4.0 Sensei, don't me mad Part 1

Junna didn’t sleep as long as they needed to, but they did get in a solid three hour nap. They woke up with the upper half of their body hanging off the couch, folded against the floor, with Nana staring them straight in the face.

“WHAT THE HELL!?” What normally would have been a smooth movement into bolting upright into sitting position warped into Junna’s legs kicking uselessly into the air while they remained stuck upside down. “Nana, what the—oh.”

This wasn’t Nana. Even though her bangs covered half her face, one large, round, gray eye peeked out, unblinking. The figure was also only about two thirds Nana’s size. Crouched down at almost eye-level with Junna wasn’t Hachikuji Nana, but Hachikuji Hifumi, the youngest of the three siblings.

Junna stared at Hifumi, Hifumi stared back. Junna blinked. Hifumi didn’t. Hifumi said nothing. Eventually, Junna couldn’t tolerate it any more and pulled themselves off the couch with their arms, rolling over to clamber anemically to their feet. Hifumi’s single-eyed gaze followed them, but she didn’t move from her spot crouched on the floor.

“You’ve grown since the last time I saw you,” Junna mumbled. How old was Hifumi now? The last time they’d seen Hifumi was about three years prior and she’d been in elementary school. “Are you like… twelve now? Thirteen?”

Hifumi said nothing, but at least she finally blinked. She was wearing a school uniform, junior high school, although Junna didn’t know which one. Hifumi still lived with the Hachikuji’s godfather, Kajiyashiki Kei, in west Tokyo, so her school could be over there.

“Wait a minute… isn’t it a weekday? Golden Week is over, isn’t it? You’re even wearing your uniform but it’s like seven in the morning, how are you going to get to school?”

Hifumi wrapped her arms over her head, her face now hidden. This was normal behavior as far as Junna remembered.

“You still don’t like talking, huh? That’s fine but don’t stare at people when they’re sleeping. Don’t stare at people in general. We’re in Tokyo, mind your own business, got it? Where’s your sister?”

The front door opened and Nana kicked off her shoes in a rush.

“Junna, did Hifumi… oh, there you are!” Nana let out a huge sigh of relief. “Kei saw you slip out of the apartment this morning and head to the train station instead of school. He thought you might be headed this way so he called me and asked me to check.”

Hifumi nodded vaguely, then crept over to the Wii on Nana’s shelf.

“Hifumi, you need to go to school. Kei can get in a lot of trouble if you don’t. I know it can be hard, but it’s very important.”

“Not. Today,” said Hifumi. She picked up the remote and muted the TV as soon as she turned it on.

“Does Kei at least know you’re here?”

“Hifumi messaged Oji-san,” Hifumi assured her before she put in Mario Kart. So she hadn’t outgrown speaking in third person. Nana fiddled with the ends of her sleeves. Oji-san was what Hifumi called Kei; he’d been a parental figure to her since she was a toddler, so it wasn’t odd that she called him uncle instead of his name. Hifumi lived with him across the city in Kugayama, a suburban area in Suginami City. Despite being a single guy in his forties, Kei was incredibly reliable and an excellent parent, in Junna’s opinion; he was probably panicking over Hifumi’s message.

“Kei might have experienced being a teen girl, but I don’t know if that gives him an advantage…” Junna leaned over to Nana and whispered, “Does Hifumi still have that autism thing?”

“Um. Yes? It doesn’t go away, you know…”

Junna didn’t know much about it, but Hifumi has always been a bit odd. She rarely spoke and had a bad habit of staring in silence when spoken to. She was terrified of loud noises, crowded places, strong tastes, strong smells, and flashing lights. She hated long sleeves and socks that went above the ankles and she walked exclusively on her toes.

She could also see ghosts. Well, all of the Hachikuji siblings could see ghosts, but Hifumi had 20/20 ghost vision, almost as good as Junna’s. While her siblings saw humanoid shapes with blurry, uncomfortable vague disfigured faces and movements so disjointed they couldn’t possibly be human, Hifumi saw ghosts and their expressions of pain and anger in frightening detail and a slightly wider range of motion.

How terrifying must that be for a kid who couldn’t communicate with the ghosts and didn’t have any supernatural skills to defend herself? Junna had always just spoken to ghosts, most of whom were docile if not benign. But onyrō, vengeful ghosts, could not be reasoned with. A spirit that held nothing but resentment and rage would no longer be able to differentiate between the actual target of those emotions or any other bystanders, and they were relentless. Anyone would be scared of such a thing.

“Are you guys going to teach her any Fox magic?”

All of the Hachikuji siblings had an aptitude for fox magic as their family’s patron deity was a fox spirit. Their mother, Hirona, came from a long line of families that had been dedicated to Inari and her servants, giving them even MORE aptitude than most. The only thing that could make it easier would probably be if one of their parents had been an actual fox spirit.

“Maybe, when she’s ready…” Nana didn’t seem so sure. Junna tried to imagine the silent and avoidant junior high school Hifumi summoning a pack of fox spirits to do her bidding. Well, it wasn’t impossible. Easier than the fox’s signature shapeshifting at least.

“Fair.”

