[ 7:59 A.M. ]

  Ryu was slumped against one of the wooden pillars that held up the sleek, metal awning above the West Dorm’s main entrance, barely clinging onto any last shred of consciousness while he drifted in and out of sleep. ‘I should’ve just stayed in bed,’ he thought. ‘The hell did I even get up this early for, again?’

  What a silly question for Ryu to ask himself.

[ 8:00 A.M. ]

  His phone alarm rang from inside his pocket. Ryu was in no rush to shut it off - Most people who would’ve been around to hear it had already made it to class by now. Standing in the middle of campus during the awkward down-time directly after classes started was quite the unique atmosphere to behold.

  ‘Oh shit. I forgot to text Hiro to tell him I’m not coming to class today.’

  Ryu took out his phone, finally silencing the alarm.

[ 8:01 A.M. ]

  Another identical alarm sounded only a few seconds later.

  ‘Fuckin’ hell, why did I set so many of these?’ He closed out of the messaging app to look for his alarms, flipping through the many pages on his home screen that were cluttered with games and streaming services that had been collecting digital dust for ages. ‘Damn it, why isn’t there an easier way to do this?’

  There was, in fact, an easier way to do this. However, that would require Ryu to confront the endless inbox of unopened notifications in the drop down menu, and he was not equipped to handle reading a paragraph from his stepmom asking him how his grades are - Not this early in the morning, anyway.

[ 8:02 A.M. ]

  ‘If I have to hear one more alarm, I’m politely introducing this phone to the concrete.’

  Polite introductions weren’t exactly Ryu’s forte. He mashed his finger against the screen until the alarm eventually took the hint and snoozed itself.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Ryu saw a person in a long, brown coat leisurely meandering down the sidewalk. By the time he looked up, the distance between them was too great for Ryu to make out any features other than the large, round glasses and the peculiar trail of smoke behind him. ‘Doesn’t that guy have class? If he’s late, shouldn’t he be walking a bit faster than that?’

  A wonderful question, posed by somebody who was also skipping class today.

[ 8:03 A.M. ]

  I pushed open the front door, suitcase in my hand and energy drink in the other. With my sunglasses on my face to block the harsh light that typically greeted me every morning, I saw Ryu with his hand raised high in the air, ready to chuck his phone against the concrete.

  “Hey, I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” I remarked.

  Ryu’s arm froze in place as his head snapped upwards in my direction. He slowly returned his phone to his pocket and went back to slumping against the pillar. “Worried I might cause a scene?” he asked, gesturing out to the wide, empty campus in front of us.

  “Nah.” I stood at Ryu’s side. Holding the can by the top with my right hand, I popped the tab with my middle finger and took a long sip. “...Because Shiraki would probably offer to buy you a new one.”

  Ryu shuddered at the thought of being indebted to Shiraki for life over a 150,000 yen smartphone. “Fair point.”

[ 8:04 A.M. ]

  “...What’s that?” I inquired about the obnoxiously loud ringing emanating from Ryu’s pocket.

  “Ugh…” Too lazy to actually reach in to press the button, Ryu smacked the phone through his sweatpants to shut off the alarm. “Stupid ass alarm keeps going off.”

  “Well, I knew that…” I checked my own phone to see if Aiko had replied to my text asking if she was up yet. The ‘typing…’ bubble had been there for almost ten minutes. Did she fall asleep mid-text, or something? I put my phone back in my pocket next to my MP3 player. “Can’t you just shut it off?”

  Ryu looked away, attempting to hide the grit in his teeth. “Can’t find the damn app…”

  I stopped drinking mid-sip, nearly splashing some of the drink in my face. “What?”

  “I said I don’t remember where the alarm app is, alright?” Ryu’s irritation was subdued, yet incredibly palpable. “My stepdad just got me this phone right before I left Japan, so I’m still not used to some of the settings or buttons on here yet.”

  Some wires in my brain began to connect as the caffeine hit my cardiovascular system. “Ryu, that’s not why you always oversleep, is it-”

[ 8:05 A.M. ]

  Suddenly, the pain in my right eye returned, if only for a fleeting moment. “Ow!” I nearly dropped my can as I rushed to cover my eye socket. I didn’t actually manage to spill my drink in my eye, did I? The only sensation more painful than that was the sound of Ryu’s alarm going off once more, this time with the looping sound of an old car horn. “You seriously don’t have any clue how to turn that thing off?”

  “If I did, then maybe we wouldn’t fucking be in this situation,” Ryu muttered while he kept frantically swiping through his endless sea of apps.

  I grabbed the top of Ryu’s phone and started pulling it away from his hand. “Fine, let me take a look.”

  “Like hell you will.” Ryu tugged back on his phone with an iron grip. “I’ll figure it out.”

  “Yeah, because that’s been getting us real far up until now.” Between both of our fierce grasps, Ryu’s phone was still attempting to wrestle its way free as the alarm rang endlessly. “Come on, just-”

  Ryu broke a sweat from yanking his phone out from between my fingers. “You’re not touching my damn phone.”

  “What does it look like I’m doing right now?” I hid a grimace as the muscles in my right arm started to tense up. Was I really this weak?

  “Let go of the phone, Genjo.” Either the alarm was too loud for him to hear me, or my comment wasn’t all that funny, because Ryu didn’t seem amused. Considering the ever-growing obnoxious mix of car horns blaring from all around, it really could’ve gone either way.

  “Dude, is it getting louder??” The sweat from my palms made it increasingly difficult to hold onto Ryu’s slick plastic phone case. “Just let me-”

  Eventually, it became clear that the more modern-sounding car horn originated from elsewhere, as it began overtaking the sound of Ryu’s alarm rather quickly. The two of us put our quarrel on hold and looked up to see the morning sunlight reflecting off the shimmering, untouched black paint on a sparkling new two-doored sports car. Its driver was concealed by a dark tint applied to the window glass. As it slowly pulled up to the front steps of the West Dorm and slowly came to a complete stop, one more alarm rang out to declare our meeting time.

[ 8:06 A.M. ]

  The front right window made a quiet humming noise as it rolled all the way down, revealing a rather dashing Jo Shiraki behind the wheel, wearing an unfamiliar (yet well-ironed) black suit and matching tie. “Well done, gentlemen - I didn’t think you’d actually show up on time.” His bright, purple eyes were obscured by a pair of gold-framed sunglasses that most likely cost more than my food budget for the month.

  Ryu’s eyes were wider than a canyon. “Holy shit… Shiraki, you own this?”

  Shiraki’s eyebrows quickly raised up for a fraction of a second. “Do your eyes lie to you often?” He pressed a button on the center console to put the vehicle in park and opened the door to greet us with overly vigorous handshakes. “Now, let’s get a move on - We have quite the drive ahead of us.”

  I let out a long sigh. “...Don’t remind me.” I dragged my suitcase along the concrete sidewalk towards the trunk of Shiraki’s car. “Is there a lot of space in the back? I’ll just-”

  “A-Allow me!” Shiraki swiftly snatched my suitcase and mashed a button on his keys, opening the trunk remotely. “Excuse me for my lack of hospitality… Mr. Ryu, allow me to take your bags as well-”

  Ryu shoved his bag in Shiraki’s face. “Yeah, yeah. Apologize to my bag, why don'tcha?”

  Shiraki delicately placed Ryu’s bag in the trunk, apologized profusely under his breath, and wiped off the beads of sweat forming on his forehead. “Phew…” He held open the door to the passenger seat and quickly turned his nervous expression into a smile that even Taisuke would call more enthusiastic than necessary. “After you, my distinguished-”

  “Honored.” Ryu swung open the door to the backseat, climbed in, and slammed the door closed.

  I stepped through the passenger door and promptly put my seat belt on. Shiraki shut the door behind me before the seat belt buckle even had a chance to click in place. Our cognac leather seats were in pristine condition, like they had barely been touched. The new car smell was quickly explained by the 'new car smell' air freshener attached to one of the central air vents. There were practically zero smears or scratches on the front windshield or dashboard - Shiraki took such good care of the car that it was as if it were completely new.

  At the press of a button, Shiraki put the car into drive and whipped a U-turn to head back towards the North Dorm to pick up Aiko. On our way, Shiraki attempted to make polite small talk - such as asking us if we had slept well, or if we needed to stop for breakfast - but Ryu was as unresponsive as a stone. I paused my music and replied, “I’ll pass. I brought a small cup of cereal with me, but thanks for the offer.”

  Shiraki scoffed and told me, “Ha! Hardly a sufficient meal for such a long trip.” He pulled up the navigation menu on the screen in the center of the dashboard and started to search for ‘breakfast near me’, resulting in an extensive list of fast food restaurants and hole-in-the-wall bakeries in the area. “Breakfast is on me today - Suggest wherever you’d like.”

  “Really? You don’t have to-” I stopped myself as I realized that this was Jo Shiraki I was talking to. Trying to get him to not pay for my breakfast felt like the most fruitless of efforts. I tapped a random option with a decent review average and reclined back in my seat.

  A few minutes later, the car came to another halt in front of the North Dorm. Shiraki rolled down his window to shout out to Aiko, who was out cold on the bench outside - She was slumped over the top of one of her vintage travel suitcases (more specifically, the one that used to contain several taller dresses that she’d “grow into… eventually.”) with her phone in her hand. Shiraki reached for the seat belt buckle and said, “Is Ms. Setsuko alright? I’ll-”

  “Allow me.” I frantically unbuckled my seat belt and bolted out of the car. The last thing I wanted Aiko to wake up to after a long night of essay writing was Shiraki towering over her - If she did, she’d probably think she was still in a nightmare. I crouched down until I was at eye level with Aiko and tapped her on the shoulder as delicately as possible through her black-and-white argyle sweater. “Hey,” I whispered. “It’s time to-”

  I yelped as the back of Aiko’s hand collided with my cheek at the speed of light.

  “Ow! What the hell was that for?” I said as I pinched her on the cheek.

  Aiko jolted awake with a panicked look on her face. She surveyed her surroundings until she saw the red spot underneath her glove on the back of her hand, looked up, and saw the matching red mark on my cheek. “O-Oh… Oh god…” She took a glance at her phone - which had been left unlocked the entire time she was asleep - and realized that she had clocked out mid-text. The message she had managed to churn out before passing out read,

“idk how much longer I can keep up the ‘setsuko’ thing, but he’s an idiot so idc ┐(￣ヘ￣)┌”

  She rubbed the back of her hand with her thumb and stared at the ground. “Sorry… I thought you were-”

  I groaned as I attempted to rub the pain out of my cheek. “Don’t apologize - I probably would’ve smacked him too…”

  Aiko immediately lifted her head up and smiled at me from the bench. “Hehe... Thanks for understanding!~”

  “Yep, no problem,” I muttered hoarsely as I lifted on the handle of her oddly heavy suitcase. She knows this is just for three days, right? I shuddered at the thought that this was three days worth of travel items for Aiko. “Completely understandable…”

  The trunk to the car opened remotely before I lugged Aiko’s suitcase over to the back, heaving it into the space between Ryu’s bag and Shiraki’s suitcase (which, might I add, had what appeared to be a voice recognition lock on it.) Aiko’s suitcase was covered from top to bottom with stickers, all displaying various countries that she had most likely never actually traveled to. Aruba. Denmark. Brazil. Morocco. I squinted hard when I read the sticker in the bottom left corner - …Yugoslavia?

