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In hindsight, taking the shortcut through the mountain pass when the weather forecasted a thunderstorm probably wasn’t the best idea.
When Wakatoshi brought up his concerns, Tooru pointed out that the GPS still told them to go that way. When Wakatoshi argued that of course it did, there were no traffic hazards to report yet, Tooru responded with the fact that if they didn’t go through the pass, they would have to go almost two hours out of their way, still in the storm but now in places they hadn’t driven through before. And besides, Tooru said with something like finality in his tone, wouldn’t the pass have better views than a boring freeway?
Wakatoshi didn’t look convinced, but acquiesced to Tooru’s argument, as he tended to do.
The first two hours of their trip were lovely. The weather was overcast, the temperature a little nippy but not terrible. The traffic stayed manageable the whole way to their turnoff toward the two-lane highway across the mountain. Needless to say, Tooru was feeling pretty good about his decision to stay firm on taking the mountain pass instead of the freeway.
As night fell, however, the rain turned to sleet, then formed into snow.
“It’s barely October,” Tooru whispered as he stared around at the rapidly forming snow banks on the side of the road. “And the snow never piles up this fast.”
“The weather didn’t forecast this,” Wakatoshi said solemnly, his gaze never straying from the road.
Tooru didn’t know if being the only people on the road was a good thing or a bad thing. On one hand, as visibility became poorer and poorer, they could drive as slowly as necessary. On the other, if something happened to the car, no one would know.
They went another few miles before the car gracefully gave up the ghost.
“What happened?” Tooru asked as Wakatoshi coasted to the side of the road. As soon as the words left his mouth, the lights flipped off, everything still and silent except for the soft hissing of the vehicle as it settled.
“I am unsure,” Wakatoshi said as he turned the key to the off position, then tried to start the car again. Nothing. Not even so much as a click. Tooru could hear the bafflement in his voice as he said, “I have never experienced this before.”
The air around them cooled quickly. Tooru shivered, folding his arms to protect his warmth. They’d packed long sleeves and sweaters, of course, but the forecast had said their destination would be sunny and fairly high in temperature for late October. Tooru hadn’t planned for being stranded in a snow storm.
Wakatoshi pulled out his phone, but the frown on his face did nothing to relieve Tooru of his mounting concern. “Do you have any service?”
Tooru nudged his own phone, which popped up the GPS they had had on. “No,” Tooru said when he noticed that all his bars were gone, as well as his data. He blew out his breath, trying not to allow his concern to turn into full-on panic. “I don’t even know if there’s anything around.”
“We haven’t seen another car for quite some time,” Wakatoshi agreed. When he spoke, Tooru could see the tiniest bit of white. He hoped he was hallucinating.
Silence settled around them as heavy as the snow outside. Tooru worried his lip, watching as the world around them turned white. He sighed, picking up his phone and unlocking it, as if that would help any.
“Hey,” he said. Wakatoshi turned his attention to Tooru, who carefully zoomed in on a small icon on the GPS. “This says there’s a bed and breakfast right around here.”
He tried to click on it, but of course, he had no service. The information bar spun and spun, showing him nothing new. He glanced at Wakatoshi, who shrugged. “I don’t have a better idea. Do you?”
Tooru shook his head. He took a deep breath, then opened his door.
By the time they had taken their suitcase out of the trunk, they were covered in snow. Tooru’s teeth chattered, and Wakatoshi offered him his lightweight volleyball jacket. “It’s all I have,” he said, his voice tinged with regret.
“Better than nothing,” Tooru assured him, tucking his arms into the oversized sleeves gratefully. “From what I could tell, the place was on the other side of the road.”
With no better option, Tooru and Wakatoshi started walking. The snow stayed calm but relentless, washing away their footprints as they walked. It wasn’t long before the car was swallowed up in their white surroundings. If they didn’t get somewhere soon, they would get lost in this storm.
“Are you okay?” Tooru asked, trying not to let his teeth chatter. Wakatoshi was in a thick sweater, his hoodie thrown over it. He had always run hotter than Tooru, and it wasn’t horribly cold, but still. Tooru felt a little guilty taking his husband’s jacket.
“Yes,” Wakatoshi said, readjusting the suitcase in his hand. “Look, Tooru, there is a light.”
Tooru followed Wakatoshi’s pointing finger to where a lone light shone in the distance like a lighthouse. Tooru breathed out a sign of relief, taking Wakatoshi’s free hand in his. Wakatoshi guided Tooru off the road and onto what appeared to be some sort of driveway, but Tooru couldn’t tell through the snow that had already piled up around them.
“This is very odd,” Wakatoshi said. “I have never seen snow gather this fast, even in the mountains.”
Tooru shrugged. With the prospect of warmth and food, this storm was the last thing Tooru wanted to talk about.
The light transformed into a large, homey-looking cabin. Tooru breathed a sigh of relief when he saw a cheery green and yellow sign that said Bed and Breakfast. Even if it wasn’t the bed and breakfast they were looking for, Tooru still would have stopped. Still—there was something a little reassuring at the fact that his GPS had been right, and that this was a place they would normally be welcomed in, even if there were no snowstorm.
About a hundred yards from the inn, the snow turned into a slushy rain, colder than before. “Shit,” Tooru muttered. “Can we not catch a fucking break?”
“We’re almost there,” Wakatoshi said, his voice saturated with relief. Tooru grabbed his arm as the snow became slick.
Those last few steps felt like an eternity. “This is why I don’t like skiing,” Tooru huffed.
“Skiing is nothing like this,” Wakatoshi said, and Tooru could hear Wakatoshi’s eye roll in his tone, although he has always been too polite to roll his eyes at Tooru unless he really deserved it.
By the time their conversation wrapped up, they had reached the porch. Tooru skipped three stairs, almost slipping but catching his balance quickly, and rapped sharply on the door when he saw the Please Knock for Inquiries sign.
Wakatoshi came up behind him as the door swung open, a draft of warm air wafting out toward them.
An older woman stood in the entrance, almost a foot shorter than Tooru, but she looked sturdy, as if she were used to manual labor. She had her gray hair up in a bun, and glasses perched on her nose. Her face looked as if it were smiling, even when she wasn’t.
Before Tooru could say anything, the woman jumped into action. She opened the door wider, waving her hand frantically toward them. “Oh, poor boys, come in, come in! You must be freezing!”
Wakatoshi prodded Tooru’s back, urging him to enter the house. Still shivering from the sleety rain, Tooru happily obliged, stepping into the cozy entrance.
