(Art: “The Rescue,” by Mai-sensei)
*** Forward ***
This is a true story of the creepy world the girl I was crushing on led me into. Whether you believe it is up to you. As is traditional in such stories, I’ve changed the names and locations to protect the people involved.
*** Girl in the Night ***
I’m not one to interfere, but a vulnerable woman wandering around at night was clearly not going to end well. I recognized Shiomi, from the 8 PM convenience store, walking down the road ahead of me. She was coatless on a cold autumn evening. From her staggering gait, I guessed Shiomi had been drinking. She was following an indistinct white figure that gave me an irrational, uneasy feeling. None of it boded well.
Maybe it was because I still had a crush on her that I hurried after Shiomi. The crush wasn’t going anywhere. I think she was in a relationship with her manager, Mikawa-san. The manager had acted like it. She glared at Shiomi if she caught her flirting with me. She took over Shiomi’s register when I came in. Things like that.
If so, the partner was dead. Some people might see that as an opportunity to comfort the widow, but I wouldn’t hit on someone when they were vulnerable like that.
Shiomi was cute or had been. In the last few weeks, I’d watched her go downhill. She looked hollow and stopped responding to my flirting. She just stared at me with dead eyes.
When I asked what was wrong, she said, “She died.” Her breath stank of booze and tobacco. When she handed me my smokes, I saw yellow nicotine-stained fingers. I felt sorry for her, but there wasn’t anything I could do.
Then she disappeared, and the new clerk said she was on leave. I wasn’t close to Shiomi. She was just some chick that I flirted with, so I dropped it.
That should have been the end of it, but today, as I walked home late from work, I spotted her. She was crossing the Rokudai Bridge alone at night. At the traffic light, she turned from the well-traveled street down a narrow pedestrian trail leading toward the cemetery.
I shoved my hands deeper into my coat pockets and hurried after her.
She slowly staggered in and out of the shadows cast by the trees and barely stayed on the narrow path, so I soon caught up with her. She paid no attention to me and stumbled on in what I now realized were pink fluffy house slippers. Ahead, the other figure glided on, never getting closer or further away.
The other woman was dressed in a white kimono that billowed strangely. It was as inappropriate as the light cotton housedress Shiomi wore. My eyes traveled up the figure as she reached the open slope to the unwalled cemetery and turned around to beckon to us. It was then that I glimpsed its face. My blood ran cold, and I almost froze with terror at the unbelievable sight of Mikawa-san.
I grabbed Shiomi’s arm, and she looked briefly at me with glassy eyes. Her unbrushed light blue hair fell heedlessly across her pale face, and her dress looked like she had slept in it. But that wasn’t what caused me to reach out and grab her arm. It was the woman ten meters ahead. Long black hair, flying in a wind no one but she could feel, framed a blackened and bloated face. It was the face of a corpse returned from the grave.
Shiomi stopped and looked at me. I had expected her to fight the stranger grabbing her in the dark, but all that happened was she weakly pulled at my arm, saying, “Let go. I have to catch up.” With her free arm, she waved at the figure that was paused on the grassy slope that led up to Enpukuji Cemetery.
There was no doubt in my mind that if I let go of Shiomi, we would be lucky to find her corpse the next morning. Most likely, she would disappear without a trace. I was no expert on the supernatural, but I had heard enough spooky stories growing up to know that much.
The figure beckoned, and I heard a sound like something slithering through dry grass. The unholy sound made my skin crawl.
Shiomi stared at me vacantly and weakly pulled again. “She’s calling.”
“You shouldn’t,” I replied. “That’s a graveyard, and she’s dead.”
“Fuck you,” Even her swearing lacked energy. She pulled again. “She’s waiting. Mika is waiting.”
Shiomi’s eyes started losing their glassy look, but I didn’t like the animal gleam that replaced it. She tugged harder and said, “Let go, bitch.” They were ugly words coming from a mouth I had thought sweet.
I don’t know if it was the right thing to do, but I’d seen it in Western horror films, so I slapped her, hard. I had to wake her up. Mikawa wasn’t whatever Shiomi thought she was. No one in their right mind would follow something like that.
“Wha?” Shiomi said, and for a moment, understanding flooded her face and then she collapsed.
“Now, what am I going to do?” I thought.
I glanced around and saw that the other woman, or should I say ghost[Note 1], was gone. So I bent down to see if I could rouse my charge. Her eyes fluttered. The feral gleam was gone, replaced by sadness. She muttered, “I need a drink.”
I didn’t think so. I could smell the sour odor of alcohol on her breath already, but anything to get her out of there before Mikawa reappeared. “Sure,” I said. “I have some beer at my place.”
“Shit, I hate beer.”
