Yet another exhausting day for the small girl. Seemed like the long trip managed her butt cramped. After she paid the taxi driver, she stepped out and greeted her grandfather with a smile. Her grandfather had been waiting there not long after he received a text message from her that she would be arriving soon. And there she was right then.
"Ji-chan!" She ran and hugged her grandfather.
"Konnichiwa, Minami." Her grandfather hugged back and ruffled her hair.
They part their hugs then her grandfather helped his granddaughter bringing her luggage as they went inside his mansion. His mansion is of a traditional Japanese mansion. Big. That old man had been living there all alone after his wife passed away. It was the first time for her and Takahashi Minami looked everywhere in awe as she walked behind her grandfather. Suddenly, she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned at the direction in reflex and only caught a glimpse of someone's hair so she turned to the other side but there was no one.
"Something tells me that Ji-chan isn't living alone..." she muttered.
"What was that Minami?" Ji-chan put the luggage beside as he opened the door to her room.
"Nothing, I was muttering out what my friend texted me hehe." She quickly pulled her cellphone and faked tapping on it.
"Alright then. This will be your room. I'll come here again to get you for dinner." Ji-chan chuckled happily.
"Ok."
Ji-chan left. Minami carefully slide opened the door to her room. She carried her luggage in. Her room was large, so much space and there was a king size bed so she didn't have to sleep on the tatami. There was a plasma tv hanged on the wall and on the coffee table, there was a pinwheel. Minami walked over and picked up the object.
"Whose pinwheel is this?" She asked out loud, spinning the pinwheel with a pushed of her finger.
"That's mine!" A voice echoed. Minami got surprised and put the pinwheel back on the coffee table. She spun behind. But there was no one there. Again for the second time that day.
"Aiya. I can't believe I reacted to that. It must've been my imagination to think that Ji-chan's mansion is haunted." She sighed in annoyance and laid herself on the tatami, flipped up her cellphone.
"What are ya' doin'?" That same voice called again.
It sounded soft but had a playful tune and clearly belonged to a girl perhaps. Minami peeked over her cellphone and saw the girl who was looking at Minami in an upside down manner.
"Ack!" Minami rolled over to the side and jolted up, "who are you?! What are you doing in my room?!"
"I'm a ghost livin' here long time." The girl spoke and smiled with her teeth showing.
"A g-g-ghost..." Minami stuttered "Yuki-onna?" Minami asked and covered her mouth. She couldn't believe her eyes that she saw a ghost.
"Eh, funny vixen ya'. She nay' wearin' this pink outfit- that Yuki-onna. Ehehe." She giggled as she pointed at herself.
She had a bobbed haircut, adorable-looking, pink yukata and a mischievious behaviour. True. Perhaps not a Yuki-onna. Minami could only conclude that...
"Zashiki-warashi?" Minami asked.
"BINGO! Hey-hey! You're from the city, right? Did you bring any sweets?" She crawled closer to Minami.
"Zashiki-warashi- aren't you suppose to be in Iwate? What are you doing in Tokyo?!" Minami reversed herself until her back found the wooden wall and got herself trapped by the ghost.
"Hooumm... my kind isn't in Iwate only ya' know... and I'm from Chiba." she put her hands on Minami's knees and pouted.
"Also you don't look like a child as they say it in the folktales." Minami spoke more, "Chiba eh? Your dialect's insane."
"That's why oldies ship it folktales, baka! So did ya bring any sweets?" Her eyes widened in expectations. Minami thought it was adorable.
"I have some in my luggage. Cotton candy." Minami answered as she pried away from the ghost and walked to get it as the ghost followed.
"Ko-to-won... what tickles candy name!" The ghost girl tried to call the candy's name and laughed.
"Cotton candy. It melts in your mouth once you eat it." Minami carried her luggage onto the bed and opened it. She took out two plastic bags of cotton candy.
"Wow! Pink and fluffy!" The ghost cheered and took one.
"Are you sure you're a ghost? You're quite tall for a Zashiki-warashi." Minami asked.
"Well... supposed only children could see me." She said as she opened the plastic containing the cotton candy.
"Eh?! But I'm an adult already!" Minami exclaimed.
"You're an adult? ... but you don't look like an adult. You're so tiny. Maybe that's why." The ghost scrutinized Minami from head to toe.
What the ghost girl said, stabbed Minami's heart so hard.
"Do you have a name?" Minami asked.
"Sure I do! They call me Atsuko! What's yers'?" She grinned and put some cotton candy inside her mouth.
"Takahashi Minami." Minami said.
The cotton candy immediately melted in Atsuko mouth, "THIS IS THE BEST SWEET I HAD IN MY EXISTENCE!" Atsuko happily hopped around a disappeared mysteriously. Thus that day marked Minami's first encounter in the mansion which resides the Zashiki-warashi.
"Where she gone to?!" Minami scratched her head in confused.
To be continued.
I thought Zashiki-warashi Atsuko would be cute so I wrote this. Dawww.
Yuki-onna probably appear, and as you've might guessed it who will be that yokai.
* Zashiki warashi (座敷童/座敷童子 zashiki warashi?), sometimes also called Zashiki bokko (座敷ぼっこ zashiki bokko?, sitting room basking), is a yōkai, stemming from Iwate Prefecture. In the tale I wrote, Atsuko as a Zashiki-warashi from Chiba. According to folklore, to attract and maintain a zashiki warashi in the home it is said that "the spirit must be noticed, appreciated and cared for properly, much in the manner one would raise a child, though too much attention may drive it off." As the zashiki warashi is child-like in nature, it is prone to playing harmless pranks and occasionally causing mischief.
* Yuki Onna (雪女?, snow woman) is a spirit or yōkai in Japanese folklore. Yuki-onna appears on snowy nights as a tall, beautiful woman with long black hair and blue lips. Her inhumanly pale or even transparent skin makes her blend into the snowy landscape (as famously described in Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things). She sometimes wears a white kimono, but other legends describe her as nude, with only her face and hair standing out against the snow. Despite her inhuman beauty, her eyes can strike terror into mortals. She floats across the snow, leaving no footprints (in fact, some tales say she has no feet, a feature of many Japanese ghosts), and she can transform into a cloud of mist or snow if threatened.
* Pinwheel - A pinwheel is a simple child's toy made of a wheel of paper or plastic curls attached at its axle to a stick by a pin. It is designed to spin when blown upon by a person or by the wind.
* A tatami (畳?) is a type of mat used as a flooring material in traditional Japanese-style rooms.
* Chiba dialect - they have an accent like Tokyo but the way they talk sounds like backward Japanese it's insane- according to a journal writer I googled. If you have to imagine, they're equivalent to Texan I guess. Ya know' cowboy speak? lol
I took some description from Wikipedia, please Google pro-info base for more knowledge about them!
Topic: (20 Nov) Akihabara Tales: Tale 1 - The Mansion Which Resides the Zashiki-Warashi (Read 2551 times)