“We’re so sorry to intrude, ma’am,” Tooru said, teeth chattering as Wakatoshi followed him in, turning to shut the door behind them. “Our car died, just up the road. We had it inspected before we left…”
The woman waved his words away. “Happens all the time, especially when it starts snowing like this. Luckily, we don’t have anyone staying tonight. Just the two of you! Now, I was just sitting down to a late dinner. Why don’t you go on upstairs and change out of your wet clothes. Then we can enjoy a nice, warm meal.”
Well. Tooru glanced over at Wakatoshi, who looked relieved at the prospect of either a warm bed or a warm meal. Probably both. Tooru turned back to the woman, still beaming. “We’d love to. Thank you so much.”
The woman led them over to the desk, plucking up a key. “Second floor, first door on the right.”
Tooru took the proffered key, pulling out his wallet, but once again the woman shooed him away. “We’ll take care of that once you’re settled. Poor dears, we don’t want you to catch cold.”
“You’re very generous,” Wakatoshi said, speaking up for the first time. The woman turned her attention to him for just a moment before her eyes drifted back to Tooru. Tooru felt a hand on his back, nudging him toward the stairs.
“The dining room is just through there,” the woman told them, pointing to the door directly across from the desk. “I’ll get plates set up for you. Take your time.”
After one last round of thank yous, Tooru and Wakatoshi made their way up the stairs. The room was cute and rustic. Everything looked homemade, from the table and two chairs where a small vase with two flowers sat to the simple wooden bed frame, covered in a colorful quilt. A few floating shelves held some books, a few candles, and an old porcelain doll.
“Interesting,” Tooru said, poking at the doll’s cheek with a finger as he stooped to get a closer look.
“Don’t,” Wakatoshi said, his voice just this side of revulsion. Tooru laughed, standing fully upright and turning his back on the doll.
“I forgot, you don’t like dolls,” Tooru teased, stripping himself out of his wet jacket and shirt.
Wakatoshi frowned as he, too, began to undress. “They’re fine,” he said, still eyeing the doll a little warily. “They’re just so… realistic. Miniature people.”
“That’s the point,” Tooru pointed out, rummaging through the suitcase for something comfortable yet dinner-appropriate. He finally settled for a pair of joggers and a nice t-shirt, then glanced into the mirror hanging above the bed. He ran his fingers through his hair, trying to get it to lay flat or at least look presentable. Wakatoshi watched him, that soft look that Tooru has found reserved for when he was doing the most mundane things on Wakatoshi’s face. Warmth spread through Tooru’s chest, and he could feel it rise to his cheeks when Wakatoshi caught his eye in the mirror and smiled.
God, he loved his husband so much.
“Well, don’t just stand there gaping,” Tooru finally said, shaking out his hair one last time. “I’m starving.”
Wakatoshi stepped aside, motioning Tooru toward the door. As he passed, Wakatoshi kissed his cheek, then took his hand. Together, they traipsed back down the stairs to the small dining room, where the old lady had already set two more places for them.
“Forgive me for not having more to offer tonight,” she said as she struggled to stand.
“Oh,” Tooru said, rushing over to her. “You don’t have to do that. And this looks absolutely delicious!”
The woman smiled gratefully up at Tooru as she sat back down. “You’re sweet.”
Wakatoshi had already pulled out Tooru’s chair, waiting for him to sit before taking his own seat. When they’d started dating, Tooru had found it bizarre and teased him mercilessly, but he’d come to accept Wakatoshi’s gentlemanly ways. He was fairly positive that he’d be pulling out Tooru’s chair and opening his door for him until they died.
“Sweet, and very pretty,” the old woman continued as Tooru sat. “Pretty as a doll, I’d say.”
Tooru smiled, a small laugh bubbling on his lips. “He is very beautiful,” Wakatoshi spoke before Tooru could come up with something to say. The warm weight of Wakatoshi’s arm draped across his shoulders like an anchor. The woman’s eyes flicked down to Wakatoshi’s hand before bouncing back up to Tooru.
“I can’t handle so much flattery on an empty stomach,” Tooru said airily. “Shall we eat?”
They dished their plates quickly, Tooru introducing them and giving her the lowdown on their lives. Wakatoshi was always content to let Tooru guide the conversation, only interjecting when needed. After this long together, they were a well-oiled machine working together.
They learned that the woman’s name was Tano Koyuki. “Call me Koyuki, please,” she had said, to which Tooru knew Wakatoshi wasn’t going to. He was too respectful for that. They learned that Koyuki had run this bed and breakfast for about ten years, that she was a widow who had three beautiful children but only one grandchild, a granddaughter who she loved dearly. She also told them about the strange weather that seemed to plague the mountain.
“The snow comes quickly and intensely,” she said. “It usually takes three or four days for the roads to get plowed, because it seems to only happen on very small, isolated parts of the mountain. And then we will have to find your car and… I’m sorry, it seems we’re going to be stuck together for a while.”
“That’s okay,” Tooru said. “It must be hard to live here alone.”
“We would like to help you with anything you need around here,” Wakatoshi said solemnly. “I noticed that your woodbox is almost empty. Do you have wood in the woodshed?”
The woman sighed, her gaze turning to Wakatoshi for what seemed to be the first time in the whole conversation. “You’re very observant,” she said, her voice charmed. Tooru cocked his head, wondering if he imagined the steely undertone. “My son comes up around this time of year to stock me up for the winter, but he had to postpone his trip. If it’s not snowing too much tomorrow…”
Wakatoshi nodded. “I will make sure you have enough to last you through at least a few weeks.”
“You’d better have a job for me too!” Tooru jumped in, elbowing Wakatoshi playfully. “I hate being shown up by my husband.”
“As a matter of fact,” Koyuki said, her eyes lighting up, and Tooru was sure he had only made up the slight brusqueness in her tone, “I have been meaning to go through the boxes in the basement. When—Well, it seems to have become where the whole family has stored their unwanted belongings. I’ve been meaning to go through it and throw things out, but…”
“It’s hard, when it’s personal,” Tooru answered, and Wakatoshi nodded solemnly. “If nothing else, I’ll help you organize it and then when you’re ready to let it go, you can.”
“You’re too kind,” she murmured, and Tooru shifted in his chair, glancing up at Wakatoshi and changing the subject to their work lives.
After dinner, Koyuki gave them a brief tour of the rustic hotel. “It’s been in the family for three generations,” she told them proudly. Tooru whistled, impressed. The interior seemed timeless, wood paneling stained a dark oak with large stone fireplaces in the common area and the kitchen. The rugs on the ground gave the rooms color, and Tooru couldn’t wait to flop down on the oversized couch, it looked so comfortable.
Of course, there were also signs of its age. There was a wood burning stove in the kitchen, which Koyuki said she still used to make tea on, even though she had a gas stove as well. There was a big vintage radio and record player in the common area and little glass bowls of sweets similar to the ones Tooru’s grandmother used to keep on her entryway table and countertop.