  Aiko ran up to me as fast as she could in her black open-toed slippers. “Hey! You’re not rooting through my stuff, are ya?” She shook me by the arm. “It’s Shiraki’s job to be the creep - Not yours.”

  I wrestled my arm out of her grip and scratched the back of my neck. “Nah, I was just wondering what you and your father’s trip to the Soviet Union was like.”

  “Yeah, yeah… I’ll tell you about it in the car.” She snagged me by the arm again and dragged me towards the car door. The trunk started to close behind us as she opened the door to the back and nearly threw herself right into Ryu, who was already sitting tight.

  He was, understandably, far from thrilled about it. “Unluckily for all of us, I am, indeed, a solid object.” Ryu's firmly buckled seat belt was likely his method of trying to avoid saying, “Walk around, please,” out loud.

  Aiko looked up at me, seeming a bit less cheerful than before. “Go ahead and sit up front, Genjo. I’ll just sit in the back.”

  I felt her hand release my arm of her own volition. “You sure, Aiko? I’d hate to make you walk all the way around-”

  Her eyes silently, yet firmly, pointed at Shiraki in the driver’s seat. Suddenly, I realized exactly what she was trying not to say - If Aiko sat in the seat behind him, she’d feel a lot better knowing he wasn’t sitting directly adjacent to her. I gave Aiko a quick nod and returned to the passenger seat, listening to her slam Ryu’s door shut as she made her way around the back of the car. After about 15 seconds, the door diagonally opposite mine opened, and Aiko hopped right into her seat without much resistance.

  Shiraki’s neck cracked as he rolled it in a circular motion. “Last call for anything before we head out?”

  “Nope,” I replied as I shook my head.

  Aiko stretched her arm out and gave Shiraki a thumbs up from behind.

  A nondescript grunt came from Ryu’s general direction.

  “Alright,” Shiraki remarked as he began to drive away from campus. “If anyone complains about leaving something behind, it’s your own fault.” The grating voice from the navigation system guiding Shiraki to the breakfast place I had selected made conversation rather difficult, so the four of us stayed mostly quiet for the next fifteen minutes. I didn’t mind, though - That made it less awkward for me to keep my headphones on.

  Our pit stop for breakfast revealed some rather intriguing information about how the average person, given the circumstances where a rich person offers to pay for their food, would take advantage of it - and to what extent. I ordered a single cinnamon roll, appreciating Shiraki’s kindness but not wanting to bleed him dry by any means. Shiraki got himself a biscuit with a decently sized slab of chicken in the middle of it in addition to an almost comical amount of butter covering every square centimeter of the damn thing. Not feeling all that hungry in the first place, Ryu asked for a single hash brown and ate it in silence. Last, but not least, it was Aiko’s turn to order.

  …and she ordered one of every biscuit on the menu. When Shiraki inquired whether or not she was absolutely certain that she wanted to do this, she happily replied, “I’ll just save what I can’t finish for later!” with a wink and a smile. Aiko only made it through three of them before complaining about being full and tossing the remaining four into my lap from the backseat. I kept two for myself and handed the two containing sausage to Shiraki and Ryu. As I opened the wrapper reading, ‘Steak Biscuit’, I telepathically congratulated Aiko for her successful attempt at spiteful gold digging.

[ 8:39 A.M. ]

…Three hours and forty four minutes.

  Seeing that ETA displayed on the navigation screen was like tying a dumbbell to my brain. Fatigue sank in from the mere thought of being cooped up in this car for so long. If not for the days upon days worth of music saved on my MP3 player, I couldn’t even imagine making it through the drive without it. Aiko and Ryu were both fast asleep in the backseat. Ryu leaned up against the car door, using spare napkins as a makeshift pillow between his head and the window. Aiko, on the other hand, was lying completely on her side, taking up the entire middle seat without a care in the world. After brushing my hand against the leather seat, I determined that it was at least decently comfortable enough to sleep on if it came down to it.

  Shiraki tapped his way through different menus on the center screen, looking slightly disoriented as he rearranged the layout of the icons on the main menu, which I found a bit strange to do purely out of boredom. Regardless, it was reassuring to know he’s at least more technologically literate than Ryu. I had grown bored of watching Shiraki fumble through menus by the time we merged onto the interstate, so I just mindlessly stared at the trees as they passed by in a blur. Shiraki wasn’t a slow driver in any sense of the word, passing almost every car we approached without as much as a pathetic wave of his hand towards the turn signal to even pretend like he was going to turn it on.

  The playlist titled, ‘Road Trip Music’ had been sitting completely untouched on my MP3 player’s storage drive for about four years. It originates from my later years of middle school, back when we still talked about taking a trip somewhere as a family. That all changed, of course, when my parents suddenly stopped hearing back from Sui about visiting her - or anything, for that matter. I don’t like to dwell on my sister as much as I have been lately, but the darndest things tend to unearth memories that should honestly stay buried at this point. I eventually gave up hope that my parents and I would ever actually take another vacation. Dad would never admit it, but I know that taking us somewhere without his only daughter would feel like stabbing her in the back. Even myself, I still wonder if coming to S.S.S.S. was the right choice, especially since she-

  Faint, quiet singing crept its way through the plastic exterior of my headphones, causing my ear to perk up like a watchdog. I slid my finger into my jacket pocket and ran it along the scroll wheel until my music was turned down low enough for me to properly and discreetly eavesdrop. I was fully expecting to hear an awake, newly energized Aiko singing along to one of her showbiz tunes from her theatre days, officially cementing her role on this road trip as ‘the reason everyone wishes we had taken two separate vehicles’ - Except this voice was deeper. From my short-lived time in high school music class, I’d classify it as more baritone than I was capable of, and especially lower than Aiko’s higher soprano register.

  Entirely oblivious to the eavesdropper in the seat beside him, Shiraki’s eyes were laser focused on the road ahead as he tapped his finger against the steering wheel in a rather sloppy rhythm, softly singing an upbeat pop track to himself under his breath. His range was far from a perfect match - It was a song performed by what sounded like five girls, all with much higher vocal ranges than any man in this car. Shiraki was singing in Japanese, so I had a much easier time understanding the lyrics than usual.

“Look! If your heart shakes, you’re already in a new world!!”

  …It wasn’t exactly the type of music I would’ve pinned as being in the regular rotation for a nepo baby, but I guess I shouldn’t have judged the book by its jewel-encrusted cover.

“If we hold hands and keep walking, flowers will bloom…”

  As if this revelation wasn’t already enough of a bombshell in itself, seeing the bright and colorful album cover (complete with anime idols) on full display on the car’s center screen made me feel like I had just been hit by a bus. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t know that Shiraki owned the Felonious Embrace CD he left in my bag… but I didn’t think he actually listened to all that idol stuff himself. I kept listening to Shiraki sing along and, sure enough, he knew every single word by heart.

“You might be able to fly through the starry sky, let’s try!”

  Eventually, I kind of started to get it. Sure, the lyrics were sweet and sugary enough to inflict a cavity or three, but that didn’t make the voices behind those lyrics any less pleasant to listen to. I’d never admit this to anybody as long as I live, but it was so catchy that I actually started to quietly hum along to the chorus when it came back for the third time.

  …I should’ve known that would blow my cover.

  Shiraki immediately stopped singing and firmly pressed the skip button on the touch screen, pretending like it had never even happened. “G-Genjo, you’re awake! That’s a… surprise…”

  I slid my headphones around my neck. “Hm? I wasn’t asleep at all.”

  “Interesting.” There was so much sweat forming on Shiraki’s palms that the outline of his hands were visible on the steering wheel. “I trust that has nothing to do with the lack of comfort options on the seat?”

  “Bold of you to assume I knew about the comfort options…” I lifted my hand up to the touch screen and tapped the button to replay the previous song.

  Within seconds, Shiraki had already tapped the skip button again. “Oh, that won’t be necessary - I was just about to change it anyway-”

  “But I kinda liked that one,” I asserted as I rewinded the track once more. “Weren’t you enjoying it too?”

  Shiraki’s finger made an audible *smack* as he nearly drove it straight through the screen where the skip button was. “Don’t be ridiculous, Genjo… I’d never listen to that type of music - Hell, I don’t even know how that got into the queue just now.”

  I didn’t believe him for a second. “You seemed to know a lot of the words for someone who’d never listen to it.”

  His grip on the steering wheel tightened. “...I’m not quite sure what you’re referring to.”

  “Hm. Suit yourself,” I replied with a shrug as I lifted my hand up to the screen one more time. “I’ll just listen to it myself, then-”

  Shiraki’s iron grip shifted to my wrist before I could reach the button. “...Alright, what do you want?” Based on the harsh shift in his tone, I think I might’ve pushed some of his buttons a bit too far. “You think that just because I’m from a rich family, you can just pester me until I pay you to shut up?”

  Hey, you said it - Not me. “...What? No, why the hell would I think that?” I couldn’t help but wonder what caused such an unexpected outburst of aggression. Does this happen to him often? I’m sure it comes with the territory, but did I really strike a nerve that strongly? I tried to wrangle my hand out of his grip, but Shiraki had deceptively high grip strength for someone of his stature.

  Shiraki let out a loud exhale that barely masked the sound of the engine revving as the car accelerated ever so slightly. “I’ll ask you again. What do you want?”

  “I just want to listen to a damn song, Shiraki!!” I shouted exasperatedly. “Is that too much to ask?”

  The car sped up even faster as Shiraki began unconsciously putting more of his weight on the gas pedal. “Then we can listen to the hundreds of songs that come after it.”

  “I just don’t get why.” I had given up trying to reach for the button, lest my hand lose any more circulation from straining it harder. “Why are you so embarrassed about it? It’s not that abnormal to like that kind of-”

  “Maybe for you, it is.” Shiraki turned his head to look at me, averting his eyes from the road.

  “What do you mean, ‘for you’, man?” In the reflection from Shiraki’s sunglasses, I could see the trees through the window behind me - For some reason, they looked like they were getting further and further away.

  Shiraki didn’t seem to notice. “You just don’t understand what it’s like for-”

  A prolonged, shrieking horn blared out from the lane to our left. I hurriedly looked behind Shiraki - We were on course to smash straight into a massive, bulky white pickup truck at almost 140 kilometers per hour.

  Without a word, Shiraki went from holding my hand captive to holding his arm out in front of me, bracing me in preparation that the worst could happen. With my hand now free, I reached across the car to grab the steering wheel and lightly pulled it towards me, steering us away from the pickup truck while avoiding careening directly off the road and into a guard rail. Amidst the chaos, Shiraki’s sunglasses had fallen off his face. After the shock of nearly getting entangled by the thread of fate had worn off, I saw genuine terror still lurking behind in Shiraki’s eyes for the very first time. It was an expression that seemed just as unfamiliar to him as it was to me.

