After a sleepless night,
Yui arrived at school with heavy dark circles under her eyes. The whole world looked as if it were separated from her by a layer of frosted glass, hazy and unreal. The teacher's voice in class sounded like it was coming from some distant edge of the sky, every word as light and drifting as a feather, unable to leave so much as a trace in her mind.
She did not dare to sleep. She did not even dare to close her eyes for more than three seconds. The moment her eyelids shut, that cold, wet little hand and the eerie trail of footprints on the floor would surface in her mind, plunging her straight back into an icy abyss.
"Yui, are you okay? Your face looks really bad."
Yumiko, her deskmate, asked with concern, and the friends around them all turned to look at Yui with worried eyes.
"Ah... I…. am fine! I just, um, did not sleep well last night." Yui hurriedly forced a smile that looked worse than crying, waving a hand as if she could brush their worries away.
She could not say it.
She did not dare tell anyone what had happened the night before. Her friends would only think she was joking, or that she had lost her mind. Her parents would just worry even more, and they might even drag her off to see a psychiatrist.
That kind of fear, being haunted by something no one else could see, was a fear she could not share with anyone.
For the entire day, she was on the edge. Whenever the light around her dimmed even a little, or whenever she was alone, she felt that clammy chill coil around her again. Sometimes she could even hear faint sounds, like dripping water echoing through a pipe, even when there was not a single faucet or sink nearby.
The mental strain was pushing her to the brink of collapse.
During lunch break, backed into a corner with nowhere else to turn, she remembered one place... the Service Club.
The Service Club room was as quiet as ever.
The president, Yukinoshita Yukino, sat perfectly straight in her chair, a hardcover book cradled elegantly in her hands. She looked like a figure in a classical painting. Sunlight streamed through the window, laying a soft halo over her ink-black hair.
When she saw the hollow look in Yui's eyes, Yukino closed her book. A faint, almost unnoticeable trace of surprise flickered through her calm gaze.
"Yuigahama-san? You look... very unwell mentally." Her voice was cool and even, simply stating a fact.
"Yukino-san..."
It was like Yui had just grabbed the last lifeline. Her voice trembled close to tears as she poured out everything that had happened in the old building the day before, as well as her nightmare that night, leaving nothing out.
Yukino listened quietly, never interrupting. Only when Yui finished did she lift the teacup on the table, take a small sip of black tea, then speak in that calm, emotionless, purely rational tone of hers.
"Yuigahama-san, I believe what you experienced is a classic combination of psychological suggestion and group hysteria."
"Eh?" Yui was stunned.
"First of all, 'Hanako-san' is a long-circulating school legend. Before your little 'test of courage' even began, all of you had already constructed fearful scenarios in your minds of 'what might happen.'" Yukino's explanation was clear and orderly. "Under that kind of psychological pressure, any tiny noise in the old building, such as the wind, or the cry of a mouse, could easily be misinterpreted by your brain as the 'answer' you were expecting to hear."
She paused for a moment, then continued. "As for the nightmare and the footprints, that is even more straightforward. What you think about in the day influences what you dream at night. The intense stress you were under is the direct cause of the nightmare. And those so-called wet footprints were probably caused by you accidentally knocking over a glass of water by your bed, then stepping in it yourself while half-asleep. Fear distorted your perception and made you interpret it as a supernatural event."
Yukino's analysis was airtight, logically flawless. To anyone else, it would have sounded like the most scientific and reasonable explanation possible.
But to Yui, who had actually lived through it, those words felt incredibly weak and hollow.
That bone-deep chill, that sensation of being dragged across the floor, had been so real.
"B-but..." She wanted to argue, but found she had nothing she could present as proof.
"My conclusion is that what you need is proper rest and mental relaxation, not to keep sinking deeper into a fantasy you have frightened yourself into." Yukino finished, reopened her book, and her posture clearly shifted into one that said, politely but firmly, that the conversation was over.
Any hope Yui had been clinging to crumbled completely.
She drifted out of the Service Club room like a lost soul. Even Yukino-san had said that, so there really might not be anyone in this world who could help her...
She wandered aimlessly around the campus, despair began creeping up in her.
Then, suddenly, a blurry fragment of memory flashed through her mind. It was something she had overheard when the transfer student Natsume had first arrived, the girls whispering behind his back.
"I heard Natsume-kun is from the countryside, apparently his family runs a shrine."
"Seriously? No wonder his vibe feels so different. He is always so quiet and on his own..."
A shrine family.
Those words gave her an idea.
Right, there was still him. The Natsume-kun who had told her yesterday, "If you do not want to go, then do not force yourself."
It sounded ridiculous, but Yui could not afford to care about that now. She was desperate.
After asking around, she finally found him up on the school rooftop.
Natsume was lying on the concrete floor, arms folded behind his head as a pillow, eyes closed as if he were asleep. The afternoon breeze played with his black hair, and his expression was peaceful and relaxed. He looked as if he had been cut out from the noise of the school below, inhabiting his own quiet world.