And, much to Wakatoshi’s displeasure, there were dolls. “Ah, my granddaughter loves them,” Koyuki sighed. “She brings me some every time she comes to visit. We started making simple paper ones, and then wood, but we could never quite get the porcelain ones to work. They are quite lovely, are they not?”
“Very,” Tooru answered when it was clear Wakatoshi wouldn’t. “My sister used to make me make paper dolls with her all the time. She told me if I didn’t, I would have evil trapped in my body forever. My mother was livid when she found out she was telling me horror stories to get me to play with her, but I got really good at folding paper. I could probably make one before we leave.”
Tooru glanced at Wakatoshi, who was staring at him with a kind of fascinated horror. Tooru winked, sticking his tongue out for the quickest second before turning back to Koyuki, who was still brushing off the three dolls on the table nearest them. “That sounds very fun!” she said, turning back to Tooru with a smile. “I have paper downstairs that we can use. Oh, it’s been such a long time since…”
She let her voice trail off. Wakatoshi and Tooru exchanged a quick glance, but before either one of them could say anything, Koyuki seemed to shake herself of the moment. “Now, you boys are probably exhausted. I’ll leave you to do what you want—stay out here and explore some more or head on up to your room. My room is just down this hall over here, and if you need anything, please don’t hesitate to ask. I rise early, so breakfast will be ready for you when you wake up.”
“Thank you so much for your hospitality,” Wakatoshi said with a bow, Tooru quick to echo him. After they said their goodnights, Koyuki disappeared into her room, leaving the two of them in silence.
“Well,” Tooru finally said, “at least she seems nice.”
“Very,” Wakatoshi said, his eyes wandering back to the dolls on the shelves. “Can you really make paper dolls?”
“Oh yeah,” Tooru said. “In my sleep. Mina’s doll phase literally never went away. I’m sure she cried when she found out Takeru was a boy, but that didn’t stop her from trying her hardest to get him into them. They compromised with action figures and plushies.”
Wakatoshi made a non-committal sound. By the look on his face, Tooru was sure that Wakatoshi’s opinion of Mina had taken a dip. “How has this never come up?” Tooru asked. “Mina puts up warrior dolls for Children’s Day every year. We have a daruma doll in our house!”
“Yes but those are… different,” Wakatoshi said, still eyeing the pretty porcelain dolls distrustfully. “They are for celebrations. These are not.”
Tooru wrapped his arms around Wakatoshi’s waist, lowering his voice as he said, “You mean these are just empty vessels waiting to snatch up a soul and come to life?” Tooru nipped at Wakatoshi’s ear, laughing when he jumped. “Don’t worry, I think we’re safe. I’ve repelled enough evil for both of us thanks to Mina.”
Tooru took Wakatoshi's hand and tugged him up the stairs. Wakatoshi followed willingly, crowding Tooru into the room, already tugging his shirt up over his head. “Okay, okay, slow down,” Tooru said as Wakatoshi pushed him through the door, laughing as Wakatoshi wrapped his arms around him, unbuttoning his pants. Wakatoshi didn’t—instead, Tooru felt his mouth on the back of his neck, kissing a harsh, possessive line to his shoulder. “What has gotten into—Toshi!” he yelped as he felt Wakatoshi’s teeth nip at his skin, his fingers digging into his hips.
Wakatoshi didn’t stop. He moved them to the bed, then proceeded to kiss down Tooru’s spine, not nearly as cautious as he usually was. Tooru couldn’t imagine what had sparked this fire in his husband, but he wasn’t complaining. He liked when Wakatoshi was possessive—they’d had the best sex when one or the other of them was jealous. It had been awhile since Wakatoshi had taken control so completely, manhandling Tooru like he knew he could, pressing him down into the bed and inside of him relentlessly, giving Tooru no time to catch his breath and just accept what Wakatoshi was giving him.
Afterward, they sat side by side, backs against the headboard, Tooru inspecting himself. “How many bruises do you think I’ll have?” he asked, craning his neck as if he could see the mess of hickies Wakatoshi had most likely left on his back.
“Many,” he said. And then, unapologetically, “Sorry.”
Tooru laughed, resting his head against Wakatoshi’s shoulder. “You gotta sound more contrite if you’re gonna say it. I think I got a few on you, anyway.”
Tooru pressed a finger into the tender skin where Wakatoshi’s neck meets his shoulder above his collarbone that had already started to darken. Wakatoshi took his hand, kissing his knuckles before wrapping him in a hug. “You okay?” Tooru asked after a few minutes of quiet.
“Yes,” Wakatoshi said, a little too quickly. Tooru waited, and as he knew he would, Wakatoshi continued. “This whole situation doesn’t bother you? The snow, finding this hotel miraculously. Tano-san…”
“She was sweet!” Tooru protested.
“She watched you all through dinner without blinking. It’s just very strange, is all.”
“Oh,” Tooru said, mischief dancing in his eyes. “Toshi, baby, are you, perhaps, a little jealous?”
Tooru threw his leg over Wakatoshi’s lap, straddling him. Wakatoshi’s hands automatically come up to stabilize his waist, Tooru’s arms thrown over his shoulders. “She seemed very invested in you.” Wakatoshi’s voice stayed neutral, although Tooru saw a dip in the corner of his lips, a precursor to his frown.
Tooru laughed, kissing Wakatoshi and settling himself more solidly in his lap. Wakatoshi returned the hug, molding Tooru to him as they’d done time and time again. “You think I’m going to leave my big strong man for a little grandma?”
“Gross,” Wakatoshi answered, wrinkling his nose.
Tooru burst out laughing. “Get your mind out of the gutter! I meant I’d stay here and help her around the bed and breakfast and be the grandson she never had. You don’t think she’d go for that?”
“I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t want you around,” Wakatoshi said. He rubs his thumbs in circles on Tooru’s hip bones and Tooru leans down, kissing him deeply. Tooru found great pleasure in kissing his husband, in the lazy intimacy of it all, and after a few minutes he was drowsy.
As he shifted back into a more comfortable position to fall properly asleep, Wakatoshi spoke again, “We’ve been up here and I’ve never noticed this place before. Her name means snow. She had enough dinner made to feed all three of us comfortably. There are just so many strange coincidences.”
Tooru groaned, pressing his hand against his forehead. “Yokai in the mountains, curses on the dolls, magic cabin hotels that pop out of nowhere and show up on our GPS” he scoffed, burrowing himself deeper into Wakatoshi’s side. “You think we’re that special, to attract so much supernatural attention? Next we’ll get possessed or something.”
“You shouldn’t joke about it,” Wakatoshi reprimanded, wrapping his arms around Tooru tightly. “I… The thought of losing you. Of being unable to protect you. It’s very unsettling.”
