A Headphone Actor

by Jin (Shizen no Teki-P)

  “Sh-Shintaro…Just who I needed…! G-get over here a sec…”

  Someone called my name again just as I passed by a crepe stand. It was a uniquely husky voice, one I could identify well enough without turning around.

  “What is it, Kido…? Whoa, where’s Momo? If she isn’t with you…”

  Kido was there, out of breath and sweating profusely.

  She had taken the hood off her head—it was much too hot for that right now—and her long hair was free to waver in the wind.

  But Momo was nowhere to be seen. Without Kido, her “ability” would make huge crowds form wherever she went…

  “Yeah. Kisaragi’s kind of gotten herself into some trouble…Please! I need you to lend a hand. Just come with me…!”

  Momo, in trouble? I could pretty well imagine what sort of trouble Momo might get herself into, but what could I do to help?

  If there was a mob of people surrounding her somewhere in the park, I don’t think my presence would contribute much…

  But Kido looked like she was at the end of her rope. Her face was hopeful—nothing like what she normally wore, as if I truly was the last person she could count on.

  …Well, so be it. Let’s head over there and see what’s going on.

  Besides, if someone says to me, “I need you to lend a hand,” I can never really find it in me to refuse.

  —It took about three minutes for Kido to lead me through the park.

  We stood in front of another attraction, the Haunted Grotesque Dollhouse.

  It was the classic amusement park haunted house, replete with gravestones, axes, and all the other standard props lining the mansion’s outer walls.

  The screams you occasionally heard from inside—presumably from one of the visitors—only added to the creepy atmosphere.

  “Uh, so…what?”

  I sighed.

  “Wh-what? Shintaro, I can’t hear you. Speak up!”

  It took ten minutes to get through the line.

  With three groups left in front of us, Kido put on her earbuds.

  Afterward, she alternated between muttering something or other and tightly closing her eyes, as if trying to remind herself of something.

  “What, are you scared, or…?”

  I relayed the conclusion I had arrived at to Kido, raising my voice enough to ensure she heard me. She arched her eyebrows upward.

  “What? Don’t be stupid! It’s not that or anything! It’s just that the screaming from the other visitors is annoying me! I-I’m not gonna let some dumb kiddie ride scare me…!”

  Kido refused to admit it, but the way she made herself red in the face with her fervent defense made her defense seem less than credible.

  “Ugh…So, if I have this right, you and Momo went into the haunted house together, but due to ‘circumstances,’ as you put it, you left by yourself, and due to other ‘circumstances,’ you can’t go back in alone. And since she’ll attract crowds if you aren’t around, she’s stuck in there. Right?”

  “Y-yes! Right! Glad I could count on you, Shintaro. You’re so quick on the uptake…”

  She snorted a little as she spoke, in an attempt to look cool that, in this situation, honestly couldn’t have been less convincing.

  “So what’re these ‘circumstances,’ then? What reason would you have to not go in a haunted house besides being too scared to—”

  “I swear, that’s not it! That’s not it, but…but look, I can’t tell you what’s in there, okay?!”

  That was the most I could extract from Kido after multiple attempts. She had no apparent interest in giving a straight answer.

  Considering the way the boss’s shoulders shook a little bit whenever the attendant at the front door shouted, “Next, please!” I doubted she was useful for much of anything right now.

  She was too scared to go in by herself, so she was looking for someone to join her.

  I could empathize. Even if she made herself invisible, that wouldn’t help much inside a haunted house.

  It’d hide whatever screaming she did inside, at least, but going solo didn’t seem like a feasible solution right now.

  Either way, as long as she refused to admit how scared she was, I didn’t have much right to try and convince her otherwise. So I decided to play along.

  “Looks like we’re up next, boss. Are you ready for this?”

  I tried asking Kido in front of the door, but she had already turned up the volume enough that I could hear the music where I was standing. Further conversation was going to be impossible.

  The attendant’s motions seemed to be enough of an indicator for her that we were next, though.