Yui tiptoed her way over, terrified of disturbing him. She stood by his side, hesitating, not knowing how to start.
Before she could say a word, Natsume opened his eyes.
What kind of eyes were those?
Pale blue irises, clear as a sky swept clean of clouds, that felt impossibly calm. When those eyes turned toward her, Yui felt as if all her panic and helplessness were laid completely bare.
"Oh, it is you." Natsume's voice was as calm as ever. "It is still clinging to you."
"Eh?" Yui froze.
"A little girl in a red suspender dress, completely soaked, dripping wet," Natsume sat up and brushed the dust from his clothes, describing it in an even tone, "she is lying on your back, her face pressed against the back of your neck. No wonder you look so worn out."
Boom.
Shock hit her instantly.
He could see it. He really could see it.
The terror that had tormented her all night long was suddenly given a clear form in his offhand description. After the initial shock passed, a flood of emotions surged up in her chest, a mix of fear, relief, and unbearable grievance. Her eyes instantly filled with tears.
"Natsume-kun... please, I am begging you, save me." She could no longer control her emotions. Her voice shook as she pleaded with him.
Natsume looked at her. In those pale blue eyes, there was no pity, no sympathy, only a calm stillness that seemed to have no bottom.
"I can." He nodded, agreeing without the slightest hesitation. "After school, meet me at the old building."
...
Dusk fell once more.
The second time Yui stood in front of the girls' bathroom on the third floor of the old building, her feelings were completely different from the day before. She was still scared, but the silent figure standing beside her gave her a kind of courage she had never felt before.
Natsume did nothing. He simply stood there quietly.
"It is in the third stall," he said.
The moment the words left his mouth, a surge of chill exploded from behind that door, ten times stronger than yesterday. The temperature in the bathroom plummeted. Yui could actually see her breath turn white in the air.
"Hee hee hee..."
A spine-chilling giggle echoed through the bathroom. Right after, the door to the third stall creaked open on its own.
From within floated out a little girl in a red suspender dress, water dripping from her every limb. Her skin was a sickly bluish purple, like a drowned corpse. Where her eyes should have been, there were only two black, empty holes that were fixed firmly on Yui.
This was "Hanako." A low-grade cursed spirit, born from the blend of school rumors and the grudge of drowning children.
Yui could not see the cursed spirit itself, but she could feel it, feel the overwhelming malice rushing toward her. She screamed and, without thinking, fled behind Natsume, clutching the back of his jacket with both hands.
The cursed spirit let out a high-pitched shriek and turned into a streak of shadow, surging toward them with the stench of stale, muddy water.
Yet just as it was about to crash into Natsume, something strange happened.
The shadow seemed to slam into an invisible wall, stopping abruptly in midair. No matter how it strained forward, it could not draw any closer, as if there were a thin, intangible barrier that it could never cross between it and Natsume's body.
Limitless Cursed Technique.
Around Natsume, there existed "infinity." Anything that tried to approach him would slow down as it neared, its speed dwindling closer and closer to zero, never truly able to reach him.
Huddled behind him, Yui felt it all clearly.
Just moments ago, that monstrous malice had nearly frozen her soul solid. But as soon as it reached Natsume, it stopped dead, as if there were a line it could not cross. In the middle of a storm, the space around him was a calm, absolute refuge.
She could not see the cursed spirit, nor could she see the barrier. But she could feel that she was being protected, wrapped inside a powerful, gentle, and absolutely safe domain.
The cursed spirit slammed again and again into the unseen wall, dull thuds echoing in the bathroom as the fluorescent lights overhead flickered violently. No matter how frenzied its attacks became, it could not advance even a fraction closer.
Natsume never moved from his spot. He simply watched the flailing cursed spirit in front of him, as if he were watching a moth hurl itself uselessly against a pane of glass.
"Too noisy."
He frowned slightly, the first trace of impatience touching his expression, then slowly raised his right hand and flicked his index finger.
No sound. No light.
Yet from Yui's perspective, the icy malice that had filled the entire bathroom vanished in that instant. It was gone, completely, as if it had never been there in the first place.
The bathroom fell quiet. Even the air felt lighter, cleaner. The evening sunlight slipped in through the window once more, warm and serene.
It was over. Everything was over.
Yui released her grip on Natsume's jacket. Her knees buckled and she collapsed to the floor. With her nerves finally allowed to relax, exhaustion crashed over her like a wave. She gulped air into her lungs, while tears of relief spilled down her cheeks unchecked.
Natsume turned around and looked down at her from above, his expression as calm as ever.
"It is already fine now," he said, and held his hand out to her.
Through tear-filled eyes, Yui looked up at that clean, slender hand, and at the tall silhouette behind him, outlined by the sunset, solid and reassuring.
In that moment, for the first time, she felt at ease.