It would be easy to continue joking, to brush aside Wakatoshi’s concerns. Tooru was about to do just that, but Wakatoshi’s tone and the way he held him made him pause. “Babe,” he finally said, pulling away just enough to be able to look Wakatoshi in the eye. He placed a hand on Wakatoshi’s cheek, stroked up the strong line of his cheekbone with his thumb. His eyes were unreadable as he looked up at Tooru. “There are things in the world that you won’t be able to protect me from, just as I won’t be able to protect you. Sickness. Accidents. Weird possessions, I guess, if you believe in that sort of thing. It’s scary, yeah, but we can’t dwell on that. Then we’d never get to experience the happy moments. But if you don’t want me to joke about it anymore, I won’t.” Tooru paused, considering. “Well. We both know I can’t promise that. I’ll only make two comments a day, how’s that? And then when we’re out of here I’ll tease you mercilessly.”
Wakatoshi smiled, and Tooru’s heart picked up speed. He was always surprised when a small, mundane moment like this crept up on him, reminding him just how much love he felt for this man. “Sounds like a good compromise,” Wakatoshi relented. “And you’re right. I should stop worrying. We found shelter. We just need to wait out the storm. Even if this woman has too many dolls for one person.”
Tooru grinned, leaning down and kissing Wakatoshi quickly before resettling back into his position. He was out almost as soon as he closed his eyes.
In the morning, Tooru woke up alone. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, shivering as the cold air hit his bare chest and groaning when he moved. Wakatoshi had really been rough last night. “Stupid Toshi-chan better be getting me breakfast,” he grumbled, but threw on Wakatoshi’s sweater and slipped his feet into slippers before shuffling his way to the bathroom to get presentable for the company he would probably have for the day.
No one was in the living room when he got to the foot of the stairs. He glanced down the hallway, his ears perking up at the sound of dishes moving. He peeked his head into the kitchen. “Good morning, Koyuki-san!”
Koyuki looked up from where she had just pulled a steaming kettle off the stove. “Ah, good morning Tooru-kun, you’re right on time. Would you like a cup of tea? I’m almost finished with breakfast.”
“Thank you.” Tooru sat at the small table in the corner of the kitchen, watching as Koyuki bustled around the kitchen.
“Your husband is a dear and has already gone out to start gathering wood,” Koyuki said, breaking the silence.
Tooru chuckled. “Yes, well. He’s handy to have around for things like this.”
Koyuki set a cut of tea in front of him. Tooru took it, taking a sniff. “It’s just an herbal blend,” Koyuki answered his unasked question. “I have sugar here if you need some.”
He blew on the tea a few times before taking a sip. “Oh,” he said. “That’s really good.”
Koyuki smiled. “I’m glad you like it, hon. It’s a little drafty in here—the heater isn’t very good, which is why I gather so much wood for the fireplaces. So you can have as much tea as you want to warm you up. Tell me. How long have you been married?”
Tooru launched into the history of his and Wakatoshi’s relationship. There was really nothing more that he liked to talk about than his husband. He answered her question—a year and a half—then moved on to how they met—volleyball rivalry beginning in middle school—and when they finally acknowledged each other’s existence—forced to be roommates at all their college games—and then getting together—after hooking up at one of said college games, but he didn’t tell her that part—and then told her about the wedding, the house they just bought, their jobs, and everything else she asked about.
By the time he finished, they’d eaten breakfast and Tooru had been handed a thermos of that divine tea. Wakatoshi was still gone and probably would be for a few more hours, so Tooru and Koyuki made their way down to the basement to get started.
“I apologize for the mess,” Koyuki said, her voice regretful. “No one comes down here.”
“We’re going to get as much done as we can,” Tooru answered firmly and walked into the basement after Koyuki.
It wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be. Most of the floor was bare concrete, visible because everything in the basement was in boxes or on shelves. And there were stacks and stacks of boxes, lining each wall, packed so tightly together Tooru couldn’t tell if there were any windows or even any other doors out of this cavernous room. He shivered, taking another sip of tea. There were also so many shelves, filled with various knick-knacks sitting in random places in the room, creating an almost miniature maze.
“Is there somewhere particular you want me to start?” Tooru asked. “I’ll set up camp here on the floor and make piles.”
“Oh, no, no,” Koyuki said, waving her hand. “There’s a table you can use! Come here, right this way. Actually, if you wouldn’t mind helping me move it once Wakatoshi-kun comes back, I would greatly appreciate it.”
Tooru followed Koyuki around a long row of shelves and jumped when the table came into view, biting back a curse.
Because there at the table was an overflowing mess of dolls of all shapes and sizes and a huge dollhouse taking up half of the table. But the dolls, however creepy, weren’t what made Tooru jump. No, that was the life-sized doll sitting behind it, which didn’t look like a doll at all but a human. The only reason Tooru knew it wasn’t was because of the smooth, glinting skin and the bright, waxy-looking shoulder-length black hair, done in pretty ringlets. But the most arresting feature were her eyes, a deep, fathomless blue that made her beautiful silk navy dress look pale in comparison.
“I know, I really should do something about all these,” Koyuki said in such a regretful voice, Tooru found himself scrambling to reassure her it was fine, even as a shiver walked its way down his spine and Wakatoshi’s reservations wormed their way into his brain. “They’re my granddaughter’s. We used to play with them all the time.”
Tooru walked closer to the dollhouse, pushing the uneasy thoughts aside. Stupid Wakatoshi for putting them there. Dolls were dolls. And once Tooru got over those apprehensive feelings, he could appreciate the workmanship of the dolls and the dollhouse. They were very detailed, made of fine porcelain and pretty fabric. He reached out, hesitated, and glanced at Koyuki, who gave him a slight smile. He touched the doll closest to him, surprised to feel a slight warmth from it.
He drew back abruptly.
“They’re very unique,” Koyuki said with a sigh. “My granddaughter has always been sickly. And sometimes she’d be bed bound for days, so we would play with these. Every time she left the hospital, we would get a new doll and play and play for hours.”
Tooru watched Koyuki pick up one of the dolls, smooth the skirt, and set it in an empty rocking chair in an upstairs room of the dollhouse. He suppressed the uneasy feeling threatening to rise again, clapping his hands together and turning his attention to the matter at hand. “They’re lovely,” he reassured her. “Shall we get started?”
Koyuki blinked, her attention gradually returning back to Tooru. “Oh, yes, of course! Here, you can just start right here, can you reach these?”
Tooru followed her to the side of the room, reaching up to grab a box from the stack that she gestured to, then followed her back to the table. Koyuki told him what to look for—pictures, papers, anything that looked important—and anything that didn’t look sentimental could be left in the box. Tooru doubted very much he was the best person to make these decisions, but she insisted it would be fine, and then left him there in the basement surrounded by boxes. “Well,” he said, turning to the creepy life-sized doll next to him, “I guess it’s just you and me and fifty thousand memories to organize. Let’s get to work, shall we?”
