>>6027127“...Guess there’s one more thing I gotta know.” you bring up.
“What’s that?”
You sit up a bit, telling her, “You gotta tell me that ghost story. Not every day I hear about a school like yours have to handle something like that.”
“Ohhh right right right, that.” Cocoa sits up as well. “So a month and a half ago, there were these weird noises reported coming from the elevator. After a day or two, there was this… spirit or something that kept showing up, telling anyone who interacted with her, ‘…no… you’re not the one…’ or something to that effect.”
“That’s… spooky.” you remark.
“It kept up for a while, until the ghost got more and more upset over not finding the person she was looking for. Started flinging around things near every time it left the elevator, became more and more demanding. They had to close it for a time, but an amateur exorcist here was able to work with some other students to find who this ghost might be. Think it was like… Honoka? Helena? Something like that. Latte got roped into helping them at the time, and from the sound of things they were able to pacify the ghost. Or something. At least got it to stop haunting the elevator.”
You shake your head. “Sounds like they went through a lot. What exactly was the ghost looking for anyway?”
Cocoa rubs the back of her neck. “...She, er, got stood up by a guy apparently, right before she… y’know, passed on, and… didn’t cope with it well. At least that’s how it sounded to me. Latte dressed up like an old friend of hers and spent much of the night trying to ease her away from a number of crazed lovestricken ideas that’d been floating around her mind for the last 20 or so years. First the ones about trying to kidnap the guy, then the ones about trying to put a curse on him, and then the ones about taking over the ‘skank’ that he picked over her. To her credit, Latte handled it really well.”
“Wow, that’s… yeah, vengeful and obsessive spirits haunting elevators is a bit outside the norm for regular high school students.” you express, holding her a bit closer.
She smiles and nuzzles you, and the two of you sit together for another moment. Cocoa then asks, “…Hey, Peppa?”
“Hm?”
“Have you… thought about what you want to do once all these big threats to Earth are all settled and done with?” she questions, her voice a bit more serious.
(cont.)
