𝔤𝔥𝔬𝔰𝔱 𝔱𝔬𝔴𝔫. #themeweekend

    

    

      

———

———————————————————

                                      𝐈. 𝔤𝔥𝔬𝔰𝔱 𝔬𝔣 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔟

         —————

             words                               623

                                     ———————————

#seenontvweekend

this one i tried to make

a bit of a funny rather

than something serious

but i love ghost hunting

shows so i wanted to use

that theme for this!

art credit . . . wakamekanii on X

———————————————————

———

♱

———

———————————————————

           There is a house at the edge of the city where the wind forgets its name.

           It sits, not on a hill, but upon something stranger… unclaimed land, rejected by architects and kind neighbors alike, like a missing tooth in a smile too wide. The address had peeled itself off the mailbox. The trees leaned away. The moon hesitated.

           Monoma, naturally, did not believe in any of this.

           “Do you see how the door is just hanging open like that?” Pony whispered, clutching her flashlight as if its batteries could purify the air. “It’s like it wants us inside.”

           “All doors want to be opened,” Monoma replied with theatrical flourish, pushing up his collar against the cold. “They’re beckoning but it’s not for paranormal reasons.”

           “Monoma, I’m serious!”

           “And I am being scientifically irreproachable, Tsunotori. Ghosts are the fantasies of those who find mirrors too honest.”

           Pony made a sound like a deflating balloon. Still, she followed him past the crooked gate, through a garden where nothing bloomed but doubt. A swing hung from a dead tree, squeaking softly in the absence of a breeze.

           The house creaked in reply to their steps, boards bowing like arthritic spines. Every wall was a confession. Every window watched.

           “I hate this,” Pony muttered, hooves clacking nervously. “I hate this so much.”

           “You agreed to come.”

           “You said it was for a school project!”

           “It is! Sociology. How fear manifests in the impressionable. Look at you; positively textbook.”

           Pony whimpered and gripped his sleeve. “You’re not funny.”

           “That’s debatable,” Monoma muttered with some charming boast as he pushed open the parlor door. Dust rose like exhalation. The furniture was shrouded in sheets, like mourners in place of the dead. A grand piano sighed somewhere upstairs, even though none of its keys had been touched in years.

           And then… footsteps. Not theirs.

           Slow. Deliberate. Approaching.

           Pony froze. Monoma’s smile flickered.

           “There’s someone—”

           “No, no,” Monoma said quickly. “It’s just air. Shifting. The house settling.”

           “The house isn’t supposed to walk, Monoma!”

           Then a figure emerged at the top of the staircase. Long white sheet of a figure. Pale skin. A floating sort of quiet.

           Monoma paled. Pony screamed in three languages.

           They turned and ran, but in the doorway they slipped—together—a graceless heap of limbs and panic, tangled like cords behind a television.

           “Why,” said the voice— monotone, serene, unbothered, “are you in my house?”

           It was Yanagi. Floating slightly above the floor, in her socks, clutching a cup of herbal tea.

           “…I… beg your pardon?” Monoma managed, somehow both trembling and pretending not to be.

           “This is my home,” she repeated. “You’re tresing.”

           Pony blinked. “You… live here?”

           “Of course.”

           “In this house?”

           “It’s quiet.”

           Monoma struggled to regain his dignity. “We were under the impression it was haunted.”

           Yanagi took a sip of tea. “It is.”

           Pony clutched Monoma tighter. Yanagi looked between them, expression unreadable. “Would you like to stay for tea?”

           Monoma opened his mouth. Closed it. Looked at Pony. She looked like she was about to burst into tears or flame, or both.

           “…Do ghosts usually make tea?” he asked weakly.

           Yanagi blinked once. “I’m not a ghost.”

           “But the piano—”

           “That was my cat.”

           They stayed for tea. Sweet and herbal but somehow colder than the room.

           On the way out, Pony tugged at Monoma’s coat. “Still think ghosts aren’t real?”

           He adjusted his collar with some nerve. “That wasn’t a ghost. That was Yanagi. She merely aspires to ghosthood.”

           “Then what was all that?”

           Monoma sighed, dramatic as ever with a shrug of his hands. “An exercise in hubris. And I’m failing sociology.”

           The door creaked shut behind them on its own. Monoma didn’t comment but it was clear he began to walk a little faster away now compared to Pony.