For the most part, it was boring. Either Koyuki or someone in her family or all of them were hoarders, because Tooru went through toys and knickknacks and action figures and numerous copies of the same books and CDs and games that hadn’t even been opened. Every once in a while he found something of interest—a stack of old letters, a few drawings dated in the 1980s, some spiral bound notebooks hanging together by a thread. He stacked them nicely, applauding himself at his restraint for not reading everything that looked intriguing.
It became a kind of lulling monotony, and soon Tooru found his mind drifting as he sorted through box after box. He thought about how he and Wakatoshi were supposed to be with friends, and hoped that they weren’t too worried, since neither of them were able to get a call or message out (Koyuki had regretfully informed them that her landline was also dead). With nothing better to do, he studied the dolls, begrudgingly impressed with the setup. There were at least two dozen, some little child dolls, others adults, and placed so realistically around the rooms that Tooru could picture all of them going about their tasks. The dollhouse really was intricately designed with an attic, four cutely decorated rooms underneath that, and a kitchen, a dining room, and a spacious living room with a fireplace, a fire set in the grate.
It looked, Tooru thought with surprise, a lot like the bed and breakfast.
He pushed aside the mostly empty box at his feet to lean forward and study the dollhouse better, drinking the dregs of his tea. A little family sat in the living room, mother and father and two children. At the table in the dining room, there were dolls eating such realistic-looking food Tooru reached out to touch it to make sure it was plastic.
He was so invested in looking at the dolls that he didn’t hear Wakatoshi until he had walked up behind him. “Tooru.”
“Fuck!” Tooru said, banging his knee on the table leg. Wakatoshi’s hands rested on Tooru’s shoulders, helping to steady him as he rubbed at his knee.
“I apologize,” Wakatoshi said, bending closer. He smelled like cold and snow. He must have just come in and searched out Tooru directly. Tooru reached up and kissed him, but of course it wasn’t enough to take Wakatoshi’s attention away from the dollhouse. “Are we still not in strange territory regarding the dolls?”
“No,” Tooru huffed, even though he’d thought the same thing as soon as he saw the setup. “A lot of people have a dollhouse, Wakatoshi! And look at how pretty the dolls are!”
Tooru picked up one of the dolls with immaculate long braids from the dining table, smoothing the skirt of her black sheath dress before handing her to Wakatoshi. He took her reverently, running his fingers down the braid of hair before setting her back in her chair. “They are very finely made,” Wakatoshi conceded, standing straight again. “So is the house. Very sturdy.”
Tooru bumped his head gently into his husband’s torso with a small smile, closing his eyes when Wakatoshi’s hand wove its way into his hair, thumb brushing his cheek before pulling away. It always amused Tooru how literal Wakatoshi was. Tooru opened his eyes, the world hazy. He blinked a few times, readjusting his eyesight. He reached for his tea and realized it was empty.
“Here,” Wakatoshi said when he noticed Tooru’s pout. “Tano-san said you might be out.”
He held out another thermos, this one smaller but with the same warm, floral tea Tooru had been drinking. He took a large swig, then stood. “Koyuki-san said we should move the table.”
“Yes, that’s why I came down. She said she was nervous that we would drop some of the dolls, so she would stay upstairs.”
“Well, then,” Tooru said, standing and assessing the scene of the table and chairs and chairs full of dolls. “We’ll make sure that nothing falls then.”
They carefully moved the chairs toward the center of the room first, leaving enough space for the table itself. There were no doll deaths, to Tooru’s satisfaction—Wakatoshi was especially cautious to make sure everything stayed as it was, putting any that tipped over back into their original positions. Both of them seemed to shy away from the life-sized doll, as if she were a particularly critical overseer.
Soon, all that was left was the table itself and the life-sized doll. They silently agreed to move the table next, which wasn’t easy. It was an old, heavy oak monstrosity, large with two leaves to make room for the dollhouse. Tooru leaned against the table when they got it where they wanted it, smack in the middle of the room, his limbs aching and his chest tight. He wiped some sweat off his forehead.
Then they both turned to the large doll sitting by herself around the corner.
“You move it,” Tooru whispered, nudging Wakatoshi’s elbow.
Wakatoshi shook his head. “No, you. I’ll make sure it doesn’t fall.”
Tooru wanted to argue, but as soon as he opened his mouth, he realized how ridiculous it was for two grown men to be arguing about dolls. So he sighed dramatically, walking to the back of the chair. For whatever reason, it was easier to move her when she wasn’t staring at him with those big blue eyes, so dark they were almost black. He moved her hands from where they rested on the armrests into her lap, surprised by how heavy they were. When he picked up the chair, he almost tipped it over.
Wakatoshi lunged forward, but Tooru corrected his balance. “Shh, shh,” he hushed as if the doll was alive and then glared at Wakatoshi, who glared back at him. Tooru shifted his weight and lifted the chair, prepared this time. He moved it back into place next to the dollhouse, and was slightly embarrassed by how much energy it had taken.
Wakatoshi moved the doll’s hands back to their places on the armrests, shivering when he stepped away.
“Do you have things that we should take up to throw away?” Wakatoshi asked. Tooru gestured to the boxes of junk that had once been sitting on his left side. Without comment, Wakatoshi picked up two boxes and started up the stairs.
Tooru grabbed one as well, following Wakatoshi. He had to lean against the wall when they got to the place Koyuki gestured them to stack the boxes. Wakatoshi moved some hair off of his forehead with a frown. “Are you okay?”
“Mmm,” Tooru said. “Probably just hungry.”
“Let’s get the rest of the boxes and take a break. You’ve been going very quickly.”
Tooru trailed Wakatoshi back down the stairs. As they left for the night, Tooru glanced back to make sure he didn’t leave anything.
There was a light on in the kitchen of the dollhouse.
Tooru’s brow furrowed. He didn’t remember seeing any sort of electricity. Maybe it was some sort of mirage. He took a few steps back toward it, but a sound startled his attention back to the stairs. “Sorry,” Wakatoshi said, shifting so the box on the top sat a little more firmly.
Tooru turned back to the dollhouse, but it was once again dark and silent. “Huh,” he said, glancing at where Wakatoshi was disappearing up the stairs. He wouldn’t say anything, he decided. His husband was jumpy enough.
The haziness of the afternoon came back after dinner. “Maybe you’re sick,” Wakatoshi said to Tooru softly as Koyuki did the dishes in the kitchen at her insistence.
“Mm,” Tooru said, closing his eyes and leaning against Wakatoshi. “I don’t really feel sick. Just a little lightheaded.”
