2.75 いつまでも MIDNIGHT SESSION Part 4

「Itsumademo MIDNIGHT SESSION livestream 05/06.」

“What… the hell…” Without thinking, they tapped it. The audio could have blasted out the phone’s tiny speaker. Hopefully the entire neighborhood hadn’t heard that before they fumbled the volume down.

“Hi, hi, HAAAAAIIIIIII!”

“Welcome back, my crazy NIGHT WALKERS!”

“It’s your favorite idol, Nanami Minamiiii!”

“And your host with the most, Ryuuzaki KEN-GOOOO!”

“And this is—”

“ITSUMADEMO MIDNIGHT SESSION!”

Junna couldn’t believe how tacky this was. It looked like it was filmed in the 80s, the volume was all over the place, and the clashing, high-contrast colors were going to make their eyeballs bleed. Combined with the bright flashes of light and constant use of jump cuts, they quickly remembered why they’d changed the channel almost immediately earlier in the night.

“Tonight’s challenge is about to finally begin!” announced lizard creep host Ryuuzaki Kengo. “Due to some last minute changes by the producer, Late Night Horror Fight Labyrinth will begin in four minutes. So sorry for the late start.”

“Ryuuzaki-kun, is it really a labyrinth though? It’s just Tokyo! There are maps!” Obnoxious seagull idol Nanami Minami tilted her head and put a fingertip to her lip in the most over-acted gesture of confusion Junna had ever seen.

“Minami-chan, you know it isn’t that simple. It isn’t JUST about the winding streets of the nation’s capital. It’s about the hungry ghosts and youkai that you meet along the way.”

“Oh yeah! It’s kind of like an open-air haunted house.”

“And you don’t even have to pay admission! The location will be decided…”

“By me spinning this big ol’ wheel!” Minami flounced over to a large wheel of colorful triangular segments, put her hand on the side, and heaved it into a rotation so fast the colors blurred together.

“And then I throw this at it.” Ryuuzaki pulled a large knife out of a pocket inside his gaudy jacket and hurled it at the wheel. It stuck, and the wheel slowly lost speed. Eventually, it stopped, the knife sticking out from one dark red panel out of twenty-seven colors. There were no letters or numbers on any of them. “MINAMI-CHAN! Tell us what we got!”

Minami squinted at the wheel and then straightened up as if she had deciphered a cryptic message. She announced what she had seen in her grating, squawking voice.

“Oh, how exciting! Looks like it’s the Asakusa district in Taito City!

“What do you know, hope we’re not stepping on Kannon-sama’s toes by hosting an event there!”

Junna looked down at the ground at their feet, up at the sky, and all around at the buildings they were standing between. Benihime Inari Shrine, Nana’s home that they had just taken a shortcut to, was absolutely in Taito City, specifically the Asakusa district. They could easily walk to Sensōji, the famous temple dedicated to the bodhisattva known as Kannon, which was definitely what Ryuuzaki was referencing. Just him mentioning Kannon felt sacrilegious and Junna didn’t even consider themself Buddhist.

“Dammit…” They were standing less than two meters from the torii that lead into a small familiar shrine neatly tucked between two larger buildings and hidden by bamboo thickets. They took a few steps closer and their heart dropped.

“Sagyo-kun, is that you?”

A human shape lightly touched down on the ground just inside the gate as if she had drifted from the sky. Dressed in a tasteful pink kimono with a simple floral pattern, her white hair wound into a loose bun between her fox ears, was Benihime Inari herself. Her five tails fanned out behind her like a peacock’s feathered tail and her narrowed crescent eyes watched Junna as they nearly stumbled over themself. “Goodness, I didn’t think you would be visiting us on such short notice! Nana-chan’s been fretting over you since you came back to Tokyo. You look tired, come on in and get some rest, won’t you?”

“Junna? O-oh, good, you made it here?” Nana appeared just behind Benihime, wearing a light sweater over what looked like a cute but modest pink night gown. She’d slipped on low, worn sneakers with no sign of socks. Her wavy hair was a mess, far past being unruly because of its texture. Nana had come outside with full-on bedhead. Junna had definitely woken her up and worried her severely, or she wouldn’t have rushed out in that state.

“Nana—hey, go back inside—”

“Oh yeah! I almost forgot! We got a special letter today!” Minami’s voice sang from Junna’s phone. They brought the screen back up to their face.

“Whoa, nice, Minami-chan! Bring it in!”

Minami disappeared off screen and reappeared with comedic bubbly sound effects, pushing a small cart with a plain black box on it. She flipped back the lid. A few blue ghost fires drifted out as Ryuuzaki thrust his hand in and made a great show of digging around what looked like an empty box before removing a single blank envelope.

