Poor Ueno.

We stood side-by-side in the doorway of the Shiraishi household, two exhausted teenagers framed in the light of the entryway. To my parents, I probably looked less like their traumatized son and more like a fledgling criminal who had just abducted a random girl from the train station.

...Technically, that's not entirely wrong.

"Mom, Dad, this is Ishikawa Ueno-san," I announced, trying to project an air of normalcy that I haven't possessed since the Cancun trip. "She... missed her train. She'll be staying here tonight."

I felt the need to execute damage control immediately. My parents were exchanging a look that definitely meant, 'Did Mamoru-kun finally make a move? Are we grandparents?'

"And before you ask, we have no intimate relationship," I added, perhaps a little too loudly and explicitly.

That phrase was a catastrophic mistake. Next to me, Ueno went from merely flustered to what I can only describe as a full-system thermal overload. Her face turned the color of a stop sign, and I swear I could see a faint shimmer of steam rising from her collar. She looked like a cartoon character seconds away from exploding.

"Oh, Mamoru, that's a bit... direct," my mom chuckled, clearly enjoying my visible panic. My dad just nodded slowly, scrutinizing Ueno with a hawk-like intensity that was thankfully softened by Ueno's obvious distress.

The interrogation was surprisingly swift. After Ueno explained the train issue (skillfully omitting the part where I dragged her like a sack of potatoes), my parents accepted it. They're surprisingly practical when presented with a genuine logistical problem.

The next order of business: clothes. I handed Ueno a clean towel and directed her to the bathroom. To my shock, my little sister, the self-proclaimed Empress of All Her Belongings, was uncharacteristically generous.

Ueno emerged a short time later, wearing one of my sister's older, slightly oversized hoodies and a pair of gym shorts. It was a bizarre sight: Ueno, perpetually neat and contained, looking like she'd raided a charity bin, but somehow still cute. I honestly didn't expect the quick loan. Maybe my sister was less of an anti-social menace and more... intrigued by the girl connected to her socially inept brother.

Dinner was torture. My parents, treating Ueno like a fragile porcelain doll, were aggressively talkative.

"So, Ueno-chan, what are your future goals? Do you excel in mathematics? Are you dating anyone?"

"What's your favorite vegetable? Do you think Mamoru's haircut is terrible? Be honest."

Poor Ueno couldn't even take a bite of the grilled fish before being hit with another personal question. It was less a dinner and more a parental inquisition, and I felt simultaneously sorry for her and extremely embarrassed for myself.

After dinner, the most pressing matter arrived: bedtime. Where, exactly, does the girl I almost got crushed trying to protect, sleep?

My parents immediately offered their room. Hard pass. Ueno would be subjected to my mom's endless photo albums of "Baby Mamoru" in various humiliating states. My sister's room? Absolutely not. I didn't want to find Ueno duct-taped to the ceiling by morning. My sister is unpredictable.

The couch was an option, but given my current Ubume paranoia, I was convinced the weeping woman would claim or haunt the vulnerable, exposed sleeper. It had to be my room. It was the only logical choice, dictated by paranormal avoidance protocol.

To my utter bewilderment, my parents were okay with it. "Just make sure you're respectful, Mamoru," my dad said, a knowing, weary look in his eyes that made me wonder if he was secretly placing an entire security detail around my door. Seriously, did they trust me, their awkward, zombie-apocalypse-obsessed son, that much?

My sister just stood by the stairs, arms crossed, pouting probably because she couldn't have the chance to duct tape Ueno onto the ceiling.

Ueno, bless her heart, was a disaster of blushing and head-shaking. But she went along with it. So, we both entered into my room.

The irony wasn't lost on me. My room, usually a sanctuary of solitude and questionable video game posters, now contained a terrified, slightly damp schoolgirl. Lucky? Only if you completely ignored the weeping, mirror-haunting ghost and the impending doom that had led us here.

I quickly set up the spare futon I kept rolled up for when my male friends came over. I gave her my bed—courtesy is paramount, even in a supernatural hostage crisis—and took the floor.

I closed the light.

We lay there in the dark, the room thick with unspoken tension. I could hear Ueno's ragged, quick breathing from the bed above me. She was terrified, probably because she was sleeping in a boy's bed for the first time. I needed to calm her down.

"So... Ishikawa-san," I started, my voice soft in the dark. "What are your hobbies?"

It was a terrible, unsuited, utterly mundane question for a moment this tense. But it was exactly what we needed. I was determined to anchor her back to reality.

She answered hesitantly, talking about reading manga and her terrible attempts at drawing. I responded with my obsession with retro gaming, and we actually started to feel lighter. We spoke for a good hour, trading innocent, normal details about our normal, non-haunted lives. The terror of the station seemed miles away.

Eventually, her breathing smoothed out. She was asleep.

I was still awake, staring at the dark ceiling. Why did the Ubume haunt me? Is this really about a baby, or a giant rock? I thought about the ghost's desperation in the mirror, but the thought was too heavy. The warmth of Ueno's presence, the memory of her hug, and the sound of her calm breathing were a powerful antidote.

Before the paranoia could truly set in, my exhaustion won. I dozed off to sleep, feeling strangely, completely guarded.