“We’ll go to bed early,” Wakatoshi decided. They said goodnight to Koyuki, who told them that tomorrow would look much the same as today if they still wanted to help. And as soon as Tooru's head hit the pillow, he was asleep.
That night, Tooru dreamt about the dolls.
He was making his way down the stairs to the basement, laughing at Wakatoshi, who had leaned over the railing to tell him to be careful. He pushed open the door, stepping into the cold room.
The table with the dollhouse sat right in the middle of the floor, no longer hidden from sight behind the shelves. He was looking for something, and so only glanced at it for a few seconds before turning toward the wall, searching for a specific item on the shelves. But for some reason, he couldn’t seem to reach high enough to get a grasp on anything, so things kept sliding from his grip. He was so frustrated that he didn’t hear the quiet scraping and rustling until something thumped loudly enough to draw his attention back to the dollhouse.
Tooru gasped. All of the dolls were standing up, joined hand-in-hand in a circle around the edge of the table. But they weren’t looking at the dollhouse. Instead, all of them seemed to have their heads turned toward the life-sized doll Tooru and Wakatoshi had found so creepy just a few hours previous. Tooru swallowed, wanting to run away, but he stood rooted in place, watching as these dolls held swinging hands.
Another thump sounded from behind the dollhouse. With dread, Tooru felt his feet take him one step, two steps, three steps toward the table, until the back of the dollhouse came into sight. A doll was there, smashing its head into the wall where a crude picture of stairs had been drawn. Tooru made a strangled gasp at the sight.
The sound drew the dolls’ attention to him. All of them, including the one who had been banging its head against the wall. There was a crack in her forehead and black sludgy blood leaked from it, and her eyes, and the open, gaping mouth.
Tooru stumbled back a few feet, his eyes never leaving the spiderwebbed crack that seemed to grow down the doll’s cheek. He backed right into a chair—the chair the life-sized doll sat in. Her face was shadowed, and Tooru could have sworn her eyes reflected just as much terror as he felt, even as her pretty painted lips continued smiling. She had her hands on the table, palms up as if opening her arms to the dolls.
A small, wailing noise drew his attention back to the table, where the cracked doll was now crawling the few inches separating her and the hand of the life-sized doll. As soon as that black sludgy blood touched her, it spread, digging deep into the porcelain of the hand.
“Stop!” Tooru said, not sure why. He reached his hand out, but as soon as he touched the hand to move it away a searing pain jolted up his own arm. He instantly tried to pull away, but his arm wouldn’t move and the pain continued digging trenches into him.
“Fuck,” he gasped, watching in horror as the black sludge sliced through his skin, his blood welling and dripping from the cuts. The wailing from the dolls was frenetic music in the background, cresting as Tooru finally broke away.
He stumbled backward, crashing into a shelf. Blood dripped steadily from his fingers, and everywhere it landed, little puffs of acrid smoke followed. When it cleared Tooru could see sharp white things growing from the ground, boxing him in. He pressed closer to the shelf.
It was the wrong thing to do.
Invisible hands grasped him, squeezing and pulling him back, back. He gasped for air and his throat was crushed. He struggled to get free, to move, but there was nothing to do as the dolls continued their morbid wailing and the white rock-like things grew out of his blood.
I’m going to die, Tooru thought with vivid clarity.
And then he woke up.
He sat up with a gasp, grasping at his throat as he took deep lungfuls of air. He looked at his trembling hands, sure he would see deep, searing cuts but his skin was as smooth and whole as usual, minus a few cuts that looked like he’d scratched himself in his sleep.
Next to him, Wakatoshi stirred, turning toward him and cracking one eye open. “Tooru, is everything alright?”
Tooru took stock of himself one more time before nodding. “Yes. Of course. I had a bad dream, is all.” He laid back down, allowing Wakatoshi to pull him close.
“You are shaking,” Wakatoshi said, stroking a comforting hand down Tooru’s shoulder, kissing his forehead softly.
“It was so realistic,” Tooru confessed, closing his eyes and breathing in the soft, familiar scent of his husband. “Love you.”
“I love you too,” Wakatoshi said.
In the morning, Wakatoshi was still in bed when Tooru woke up. He stretched languidly, draping his arm over Wakatoshi’s waist. “Morning love,” he said when he noticed Wakatoshi was awake.
“Good morning,” Wakatoshi said, kissing him. “How are you feeling?”
Tooru hummed. “Better. Still a little out of it, but it’s probably just the weather. Warm me up, Toshi?”
They didn’t leave bed until mid-morning, and Tooru only felt slightly guilty about it. As he rolled out of bed, he hit something onto the floor.
“What was that?” Wakatoshi asked, trying to peer down to the floor.
Tooru frowned as he fished for whatever had dropped and pulled it up. “Oh, how did you get here?” Tooru said when he realized that what he had in his hand was the doll that used to sit above them on the shelf. He didn’t miss the way Wakatoshi drew back, repulsed, as he replaced it.
“Maybe we should put it somewhere else,” he said.
“Or,” Tooru laughed, “we stop hitting the wall when we’re having sex.”
“We didn’t!” Wakatoshi protested, his cheeks turned red with embarrassment.
“Well,” Tooru said, successfully getting out of bed this time. He winked at Wakatoshi. “Guess we’ll have to rectify that tonight.”
Wakatoshi buried his head in his pillow.
During breakfast, Koyuki informed Wakatoshi that she had another project for him. “Only if you want to,” she said. “My son started building another table to go into the front room. I don’t know if you have the skills, but if you want to try to finish it, I would appreciate it. He just doesn’t have the time anymore.”
Wakatoshi considered. “It has been a while,” he hedged.
Tooru scoffed, taking a sip of tea. “Babe, you refurbished our table and the benches to go with it when we moved into our house.”
As soon as Tooru said it, he realized maybe he shouldn’t have. Wakatoshi glanced at him, expression unreadable other than the worry creasing the corners of his eyes. Tooru was torn between laughing and unease at the thought of being separated, now that Wakatoshi had put the thought there. “Of course I’ll see what I can do,” Wakatoshi answered finally. “At least it has stopped snowing.”
It had. Now the world was coated in a thick blanket of white, heavy and muffling. Tooru thought that if he stood outside and screamed, the sound wouldn’t travel past the front porch. He wondered if they would ever find their car, and ice dripped down his spine at the thought of being stranded here, with this old lady and no one else, and the strange snow, and the dolls…
He watched as Koyuki led his husband down a path that Wakatoshi must have shoveled yesterday, as there were a few centimeters covering the walkway, but nothing like the towering snow next to them. His heart beat rapidly as Wakatoshi opened the door to what appeared to be a workshed of some sort, gesturing the old woman in before closing it behind them.
