instead, the gateways to her soul seemed warm and genuine. Her grin no longer resembled that of a ravenous creature, and reminded her more of a genuine smile that she was currently struggling to maintain. For as much as she feared it, she felt a familiar comfort that she had seen this face a million times before. Without breaking eye contact, the Oni reached a hand up and into her hair, pulling an orange polyp of foam ear protection and then did the same for the opposite ear.
Conflicting thoughts battled within Nodoka's mind, and at that same time she felt the fine fibers of the hand towels that she was currently holding in a deathgrip in her hand. Summoning courage that she didn't know she had, Nodoka raised the hand towel up to the menacing, yet familiar –and now knifeless- ghost beside her and placed it on her forehead. She pressed and pulled it down, the white fabric absorbing the dark grey of a girl devoid of life and replacing it with the –admittedly pale- glow of a warm human body.
"Mai?" she finally asked.
The smiling half-ghost's grin grew larger and replied, "Happy birthday, little sister." she leaned in and gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead, leaving a grey smudge on her skin and contact to know that she was, indeed, real.
Nodoka was still experiencing shock from the experience, but before she could stammer out a syllable, she heard the audible click of a video feed being concluded. She looked in the doorway and saw the telltale pink bunny ears of Mai's cellphone case wedged into the crack of the door. The portal opened all the way, revealing Sakuta standing there with the phone in his hand and looking at the final image of the recording and added, "I think that's a wrap." With a chuckle.
In a split second, things became clear to Nodoka, the gift box, the scissors, the knife, the phone, it all added up to her, and she felt her body go from a cold fear to a blinding hot rage. Strength returning to her legs, she shot to her feet and ran up to Sakuta, her open palm connecting with his face and creating an audible crack.
The boy dropped the phone, recoiling away to the stinging pain that covered his cheek. "Ow!" he whined, "what was that for?"
Face becoming red with anger, Nodoka pointed her index finger at her sister's boyfriend and declared. "That's for going along and doing this. Both of you!" The young man turned to face the younger girl to protest, but before he could open his mouth, her opposite hand swung, hitting his other cheek and creating a crack to match the first one.
Both hands up and sheltering his face, Sakuta demanded once more, "And what was that for!"
Both hands on her hips, Nodoka seethed for a moment with rage before finally controlling herself to blurt out, "and that's for ruining a perfectly good pair of underwear!"
Break
I hope you enjoyed the story. This is the first anime fiction I have written, so I am interested to hear how I did. In the mean time, here is some spooky music to see you out:
Spooky Scary Skeletons (Remix) (Extended Mix) (Spooktober Theme Song) - YouTube