  The next few seconds felt like minutes. It’s not like this is the first time I’ve directly avoided certain death when, by all means, I shouldn’t have. (Believe me, I know that feeling well enough by now.) But at the same time, there’s an uncanny difference between walking the wire above an endless void to rescue a friend… and an unremarkable tragedy that could happen to anybody at any moment. Until now, I’d never truly thought about how I’d die. Maybe this is just the adrenaline speaking, but I think I’d rather die a unique, heroic death. At least one of those options prevents you from dying that ‘second death’... the one where someone speaks your name for the final time. It truly makes you wonder… How should one compose their own swan song?

“It's not a coincidence that we met. This beginning of a new you is something special.”

  This time, Shiraki didn’t bother to hit the skip button.

[ 11:08 A.M. ]

  Very little small talk occurred over the course of the next two hours. Despite everything that happened earlier, Shiraki initiated most of the conversation himself, although it rarely went much further than the occasional, “You know, this reminds me of when my mother and I went skeet shooting…” and other such remarks. My responses to Shiraki’s sporadic comments typically reminded him that I shared no such experiences.

  “No ill intent, of course,” Shiraki claimed so he could preemptively apologize for any offending comments. “But I’m assuming your family must not have gotten the chance to travel often.”

  “I wonder what gave you that idea.” I whispered as I felt a yawn coming on.

  Aiko, who had previously slept like a boulder through the swerve a couple hours prior, quickly awoke from her beauty sleep with a yawn that I could only describe as earth-shattering. “Bleh… What are you two whippersnappers yapping about up there?”

  “Oh, just discussing our previous travels,” Shiraki replied nonchalantly as he turned the knob for the air conditioning down about 1 degree.

  “...or lack thereof.” I pulled a muscle in my chin as I let out an eerily powerful yawn.

  “Aw, did you never go on any trips growing up, Genjo?” Aiko asked as she wiped the biscuit crumbs off her sweater.

  “Not really.” I leaned my head against the glass. “Pretty sure everybody’s been to Tokyo at some point, so I wouldn’t call that very special.”

  Shiraki slowly adjusted his gold-framed sunglasses back onto his face. “I wouldn’t be ashamed of that, Genjo. Some people just... aren’t about the world-traveling lifestyle.”

  Aiko visibly cringed and whispered, “Geez, maybe soften the blow a little bit next time?”

  “While many dream of visiting all across the globe,” Shiraki continued. “Not every place is all that it’s cracked up to be. For example, the Alps are-”

  “Hey, Genjo!” Aiko quickly interrupted. “What’s like… your dream vacation?”

  I turned my body around to face her in the backseat. “Hm?”

  “You know…” Aiko’s eyes wandered like she was lost in a daydream. “I’ve always wanted to visit Broadway…” The sparkle in her eyes illuminated the whole car. “I’d do anything to be on those stages one day, see my beautiful face plastered all over Times Square, take pictures in front of Radio City Music Hall, watch the-”

  “Overrated, if you ask me.” Shiraki tapped his foot loudly against the gas pedal as he shifted the car into cruise control. “New York in general could use some work. Especially Wall Street - Ugh, what a mess!”

  Aiko groaned and crossed her arms as she stared back out the window. “It takes one to know one. You just don’t have a proper appreciation for the arts, Shiraki.”

  “Au contraire, Ms. Setsuko…” Shiraki pointed at the business card poking out of the car’s folding visor, emphasizing the ‘Architecture’ part of ‘Architecture and Finance’. “My father-”

  “We get it, you have a rich dad.” Aiko’s eyes rolled back into her head so far that they might never return. “Hey,” She whispered as she poked me in the arm. “You didn’t answer my question yet, dummy.”

  I looked down at the floor, constantly flicking the lock switch on my MP3 player back and forth. “I mean… I’ve never really thought about it.”

  That was a lie. There was a place that I thought about all the time, one that wouldn’t stop bouncing around in my head and deafening all my other thoughts. ‘I just want to go where Sui went.’

  I tugged on the edge of my sleeves. “...but I guess Yellowstone seems kind of neat. I like national parks. The ones in Japan are pretty nice, at least.” It was a pretty half-assed answer, but I didn’t really feel like getting too deep into anything that I didn’t need to. Sometimes, things were just best left unsaid.

  A shuffling sound could be heard from the backseat as Ryu jolted awake, his makeshift napkin pillow sliding out from underneath his head. He rubbed both of his eyes with closed fists as he attempted to shield himself from the sunlight.

  Aiko leaned up close to Ryu’s face. “Perfect timing! What about you, Ryu? Is there anywhere you’ve always wanted to go?”

  Ryu held his eyes shut as he laid down on the center seat, angrily muttering, “...Back to bed.” Unlike the rest of us, Ryu seemed to be the only one with realistic travel plans.

[ 12:00 P.M. ]

  Over three hours into the drive, ‘Are We There Yet?’ Syndrome had started to set in, and it set it hard. As Ryu drifted back to sleep, Aiko started stacking empty cups and napkins on top of his head, trying not to giggle too loudly as she attempted to build the highest possible tower of trash before the bumps in the road could knock it over. My road trip playlist had started to repeat from the beginning for the second time, since I couldn’t help but skip songs that had unfortunate memories attached to them. Shiraki’s attempts at icebreakers were just as smooth as ever - My personal favorites included, “Have you three checked the stock market lately?” and, “Was the fruit named after the color, or vice versa?” Truly riveting stuff, I tell you.

  “Ooh, I got one!” Aiko leaned forward, resting her chin on the top of Shiraki’s seat. “Shiraki, how long have you had this car?”

  Shiraki tapped a button on his steering wheel very hastily, changing the display on his dashboard to the compass. “Oh, this old thing? I’ve had it for as long as I can remember. You know, I’ve made plenty of trips to the States in my time, and-”

  Aiko cocked her head to the side. “Really? Wow, it’s in really nice condition for being so old!” She gently dragged her finger along the center console, collecting zero dust on her glove in the process. “Why, it’s so clean, it’s like you got it this morning!”

  “Haha, you’re quite the joker, Ms. Setsuko.” Shiraki cracked his neck as he rolled it around his shoulders. “I’m glad somebody appreciates the amount of care that I put into-”

  “Mhm!” She nodded cheerfully. “The new car smell… no scratches or stains on the leather…”

  I leaned back into my seat and playfully swatted at Aiko’s hand. “Hey, what’s gotten into you? It’s a clean car. So what? Lots of people have clean cars.”

  Aiko waggled her finger in my face. “Bzzt!! You just don’t get it, Genjo. A car like this with, what, 40,000 kilometers… that’s this pristine?~”

  Shiraki bashfully adjusted his tie and shook his head. “Now, where did you get a number like that from? Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the high praise, but-”

  “Well, with all that traveling you do, Mr. Shiraki…” Aiko rapidly tapped her fingers on the leather seat. “...you’ve probably got tons of miles on this thing…”

  I paused my music to listen more intently as Shiraki cleared his throat rather forcefully. “Actually, Ms. Setsuko, I-”

  I started clicking through the different options on the touch screen while Aiko pestered him, noticing a strange feeling as my fingers grazed the screen, as if I were touching a protective label. “I’m actually kind of curious too, now.”

  Shiraki’s eyebrow twitched as my finger slowly tapped the button for the vehicle information. “T-That won’t be necessary-”

  Too late. As the pop-up window on the screen slowly expanded, several key statistics were on full display:

Fuel efficiency: 40.4 miles per gallon.

Range: 356 miles remaining.

Mileage: 250 miles.

  “...that’s it?” Aiko and I exclaimed simultaneously. I took off my sunglasses and wiped the lenses, thinking that there’s no shot that I was reading that correctly. “Shiraki…?” I checked the navigation app on my phone - We were only 220 miles from the San Jose area.

  Aiko rested her cheek against her palm, blankly staring at the screen. “...Well, that explains the temp plate on the back, hehe,~” she said with a bubbly undertone.

  My head snapped back to face Aiko. “The what?”

  “I thought something looked weird when I walked around the back before we left.” Aiko was swaying side to side, clearly proud of herself for her investigative work.

  Meanwhile, Shiraki’s entire body was noticeably vibrating in the driver’s seat, like he was physically about to burst like a can of spray paint in a campfire. “Ha…ha… Wow… That’s…” I swear I could see steam shooting out of his mouth every time he opened it. “...a strange glitch. I can’t imagine why it would be doing this…” If Shiraki had grit his teeth any harder, they’d probably shatter violently from the pressure.

  Aiko, who was putting on the performance of a lifetime by not breaking into hysterics right now, kept pondering out loud. “Gee, a car this nice must’ve cost… Oh, I don't know... almost eleven million yen… Ah!! This is so cool!!~”

  Oh, she’s really egging him on now. “Oh, get outta here… There’s no way that he-”

  I was rudely cut off by the voice of the navigation system, which I’m pretty sure everybody in the vehicle had completely forgotten was even still on at this point.

“Recalculating route…”

  A hush went over the car as we all looked at one another. Aiko shyly broke the silence, asking, “Hey… we didn’t…”

  “...miss our exit…” Shiraki whispered.

  I saw the dread behind Shiraki’s golden glasses. “...did we?”

“In 2.1 miles… take the exit, then turn left, then turn left again and merge onto I-80 West.”

  Ah, the navigation system always had such a way with words…

  Shiraki’s head sank in defeat and pressed hard against the steering wheel, letting a long, drawn-out horn ring out all across this stretch of I-80 East and jolting Ryu wide awake again. “S-Shit!” Ryu took his phone out of his pocket and powered it off completely. “I thought I turned that fucking alarm off already…”

[ 12:43 P.M. ]

  Despite a rather thrilling detour that took us to a very scenic run-down gas station, we were quickly back on track towards our destination, which I was beginning to realize was much more remote than I initially thought. The navigation had led us down a long, winding backroad through a forest with very little along the way to pique our interest.

  Actually, there was nothing along the way - Not even a sign that read something along the lines of, ‘You’re almost there!! The House for Heavy Hearts is just ONE mile away!!’. It was just… trees. To be honest, it was starting to make me incredibly nervous. If there was any place to take a group of potential murder victims and isolate them entirely from the outside world, this would be it. I was thankful that my MP3 player didn’t require an internet connection, otherwise I’d have no way to listen to music all the way out here.

  Judging from Aiko’s anxious thumb twiddling in the backseat, I was far from the only one with any concern about where we were going. “Um, Shiraki… If we don’t find this place in the next three minutes, I’m calling my dad to tell him I love him.”

  Ryu kicked his feet up on the center console, much to Shiraki’s chagrin. “Ha! Good luck with that. I’m not getting any service worth a shit right now.” He cursed himself for shutting his phone down earlier, for he might’ve been able to salvage a little bit of residual connection as we drove further and further from the interstate.

