Yuri Worlds
[46] Confessions
Misaki struggled to slide open the front door of the old hotel. It barely stayed in place on its corroded tracks. The inside was dark and smelled of foul, musty things.
The light on her phone did little to push back the clinging shadows. Parts of the front area looked like they’d recently been cleaned, with bags of trash sitting to the side. It vaguely resembled the main house, with a dedicated entryway for shoes and heavy clothes. Picture frames decorated the right-side wall, but whatever photos may have once been in them were removed. Despite how sharply cold it felt, with night spread out like a cloak of ice, Misaki was absolutely covered in sweat.
She expected to go left, a familiar inkling. But that just led to the end of the hall with a small side entrance. A hallway with gorgeous dark wood paneling, remarkably preserved, split down the center of the building and advanced beyond the reach of her meager light. What used to be a sizable family shrine area anchored a nearby cluster of bedrooms and storage areas. A dusty, discolored bamboo screen wobbled without anything in front of it. Once beautiful art was marred by blackened scars darker than anything found on Yuka‘s leg. Misaki did her best to cover her mouth as she searched.
Calling out to Maharu seemed like the best idea. And also, the worst idea, depending on whether no one answered, or something did. On the other side of the entrance, she noticed a disorganized living area open to the hallway. Traces of what may have been a television setup or an open bar clustered at one end, with the ghostly impressions of heavy furniture pockmarking the carpet. A slew of tall cardboard boxes sprawled out like model autopsied buildings of a lost civilization. On the other side of the hallway, grungy, cluttered, and vaguely menacing sinks, stoves, and forgotten silverware glinted at her from a kitchen area devoid of chairs and tables.
Half-open sliding doors allowed views of rooms reminiscent of the main house’s traditional tea space with tatami flooring. Despite oppressive patches of dark mold and the sense that an angry storm had just smashed through, none of it appeared as though it had been abandoned for long. Clearly, the Sasakis did work and cleaned out certain things, but she still found an unsettling amount of rot and ruin.
Figuring there would be no better time to say something, Misaki drew in a carefully filtered breath and called out, “Miss Okura Maharu! Haru? It’s Miss Takano. I’m here to talk to you…”
Misaki scanned the space, even though there was no way her light would reach far enough. Turning back towards the kitchen and living area, her heart just about blasted out of her chest when a shadow formed at the edge, stretched forward, and then dipped back, as though playfully peeking. She urgently focused all of her attention and the full force of her light on that section and scanned around as the floor beneath her gave soft, uncomfortable crunches.
For the sake of her own sanity, she came to the conclusion that the way the light off the phone stretched long bands of blackness created some visual illusion with the edge of the hallway and one of the piles of boxes. That illusion refused to be reproduced, but she just applied evidence that her eyes often did weird things and approached the steps leading to the second story.
The stairs looked about the same as the ones in the main house. Nothing was warped, sagging, or damaged. But as she slowly climbed them, it was like the trapped nature spirits of the wood were released in mournful agony. Groans not only surrounded her feet but seeped into the walls and made a noise like desperate panic. Not the common summer sounds of the rafters settling after a warm day or a wide shift in temperature. Those were bold but urgent pops of a home stretching. These were diseased rumbles, echoes of a forest tumbling down and screaming its last breath. Going slower or faster barely seemed to make a difference.
The layout of the hallway remained essentially the same, though slightly wider than downstairs. It was presented as tossed, frozen dollhouse snapshots of a place coldly neglected. She had to watch her step as patches of inky blackness hinted at the first story through worn tears in the floor. They still seemed like they would support her weight, but the tense creaking warned her off testing that. A large, marked bath area sat across from a communal room, which once provided a view from a small overlook by the large, cracked windows. The hotel wasn’t massive, but it appeared to have close to a dozen dedicated bedrooms.
Not sure what to do next as she approached the end of the hallway, Misaki clung to the most comfortable wall and slowly panned her phone light across the open space to look for some clue or direction for what she was supposed to do now. The very last room across from her had a small, white note tucked along the floor with the handwritten name “MAHARU” in wobbly letters. Sure seemed like the best hint to her. The hotel gave one last groaning breath behind her before she cautiously slid open the door.
