Rather than a fanfiction, this is an original story I wrote for my final high school class. When I wrote it, I ended up getting the top mark in the class, and I was the first to get 100% on the project in 5 years. I'm a little too proud of it so I figured that everyone should read it, so here it is: My high school project turned best non romance story.
The silver sheen of the 1964 Aston Martin DB5 was an eye-catching display as it zoomed through the snowy mountains of the Yamagata prefecture, though not many eyes would catch it since the area was so scarcely populated. A young woman stared out the car window in awe, watching as pine trees would fling the white blankets of snow off of their sturdy limbs. Having grown up in Tokyo, 25 year old Yayoi Aikawa had never seen this much nature around her. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a curious white weasel poking its head up out of the snow, so she smiled and waved at the tiny critter.
The man sitting next to her chuckled, happy that Yayoi was able to enjoy the little things like this. Hideki Koudaka was the 29 year old CEO of a large company that manufactured medical equipment. With all of the money he earned he could have taken his girlfriend anywhere; Paris, Rome, Bangkok, New Delhi, the list goes on, but Hideki preferred more authentic experiences, ones that nobody else would take. That's why the couple decided to go to a hot spring in Sakegawa, a tiny remote village known by few and visited by fewer.
Several minutes later the couple pulled into a parking lot. Yayoi exited the car, tossed her silky black hair out of her face and pulled her scarf up over her mouth, hoping that nobody in this village would recognize her. The young woman didn't want to think about work or be harassed by paparazzi. She only wanted to have a nice weekend with her boyfriend. Still, she could bet her whole paycheck that trashy magazine headlines would read "Sadako from 'The Well Girl' Spotted With KOYA-Gentax CEO! Is She Carrying His Baby?" and then she'd get a nagging from her manager. 'What a pain in the ass,' she thought as she lifted her suitcase from the trunk.
Hideki seemed to notice her stress and stroked her hair, "Don't worry," he told her, "nothing can go wrong this weekend." He kissed her forehead to reassure her.
Yayoi smiled as they began walking towards the inn. "You know, I heard there's a lot of ghost activity in Yamagata." she told him. "It would be really cool to see one."
Hideki giggled as he lit up a cigarette, "Oh yeah? Maybe you can ask a ghost for acting advice." he joked, hoping that she'd react well.
She tugged his dark brown hair playfully, "Hey, I have other roles that have nothing to do with that!" she reminded him.
He feigned hurt and continued to tease the small woman until they arrived in front of the inn. An elderly woman wearing a green kimono stood in the doorway and bowed as a greeting, "Hello there, you must be Mr. and Mrs. Koudaka. Welcome to our inn."
Yayoi blushed a little when she was referred to as 'Mrs. Koudaka', she had never been called that. "A-actually my name is Ms. Aikawa, but yes, we're here under that name."
The old woman smiled, "I see. My name is Tsuma, I am the innkeeper." She spoke very formally but she seemed to give off a warm, welcoming aura. "Please, follow me to your room," Tsuma instructed and showed the couple the way.
The room was rather simple; a tatami floor, screen walls, a few decorated cabinets, and a large kotatsu in the middle. Upon entering their room, something caught the eyes of both Yayoi and Hideki. On a large imperial-style cabinet sat a little girl wearing a red furisode. She had rosy cheeks and a black bob cut. Both assumed she was the innkeeper's granddaughter. When the girl noticed that they were looking at her, she jumped off the cabinet and hid behind the window curtains. Hideki tilted his head to the side in slight confusion. "Who's that little girl?" he asked Tsuma.
"Little girl?" Tsuma asked, more confused than him, "Ahaha, you must be daydreaming, There are no children here." She laughed. "Perhaps you're tired from the long trip. Please, take your time and relax in the hot spring." She insisted as she exited the room.
Yayoi and Hideki looked at each other, "You saw her, right?" he asked Yayoi.
She nodded, "Clear as day, you aren't hallucinating."
Hideki looked around the room, "She can't see her, huh." He stated, "Dementia maybe?"
Yayoi walked towards the window to talk to the child, but when she lifted the curtain there was nobody there. "That's odd. Where did she go?" she asked.
Hideki shrugged, "Beats me." He looked around the room. "Maybe we really were daydreaming." He lifted up the lid on a clay pot.
Suddenly a head popped out, "BOO!" it shouted. Hideki jumped backwards from the surprise. "Heeheehee! I scared you! I scared you!" laughed the little girl in a sing-song voice as she jumped out of the pot, landing as gracefully as a cat on the tatami.