  “Yeah... I’m not sure that’s how it works.” I smacked the side of my phone, hoping to convince it to connect to something. Meanwhile, Shiraki’s navigation seemed to still be running, yet a bit spotty and inconsistent. “Shiraki, how the hell is your phone still working?”

  Shiraki shrugged. “Peculiar, isn’t it?”

  Aiko lifted up on the inner door lock, getting ready to jump out. “Two minutes.”

  “I-I’m trying my best, okay?” Shiraki stammered his way through his words. Clearly, he was just as frustrated as the rest of us. “It keeps telling me we’ve already arrived, but that can’t possibly be correct. Surely it’s still coming up on our left.”

  “You’re talking like you’re so certain, man.” Ryu pointed his open hand out in front of us at the rapidly approaching dead end. “And I’m not an expert by any means, but that doesn’t look like a hotel to me.”

  Shiraki angrily whipped a U-turn and started driving back the way we came. “No, this isn’t right… it has to be on our right this time.”

  Aiko’s finger delicately wrapped around the door handle. “One.~”

  I kept my eyes peeled in front of us as we drove down the backroad, looking for any signs of… well, anything. “Hey, Shiraki,” I blurted out at the sight of a rotted, barely visible wooden gate. “Look!” The gate blended in so well with the trees that I didn’t blame him for not noticing it before.

  "That's it!" His eyes lit up as he swiftly turned the car to the right, traveling down a road that was so well-covered in leaves and dirt that you could honestly claim it wasn’t even there to begin with. With every bump against small, jagged rocks and the snapping sounds of branches encroaching onto the path, Shiraki silently prayed to himself that the car would come out unscathed.

  The dirt road eventually spit us out into a small rectangular clearing. Nature had almost entirely reclaimed the empty asphalt parking lot beneath us, and the tiny wooden lodge along the very back edge of the clearing didn’t seem to be holding up much better. A cracking reddish-orange neon sign reading, ‘The House for Heavy Hearts’ hung above the front door with more than its fair share of rust, the ‘Vacancy’ portion of the sign clinging on for dear life. I’ll give them some credit - At least the neon sign actually contained neon.

  “Looks kinda grody…” Aiko tried to not audibly make any more *ick* noises out loud than necessary. “We’re not… sleeping here, right?”

  Shiraki bore a similarly disgusted expression. “Unfortunately, we will be…”

  “Hey, jackass,” Ryu grunted as he kicked a pinecone across the parking lot. “Let’s not pretend this wasn’t your idea.”

  I watched the pinecone splinter off into pieces as it skidded along the surface of the fissured asphalt. “Well, we’ve come this far, haven’t we?” My legs reluctantly carried me to the front of the lodge, stopping in front of the creakiest automatic sliding door on the planet, stuttering as it slid across the track like somebody was on the inside dragging it open themselves. The interior of the lodge was a few steps up in quality from the exterior. For starters, the lights worked, which was definitely nice. A quiet pile of ashes tried its best to burn in the fireplace on the right side of the lodge next to a small wooden table topped with brown lace placements that looked like they probably used to be white. Directly in front of me, there was an empty concierge desk that might've been what the ‘Vacancy’ on the sign outside was really referring to - In fact, there wasn’t anyone in sight… No other guests, no staff, nothing. Did anybody even work here?

  Another irritating squeal came from the automatic door as Shiraki single-handedly carried almost all of our luggage in. Ryu and Aiko walked alongside him, doing very little to help aside from carrying in the trash from our breakfast stop. Shiraki set down our suitcases with a deafening *thud* on the shag carpet and wiped his forehead exaggeratedly. “Phew…Genjo, what’s the status on check-in?”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Why don’t you ask the concierge?” I asked as I leaned up against the empty desk.

  “...Hm.” Shiraki casually meandered around the empty lodge with his hands in his pockets. “Perhaps they’re busy taking care of other guests at the moment.”

  Aiko picked up her luggage and held it behind her with both hands. “Yeah, maybe one of the other guests needed their car fixed, or something,” she remarked sarcastically.

  “Well, look on the bright side,” I replied. “At least we won’t have to wait on them to clean our room-”

  “Unbelievable.” Before I could finish, Shiraki lightly shoved me to the side and rapidly tapped the small, brass bell on the concierge desk.

  “Waaah!!” A shriek erupted from behind the concierge desk as a short, curly red-headed girl jolted awake in her chair. Her dark navy blue uniform resembled that of a flight attendant’s more than that of a bellhop. The girl’s face was covered from top to bottom in so many freckles that, if my father were here, he’d probably make some terrible, corny joke like, “Hey, save some for the rest of us, why don'tcha?’

  All four of us were just as startled as the girl behind the desk. We took turns exchanging glances, trying desperately to not be the first one to speak. Shiraki seemed slightly less frazzled than the rest of us, but still hesitant to suddenly bombard this girl with conversations mere seconds after she awoke.

  Eventually, the girl wiped the trail of drool running down her cheek, adjusted her round blue hat and changed back into work mode. “Please pardon my manners, everyone. It’s just that…” She reached up to her chest and straightened her name tag, which read, ‘Ellen X.’ plain as day. “...never mind that - Welcome to the House for Heavy Hearts! My name is Ellen. Do you have a reservation?” Ellen’s voice was quiet, yet commanding in how well-mannered she conducted herself on the job.

  Shiraki almost instantly shifted gears into his usual car salesman-like demeanor. “Oh, forgive us for just stopping in without any prior notice. We were just in the area and felt like stopping by.”

  Ellen gathered a stack of papers off her desk and tapped them against the desk to straighten them. “Don’t worry, nobody ever makes any reservations. Asking for one is just part of the job.” She snatched one of many pens out of a tall water glass and clicked it multiple times. “So, what brings you all here? Just lookin’ for a place to get away for the night?~”

  Ryu leaned into my ear and whispered, “Why did she say that so suggestively?”

  “Actually, we were hoping to book a weekend getaway.” Shiraki delicately removed a stack of bills from his suit pocket and slid it across the desk. “Will this suffice?”

  Ellen stared at the money confusedly. “Excuse me, sir…” She laughed nervously, unsure how to break the news to him. “I’m sorry but… we charge by the hour here.”

  I whispered back to Ryu. “And… there it is.”

  Aiko scratched the top of her head. “That’s kinda stupid for a hotel. What’s the point of-”

  “N-No worries!” Shiraki quickly blurted out. “Just… convert it to whatever your hourly rate is, madame.”

  Ellen shrugged and accepted the money, flipping through it to count each individual bill. “No skin off my back.” She pulled open the cash drawer, which was weirdly empty, and tossed Shiraki’s money inside. Ellen then walked over to a key rack on the wall that looked older than all of us combined and grabbed two old, metal keys. “Alright, two rooms for two nights… that’ll be-”

  “Wait, hold on…” I leaned over the edge of the concierge desk. “We never said anything about getting separate rooms.”

  “It’s company policy.” Ellen spun the two key rings around her finger, the slight twang in her voice becoming more noticeable by the second. “Any more than two guests per room requires an extra cleaning fee. Too much of a pain to do it myself.”

  An intense frown overtaking Aiko’s face told me that she was finally starting to catch on to exactly what type of hotel this really was. “O-Oh. Lovely…” She sputtered out as her suitcase dropped to the floor behind her.

  “Hey, I’m not here to judge,” Ellen said without a care in the world. “So, which one of you will be staying with the young lady?”

  Shiraki stretched his arms out in front of him. “Oh, she’ll be with-”

  “Do. Something.” Ryu elbowed me violently.

  “Ouch!” I clutched my forearm as I shouted, “Ryu!” aloud.

  Ellen blinked a few times in perplexity. “Sir… are you… Ryu?”

  Ryu cleared his throat obnoxiously loudly and strolled up to the concierge desk. “No, that’s R-Y-U… Ryu.”

  “Hehe, alrighty then,” Ellen held back a chuckle as she scribbled, ‘R-Y-U’ in the guest book. “And you, miss?” She pointed her pen at Aiko. “I’ll just need your name and ID for the guest registry. That goes for all of you, by the way.”

  Ryu quickly placed his ID on the desk and stepped away, and Aiko soon followed. When it was me and Shiraki’s turn, I accidentally dropped mine directly onto the guest book. “Whoops, I’m sorry…”

  “Pfft, no big deal,” Ellen reassured with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Happens all the time.” She quickly rotated my ID to read my name and quickly wrote it down on the guest list, which I caught a quick glimpse of:

R-Y-U Kase, Aiko Matsuura. Room 4038.

Genjo Sazama. _________. Room 3005.

  “Excuse me,” I asked as Ellen handed our IDs back to us. “Why are our rooms so far apart?”

  “Oh, force of habit. I assume most couples just prefer the privacy. Most people hate having to be… quiet, I guess.” Ellen checked the rack, only to realize that the only other keys still on the rack were even further apart for some reason. “Once you go out the back door of the lodge, the hotel will be on your right. Try not to get lost from there.”

  Ryu slung his bag over his shoulder. “Hey, don't take this the wrong way, but are you the only person that works here?”

  Ellen held up her hands in surrender. “Ah, you got me…” She followed us outside as we stepped out the slightly less creaky back door. “Just kidding… sort of. I mean, I have a boss. They don’t come around all that often, though.” Ellen walked backwards in front of us like a tour guide who was here to show us around the barren, empty forest trail. “And nobody else wants to work here, so it’s pretty much just me.”

  “Well, that’s not concerning in the slightest...” Aiko pointed further down at the trail at a mysterious metal shack. “That’d better not be our hotel.”

  “Oh, that’s just the maintenance shack.” Ellen led us down the bend to the right towards the hotel. “Gonna be honest, even I don’t remember half of what’s in there. I just go straight to the lawnmower and then come right back out.”

  Ryu’s eyes drifted down to the tall blades of grass encroaching on the sides of the trail. “You sure about that one, Ellen?”

  She just shrugged with a goofy expression on her face. “Hey, can't a girl crack a joke while on the clock these days?” Ellen stopped us in front of a square five-storied building that hadn’t been pressured washed in ages. “Welp, here we are! Hope I don’t need to teach ya how to use an elevator. Otherwise, that’ll be extra!” She said with a quirky tone to her voice as she tapped a finger on her temple before heading back to the lodge. Well, at least she’s having fun, and that's what really matters.

  Our hotel was surprisingly not that bad on the inside… at first glance. It, as my mother would probably describe it, “had good bones”, but was still as grimy and dated as the rest of the property we’d seen up to that point. This is an incredibly low bar, but at least it seemed a few years out from getting condemned. We said goodbye to Aiko and Ryu as we got into separate elevators and rode up to our respective floors. The elevator made a loud scraping noise as we ascended, the light flickered like a horror scene, and the air was unbearably musty, but it was otherwise a pleasant and survivable experience.

