I probably should have done this at the beginning of the second thread, but oh well, here's the link to the first:
>>22621 Also, picture courtesy of GD.
------
“…To be honest, you scare the hell out of me,” I answer, losing myself in those golden-brown eyes of hers as she stares down at me fixatedly.
Her devious smile widens when she hears that, slightly moving her head to the side as a lock of hair obscures one of her eyes. “I wouldn’t be a very good ghost if I didn’t,” she says with a slight air of triumph.
“…But I really like having you around, all the same,” I say, gently pulling her hands a little closer to me. It’s true that she does frighten me, and the stuff she pulled with the bathtub and computer… those were real nightmares. But even so, she’s a genuinely a great help around the house, and now that I’ve come to expect those surprises from her, there’s a small part of me that anticipates seeing what she’ll try next.
Fondly, I give her hands a gentle squeeze, and as I do so, I notice something about them. They’re neither warm, nor cold. Even though she’s wearing gloves, they’re thin, and should be able to transmit body heat, but it’s like she has none at all. I don’t know why I noticed that then, but at that moment, I thought to myself, Ah, so she really is a ghost. Not that I had too many doubts, but…
“Times like now, for example,” I say as I push myself up, crossing my legs together as I place myself into a sitting position. Kana moves to accommodate me, her hands still tightly woven with mine as she sits between my legs, kneeling. “…And I don’t mean just the housework, either,” I say with a bit of a jokingly suggestive grin.
She seems a little surprised at first, giving me a very short glimpse of a flustered face, but she recovers instantaneously, countering with a coy smile. “Oh master, when did you get so bold?” she says teasingly.
And then, unexpectedly, she pounces on top of me, pinning me to the bed again, this time, with her full weight. Bewildered, I stare up at her face as she lies on top of me, touching my cheek with her hand. Her hat lies off to the side, blown off by the sudden impact. “What else
did you mean, master?” Kana asks with a knowing grin.
“Huh?” I say, dumbfounded.
“If not for housework, what else do you appreciate about me?” she asks again, in a firmer voice this time, her grin widening and widening with each passing second as I struggle to answer her, feeling all the blood rushing to my head.
“Well, uh, you know…” I awkwardly say, too flustered to think or speak straight. My heart feels like it’s going to burst with how fast and hard it’s pumping. My legs feel weak and cold.
“Hm…?” She stretches the syllable out as her face travels lower down my body. Her ear comes to a rest on the center of my chest, pressed against the surface of my body. “Your heart is beating so fast, master. Do I frighten you that much…” She pauses to crawl back higher, looking at me directly in the eyes, “…or is it because of something else?”
I don’t answer. For a moment, I feel like the only response should be to throw my arms around her, to press her body even tighter to mine, and then throw her to the bed and lift myself over her so that I’m on top of her and…
But I don’t do it. Whether it was fear or embarrassment or inexperience holding me back, I don’t dare.
Silently, Kana just stares at me, smiling as she holds herself over me. And then, slowly, she begins to close the gap between our face. She closes her eyes, and I do the same. I’m nervous. My head feels so very light and dizzy. I wait for her desired lips...
But it never comes. Instead, I get a very unwelcome, chilling sensation spreading through my head, and my entire body. In shock, I open my eyes, and see Kana’s body passing through mine the same way her arm did earlier. I squeeze my eyes back shut until the feeling leaves me, though I’m still shuddering by the time I feel warm again.
Slowly opening my eyes, I sit up and look around the room. I don’t see a trace of Kana anywhere, except for her discarded hat to the side on my bed. I reach out for it, but it’s lifted up into the air as Kana’s head pokes out from the surface of the bed itself, giggling, her hat coming to rest on the top of her hair again.
“Oh, that was great, master,” she says as she pulls the rest of her body out from the bed, floating in the air until she reaches the floor by its foot. “You should really have seen the look on your face.”
Ugh, I really should have expected that…
“Good night,” she says in a sweet, cheerful voice as she opens the door to my room, shutting it on the way out.
…
Not too long after, I’m on the computer. Business as usual. On a whim, I decide to see if I can do any research on youkai sightings in the area, but all I find are crackpot rumors and nothing really concrete. It’s amazing, though, the way Yuuka and Elly were talking about it, you’d expect there to be hundreds of those things lurking in the dark, and yet there haven’t been any reports by the authorities or civilian panic. Just isolated murder cases that were determined to have no leads. Is there something greater at work here? Maybe the police, or even the JSDF, are covering something up here?
Before I can start going off on that tangent that would probably lead me to form some kind of ridiculous theory about a government conspiracy, my train of thought is broken when I hear scratching at my door. It can’t be anything else other than Ellen’s cat, that disrespectful little fur ball. It’s probably seeking sanctuary from the unwanted attention both Kotohime and its owner are showering it with.
[ ] Let it in.
[ ] Keep it out.