Nana and Junna sat down on the couch together, neither saying a word. Hifumi ignored them and slung Toad around the racetrack like a seasoned pro.

Junna had a feeling Nana was going to ask about the one thing they didn’t want to do, so they steeled themselves and preempted her suggestion. It had been their original intention for returning to Tokyo, even if they’d been avoiding it.

“Uuuuugh, I guess I finally have to go see Doikawa, huh? I really wanted to avoid it. She’s going to lecture me, or at least stare at me, judging me. I can’t handle it.”

“I—I think it might be a good idea!”

Junna sighed. Nana was just trying to help. Junna would (begrudgingly) admit talking to Doikawa was the best course of action. They just really didn’t want to get scolded by their former teacher.

“Yeeeeah, but I need some clean clothes…”

“You can borrow some of mine—oh, but they might be too short. I have some old tshirts and track pants for when I do yard work…”

“I’ll take it.”

Junna ended up in a baggy gray t-shirt and track pants with permanent dirt stains on knees. They squeezed their feet into a pair of Nana’s flip flops and left their kimono that smelled of the land of the dead hanging under a tree to air out. They only had about three outfits that could be worn outside at their apartment, so they would go shopping later. For now, they begrudgingly went with Nana to Doikawa Shrine, Hifumi tagging along. Hifumi was very interested in Junna’s six ghost fish familiars. They were surprised Hifumi liked the fish—as Junna had told Nana, some of them had deteriorated terribly before they died. Was Hifumi’s stomach stronger than expected or was she just used to seeing those kinds of things?

Benihime Inari Shrine was tucked away in Asakusa, part of Taitō City, while Doikawa Shrine was located further south in Kōtō City, still part of Tokyo. Doikawa Shrine was larger, but not nearly one of the largest shrines Junna had seen. They would call it “medium.” It had two lion dog statues protecting the entrance, a separate worship hall and main sanctuary, as well as Doikawa’s office, a library of important religious and mythological texts, a small building where shrine workers could stay overnight if needed, a stall where the miko would sell charms and read fortunes, and a sparse forest of sacred trees on one side of the main walk. Junna, Nana, and Hifumi stopped at the fountain at the front, much larger than the one at Benihime Inari Shrine, to rinse their hands and mouths before continuing onto the grounds. A couple of miko swept the stone path, clearing the way in front of visitors heading to the worship hall.

The shrine and grounds looked exactly the same as Junna remembered, but it hadn’t changed in their multiple years studying there. Why would it have changed in the past two years since Junna had been gone?

It was on a morning during Golden Week in her first year of high school that Sagyo Jun, who hadn’t chosen a cringe-worthy nickname at that point, had arrived at Doikawa Shrine around 10am, as usual. She was supposed to be there closer to 7am, but she liked to sleep in on days she didn’t have school and she’d never suffered a penalty for it. She was learning techniques for spirit communication and exorcisms, not joining the shrine, although that just drew attention to the fact that she was a charity case. The Doikawa family had taken her in because her parents knew nothing of the supernatural except that their child could see it, and eventually it was Doikawa Touko’s father who had listened to their story and offered Jun a place as a student at the shrine. Why not have their daughter learn more about her abilities and how to use them?

Jun didn’t mind being a charity case, especially since Doikawa Touko didn’t treat her like one. She just couldn’t stick with Doikawa’s rigid scheduling. She wasn’t causing trouble, just arriving at an unorthodox time! No one was really even inconvenienced.

That day when she walked through the torii, a few miko only two years her senior playfully scolded her. Doikawa was out on the main shrine grounds in the courtyard, speaking with a girl in a pink kimono with a light blue obi. Her long hair was parted evenly in the middle and she had a sweet, friendly smile. Jun was instantly charmed, but not enough to act stupid… yet.

“Mornin’, Doikawa-sensei.” Jun greeted Doikawa with a bow of her head. “Sorry I’m late. Do we have a guest?”

Not many people besides Jun wore traditional clothes as regular day clothes. That day, Jun was wearing a gray men’s kimono with thin white vertical stripes and dark red hakama, a far more masculine style that complemented this guest’s outfit nicely, in her opinion.

“Hi! Nice to meet you, I’m Isshiki Ibuki. I came from my family estate in Gifu to study oddities at Doikawa Shrine. Are you studying here too?”

Is everyone in Gifu this friendly?

“Yeah. I’m Sagyo. Sagyo Jun. Doikawa-sensei is my teacher here, even though she’s not very old.”

Doikawa was silent for a beat before she simply said “yes, that’s true.”

“Are you a high school student?” Ibuki asked, her smile beaming softly.

“Yeah, first year.”

“Me too! Doikawa-san just showed me around the shrine. We’re going to study some books and scrolls on yōkai and yūrei—do you want to come?”

Monsters and ghosts? Sign me up.

She must’ve been anxious about being in a new place, and lonely without having many peers around. Jun herself didn’t have many close friends at school—only Nana. A tie to the supernatural world made it hard to get close to people who didn’t even have the ability to see it. It wasn’t this interaction in particular that made Junna decide to take their chance with Ibuki, but Ibuki had made a great impression.