  Shiraki and I exited the elevator to a hallway decorated with peeling yellow wallpaper, boarded up windows, and gum-covered carpet, which was definitely one of the more preferable types of carpet stains. Our room was directly to our right, directly across the hall from an ice machine that whirred and chugged louder than any machine of its size had any right to. After twisting the key in the lock for much longer than necessary, the door finally swung open into a room with a single king-sized bed and a basket of chocolates, wine and pomegranates. I set my suitcase down in the corner of the room and picked a chocolate out of the basket and asked, “What's the deal with these?”

  “Aphrodisiacs, I’m sure.” Shiraki wasted no time wiping down every surface in the uncomfortably brown room. “You know… things that-”

  “I know what an aphrodisiac is, thank you very much.” I tossed it back into the basket. “Chocolate’s just… not actually one.”

  Shiraki lifted up the mattress to check for bed bugs. “What do you expect from a place like this? I don’t recall seeing a biology degree framed on the wall behind the desk.”

  After he was done checking, I laid down on the bed completely exhausted. “Might I remind you who chose this place?”

  “Yeah, yeah…” Shiraki’s demeanor seemed to be slowly crumbling before my very eyes. “Remember, we’re here for a reason.”

  “Right… I just need a breather after all that first…” I stared at the cracked light bulb and the string hanging from the ceiling, thanking every possible deity out there that it wasn’t a black light. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and tried to call Aiko, but I still didn’t get any service. Suddenly, my mind became heavy, giving me a sinking, exhausted feeling. “Ugh… I think I might… turn in for the night…”

  As my eyes glued themselves shut, I could see Shiraki running to my side of the room. “Wait, we still have to investigate!”

  I rolled over onto my side, briefly catching a glimpse of my energy drink sitting on top of my suitcase in the corner of the room. “Just… a minute… okay?”

  “What are you saying?” Shiraki babbled on. “I can’t do this without you… I-” The rest of his words failed to register.

  Time flew by as I felt every fiber of my body drag me back to bed. The ghost of sleep deprivation had come to collect its debt.

[ 5:28 P.M. ]

  Aiko angrily threw her phone against the bed as she laid facing the ceiling. “Argh!!! I can’t believe we had to walk all the way around the building and our room still sucks!!”

  “No use crying about it now.” Ryu was already hard at work shoving pillows underneath the bedsheets to create a barrier down the center of the mattress. “When we get up tomorrow, let’s just hurry up and figure out if this place is haunted or not, and then we can get the hell out of here.”

  “Ugh… there’s that word… ‘if’...” Aiko swiftly sat up and took a very deep, irritated breath. “We don’t even know if we’re gonna find anything here! It’s so stupid!!!”

  Ryu sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the floor. “Could always be worse… You could be staying with Shiraki.”

  Aiko’s entire body shuddered at the thought. “Yuck… Thanks for volunteering to room with me back there, Ryu. You're a real lifesaver."

  “Eh, right answer, wrong equation…” Ryu mumbled to himself.

  “Huh?” Aiko looked across the bed at Ryu. “What’d you say?”

  “N-Nothing.” Ryu took out his knife and started cutting open the pomegranate, thinking to himself, “God, Genjo… just how dense is that big head of yours?”

  Aiko kicked her feet off the edge of the bed, refusing to take her slippers off and step directly on the grimy carpet with her fancy wool socks - She already felt like she would never be able to wear them again after this. “You don’t think… Shiraki was-”

  Ryu cracked open the pomegranate and handed it across the bed to Aiko. “There’s no way he’s that big of a creep. Besides, if he even looked in your direction like that, he'd gotta go through Genjo first.”

  She picked the tiny seeds out of the fruit and ate them one by one. “Hm? And not you too?”

  “Well,” Ryu kicked his feet up against the small bedside table. “You two are a lot closer. You and I... don’t really talk that much.”

  Aiko’s mood slowly improved as she nibbled on the pomegranate seeds. “That’s fine… I know I can still depend on you in a bind, though.”

  “Thanks… I try.” Ryu’s knife transformed back into a pen as he dropped it back in his pocket. “Just… don’t depend on me too much.”

  “Why not?” Aiko asked curiously.

  Before he knew it, Ryu caught himself thinking about his mother. ‘You weren’t there for her, were you? How can you promise to ever protect anyone again? You can’t even protect yourself, you lying sack of shit. How did you love her anymore than that asshole who just drank himself to death? Why don’t you go fucking join-’

  Ryu snatched the wine bottle out of the basket and started to pour it out into the sink. “...don’t worry about it.”

  Aiko went quiet, but decided not to press it any further. “Sorry…”

  “Don’t be.” Ryu tossed the empty bottle into the trash and sat back down on the edge of the bed. “Just... don’t let me make any promises I can’t keep.”

  “Hey…” Aiko held out the rest of the fruit to Ryu from the other side of the bed. “Ryu, the only one who knows whether or not you can make a promise is you. And I know that you’re-”

  The harsh screech of the elevator echoed through the hallways, shaking the room and making Aiko drop the pomegranate onto the bed, spilling the dark red juice all over the clear, white sheets. “Hehe…” She giggled nervously. “...those stains aren’t hard to get out… right?”

  Ryu smirked and replied, “If it’s any consolation, it’s not like those are the worst stains those sheets had to begin with.”

  “Ew, ew, ew!!” Aiko quickly jumped off the bed, her skin crawling underneath her argyle sweater, which she started to contemplate tossing into a fire. “Ryu!!” she shouted. “If I can’t sleep tonight, it’s your fault, you asshole!!”

[ 7:17 P.M. ]

  The wind howled in the night around Aiko as she wandered down the trail towards the lodge, holding a small green blanket around her to keep herself warm. “Ugh…” she thought aloud. “Why didn’t I wait to change into my pajamas after I got new bedsheets?” She took extra special care to avoid the edges of the trail, afraid that a hand might jump out of the grass and drag her away. Aiko hurried into the lodge as soon as the automatic door came into view.

  Aiko could hear Shiraki yapping away as usual while she slid through the door. “You seriously couldn’t find a more fulfilling career than this?” He leaned up against the concierge desk and chatted up Ellen, who was probably experiencing culture shock from having to do any work whatsoever. “Surely there’s more to do in Tahoe City than just this.”

  Ellen, clearly a master at finding ways to kill time, was reorganizing all of Shiraki’s money by the year that each bill was printed. “There is, but…” She stopped to ponder Shiraki’s question once she was about halfway through the stack. “I suppose it’s an easy way to make a living. The owner never comes around enough to know if I’m doing a terrible job, so who’s gonna fire me?” Ellen chuckled to herself as she went back to sorting.

  Shiraki wiped his finger along the top of the desk, collecting a solid centimeter of dust. “It’s a shame how this place turned out, really. But I’m sure that’s out of your control, given that the owner doesn’t seem to remember the place even exists.”

  “Haha, maybe they did forget about me. I definitely don’t blame them.” Despite her intense focus, Ellen had made minimal progress on the stack.

  “Then what’s stopping you from leaving it all behind?” Shiraki leaned further over the desk, crossing his arms as he tapped the side of the bell. “If you left this town today, would you actually have any regrets?"

  She sighed and shook her head. “...I’ve never really left this place. And I have no real way of leaving, either.”

  Shiraki tapped the bell even more rapidly. “How about this; Why don’t you come back to San Jose with us when we leave? Even if it’s just for a short trip, don’t you want to see what the rest of the world is like?”

  “As much as I appreciate the offer, Mr. Shiraki, I just can’t leave this place behind…” Ellen leaned her head to look over Shiraki’s shoulder, spotting Aiko sitting in silence by the fireplace. “Excuse me, Ms. Matsuura… Do you require my assistance?”

  Aiko tugged on her blanket, hiding her entire torso. “Can I, um…” She struggled to think of a way to ask her question without it seeming like she was implying anything. “...get some new bedsheets for our room? I… spilled some juice on them, haha…” Aiko silently prayed to herself that Ellen would actually believe her.

  “No problem, ma’am… Room 4038, right?”

  “Yep, you got it!” Aiko let out a sigh of relief.

  Ellen arose from her chair and left for the storage closet. “I’ll bring those right up to your room in a jiffy, Ms. Aiko.”

  “T-Thank you!” Upon hearing her name, Aiko’s heart felt like it had been ripped out of her chest. Noticing that Shiraki was still in the lodge with them, Aiko was frightened of how he’d react now that he knew that ‘Setsuko’ was just an alias - ‘If he was even listening,’ she thought to herself. Aiko, still a bit chilly from the walk from the hotel, spun around and stared into the fireplace, hoping Shiraki would ignore her.

  Shiraki did no such thing. “Excuse me-”

  “I’m sorry…” Aiko’s face fell into her hands.

  His right eyebrow raised, but nobody could've seen it behind his untrimmed bangs. “...Pardon?”

  Aiko scooted closer to the fire to warm up more. “...for lying. Dad always told me that every lie will come back to haunt you.”

  Shiraki slowly sat down in a rocking chair near the fireplace, resting his hands over the edges of the arm rests. “Setsu-” He stopped and cleared his throat. “I mean… Aiko, you truly have nothing to apologize to me for.”

  She hid underneath her blanket. “B-but…”

  “I’m not angry, if that’s what you’re afraid of.” Shiraki crossed his legs as he rocked back and forth in the chair. “Not in the slightest.”

  “Hm?” Aiko gradually hatched from her blanket cocoon. “You’re not? Why?”

  Shiraki reached up and shut off his earpiece. All of the lights on the lens display disappeared with it. “Because I’m certain you were just doing it to protect yourself. My mother always told me the importance of young women needing to keep themselves safe from potentially dangerous men. I’m sure your mother must’ve taught you the same.”

  Aiko began picking at the edges of her lace gloves. “Actually, I… didn’t have a mom.”

  “Oh,” Shiraki whispered. “My condolences... truly, I mean it.”

  “It’s fine.” She wasn’t sure how to continue the conversation after such a downturn.

  Luckily, Shiraki was excellent at this, for better or for worse. “You know, I have something to confess myself.”

  “Huh?” Aiko scooted away from the fire after it warmed her up a little too much. “It better not be something stupid,” she blurted out a bit louder than planned.

  “Haha, I sure hope it’s not.” Shiraki’s fingers tapped quietly against the rocking chair. “It’s… about the car.”

  “Oh, you mean how you lied about owning it?” Aiko asked with a bit of sass.

  Shiraki let out a quick laugh. “Not a lie per say, it’s more like…” He scratched his chin as he struggled to come up with the words. “...an opportunistic, yet convenient veiling of information that wasn't particularly relevant at the time.”

  Aiko wrapped her arms around her legs as she curled up on the ground. “...That's a pretty long-winded way of saying you lied about it.”

  Ignoring the truth behind her comment, Shiraki continued. “It was simply in my best interest at the time to disguise that fact from you all, lest you all make any... assumptions about my financial status.”

  “Kinda late for that one, huh?” Aiko tapped her finger against her cheek, noticing some crumbs stuck on the edges of her lip. “But don’t rich people usually like to flaunt that kinda stuff? Being able to buy a sports car on a whim seems like something you would want everyone to know about."