I put my arm around Shiomi and helped her walk. At another time, it might have been romantic, but she stank. I doubted she had bathed in days.
She muttered at first to herself as I half supported her as we walked and then fell silent. The rest of the way to my house, I thought about the first time I had paid serious attention to Shiomi.
*** Last Cigarette (Ume POV) ***
(Art: “Konbini Idol,” by Mai-sensei)
It had been a frosty morning. The warmth of the direct sunlight contrasted with my misty breath. Even without a coat, I should be okay if stayed in the sun and out of the wind. Which was good since I was in no mood to go back in the house and get it. I’d slammed the door of our shabby, one-story house, fuming. Tomo, my older partner, yelled out the window at me, “I never said YOU had to be monogamous.”
I hated when the other person was right, but I had never imagined it would be like this. He was a cute transmasc bear and sexually non-demanding, just right for a trans girl before surgery. But I’d had the surgery, and I had needs.
It had started when I told him that and had gotten just what I deserved. He’d said, “I’m not responsible for your needs. I told you at the start I was ace.”
I really, really, really hate it when they’re right. He had told me right away when I met him in the club and, at the time, it had worked. I still loved him, but I wasn’t cut out for asexual monogamy.
“Get a girlfriend,” he had added. Like that was easy.
“But you’re monogamous,” I shouted as I headed for the door.
That was how I got here, shivering on the road, without a coat, and fuming at being in the wrong. I’d apologize later. Tomo was blunt, but he never held a grudge. But right then, I didn’t have it in me to apologize.
At least I didn’t have to apologize to the neighbors. None of them seemed to have noticed our spat or were too polite to stick their heads out to see. — I suspected they weren’t fond of the excitable writer and her “husband.”
I dug into my purse and pulled out a pack of smokes.“Jeez,” I said out loud, “one friggin smoke.”
I was trying to quit, so I’d put my Taspo card away. That meant I couldn’t use a vending machine. At least I was in luck there. There was an 8 PM near the bridge. I could stop and watch the water as I smoked and then go on to the konbini[Note 2].
As for the 8 PM, I occasionally bought breakfast or smokes there, so I knew exactly where it was. I wasn’t a konbini suto, but I went there enough that they knew me.
Entering the store, I spotted the usual checker, a real cutie. My gaydar had gone off the first time I met her, but I was still trying to be monogamous, so I’d refrained from flirting. I don’t think I’d said over two words to her besides the number for my cigarette brand.
While I was there, I grabbed something to eat and a six-pack of Orion beer. It was special enough that it should serve as a peace offering for things I had said to Tomo. It would also help wash the taste of eating crow out of my mouth.
I took the beer and onigiri to the register. The girl behind the counter’s name tag said Shiomi Shiori. I bet she got called Shishi. She was an inch or two shorter than me, with silky hair she’d dyed a light blue. She was wearing it in twin tails but had lots of loose bangs in front. It looked good on her. Sweet and innocent looking.
Tomo said I needed a girlfriend, and he was right. Shiomi-san was a stunner. She reminded me of a Spaniel: cute, big eyes, and friendly. And if she was as gay as I thought…
I could dream.
I gave her the number for my brand of smokes, peach Pianissimos, and brushed her hand in passing as she handed them to me. Her fingers were long and slender with trimmed coral-pink nails. She didn’t seem to object, but I knew she noticed because she glanced at me. I smiled and said, “Those 8 PM uniforms don’t look good on most people, but it looks good on you, Shiomi-san.”
It was a weak line, but earned me a smile. A pleasant smile with white teeth below a delicate nose and big, sad, lazy gray eyes. I looked her over briefly, noting nice tits, and was rewarded by a blush. “Bull’s eye,” I thought, and dropped it at that point. I didn’t want to seem like a creep.
It looked like I wouldn’t quit smoking anytime soon.
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End Note:
Welcome to the world of Ume, Shiomi, and Tomo. Ume-san doesn’t realize it yet, but her good deed has plunged her into a shadowy world of supernatural creatures: Mikawa-san; Time Space Man, Tsubame Onna, Magagami-sama, and many others you may or may not have heard of. I hope you’ll continue with us as we explore that world, as well as follow the course of Ume’s infatuation with Shiomi; the change in Shiomi’s fortunes; and Tomo’s frustration at these two disaster lesbians.
Return to Konbini Idol top page
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Story by Nara Moore
Twitter/X:@nara_moore
Mastodon: sakurajima.moe
WordPress: Josei Yuri and Paranormal Romance
Art by Mai-sensei
Twitter: @Maiisheree
Return to Konbini Idol top page
1: Ghost: A yuurei, a Japanese spirit of the dead. Despite using the Western word, ghosts in this story conform to the Japanese archetype, not the Western one.
2: Konbini: Convenience store.