Tooru shook himself, grabbed his drink, and went down the stairs to start on his own project. As soon as he opened the door, the dollhouse and chairs of dolls sat there, in all their glory. He shivered at the deja vu from his dream the night before.
Surprisingly, he had gotten through a good portion of the boxes the day before. He tilted his head, trying to figure out how but then brushed the thought off. He’d probably miscounted—his brain was still a little fuzzy.
At least that’s what he told himself when he sat at the table and noticed that all the dolls had shifted around in the house. He didn’t think all the child dolls had been sitting in a circle on the floor in the front room, or that there had been a doll checking the oven, and he was fairly certain he would have remembered the fully-clothed doll in the bathtub reading a book.
With the slightest bit of apprehension, Tooru craned his neck to look at the back of the dollhouse. Of course, there were no stairs drawn on the back, and when he looked at the life-sized doll, she sat as serene as ever, hands folded in her lap.
“See, Tooru?” he muttered to himself as he got comfortable in his seat again. “You must be imagining things. The dolls are all quite happy!”
Then he shut up, because he didn’t need to be talking to inanimate dolls.
The day seemed to slip away faster than the day before. Tooru found himself blinking back to the present after his mind had wandered time and time again, only to see that almost an half hour had passed instead of the few minutes he thought it was. Unnerved, he pushed the box away from himself, noticing that the stack of finished boxes seemed to grow higher and higher while his mind slipped further and further away.
When he looked at the dollhouse, it seemed more dolls had joined the children in their circle game. One of them had its head tilted toward him, as if trying to watch him without being noticed.
“I! Need some sleep!” Tooru announced to the air, standing up. The world swayed dizzily and he gripped the table to catch his balance.
“Are you ready to go up for lunch, dear?”
Tooru blinked, glancing at the doorway where Koyuki stood, a small, friendly smile on her face. “I made some soup.”
“Perfect,” Tooru answered, and it took him a few tries to get his hand to grasp onto the mug he’d been drinking out of.
With a look of concern Koyuki grasped his elbow as he approached. “You seem a little pale,” she said. “Why don’t you eat and then take a nap before starting again. I don’t want to run you into the ground while you’re here! What kind of host would that make me?”
Tooru chuckled, the sound sluggish even to his own ears. “You’ve been nothing but good to us. The least we can do is help out. Do you get a lot of guests here?”
“Not during the winter,” Koyuki said, hovering around Tooru as he settled into a chair at the table. Koyuki turned to the stove, ladling out a bowlful of soup for him. She set it down in front of him as she continued. “I take in a lot of people stranded by the weather—like you! They’re usually very nice, and it’s so hard to see them go. But in the summer, we’re always so busy! There’s a lot to do in these mountains, you know.”
She went on to talk about all the hiking, camping, and other activities that the area had to offer. Tooru didn’t stop her, the words and her soup warming him to sleepy contentment. He rinsed his dishes in the sink when he had finished. He peered out the window—he could just see the workshed and made out the shape of his husband bent over something. Tooru could imagine the look of concentration on his face, his focus solely on his work, and he suddenly, desperately, wanted to go see him.
Before he could say anything, however, Koyuki was back. “Get that rest, dear, and then we can finish up for the day. We probably only have tomorrow left together!”
Tooru tore his gaze from the window. His eyes snagged on the window sill, where a doll sat with her head tilted to look outside as well. He hadn’t noticed her there. But before he could look closer, Koyuki took his arm, steering him away from the sink and further into the inn, her grip surprisingly firm. “Drink this and take a nap,” she ordered, and because Tooru was already feeling a little disoriented, he took the cup from her hand and docilely walked up the stairs and to his room.
The drink she had given him was once again a tea of some kind. He wrinkled his nose and set it to the side after a few sips. He tucked himself into bed, suddenly exhausted. He was pretty sure he was asleep before he even lay down.
When he opened his eyes, he found himself back at the head of the stairs to the basement. He blinked a few times, glancing around. He was by himself, the house creaking and settling around him. “Hello?” Tooru asked, his voice small in the cavernous empty space around him. No one answered.
I’m dreaming, he thought with a surge of clarity, unnerved by how present he seemed to be in this dream. He swallowed and descended the stairs.
The basement was pitch black. Even the light from the stairwell seemed to stop at the edge of the room, as if enchanted. Uneasy, Tooru took a step back, but a surge of panic made him pause. There’s nowhere to go. I have to go in, he thought a little hysterically.
He took one step, then two, his hand fumbling for the lightswitch. As soon as his foot crossed fully past the threshold, darkness swallowed him, and when he tried to find the door, all he could feel was the smooth wall of the basement. He suppressed a scream, his hand searching desperately for the doorknob, a lightswitch, anything...
His fingers hit the lightswitch. He gasped, flipping it up.
Nothing happened.
He frowned. He tried again. Off, on.
No light, not really, just an ominous splintering sound. He tried again and again, and it was only after a few more seconds of panic that he realized that the room had gotten brighter. Or, at least, his eyes had adjusted to the dimness of the room, because he could clearly see the table with the dollhouse and all the other dolls spread out on the table. He flipped the switch one last, desperate time, and a crack echoed through the room as a sharp pain sliced through his arms.
He glanced down, sight blurry with pain. His arms, like in the dream the night before, were dripping blood. But this time, the walls were also oozing that congealed black muck, symmetrical to the cuts on his arms, spiderweb thin and razor blade sharp. He stepped back from the wall, but his foot pressed against something sharp and he had to stop or be impaled. He didn’t want to look down, but he didn’t know where else to look, and so he did.
The wood floor was melting, turning into that same black sludge before dripping down, and down. Tooru's breath quickened as he watched white stick-like things emerge from the ground, like a small forest of bone-white trees, stripped of their leaves. More and more of them appeared, stacked on top of each other, and they looked so much like…
Something screamed. Or, well, had been screaming, but the pitch and volume had risen until Tooru couldn’t ignore it any longer. Tooru jerked his head back toward the table, the floor forgotten. He clamped a blood-soaked hand over his mouth, thinking it might be him, but the sound continued, more and more voices joining in the chorus and that was when he realized. The table. The dolls. Everything was breaking, shattering apart as the shrieking, wailing sound continued on and on and on and now he was choking on the iron tang of his own blood…
Tooru jumped. His knee hit something hard and he groaned, lifting his head and wincing as his neck screamed its discomfort for the position he had fallen asleep in. He sat up, rubbing his knee with one hand, his neck with the other, and winced again as his shoulders protested moving as well. Falling asleep on a table was never comfortable.
Wait.
Tooru blinked. The dollhouse in front of him didn’t disappear, like he was hoping it would. He dropped his hand from his neck, pressing it down onto the wood of the table. Where he was sitting.