  As we approached the entrance, I noticed that Kido’s breathing began to grow more and more ragged.

  The attendant opened the door, revealing a room littered with ominous-looking European dolls and blood-spattered antiques—an even more classical approach than what I saw outside.

  The moment we laid eyes upon the scene, the sense of fear I had kept a tight lid on up to now began to swell within me.

  Kido was already near tears adjacent to me, but I was in no position to chide her.

  My own eyes were probably starting to cloud up, too.

  The door to the eerie manor creaked itself shut as the house welcomed our apprehensive, trembling selves with open arms.

  Once the door was closed, we were shut off from all outside light, the scene ominously lit by flickering candles and lamps.

  A chill air, cold in a different way from the ice maze earlier, cooled our bodies up from our legs.

  We were both overwhelmed by the scene, finding ourselves already all but unable to press forward.

  “Huh…huh. They did a pretty good job…huh, Kido…?”

  I turned around, holding my arm steady against the trembling fingers of the girl next to me, only to find Kido’s eyes shut tightly as she attempted to lose herself in the world of her music. I plucked the earbuds out of her head and confiscated them, along with the music player in her pocket.

  “Aaghhh!! What’re you doing, Shintaro?! G-g-give it back, now!”

  “What are you, stupid? How are we supposed to find Momo if I can’t even talk to you?!”

  “I-I know that…but…”

  The earbudless Kido began to visibly shiver, like a newborn goat. The sight of the normally composed, above-it-all boss now reduced to sheer uselessness made things all the more anxious for me.

  But standing still wasn’t going to accomplish anything.

  If we wanted to get out of here quickly, we had to keep pushing our legs forward, nose to the grindstone.

  I somehow got myself off and walking, Kido following a step behind.

  Thanks to the uniquely haunted house–like smells and soundtrack, the path we made slow yet steady progress through was, in a word, terrifying.

  The hanging scythes and portraits of headless dolls lining the hallway fanned the fear within us that those blades could come flying forward at any moment.

  I squinted, attempting to keep them out of sight as much as I could, and tried to crouch down as I continued.

  Kido copied my stance as she followed behind. It probably looked ridiculous, someone our age acting like this, but I didn’t care. We were fighting for our lives here.

  “…Hey, didn’t you already go through this once? You already know, like, what’s gonna come out and everything, right?”

  I turned around to look at Kido after realizing it, but she had her eyes shut and her hands against her ears, all but broadcasting that she didn’t want to talk right now.

  “Geez, you don’t have to ignore me,” I said as I extended a hand to Kido. The moment I did, one of the dolls tossed aside in the corridor began to speak.

  “Yeeaaagghhh!! What the hell?!”

  “The master of this mansion was a world-famous doll collector. But one day, he changed. He began inviting guests into his house…and murdering them so he could turn them into dolls! But I wonder if you’ll be able to ma
ke it out alive? Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee!!”

  I reeled backward, my heart about to leap out of my chest, and slumped down to the floor.

  You call that guy a murderer? I’m so delicate, I’m gonna die of shock thanks to your little performance long before I run into him.

  Kido, standing next to my slumped-over self, had an expression of relief on her face as she removed her hands from her ears and stared down at me piteously.

  “You…you had to have known about that…Is that why you covered your ears…?!”

  “Oh, um, sorry. I wanted to tell you, but I was too busy keeping my ears…uh, I mean, it’d be more fun if it was fresh for you, too, after all, so…”

  The sudden left turn Kido made midresponse did not go unnoticed.

  “Fun, my ass! You were freaking out and covering your ears!”

  “I-I’m not freaking out, okay?! I just happened to be…!”

  As she spoke, Kido noticed something in the distance, then quickly made her way deeper down the corridor.

  Has she experienced some sort of instantaneous freedom from her anxieties? No, probably not. Judging by her behavior so far, she couldn’t be more freaking out right now.

  So, what…?