  Shiraki held a small chess piece in his hands - the black king. “Quite the opposite. I’d rather my friends enjoy my company for me… not simply what I can afford to give them.”

  Aiko twirled her blanket around her finger, scooting closer to the fire once more. “Do you consider us ‘friends’, Shiraki?” she asked curiously. "Genjo, Ryu and I."

  “Hm…” For once, there was an unusual pause before he spoke. “I’d certainly rate you higher than ‘acquaintances’, that’s for sure…”

  At this revelation, Aiko started to feel a bit terrible for being so aggressive around him. “I guess that explains why you refer to us by our first names…” Suddenly, her head perked up as she turned to face Shiraki. “...so why don’t we refer to you by your first name, Shiraki? That’s what friends do, isn’t it?”

  There was a quick twinge in Shiraki’s left eye. “That’s… simply unprofessional.”

  “Professional?” Aiko was incredibly confused by his line of thinking. “But friendships aren’t professional - What’s so wrong about us calling you Jo?”

  Shiraki snapped his fingers, almost like a reflex. “Because that’s…” He took a deep breath as he made a slow motion with his hands to help himself become more calm. “...because that’s not my name.”

  “It’s not?” Aiko’s brow furrowed, unsure if she had heard correctly through the crackling of wood burning and crumbling in the fireplace. “Why have an alias if you’re not even going to use it?”

  He stood up and started to make for the back exit of the lodge, sending the rocking chair into a frenzy of unstable oscillations. “You don’t know what it's like to not live up to your own name.”

  Aiko shot up from the floor. “Shiraki, I understand what it's like to have a lot that you feel like you need to prove to people,” she called out as her blanket slowly drifted off her shoulders and to the ground. “But you don’t have to prove anything to your friends.” Aiko was surprised at the words that had just escaped her mouth. Until a few weeks ago, she probably needed to hear those same words for herself.

  The door slid open in front of Shiraki as he stopped in his tracks. Without looking over his shoulder, he muttered, “It’s… getting late, Aiko. I’ll be returning to my room. I’d advise you to do the same. We should all be well-rested for tomorrow.” Shiraki’s footsteps grew faint as the door slid back shut behind him.

  Now standing in an eerily quiet and empty lodge in the woods, Aiko figured it was time to take Shiraki’s advice and head back for the night. She bent down to pick up her blanket and noticed that Shiraki had dropped a small wooden chess piece on the ground in front of the rocking chair as he got up and left. She examined the black king carefully, putting it in her handbag for safe keeping. ‘Maybe I’ll return it to him later,’ she told herself as a reminder.

  Before leaving the lodge, Aiko realized that she had forgotten which room Genjo and Shiraki were staying in. She took out her phone and attempted to text him, but quickly remembered just how shitty her cell phone service was out here in the forest. As she racked her brain for a solution, a brilliant idea hit her as she spotted the guest registry on Ellen’s desk. “Whoops… I hope she doesn’t mind if I rummage through this for a second…~” Aiko whispered out loud, hoping Ellen hadn’t yet returned from changing the sheets in their room.

  As Aiko flipped through the pages, the frequency at which guests came and went ebbed and flowed, eventually coming to a screeching halt over the course of the last several years. The drop-off seemed to occur around 2018, seemingly overnight. Almost every future booking after 2018 appeared to be no longer than an hour or two, with very rare exceptions. What happened five years ago? And why did it make people stop coming?

  Finally, she landed on the rarest exception of all:

Genjo Sazama. Jouto Shiraki. Room 3005.

  Aiko took a picture of their room assignments after giggling to herself for a bit over Ellen’s spelling of Ryu’s name in the book. But more interestingly, another name that wasn’t entirely familiar to her caught her eye.

  “...Jouto?” Aiko read out loud. She recalled his final comment about ‘not living up to his name' before leaving for the night. “Shiraki… just what on earth wouldn't you tell me?”

[ 8:21 A.M. ]

  Ah... the beautiful light of the shining sun cast upon the room, gently awaking us from our slumber… That is, if you were staying in a room where the windows weren’t boarded up. Instead, a stupidly loud, grating, mechanical alarm clock jolted me awake like a soldier alerted by gunfire over the trenches. I didn’t even bother trying to aim for the snooze button - I swung my arm in the general direction of the bedside table and knocked over the alarm clock completely to the ground. Once the clock stopped its incessant beeping, I rolled out of bed and nearly stepped directly on it. “Ugh, I can’t believe I’m missing Ryu’s car horn alarm right now…”

  Shiraki was already straightening his tie in the mirror on the wall. “I’ve certainly heard worse. As a child, my father actually woke me up to the sounds of various sirens to ensure that I would never sleep through a dangerous scenario that could put my life at risk.”

  “Damn, and I thought my parents were crazy,” I mumbled to myself as I changed out of my old pair of jeans that I had fallen asleep wearing. “How did you get up so much earlier than me? Do you just wake up naturally?”

  “Ha! That would be quite the superpower.” Shiraki grabbed his eyeglass and earpiece off its charging station and carefully attached it around his ear. “Funny story, actually. I was woken by a wake up call. Apparently, Ellen wasn’t quite sure how to treat overnight guests since she hasn’t had any in some time now, so she called to let us know that complimentary breakfast service will be out soon.”

  “Complimentary breakfast? In a love hotel? Ooh, I’ve been looking forward to some gourmet dining all week...” I scoffed as I snatched my energy drink off the top of my suitcase, disappointed at how warm it had gotten overnight. “Do you think the ice maker here works?”

  Shiraki tidied his cuffs and got ready to walk out the door. “Depends on your definition of ‘works’.” He waved me goodbye as he stepped out. “I’ll meet you at the lodge.”

  I took a quick shower before meeting everyone for breakfast, spending most of the time I was in there praying that I wouldn’t see any handprints on the cracked, white tile walls. Even though I was alone, the sinking feeling that there were eyes all around me didn’t seem to let up while I washed my legs with a complimentary bar of soap that I’m genuinely surprised Ellen remembered to replace before we got here. After throwing on a new pair of jeans and effortlessly combing my hair with Petrov’s help, I hurried to the lodge for breakfast.

  Ryu was already half through a massive plate of a full breakfast when I arrived. “Ellen, this place might be a complete shithole, but I can't lie - You can cook a damn good egg.”

  Aiko poked Ryu with the backend of her fork. “Hey! Be polite, Ryu…”

  Ellen covered her mouth as she giggled quietly. “No, no, I’m not offended at all. This place is a shithole.”

  Aiko shrugged. “Welp, you said it, not me!” She cheerfully bit into her toast, looking the most elated I’d seen her on this entire trip so far.

  Shiraki ate mostly in complete silence, which was incredibly out of character for him. He must’ve just been incredibly focused on his table manners, being attentive to the way he held his fork and knife as he cut into his ham.

  “Hey, Suits,” Ryu mumbled with a small bite of food in his mouth as he reached over and pointed at Shiraki’s plate. “Here’s a tip. You’re supposed to pick up the food.”

  ‘Suits’ didn’t seem to be phased by Ryu’s joke. Instead, he set his utensils down and took a long sip from his coffee mug. “I must say, Ms. Ellen… You really didn’t have to go through all this effort. On behalf of us all, we are incredibly grateful for this food you have made for us.”

  Ellen bashfully smiled from across the lodge. “You’re very welcome. I figured that the first overnight guests in a while deserved a real hotel experience.”

  “Well, the gesture certainly didn't go unnoticed.” Shiraki finished his plate and sat back like he was expecting somebody to take it from him.

  “Yeah, really.” Ryu grumbled as he nearly finished as well. “I was half expecting a basket of sour apples and a pack of juice boxes.”

  Ellen slowly pushed a case of juice boxes behind the concierge desk with her foot. “Did you four sleep well last night?”

  I started to dig into my breakfast, quickly noticing that I had already caught up to Aiko. “If you count 15 hours as sleeping well, then yeah.”

  Aiko shook her head. “Not really… but I think I was just struggling to get over all the grodiness…”

  “That’s to be expected,” Ellen replied with a touch of despair in her voice. “I’m still surprised you decided to stay here, especially with all the rumors that have been going around.”

  “Rumors?” I set down my energy drink and turned in my chair to face Ellen.

  She seemed incredibly puzzled. “You mean… you haven’t heard?”

  “I mean, I’ve read a review or two that said it’s haunted, but that’s about it.” I already felt full despite eating only about two-thirds of my plate. “I don’t know much else.”

  “Wow… you really are different from the other people who stay here,” Ellen remarked. “It started a few years ago when somebody reported seeing a ghost in their cabin in the middle of the night. The story blew up on social media and, before we knew it, word got around town that the House for Heavy Hearts should get renamed to the…” She scratched her head. “...what was it again? I think they called it the-” Ellen shook her head quickly and refocused. “Okay, that part doesn’t matter. The point is…” She snatched a key off the key rack and started to spin it around her finger. “...No one wants to stay overnight in a haunted house.”

  “But is the place actually haunted?” Aiko asked as she tried to discreetly wipe up the orange juice she had spilled on the table. “Because we haven’t seen anything.”

  “That’s the thing…” Ellen pulled a stack of newspaper clippings out of her drawer in the concierge desk. “Most reports are pretty inconsistent, but they all have one thing in common- they claim that they all experienced the first signs of ghosts on their third night.”

  Ryu put his elbows on the table and leaned forward to get a closer look. “Ellen, why are you talking about this like you’ve never seen it yourself? Don’t you work here? You’ve got to have seen something at least once.”

  Ellen laughed as she adjusted her hat. “Well… there’s a little trick that I do to avoid it.” She pointed at a room on the far wall of the lodge. “You see that room over there? That’s the staff quarters. I usually have to stay at the hotel for work, but every third night… I just sleep outside.”

  “...that's it?” I asked out of genuine bafflement. “There’s no way that works.”

  “Eh, it’s worked for me so far!” Ellen cheerfully filed the newspaper clippings back in her desk and locked the drawer with her key. “Anyway, that’s why I recommend nobody stay any longer than two nights. I can't risk the business getting any more bad publicity than it already does... I don't think it'd survive another wave of rumors.”

  “So… let me get this straight,” Ryu replied. “You’ve worked here for long enough to learn the ins and outs of these ghost rumors, but you’ve never actually seen one yourself.”

  Ellen nodded. “Yep. Guess it pays to be cautious. I'd recommend you four do the same.” She cleaned up everybody’s plates and carried them to the back to clean them later.

  A nagging voice in my head told me that we were just wasting time by being here. Ryu was right to point that out… How does she know so much, but still hasn’t even confirmed it by seeing for herself? The most likely answer - Maybe the rumors aren’t true after all.

  Shiraki finally stood up and proudly proclaimed, “Alright, people, we’re not getting anywhere by just sitting here with our heads up our asses, are we? Let’s get going, we’re burning daylight, everyone…” as he marched his way out the back door.

  Ryu briefly took a glance through the front window. “I’m just surprised the first thing he did this morning wasn’t check outside to see if his car was still here.”