The couple stared at her in awe. Yayoi decided to approach her, "Why did you do that?" she scolded, "That's naughty."
The little girl just smiled cutely, "Why not? I like to mess with people who can see me," she explained simply.
"See you…?" Hideki questioned, "What do you mean?"
The little girl jumped onto the kotatsu, "I'm a Zashiki Warashi!" she shouted. "My name is Moeko! It's nice to meet you!" The little girl bowed.
Yayoi's eyes went wide, "A Zashiki Warashi!? Does that mean you're gonna curse us?"
Moeko shook her head side to side, "No, you people seem nice, like a mommy and a daddy!" Her smile somehow got even wider and cuter. She held out her pinky finger, "I promise, I won't curse you." She announced with pride.
The couple smiled back at Moeko and they each linked their pinky fingers with her. "Okay, we believe you." Hideki replied.
Hideki sighed in contentment as his body sunk into the water, the natural warmth of the water was nice in contrast to the freezing weather. The flow of the small waterfall and a deer scare knocking against a rock were the only sounds he could hear. The snow reminded him of the day he met Yayoi.
It was the dead of winter and he was still a student when he found a gorgeous high school girl about to jump off of the Rainbow Bridge, so he practically threw himself into her to keep her from jumping. She landed in a pile of snow and got mad at him. "Hey! You can't bodyslam a girl like that!" she yelled through tears.
"And you can't go jumping off bridges!" he scolded. Hideki asked the girl her name and why she was jumping. Her name was Yayoi and she had been diagnosed with endometriosis. This meant she could never have a child and wanted nothing more than to be a mother, and before long Hideki fell in love with her. That was 8 years ago now that he thought about it.
Hideki was roused from his thoughts by the feeling of water hitting his face. The nostalgic glimmer in his brown eyes disappeared as he looked around and found Moeko sitting on the side of the bath, she waved at him. "Hey mister! Enjoying the bath?" She asked.
Hideki smiled back at her, "Yes, it's lovely," he replied, "but why are you in the men's section?"
Moeko's feet dangled in the water and she thought for a second, "Because… well, I forget." she replied.
Hideki couldn't help but laugh at her response. 'She really is like a little kid' he thought. "Come on now, you're a girl aren't you?"
Moeko looked down at her robe, "Yeah, I am a girl, but I don't do girl things. I never play with dolls, I like spaceships and robots!" she replied.
Hideki laughed again, "Lots of little girls do, in fact Yayoi likes that too. It's okay to be different." he told her with a smile.
Moeko thought about this for a minute before smiling back, "Yeah, you're right mister."
Everyone else in the bath just stared at Hideki in confusion, completely unsure of why a grown man was talking to himself. Even though nobody said anything, Hideki could hear voices saying, 'He's so weird.' 'Who is he talking to?' 'You're insane.' When he turned around to tell the people to leave him alone, he realized that nobody was even talking. He turned back to Moeko to find that she was gone.
Yayoi felt the warmth of the bath envelop her body as she sat in the water. She was still so shocked that she and Hideki had actually found a ghost in the room, it's almost like she jinxed it. When Hideki first mentioned it, she thought that his schizophrenia was acting up again, even though he took his Zyprexa every day. She was trying to piece together the science as to why they could see Moeko while others couldn't. How common is folie à deux? she wondered.
Ironically, Yayoi often played the role of ghosts or demons in movies and TV shows. Her skin was very pale and her hair was long and wiry, so she fit supernatural roles well. She never believed in ghosts though, she only figured that they were a product of beliefs in various religions, and since she was an atheist, the idea didn't bode well in her mind. The only scientific explanation she could think of was a shared hallucination, which only made sense for Hideki. Her mind swirled with confusion and denial as she tried to comprehend the situation, but she was stolen from her thoughts when a voice shouted, "Hey! Miss Yayoi!"
"Gah!" She jumped in her seat and almost fell into the water, she looked around and found Moeko sitting on a rock. "Woah, Moeko, you scared me."
The Zashiki Warashi giggled, "Two points for me, wonder if you can scare me." she joked. Yayoi smirked and picked some water up in her cupped hands, she clasped them and sprayed it at Moeko, who dodged quickly. "Missed me!" she shouted.
"Oh yeah?" Yayoi grabbed another handful of water and ended up splashing Moeko this time. "Hahaha! Gotcha!"
Moeko smirked back and splashed Yayoi, "Revenge shot!" she called.
"Oh no you don't!" The woman laughed and splashed the little girl again.