  As I thought it over, a terrible premonition began to haunt me.

  Slowing turning back the way we walked in from, I saw a group of people lumbering toward me, their clothes covered in blood, no doubt the hapless guests brutally murdered by the master of the house.

  “Aaaaaaaaahhhhh!! I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Please, let me go!!”

  With lightning-fast reflexes, I prostrated myself before the horde of zombies, then—reconsidering this tactic—sprang upward and sped away in the opposite direction. Where did those bastards come from?! I guess they were extras working for the haunted house, but their performance was so convincing, they left me literally begging for my life.

  I quickly caught up to Kido ahead of me, just in time to see her arm being grabbed by countless hands coming out from the wall. Her eyes had lolled almost all the way back inside her head.

  “Aaghh! L-let go! Stop it!”

  Kido was shouting at the top of her lungs, wholly forgetting that this was supposed to be entertainment.

  Once she did, the extras on the other side of the wall pulled their hands back.

  Good job, guys. Don’t come back again, please.

  “Huff…huff…Sorry about that, Shintaro. Thanks for the help…”

  “Yeah, how about you stop running away from me like that, all right?! That was really scary!”

  “Huh? Oh. Yeah, sorry. I just remembered this errand I had to run…”

  Kido awkwardly averted her eyes as she spoke.

  —Man, there’s something up with this girl. Talk about someone I can’t count on in a pinch.

  “So where did you get separated from Momo? Up ahead some more?”

  “…Uh, r-right around the next corner. I think…”

  Passing through the hands-in-the-wall zone, I turned the corner Kido pointed out, only to find the corridor ahead lined with large piles of coffins…The owner of this place turned his visitors into dolls, didn’t he?

  So what’s he even need coffins for, anyway?

  Of course, if I was going to start pointing out issues with this house, the zombies didn’t make much sense either. The hands popping out of the walls? Even more off-spec.

  There was a lot about this house you could make fun of, really. And look at the two of us, about ready to pee our pants in the middle of it. Putting it out of my mind, I moved onward. Behind one of the mountains of coffins on the right, I spotted a flash of brown hair.

  “…There she is!”

  Kido took several steps backward in fear.

  “Th-th-there what is?! W-where is she? Hey! Shintaro!”

  “It’s not a ghost or anything! I mean that Momo’s hiding in here!”

  I pointed it out, giving Kido a chance to see Momo’s hair for herself. She breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Oh, it’s Kisaragi…Well, good thing we finally tracked her down. Thanks for your help, Shintaro.”

  Kido stuck her hands in the pockets of her parka in a failed attempt to play it cool. It seemed like a gag by this point.

  “B-boss…”

  We heard Momo’s voice croak out from inside the coffin. I imagined she was waiting for Kido to come back for her before she dared emerge from it.

  …I wondered what she was waiting for. She wasn’t that far away, and besides, it was only the three of us in here.

  “Hey, Kisaragi!” Kido said as she approached the coffins. “It’s me! Sorry I left you behind. Let’s hurry up and get…!!”

  One look at Momo after she turned around was enough to make Kido faint on the spot.

  I was pretty surprised, too, looking on from afar, but I figure I deserve a medal for not screaming out loud, at least.

  “Uh…huh? Boss?! Did, did I frighten you too much…?”

  Momo’s face was splattered with blood as she climbed out of the coffin, an axe embedded in her skull.

  What’s worse, she was actually trying to give Kido a hug in that makeup. In Kido’s eyes, she must have been a possessed monster ready to pounce on her.

  “Momo, are you crazy…?”

  She turned toward me as I approached.

  The look was even scarier up close.

  “Whoa! You actually went in here, bro? You’re such a fraidy-cat usually…”

  Momo honestly looked surprised underneath all the fake blood covering her face.

  “I can handle a stupid amusement park haunted house, Momo! But what’s with that? Why’re you all done up like that?”