“Open it, open it!” Minami cheered, bouncing up and down. Her feathery hair almost looked like it was flapping. Ryuuzaki used one of his sharp black nails to slice open the edge of the plain enveloped and plucked the letter out between two fingers, snapping it neatly open as he casually tossed the envelope behind his back. An unearthly scream followed.

“WOW! Get this, loyal Night Walkers! It’s a letter from the producer, addressed to a new audience member we have tuning in! They’re actually an old acquaintance of our dearly beloved producer.”

The camera cut to a funeral altar with one of Ibuki’s old school photographs in black and white, framed by bouquets of white flowers and a wreath of incense smoke. Junna felt their eye twitch. Then it cut back to Minami and Ryuuzaki wiping fake tears from their eyes.

“It’s all thanks to her that we made it into showbiz, folks. If she hadn’t died, where would we be?” Ryuuzaki said.

“Well, we wouldn’t be anywhere if she hadn’t been dragged back from her peaceful eternal slumber into the torment of a false resurrection!”

“That’s true! And what a coincidence, because the person responsible for that is the one in the audience today!”

“Shut the hell up!” Junna bit out through gritted teeth. The whole act made their stomach churn. They could act as nonchalant and irritated as they wanted, but their blood was running cold.

“Junna, what’s wrong?” Nana softly padded off shrine grounds, approaching Junna to gently place her hand on their upper arm. “W-what are you watching…?”

Junna almost jumped out of their skin—had Nana heard that last part? All of Junna’s closest friends were aware Ibuki and her family had died. They also knew that Ibuki was haunting Junna. Most of them felt bad, if messages from Nana had been accurate. What a tragedy it was that Ibuki had latched onto Junna. Such terrible luck, vengeful ghosts would truly attack anyone.

Only Doikawa knew that Junna had brought the haunting on themselves by failing Ibuki’s resurrection.

“Sagyo Junna-san,” Ryuuzaki hissed with a wicked grin as he leaned close—too close—to the camera. His yellow eyes shone over his sunglasses. “This letter is a message for you! Check it out!”

He flipped the paper revealing the most aggressive iteration of the command ‘go die’ Junna had ever seen in their life. The kanji looked like it was carved deeply into something and written in blood at the same time.

“Will this honored guest be joining us as a contestant this week, Ryuuzaki-san?”

“Eh, up to them! They will if they don’t want another batch of living humans to kick it on-air and end up as our lunch.”

“Sooooo, how do we know who wins?”

“Today’s challenge is timed. Survive for forty-four minutes and we spare your life! You just have to avoid the forty-four ghosts we brought out for this run. Think of that part a little bit like a game of tag.”

“Oh, like the other day! That one was pretty exciting, even though everyone got eaten in the first ten minutes.”

“They had a good run. As always, if you make it to the station, you win automatically! But I gotta warn ya, the ghosts along the way will NOT help you.”

“Not at allllll!”

“Yeah, haha—OH the commercial break is about to start! Okay contestants! GO GO GO! GOOD LUCK!”

“See you soooon, crazy Night Walkers!”

The stream ended abruptly with a flash of static before going dark.

“Junna, what was that?” Nana asked, fingers gripping the sleeve of Junna’s kimono. She’d just missed the end and both Minami and Ryuuzaki spoke so rapidly it would be difficult to understand them without paying attention. So she hadn’t heard much of anything at all…

Lying piece of shit. She would hate you if she knew what you did.

“Evil game show,” Junna answered, ignoring the nasty voice in the back of their mind.

“Was that… Itsumademo MIDNIGHT SESSION?”

“I’m worried that you know about that, but yeah, and I think I just got an invite…” If Nana knew about it, why hadn’t she said anything? Then again, if Junna hadn’t been mentioned before, she might not have even known they were involved; it would just be a strange supernatural incident. “Nana, go back on shrine grounds, they called me out so it’s probably not a good idea to be this close to me—”

Junna’s throat tightened as the lights around them dimmed and the air grew humid and chilly. It was like a cloak had been thrown over the whole street, wrapping it in shadow.

Too late.

Benihime was nowhere to be seen and although bamboo and a building remained where Benihime Inari Shrine stood, the building itself was different. The torii and nameplate had disappeared. It wasn’t likely this building was a shrine in the spirit world.

“We-we’re in the spirit realm…?” Nana released Junna’s sleeve to grab their hand instead. “How did that…”

Junna clenched their jaw and did their best to resist throwing their phone.

They had signed up for this, albeit reluctantly. Nana however, had not.