The two continued splashing each other while laughing. The other women in the bath stared at Yayoi in concern, having no idea what she was splashing at, "Mom, is that lady crazy?" a little girl whispered to her mother, thereby confirming that nobody else could see Moeko.
"Kae, don't be rude!" The mother scolded.
"Thank you for the meal!" the couple said in unison as they clasped their hands together. Back in the couple's room there was a large kaiseki meal, and it looked amazing.
"Please enjoy it, I shall return to collect the dishes afterwards." Tsuma bowed and left the room.
As the couple began gorging on the meal, Moeko peeked out from behind the curtain. She sat in front of the kotatsu. "Looks yummy, wish I could eat some…" she said.
Yayoi picked up a juicy piece of tuna with her chopsticks, "Here," she offered, "have a piece." She fed it to Moeko.
She ate it and smiled. "So good!" she whispered with joy. Suddenly, a blast of air came out of nowhere and Moeko turned into a tuna fish right in front of them.
Hideki jumped, "What the!?"
"Woah! What just happened!?" Yayoi shouted.
Moeko, or rather the tuna she embodied, flopped around for a second. "Oh, this is normal," she assured them, "every time I eat meat I turn into the animal it came from." With a poof she turned back into her humanoid form.
The three of them began laughing together. "What a cool talent! You're so funny Moeko." Hideki cooed and patted her head. "It'd be awesome if you were our daughter."
Yayoi nodded, "Yeah, I've always wanted to have a little girl like you." she agreed.
A little while later Moeko had fallen asleep on the floor. Yayoi stroked the little girl's hair and kissed her forehead. Hideki stared at Yayoi, At that point, the voices in his head began their usual conversation. 'She can't have a child.' 'Who would wanna have your kid anyway?' 'Kill her and then yourself! You'll have the child then!' 'The little girl is a demon, so is the lady!' 'She wants the kid more than she wants you!' He tried to ignore the voices as best he could.
Eventually the room began contorting and he saw various discombobulating humanoid figures hanging from the ceiling, they groaned and made other indescribable noises. 'Stop! Get the fuck out of my head!' he thought as he fumbled around on the dresser to find his Zyprexa. He opened the bottle and took a pill, then collapsed on the floor and breathed heavily as he came down from his episode.
Yayoi looked at him with sadness in her eyes, "Hallucinating again, huh." She crawled over to his side and put her hand on his head to check his temperature (fevers were common for him afterwards). "You alright now?"
Hideki sighed, "Yeah." He sat up and hugged her. "Sorry…" he whispered as he continued to breathe heavily.
Yayoi rubbed his back to help calm him down. "It's alright…" she told him.
Eventually he was calm again, "Moeko is really a ghost, isn't she?" he asked.
The young woman shrugged, "I guess she is. Nobody else can see her." she said.
Behind them Moeko stirred and woke up, but she stayed quiet.
Hideki held Yayoi's hand in his own, "Yayoi, if you still want to have a child, I was thinking that maybe we could adopt Moeko." he told her. "I mean, nobody can see her, but since we can we could be her support."
Yayoi nodded, "I'd like that too, I wanna take care of her from now on." she replied, "We could bring her back with us to Tokyo and have so much fun, even if people assume that we've gone crazy."
Moeko stood up and walked over to them, "I can't leave this place…" she told them.
Both of them turned to her. "Why not?" Hideki asked
Moeko looked down at the ground with an empty look in her eyes. "Zashiki Warashi can't leave the place they were killed in," she admitted. "At least, not until their killer dies. I can't kill her." She continued through tears. "I'm tired of being here, I want her to die!"
Yayoi and Hideki hugged her. "Is there any other way?" Yayoi asked.
Moeko let go, "I need to find where my body is… but I can't find it… It was so long ago, I can't remember where she killed me."
Both of them stared at her in silence, not sure how to respond.
A few minutes later Tsuma slid the door open. "Pardon the intrusion, I'm here to collect the dishes." She said.
Moeko hid once again.
Yayoi transferred her attention to Tsuma. "Ah, thank you. The kaiseki was delicious." she said with a fake smile (it looked real though).
Tsuma loaded the dishes onto the cart. "You know, I had a few complaints from the other customers today that you two were talking to yourselves." she began, Both of them felt her kind aura disappear.
Hideki spoke up. "W-well I don't usually tell people about it but I have schizophrenia and sometimes I think the voices are real." he told her in a defensive tone.