  I chuckled at Ryu’s remark. “Lemme guess… it was the second thing he did this morning?”

  “Nope,” Aiko chimed in as she sprung up from her chair. “Third.”

[ 9:16 A.M. ]

  I started the day by checking out the mysterious triangle-shaped building attached to the back of the hotel. According to Ellen, this was the amenities building, containing various gym equipment, weights, and other such entertainment for guests who stayed at the hotel long-term, which was currently nobody. I wasn’t sure why they needed a dedicated building for this, but who am I to judge? I'm not the son of an architect.

  As I carefully passed by an eerie, dark stairwell made of concrete with a sign reading, ‘Roof Access’ next to it, I ran into Shiraki as he was lifting an old set of weights that were collecting dust on the ground. Whether the number ‘35’ on the side of the dumbbell meant pounds or kilograms, I was sure that Shiraki wasn’t exactly a chump for being able to lift it. “Wow, I didn't take you for a gym rat, Shiraki.”

  “Oh, this is nothing…” Shiraki humbly replied. “There are far stronger people our age - Hell, even at our school.”

  “Damn right about that,” I muttered, thinking about the girl with the green hair in my biology class who looked like she could take me out if I so much as dropped something in her direction. “Oh, look!” In the next room over, I found an old arcade machine that didn’t seem to work anymore. “Aw, man… what a shame.”

  Shiraki seemed half-impressed - as in, he was clearly impressed, but was trying way too hard to not be. “Hm. Didn’t expect these to still be here."

  “I’ll say. Coin operated machines are a lot cooler than the stupid digital ones we have now.” I found an old token on the edge of the machine, examining it under the flickering fluorescent lights. “Hey, Shiraki…”

  “Hm?” He was already about to leave for the next room over. “What’s up?”

  I put the token on the edge of my thumb. “Heads or tails?”

  Shiraki seemed almost appalled… for some reason. “For what?”

  “Whoever loses has to go check that creepy staircase.” I smirked at him. “Come on, heads or tails, man.”

  He put his hands away in his pockets and looked away. “I don’t do coin tosses.”

  I followed him out into the hallway. “Huh? Why not?”

  “Random odds.” Shiraki reached for his chess piece in his pocket, but couldn’t seem to find it. “There’s no point in a game where the outcome is purely up to luck.”

  “Alright. Whatever you say, man.” I flicked the coin in his direction.

  Without a word, Shiraki caught the coin without looking and filed it away in his coat pocket.

[ 1:42 P.M. ]

  I found Aiko in the middle of a large, open clearing across the trail from the hotel. What previously appeared to be endless spaces for tents, campfires, hammocks, and whatever else people camped in, was now overrun with weeds and various little critters running around.

  “Hey, Aiko…” I walked up behind her and gently flicked one of the small strands of hair that ran down the sides of her head. “I don’t think you’re gonna find much out here.”

  “Oh, shush…” Aiko lightly yanked on the corner of my hoodie in retaliation. “I’m not searching or anything. I’m just… clearing my head. That’s all.”

  I sit against a huge rock that’s close by and crank down the volume on my headphones. “I get it… Sometimes it’s nice to just get lost in nature like this…” In a weird way, I was glad that I didn’t get any service out here. It was a nice change of pace to be stuck in the woods with two of your best friends (and two other people who were also there).

  “Yep!” Aiko sat beside me on the rock and started picking at a branch she picked up off the ground. “It feels like a lifetime since I last got to chill out here like this.”

  “Did you ever go camping as a kid, Aiko?” I asked as I watched her peel at the branch, getting the occasional piece stuck in the fabric of her gloves.

  Aiko nodded slowly. “Mhm… Dad took me to a campground near our town a lot when I was little. We never spent the night, usually because he always had work in the morning, but we still set up our tents and sleeping bags and everything so we could act like we were actually camping. Sometimes, I would pretend to be an explorer and 'discover' other families' camps... Dad wasn't too happy about that part, haha..."

  I felt myself leaning towards Aiko but quickly regained my balance. “Oh, so you’ve never actually spent the night out in the woods before? That’s, like, the best part!”

  “Hehe, well…” Aiko tilted her head to the side as she recalled her memories, accidentally grazing my shoulder for a half-second. “One time we did… but I-” Aiko suddenly stopped talking. The branch in her hands had nearly been picked clean.

  “Um, Aiko?” I looked up at her. “Everything alright?”

  She simply giggled and winked at me like her usual, peppy self. “Don’t worry about it, it’s nothing.~” Aiko leapt back up, still looking out at the open clearing as if it would answer a question that she wasn’t asking it.

[ 3:20 P.M. ]

  “Woah, check this out, Genjo,” Ryu shouted out, his voice echoing off the walls of the inside of the maintenance shack. “They really keep just about anything in here.”

  I tried to get caught up to Ryu after stumbling my way through piles of soil bags and motor oil. “What’d you find? A dead body in the freezer?”

  Ryu banged on the side of a large, metal object. “I dunno, I haven’t opened it yet!” He yelled back.

  When I finally got to where Ryu was standing, we both lifted on the lid of the metal container, hoisting it open to reveal a giant stash of sharp, metal tools - Butcher knives, saw blades, replacement parts for various equipment, dozens of allen wrenches - If you could think of it, it was probably in there. “Dude, who the hell organized this place?”

  “I don’t know if the better answer is ‘Ellen’ or ‘Not Ellen’.” Ryu scrapped a few pieces of metal out of the container, including some copper wiring and a pair of wire cutters. “Never know when you might need these…”

  “Ryu, I’m pretty sure that’s theft.” I rolled my eyes as he started pocketing a light bulb filament.

  “Like anyone’s gonna notice.” Ryu leaned against the lawnmower that Ellen claimed she regularly used but clearly had a bird’s nest built into its engine. “Besides… I need some more stuff for my project.”

  As I continued looking around, I shouted back, “You mean the project you finished the night before we left?”

  “When did I ever say I finished it?” Ryu replied with a hearty laugh. “You know, Genjo… It’s still pretty crazy to me that we met in such a weird, scary place like this.”

  I looked over my shoulder. “Yeah… and now we’re here, alone together in another weird, scary place. Kinda bizarre how life works out like that.”

  The sound of Ryu’s neck cracking echoed throughout the entire shack. “Wonder if we’ll ever meet another friend in a place like this again.”

  “Haha, I doubt it.” I climbed back over the piles of junk to return to Ryu. “I mean, unless you count Ellen.”

  Ryu shrugged. “Eh. As much as Shiraki wants it to happen, I doubt we’ll see much of her after this.”

  “What, you think he’s trying to get with the concierge girl or something?” I playfully shove him. “Get real… he can’t be that much of a womanizer.”

  Ryu rolled his eyes. “Would you do it if you had a realistic shot?”

  I itched my arms through my sleeves. “...I have the right to remain silent.”

  “Haha… I’m just playin’ with ya.” Ryu smirked to himself as he started to make his way out of the shack. “...I know you’re already taken.”

  “Oh, shut up…” I groan as I chase after him.

  Ryu held his hands up in the air in surrender as he ran out. “Hey, hey! I said I’m just playin’!”

[ 6:45 P.M. ]

  The four of us met outside the maintenance shack to discuss our findings… which weren’t exactly much.

  Shiraki stared off in the distance towards the hotel. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t get up to the roof in the amenities building. The door at the top of the stairs was locked tight, and I doubt there’d be much of anything up there regardless.”

  “Is there anywhere we haven’t checked?” I pointed down the trail. “Has anyone gone any further down the trail yet?”

  Ellen suddenly spoke, seeming like she appeared out of nowhere and giving us quite a spook before interjecting with, “Oh, I forgot to mention that. The rest of the trail is blocked off.”

  “Blocked off?” Ryu tried to look further beyond. “For what purpose?”

  “The owner specifically requested that it be fenced off.” Ellen shook her head apologetically. “It happened around the time the ghost sighting rumors became more frequent.”

  I took a step further down the trail before a horrible chill down my spine told me to stay put. Based on everyone else’s reactions, though, it might’ve just been the wind again. “So what’s actually down there, Ellen?”

  “Remember those cabins I mentioned this morning?” Ellen’s curly red hair fluttered in the wind. “They’re all further down the trail. When overnight bookings plummeted, so did cabin bookings as well. The owner decided that it wasn’t worth the upkeep if no one stayed in them, so they fenced them off.”

  Shiraki seemed especially irritated by this news for some reason. “That’s… absurd. You’re really saying you’ve gotten zero cabin bookings because of those rumors?”

  “Well, most of those rumors reported that these incidents happened most frequently in the cabins. People just assumed the hotel was safer.” Ellen put her hands together and bowed remorsefully. “I’m sorry.”

  While none of us wanted to say it in front of Ellen and risk getting reprimanded, we all exchanged looks amongst each other, determining that this could be a potential lead. With nothing left to say, we all left to turn in for the night, casually chatting about what we planned on scavenging together for dinner, since Ellen had completely forgotten to prepare anything for it.

  After a while, I noticed that one particular voice was weirdly absent from our regular banter. I looked around the group and didn’t see her at all, so I slipped away from the group to head back down the trail. After a few minutes or so, I eventually found Aiko standing in front of a high-reaching chain-link fence laced with barbed wire all across the top. The sun was setting, and it was near impossible to see what lies beyond the fence. “Aiko?” I called out, being careful not to scare her.

  “G-Genjo?” She turned around rather quickly with a huge, guilty smile on her face. “Haha… sorry, I got sidetracked.”

  I took her hand and gave it a quick tug. “Come on, Aiko… We’ll check this part out tomorrow… We all deserve a break after all the searching we did today. Let’s go.” I hurried back the way I came, feeling an unusually creepier gaze staring down upon me.

  She took a few more seconds, but Aiko eventually followed suit.

[ 9:58 P.M. ]

  Eighteen games of chess later, I was starting to think I didn’t really stand a chance against Shiraki anymore.

  “If it’s any consolation,” Shiraki spoke in between sips of the wine from the basket. “I commend you for even putting up a fight this long. It speaks volumes about your perseverance and resolve.”

  “Thanks for the polite way of reminding me that I suck.” I hopped into bed without bothering to change out of my clothes. I was exhausted as hell, but I still had a lot of questions from today clawing at my mind. “Shiraki… can I ask you something?”

  Shiraki was busy packing up his chess set and lamenting about the loss of his black king piece, which we had substituted with the cork from the wine bottle. “Of course. Ask away.”

  “Do you even think we’re actually going to find anything?” I asked as I stared at the ceiling.

  “To be quite frank, I’m not sure myself.” Shiraki stayed up to polish his shoes out of boredom.

  I sat up in bed and turned to face him. “Then… Why did you bring us out here? Why here specifically?”

  Shiraki set his shoes down slowly. “I’m not sure exactly what you mean-”

  “You know exactly what I mean.” My headphones were difficult to hear around my neck over Shiraki’s music playing rather loudly from his speaker. “Why drive four hours away from school to come here? Why get a whole car just for this trip? Why go through all this effort? Just based on a hunch?”