Light in a dull, amber tone crawled over the interior features. A roll-out bed was unfurled in the center of the room. The source of the light was a nearby LED lamp styled after an oil one from ages ago. Some food, half-open packages, and a large mass of blankets sat next to the bed, along with a camping bag that appeared large enough to hold everything spread out. No one was here, but it sure seemed like they had been around recently. Misaki allowed herself something approaching a normal breath.
The floor shifted behind her, and before she could swing around to check, a soft voice said, “Please don’t move. Stay where you are.”
Despite that order, Misaki still naturally turned her head and swiveled around in place. A bright white flashlight blotted out everything she could see in the doorway. Blue halos in the air told her enough. Maharu.
“Don’t, just don’t. Or you’ll force me to do something… I really don’t want to do.”
Misaki struggled to comprehend the harsh tension in Maharu’s voice. Her eyes strained against the bloom of light. Whether these enormous anime peepers were a hindrance or not, she had no idea, but they ached so bad.
It took a few moments before enough of that side of the room resolved itself for her to see Maharu standing there with a heavy, warm jacket and a massive, glittering knife held out from her hip in one hand. All other details receded into unimportance. Maharu had a freaking knife! Misaki automatically backed away, her words failing her at this moment.
“No no no no no no... NO! Please, just stay there…or sit down. Don’t make any sudden moves. Please.” Maharu’s voice scrambled and fumbled through the words frantically, as though she were handling an awkward, complicated dish on a burner and she wanted to will it to stay steady and not boil over. None of this made any sense to Misaki as she stared at the girl against the stark, blinding clash of bright and dark.
They were supposed to just talk. She was going to tell her something. Why did she have a knife? Swooning sickness gripped her, like her tongue was fighting to twist back into her throat. Misaki slowly stumbled over the rolled-out bed and blankets, dropping to the floor that groaned and growled at her presence on it.
“What is this…what?"
“Sshh…shut. Shut up. Please, shut up. Shut up! SHUT UP! No no… I’m sorry that’s …I just. I have to know. If it’s you. I don’t… it shouldn’t be this way, but I have to know. I can explain…” That outburst from Maharu shook Misaki more than any of their encounters in this place, the visions, or her fears. She felt like she was quivering and trembling more than the building around them. Words wanted to come out of her mouth, but they dissolved into faint gurgles with uncertain gasps.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Maharu dipped her head and seemed to struggle just as much as she, fighting to find breath. “Okay, all right. My mothers were murdered. They were brutally killed. Slaughter. In the woods. Stabbed. Over and over. Their murderer was a traveler from another world. A monster that tore them to pieces.” She desperately pressed a clenched hand to her mouth, holding back a flood of things she could scarcely control. It was a small, stray thought, but Misaki wondered what she had on or around her that might protect her if Maharu decided to strike out with the knife at her side.
Such an impossible thought. She joked that the girl had violent qualities with her affection, but she never actually considered her dangerous. This place wasn’t like that, and these girls weren’t like that. They couldn’t be.
Processing what Maharu said, Misaki squeezed a tense, small breath into her lungs that didn’t feel like she was breathing at all. “My Goddess…A traveler? Who? They sent people here before?” The quivering, blue-haired girl had uncertain shivers of her normal expression mixed with icy hardness. She barely breathed either. Her free hand kept shifting in place.
“A traveler. A visitor. I can’t remember their face. But they sent people. Quite a few. Tourism between worlds. My moms worked with the shrine. They knew more than most. Everyone was quiet about how much happened between worlds. Be careful. Keep it quiet. We were out in the woods. Having fun. My moms just taught me the jewel game. I was awful at it. I was still figuring out how to walk. But it sounded so romantic. Jewels and adventure in distant lands. Then, she showed up. So much of what happened is a blur. But they were the first clear memories of my entire life. Momma Koharu bleeding over me as she struggled to protect me…and the light left her eyes. I could hear that monster’s voice as she laughed and whistled. Just a little poke here and there. It’ll be over in a minute. Oh…over with, over with. I don’t know why she let me live… I don’t know why I survived. I was trapped under my moms until grandma found me… I had to pretend… to pretend… they were just hugging me! All while I was screaming inside!”
Getting all that out was a struggle for both of them. Misaki reeled with every word Maharu fought her way through, and the poor girl had to squeeze each breath through her lungs, one careful drag at a time. The frantic, broken panic at the end barely made its way out of her collapsing shape. She looked across the consuming darkness at Misaki’s stunned face. The knife thunked to the floor from her hand.