  “Oh, this? Well, you know, the boss left me behind, so I hid behind those coffins, but then I found this axe prop, so I figured I’d take advantage and give the boss a scare once she came back. So I put on this makeup, and I’ve been waiting here since. I didn’t think it’d be that effective…”

  I have to hand it to my sister. She’s so scary, she can make the boss faint at a single glance.

  But an unconscious Kido meant that we were now no closer to getting out of here.

  “Well, now what’re you gonna do?! We’re still suck in here!”

  “Oh, no, you’re right! Oh, man…We need to wake up the boss…”

  Momo began to violently jostle Kido’s body.

  “No, I mean, get that junk off your face first, Momo! She’s gonna faint all over again if you don’t!”

  “Oh! Right!”

  Realizing the critical flaw behind her plan, Momo dove back into the mound of coffins.

  If I left Kido here, it’d probably cause a huge scene once the next group of visitors showed up.

  There wasn’t much I could do. Reluctantly, I dragged Kido into the area behind the coffins.

  Crouching down, Momo removed the axe, took out a wet napkin from her purse to remove the makeup, and began daubing it on her face.

  I sat down next to her and sighed.

  The moment gave me time to reflect over how my much-anticipated alone time never materialized in the end. So much for any privacy I deserved.

  “Man, this is really exhausting…”

  “I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to get everyone worked into a frenzy over me.”

  Momo, her face clear of makeup, gave me an apologetic look as she took out her phone.

  The wallpaper was set to a photo she took of the entire gang this morning to commemorate the resurrection of her phone. After she resized it for wallpaper purposes, though, I was cut off at the far edge of the screen, which didn’t exactly fill me with glee.

  “Wow, I spent a lot of time in here…but we’ve got some time left to have fun, right?”

  Momo put her phone away and began to shake Kido’s adjacent body once more.

  “Boss! Boss! Please, wake up! The amusement park’s gonna close on us!”

  “Nnn…gh…Huh?! Kisaragi! What am I doing in here?”

  Kido’s eyes flew open. She
swiveled her head to take in her surroundings, apparently not remembering how Momo shocked her into unconsciousness earlier.

  “Well…uh…I dunno, you just kinda fainted all of a sudden?”

  I flashed a quick wink at Momo as she spoke, deliberately averting her eyes from Kido as she did.

  “Really…? Well, whatever. At least you’re here now, Kisaragi. Let’s hurry up and get outta here.”

  Kido’s pupils turned from black to red as she spoke.

  “I’m setting it up so that just Momo’s invisible. You and I need to keep going, Shintaro.”

  Turning my head toward where Momo was crouching down, I realized she was already gone.

  If I spent a few moments to focus on the exact site, I felt like I could see the faint contours of her body, at least. But even so, that was one useful tool Kido had at her fingertips.

  What kind of tools do I have that would compare? The power to go to a public bathhouse and not be embarrassed out of my skull?

  Regardless, we headed back out into the corridor. Our mission: to reach the exit in one piece.

  I could feel the onrush of depression as I realized it meant my heart would soon be working overtime again.

  The moment I set foot in the hallway, I suddenly felt a strange sense that something wasn’t quite right.

  It was something that had taken up residence in my mind ever since we ran into Momo. But once I gave it some thought, I immediately realized the cause.

  No. Wait a second. If that was the case, does that mean this entire afternoon was…?

  A bitter chill ran down my spine as it dawned on me. I decided to bounce the idea off the already-trembling Kido.

  I stopped in the middle of the corridor. She followed suit.

  “…Hmm? What’s up, Shintaro? Let’s get going.”

  Yep…I hated to think about it, but my hunch was probably right.

  In a way, I had already unconsciously confirmed it earlier.

  “Hey…Kido? After Ene rode the roller coaster…where’d she go after that?”

  Kido flashed me a confused expression.

  “Ene? She left right afterward. She said she’d be following you.”

  —As she spoke, the phone in my pocket vibrated for two quick bursts, as if chuckling to itself.