Epi.12-2: The Third Floor of the Abandoned House

“This abandoned house, you know, is pretty famous, so people doing courage tests come by every now and then.
And there are videos of it too, but the one I saw the other day went up to the third floor! Isn’t that unfair?”
Yuka leaned forward as she complained.

“Huh? This place is two stories, right?
Isn’t that somewhere else?”
Misaki voiced the obvious question, but there were several viewing comments on that video.

“If someone who came here for the first time can go to the third floor, but I’ve never been there, that’s impossible, right?
So, you know, I said it.”
She gave a confident, fearless grin, and various predictions and questions lined up.
After looking at them, she declared it with satisfaction.
“At the entrance, facing the stairs, I said,
‘I want to go to the third floor too!’”

Comments like “That’s just it,” “Disband,” and “If it were that easy, we wouldn’t struggle,” lined up, sounding fed up.

“Eh—! This isn’t the reaction I was expecting at all, you know?”
Yuka puffed out her cheeks and complained.

“What did you think was going to happen?”
Misaki gently set her now-empty glass down on the table.

“Of course! I thought I’d get comments like ‘I never thought of that!’ or ‘That’s smart!’—I thought they’d praise me…
I mean, I did make it there. For real.”
That last line she added quietly made the comment section speed up.

Misaki, too, stopped the glass at her lips and said, “Huh? You made it there?”

“I did. After I said it, I went up the stairs to the second floor, turned around—and it was the third floor.”
Yuka puffed out her chest proudly.

While looking over the comments eager to know what the third floor was like, she was thoroughly pleased, thinking, This is what I was waiting for.

“But then, when I went all the way around, it was the second floor again.”
She visibly slumped her shoulders in disappointment.

What lined up there were comments that didn’t believe Yuka’s words, like “That’s a hallucination,” “Maybe just your imagination?” and “Probably nothing—better luck next time.”

“Ehh—! Aren’t you all being kind of harsh?”
Grumbling, she leaned back against the sofa.

“So what’s it really like? Have you ever been there?”
Misaki spoke to the two ghosts who were off-screen.

Shinobu shook her head, but Sayuri had her arms crossed and seemed to be floating there, thinking about something.

“Sayuri-chan! If you know something, tell us! Come over here!”
Yuka waved her hand, asking for help.

As if responding to her, Sayuri floated over, drifting closer, and her upside-down face descended between Misaki and Yuka.
“Hmm, I don’t really understand this building very well, and, you know, the other day there was someone who wanted to go to Misaki-san’s room, so I was guiding them—”

“Uh… what did you do…?”
Misaki cut in weakly, taken aback, but it seemed Sayuri didn’t hear her.
Without missing a beat, Yuka poured some alcohol, as if to distract her.

“After we reached the second floor, in the hallway to this room, he said, ‘I can’t move forward at all,’ and when I looked closely, it turned out that every time he moved a little, he was being sent back.”

“Wait—are you telling a scary story right now? That hallway is right over there, isn’t it?”
Misaki tried to cover Sayuri’s mouth, but she slipped right through, as expected.

“And there was also that mirror in the first-floor hallway you mentioned earlier, so I kind of think it wouldn’t be strange if there really were a third floor.”
Still upside-down, she crossed her arms and nodded.

“You didn’t have to bring up the hallway, did you! Right now! The one on the first floor is fine because I can’t see it, but the hallway is right there, so I can see it, you know?”
With trembling hands, she grabbed her glass and brought it to her lips.

Comments like “She still drinks even when she’s shaking,” and “Isn’t a ghost talking upside-down scarier?” made the comment section lively, but when Misaki snapped, “Quiet,” it fell silent in an instant.

“But, you know, Misaki-san, was that story just now really scary? You always enter this room on the second floor from the first-floor door, right? I think what you’re doing is basically the same?”
Sayuri looked puzzled, gently swaying her upside-down head from side to side.