She nodded, "I don't doubt that, I saw your medicine over there." she replied in a stern tone, "That doesn't explain you though, Ms. Yayoi Inoshikawa."
Yayoi's eyes went wide. "H-how do you know my real name?"
Hideki gasped, "You're an Inoshikawa!? B-but I thought that family died in-"
"The Fukushima nuclear explosion…" Yayoi cut him off. "Yes, I'm the sole survivor, that's why I always wanted a child." she admitted. "I wanna have a family again." she began crying.
Tsuma nodded again, "That's right, and you thought that a Zashiki Warashi was going to carry on your family line, didn't you? Because you thought she was a real child? Moeko, I know you're here, you've been here even since I killed you. Come out."
Moeko reappeared behind Tsuma. "Mother… can you see me?" she asked.
Tsuma waited a moment. "I have no way of seeing or hearing you, but I know they can." She pointed to Yayoi and Hideki. "Moeko… If these two die, I'll show you where your body is," she offered cruelly. "Or, I can offer the humans the antidote, but you will stay here for eternity, getting what you deserve."
Hideki gasped, "Antidote for what?" Suddenly, Hideki broke into a coughing fit, doubled over, and black liquid came gushing out of his mouth.
Yayoi shot up from her kneeling position, "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO HIM!?" she screamed.
Tsuma held up a bottle, "The original medicine they were testing for fertility treatments was toxic, so many lives wasted, just so that people like you could have children." She giggled. "Lucky for me, it looks just like a Zyprexa tablet."
Through coughing, Hideki managed to muster up, "Bud thaz… oud ov… circulation…"
She smirked, "You need to invest in better security, because I was able to sneak into your building to access your medication."
"STOP THIS!" Moeko shouted. "Yayoi... please ask for the antidote…"
Through tears Yayoi said, "Moeko says she'll let us have the antidote."
Tsuma shrugged, "Oh well, her loss," she said. Tsuma walked over to Hideki's now unconscious body and pulled a syringe out of her pocket.
Moeko reached under a cabinet and pulled out a knife, she slid it over to Yayoi using her foot. "Please, mommy," she said to Yayoi, "kill the bad lady."
Yayoi hesitated for a moment, but then smiled at her and nodded. She gripped the knife hard and drove it into the older lady's neck. "Anything for you sweetie." she replied. Moeko covered her eyes as Tsuma collapsed on top of Hideki's body, which pierced the syringe into his stomach. Tsuma's lungs filled with her own blood.
"You... you traitor!" Tsuma shouted as she coughed up blood.
Yayoi stared down at the woman coldly, "You really don't know the first thing about any of my movies, do you..." She held the woman up by her hair. "I'm not just a tool to talk to spirits." She drove the knife deeper. "I'm a tool for their vengeance too." That's when Tsuma died.
Hideki looked up at her, "Please... inject it." He said referencing the syringe.
Yayoi moved Tsuma's lifeless body off of Hideki's. "That's not the real antidote." She told him. "Moeko... I think I know where your body is hidden."
Moeko looked into her mind clairvoyantly, then disappeared for a moment. She came back holding a bottle. "I found it."
Yayoi filled the syringe with the liquid inside and injected it into Hideki's body. "Sorry that it couldn't be saved." She said.
"Is it over?" Moeko asked.
Yayoi held Moeko, "Yes."
"Good," Moeko replied with a smile, her cheeks warmed up Yayoi's shoulder "I think I'm gonna come home with you guys."
Yayoi cried tears of joy, "I'm so glad." she whispered.
When Hideki came to, they decided to call the police and admit what they had done to Tsuma, and what she had done to them. The police determined that Yayoi had killed Tsuma in defense of herself and Hideki, all charges were dropped and they were free to go. "Well, that was quite a trip." said Hideki.
Yayoi sat beside him snoring, totally exhausted from the whole situation. He didn't blame her. "Mm… My pet koala grew burrito plants…" she muttered in her sleep.
Moeko sat in the back seat of the Aston Martin, looking out the window in amazement as the sun began rising below the mountains. "I've never been in an automobile before. It's like a spaceship for Earth with wheels!" She told Hideki.
He laughed, "I guess it is! Haha!" The voices in his head began talking again, 'She's so cute.' 'You're gonna be a good dad.' 'Yayoi got her wish!' 'You saved a ghost girl.' 'You're awesome for saving her.' They said. He was happy that they were finally saying positive things. "Yeah, I know." he replied to them.
Moeko was confused, "Who are you talking to daddy?" She asked.
He looked back at her and smiled, "Zashiki Warashi."
The End