“It’s not you. It’s not… I was so sure from everything my grandmother gathered that it had to be one of you. Come back to make it all scream again. She dismissed all four of you several days ago, but I couldn’t… I suspected Yasha first. She was… still is, so separate from your group. Aloof, unsympathetic, and rude. And quite good with knives. I tested her. I pushed. I gave her every opportunity to show any true colors beneath. I let her have a knife; I let her have me on a silver platter. Nothing. We actually became friends these last few days, and she let me have this knife for protection. I was so sure it had to be her. I watched your little sister and your friend. Make sure. Not them either. So that only left…you. You. It had to be you. And you had mommy wrapped around your little finger… justice. That’s all I want. Justice for my mothers and justice for the childhood that was stolen from me!”
Maharu slumped to the side and whimpered with a pained croak, exhausted, depleted, and so very lost. Her cries were desperately anguished, and she tried to choke herself through words. She apologized deeply for scaring Misaki, shoving the knife as far away as possible.
Misaki finally felt her heart begin to settle. The girl thought she was a murderer in disguise. Assumption by process of elimination, but she would’ve thought that Yasha would be the finalist based on all the strange things she’d done along the way and how many arguments they had. Neither were reasons to pull a knife on her though. Misaki should’ve been madder at Maharu for getting her to come here to extract a confession from a killer. But Franklin lamented that he couldn’t provide her with catharsis.
Before finally settling down, Maharu crawled over to Misaki and stared at her unblinkingly, like she was a living lie detector test. Moments later, she heaved a sigh of resignation and handed Misaki the massive knife by the handle to set aside safely. Misaki stressed out, for just a moment, that she might screw this up or that the girl would see something sinister she didn’t intend. But the knife transfer went without trouble, and the two of them sat on the creaking, weak floor as Maharu struggled to hold back so many tears flooding her heart.
“Ayame was the last piece. She and grandma are amazing at reading people. I put Yasha to the biggest tests. It would’ve been so much better if it was her rather than no one. No…That’s so bad. So, so bad. She’s very sweet and makes me laugh, but the feeling around her is weird. She’s not used to this kind of stuff. And she doesn’t deserve my suffering. None of you do.”
Maharu clarified that Ayame communicated that she got a sense of Misaki in particular, sincerely bound by medical confidentiality, but she communicated the gist that Misaki wasn’t a cruel or foreign presence. She wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that, considering a lot of people in this community were clearly keeping uncomfortable secrets. Maharu wanted to take the blame for all of this. She was the one who lost everything, and their community came together to protect her and make sure it never happened again.
“Back in those days, my grandmother tells me, Yasuda Mari was deeply connected with the company from another world. One of their key representatives. She was in charge of maintaining a good relationship with our world. It was through her that we learned that a traveler was responsible. She made sure we knew the truth, even though the company claimed it was a wild animal attack I barely survived. And now you know everything about me…” Maharu pulled herself up into a tight fetal position.
Misaki shifted in place and sat up. “Actually, I don’t. I don’t know your favorite type of flower. I don’t know what book makes you giggle. I don’t even know your favorite dish. And your favorite species of fish. What way you’ve always wanted to wear your hair but never tried. There are so many things. I just know a terrible thing that happened when you were young. You are not the embodiment of that terrible time. You are not the pain and loss you carry. You are so much more than that. You are all the days after that you live, that you got up from that terrible place when everything was broken and lived, so that your mothers could see what a beautiful young woman their little girl grew into.”
So much of that felt like bullshit. She didn’t know Maharu’s moms. What spirit stuff she knew of this world was a flimsy understanding at best. And the jumble of words that came out of her could’ve been far more elegant and clearer. Really, Maharu should’ve slapped her for blindly leaping through so many strangled assumptions. Instead, she grabbed her in what looked at first like a crippling hold, but it was actually remarkably gentle. And she sobbed everything she had, like a storm convulsing across her face. Hiccups, ragged coughs, and flush wobbles gripped Maharu as she did her own impossible search for words.
Misaki knew she hadn’t solved anything with that spill of sentimental thoughts. All the terrible things would still be there. But it was something. It was a start. It was a faint reminder of hope, and she was so desperately grateful to share it with this girl who needed it so dearly.