  “I have my reasons,” Shiraki attempted to explain. “We just left on very short notice, and I didn’t have time to elaborate-”

  “You do now,” I interrupted. “You have all the time in the world. Just tell me… why here?”

  A knock at the door stole all the time in the world from our grasp.

  Shiraki slowly crept up to the door and took a quick check through the peephole before opening the door, revealing Ellen standing on the other side. “Hello, you two…” Ellen was holding a set of towels in her arms. “I didn’t mean to interrupt, but I almost forgot to bring you these before bedtime.”

  “We shall accept them graciously, Ms…” Shiraki took the towels from her, but stopped as his eyes fixated on Ellen’s name tag - ‘Ellen X.’ He looked at it curiously. “Pardon my manners, but I never inquired about your last name. I only want to show utmost respect.”

  Ellen giggled to herself, clearly not accustomed to such politeness, which was especially hard to come by in America from what I’ve heard. “Oh, thank you so much, Mr. Shiraki. I, Ellen Xavier, am overjoyed to serve you.” Oh god, now she’s talking like him.

  Shiraki set the towels down on the edge of my side of the bed without asking. “No, thank you, Ms. Xavier.” Alright, get a room already… I know a hotel that’s perfect for that kinda thing.

  “Hehe, anytime.” Ellen smiled at Shiraki and started to leave before quickly turning around and holding the door back open before it could shut all the way. “Oh, by the way, I’ll be down in the lodge in case either of you need me for anything. Tomorrow is my off night, so I won’t be here tomorrow if something happens. Just wanted to let you two know.” With that, Ellen had departed.

  I wanted to continue our conversation from before Ellen came knocking, but I felt too exhausted to bother. I reached for my container of sleeping pills, only to discover that I had run completely out. Weird… Have I really been so off my rocker lately that I didn't even notice? “Well, if we don’t find anything by tomorrow night, I wanna go home.” I tossed my pill container across the room and directly into my suitcase. “I can’t stand the musty smell in this hotel for much longer.”

  Shiraki started to hang his suit up on the coat rack, but still hadn’t removed his shirt, tie, or pants. “Look on the bright side, Genjo. The third day is swiftly approaching… Our best opportunity to confirm our theory is tomorrow."

  “Let’s hope so…” I closed my eyes, hoping they would actually make me tired for once.

[ 10:08 P.M. ]

  Ryu struggled to hold his eyes shut through Aiko’s constant nagging.

  “Come on, Ryu…” She badgered him over and over as he laid in bed on the other side of the pillow barrier.

  “For the last time,” Ryu sat straight up. “I’m not going with you.”

  “Boo…” Aiko groaned. “I’m not just gonna go by myself, you know.”

  “That’s exactly why I’m not going,” Ryu said more sternly. “Because if I stay put, then you won’t go out and do something stupid.”

  “But this is our chance to figure out if there’s actually anything here or not, Ryu…” She pleaded. “It’s better than staying another night in this nasty hotel room.”

  “Anything is better than staying in this hotel, Aiko.” Ryu wouldn’t budge, no matter how much Aiko pestered him. “Just forget about it until tomorrow. Get some sleep.”

  Aiko started to get incredibly annoyed. “Ugh… everyone keeps telling me, ‘Aiko, return to your room and get some rest…’ and, ‘Let’s do that tomorrow, Aiko’... and I'm sick of it!!!”

  Ryu struggled to argue with her after listening to such spot-on Shiraki and Genjo impressions, now wondering if she had a Ryu impression that she did behind his back. “Aiko, we’re not-”

  “I’m tired of people telling me what to do like I don't know how to help…” Aiko angrily muttered. “So I’m going whether you come with me or not.”

  “Wait, Aiko…” Ryu reached out to stop her. “That’s-”

  Aiko threw her handbag over her shoulder and unlocked the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow… I know you three will be waiting for me.”

  As she bolted out the door, Ryu groaned and snatched his pen and buttoned shirt off the table and chased after her. “God, she'd better not get herself in trouble…”

  The sound of the elevators chimed out of sync as they descended to the ground floor one by one. Meanwhile, a humble concierge girl would slowly approach room 4038 with a set of towels and sheets in tow, incredibly confused at the sight of an unlocked door and an empty room.

[ 10:10 P.M. ]

  Ryu’s lungs struggled to keep him going as he ran down the trail into the dark, foreboding forest, hoping that Aiko hadn’t gotten too far ahead of him yet. The trail led him to an unfamiliar, daunting barbed wire fence. In the center of the trail, a small gap - about the size of a petite, young woman - had been cut out of the wire for someone to pass through. Ryu rummaged through his pockets for the wire cutter he had stolen earlier, but it was missing.

  “Damn it,” he exclaimed. “She must’ve taken it.” Ryu begrudgingly crawled his way through the Aiko-sized hole, minimizing the rips and tears in his shirt from the sharp wire. There was no telling where Aiko had gone from there… What if he had lost her? “Shit… this is gonna be my fault if something happens to her, isn’t it?” Ryu continued his pursuit, hoping that he wouldn’t have to worry about the outcomes of that possibility.

  The trail ahead was littered with splintered tree branches, rotten leaves, and torn paper products. Ryu pushed through the howling wind that assaulted him head on, as if it were trying to warn him not to press any further. Several different paths diverged from the main trail, but none of them displayed signs of anyone traveling down them in quite some time. “Jesus… How am I supposed to find her now?”

  A piece of torn fabric that seemed noticeably less dirty than the rest of the debris on the trail flew directly into Ryu’s face, practically begging Ryu to pay attention to it. After wiping his face clean, he looked down at the fabric in his hand - A small fragment of black lace. He shoved the fabric into his pocket as he glanced down the diverging path to his left. Several identical pieces of the black lace had formed a trail leading down the path.

  Ryu followed the torn fabric as it led him down a seemingly endless road into the deep forest. Light became scarcer and scarcer as the sun set behind him, and any remaining rays of sunlight struggled to fight their way through the canopy of leaves above him. After a few minutes of wandering down the trail, Ryu’s eyes beheld a decrepit, decaying log cabin in the center of a clearing that was slowly losing its territory to the surrounding trees. The awning above the porch was on its last legs, yet the front door it protected was left wide open.

  “Aiko? Are you in there?” Ryu shouted out into the woods. If he had received an answer, it had surely been muffled by the thousands of leaves that covered the forest floor. Against his better judgment, Ryu made a beeline straight for the inside of the cabin, coming to a quick and harsh stop as he nearly collided with a shelf lined from top to bottom in cracked porcelain dishes. “Aiko? Please… Tell me you’re… in here…” Ryu panted out in between deep, heavy breaths.

  A familiarly bubbly voice came from deep inside the cabin. “Ryu? Wow, you actually showed up?”

  “Of course I did!” Ryu yelled back at her. “I wasn’t going to let you come out here by yourself.” He ventured deeper into the cabin, following the source of Aiko’s voice.

  “I’ve been fine on my own, thank you very much,” Aiko said with a pout so strong that Ryu could hear it in her voice. “Told you that I didn’t need y’all’s help.”

  Ryu rounded a corner and spotted a girl in her dark blue nightgown sitting on the wooden floor in front of the fireplace. “It’s not that I think you needed my help, Aiko-”

  “Why else would you follow me?” Aiko didn’t look away from the fireplace.

  “Because it’s not like you to run off like this.” Ryu placed his hand on the back of the rocking chair next to where Aiko was sitting.

  Aiko curled up and held her legs close to her torso. “...Have you considered that was the reason I came out here alone in the first place?”

  “Huh?” Ryu felt the rocking chair give way as he put more of his body weight against it.

  “Ryu…” Aiko looked over her shoulder towards him. “...do you think I’m a coward?”

  “What? Of course not…” Ryu shook his head vigorously. “Aiko, you’re one of the bravest people I know.”

  Aiko’s head returned to facing the cold, hard fireplace. “...that’s because you only knew the old Aiko for a few hours. You didn’t know the Aiko that quit show business because she couldn’t handle the pressure from the media…” Aiko picked up a broken piece of glass from the nearby window that had been boarded up long ago. Ryu finally noticed that she wasn’t wearing her gloves at all. “...the Aiko that made her dad drive her home from a weekend camping trip at 2:00 A.M. because she was too scared of the forest to fall asleep…”

  Ryu snatched the piece of glass out of her hands and slung it into the fireplace, shattering it into small pieces as it smashed into the brick. “Careful, you might cut yourself without your gloves on.”

  “That’s exactly what I mean, though…” Aiko took another piece of glass off the floor and tossed it into the fireplace herself, although it didn’t break into as many fragments as when Ryu did it. “...I don’t wanna be scared of stuff like that anymore. So what if I cut myself by mistake? At least I had the confidence to pick it up.”

  “You don’t have to do stuff like that to show that you’re brave, Aiko.” Ryu chucked another piece of glass into the fireplace. “Hell, I’ve been tryin’ harder than anyone.”

  Aiko mimicked Ryu’s throwing technique, making her next throw harder and thus more successful. “To do what? Ryu, you’re already plenty brave as is.”

  “Hm.” Ryu’s eyes drifted to the ground. “...Guess it’s easier to see it in others than in yourself, huh?”

  “...Maybe.” Aiko stood up, carefully wiping the dirt off her bottom of her nightgown. “Even so, I just… wish I had more control over that kinda stuff. I’m so good at acting brave… so why can’t I just do it for real?”

  Ryu felt the torn fabric from Aiko’s glove rustling inside his pocket. “...You’re still doing a better job than I am, if you can take any solace in that.”

  Aiko put her handbag back around her shoulder. “Ryu, be don’t so-”

  Ryu saw a flickering orange light out of the corner of his eye. “Get back!” He shouted as he grabbed Aiko by the arm and yanked her away from the fireplace.

  There was a deafening howl as the fireplace suddenly roared to life, setting the ground and walls around it ablaze. The entire cabin shook violently, sending dishes and lamps flying off the shelves. A thundering *crash* came from outside as the front door slammed shut, the force of which caused the awning above the front porch to collapse and cave in, trapping Ryu and Aiko inside of the burning cabin.

  Aiko put on her best face of bravery as she stood visibly shaken in the cabin kitchen. “Ryu… what’s happening?” She was terrified that she might already know the answer.

  “Remember when you said this was our chance to find out if there were actually phantoms here?” Ryu hastily reached for his pen. “...Your odds just skyrocketed.”

  The flames started to spread further down the walls of the cabin towards Aiko and Ryu. She took a deep breath, worried that it would be one of the last she would take before the smoke started to fill the cabin. “Ryu, I’m sorry… I didn’t-”

  Chunks of the ceiling started to crumble and fall all around them as a myriad of long, jagged black arms broke through the roof of the cabin and swung at Ryu and Aiko. Every wall was engulfed in flames, backing them into the center of the cabin.

  Ryu’s dagger transformed in a swirl of fire as he held his arm in front of Aiko to protect her.

“...I should’ve just stayed in bed.”