He looked around. There were so many boxes around him, neatly organized piles strewn around the floor, just as he left them. The dollhouse still sat unassumingly in the center of the table. Now, there were dolls playing in the front of the house and the bathing doll was reading to a child doll in bed. There were a few that looked as if they had been abandoned, lying face down or on their sides. As if they had fallen and had not been righted.
Remembering his dream, Tooru looked at his hands. He didn’t know what he expected to see, but his smooth, unmarked skin wasn’t it. He looked at the walls, also mostly crack free, except for a place toward the back of the room he’d just uncovered that looked as if the weather was starting to run it down. He glanced at a stack of papers on the floor next to his feet, some sort of medical information possibly, that he had never seen in his life.
But he must have. He’d put it there. That’s why he was down here in the first place.
He leaned his elbows on the table, pressed the palms of his hands to his eyes, and took a few deep, shaky breaths.
“I told you, if you were tired you should take a break.”
Koyuki stood in the doorway, her voice cheerfully scolding.
A horrible sense of deja vu swept over Tooru. “I thought…” he said, but there was no way to end that sentence without sounding crazy, so he shut his mouth. He gave her a close-lipped smile instead.
She hardly paid attention to him. “Oh! Look here, you’ve made so much progress. And you’ve found Sakura-chan! We’ll put her here, by the fireplace. It was her favorite, you know.”
Tooru hadn’t remembered finding a doll in any of the boxes. He didn’t think Koyuki would have boxed any of the dolls, and now he shuddered to think how many more dolls could be unearthed. “Your granddaughter’s favorite?” he asked, even though he knew the answer.
It wasn’t a surprise when Koyuki nodded. “Yes, Rin-chan loved Sakura-chan. Used to play with her for hours. Such a shame she died so young.”
Tooru creased his eyebrows. Koyuki must have noticed, or wanted to keep talking, because she kept talking. “Rin-chan met a lot of people in various hospitals. She was so sickly throughout her life. Sakura was one of her closest and dearest friends. She named her favorite doll after her. Most of these dolls carry a name of someone she loved. This one, though, is mine. My Rin-chan.”
Koyuki squeezed the life-sized doll’s shoulder. Tooru shivered. He had had a suspicion that was the doll’s story. “What a sweet gesture.”
“Mmm,” Koyuki hums, brushing the doll’s—Rin’s—hair back away from her shoulders, fixing a ringlet so it laid just so. “Anyway, dinner’s about ready, and since you didn’t have lunch, you must be starving. Come on up soon!”
“Dinner?” Tooru asked, but no one answered, because Koyuki had already left. And then the second part of her sentence registered. He had eaten lunch. Hadn’t he?
He stood abruptly, stumbling away from the table toward the stairs. As he shut the door, he could swear that there were whispers coming from the back of the room, but with everything else strange going on, he decided to leave it. Clearly, he was going crazy.
It was dark outside, Tooru realized when he glanced out the window. He wrapped his arms around himself, walking slowly toward the dining room.
“Toshi,” he said, almost drowning in relief when he saw his husband sitting at the table reading an old magazine he must have picked up somewhere. Wakatoshi glanced up, and whatever expression he saw on Tooru’s face made him abandon his reading immediately. Tooru fell into the chair next to him, pressing his face into Wakatoshi’s shoulder and breathing deeply, feeling secure for the first time all day.
“Are you okay?” Wakatoshi asked, concern laced through each of his words.
Tooru nodded, then paused. “I’ll… tell you upstairs?”
He whispered it, immediately feeling foolish for it. But Wakatoshi just nodded, his dark eyes solemn and serious, a grounding force in this strange, bereft state Tooru had been in the whole day.
Dinner was the same as every other meal the three of them had shared, so much so that Tooru almost came out of his skin with the monotony of it. Wakatoshi must have sensed it because as soon as their plates were cleared, he insisted they go up to bed. He took Tooru’s hand firmly in his, pulling him along as if Tooru were going to protest.
“What happened?” he asked as soon as they entered their room. “You look upset.”
“It’s just… been a weird day,” Tooru said weakly. Now that he had sat down and thought about everything, he realized how silly it sounded. No one would believe him if he said he’d fallen asleep in bed and awakened two stories down at a table when he had no history of sleepwalking. And maybe Koyuki was forgetful, and her comment about Tooru’s lack of lunch was just a slip of the mind.
Wakatoshi didn’t let that slide. He waited, not saying anything, running his thumb over the back of Tooru’s hand and watching him with those soft, concerned eyes. “Okay, okay,” Tooru said impatiently, as if Wakatoshi had been interrogating him and he’d finally had enough. “I had a nightmare last night. And when I napped this afternoon. It’s dumb.”
“It’s not dumb if it’s affecting you like this,” Wakatoshi said, as he always did when Tooru tried to downplay his reactions to things. “Tell me about it?”
So Tooru did. When he was finished, Wakatoshi looked slightly troubled. “I think you should stay in bed tomorrow,” he finally said.
“But…” Tooru started to protest.
They both must have known it was half-hearted, because Wakatoshi said, “You really could be sick. We were out in the cold, wet snow, and this food is unfamiliar.”
“Or,” Tooru said when Wakatoshi let the sentence hang between them, “it’s a curse from the dolls.”
“I didn’t say that,” Wakatoshi protested halfheartedly, but his lips were curling up in a smile. Tooru couldn’t help but laugh, and he leaned over and kissed Wakatoshi, allowing him to pull him fully into bed.
A shrill shrieking startled Tooru out of bed and onto the ground. He groaned as he sat up, rubbing his hip where he’d landed on the floor. “Toshi?” he hissed, glancing up over the side of the bed to where Wakatoshi lay sleeping, a small frown on his face. “Wakatoshi?” Tooru tried again, but his husband, usually a light sleeper, slept on.
The scream sounded again, muffled but undeniable. Tooru swallowed, standing up and padding barefoot into the hallway.
“Koyuki-san?” he asked the empty air, and of course there was no answer except the unbreaking, muffled wailing.
He turned to look back at the door to his room, slightly ajar from his haste in leaving. He took a step back toward it, but like a puppet being controlled by his strings, he turned back to the staircase. It’s coming from the basement, Tooru thought, and in a strange, out-of-body moment, he descended one set of stairs, then two.
When he touched the doorknob, it burned his skin. But he didn’t let it go. Instead, he turned it, pushing the door open.
It was hell.
That was the first thought Tooru had. The screams, muffled from the closed door, now overwhelmed him, layer after layer of horrifying shrieking piercing his eardrums, reverberating through his bones, making his teeth rattle. He could barely make out the table, the dollhouse eerily lit from the inside, dolls and dolls and dolls spilling out of it. He pressed his hands to his ears, hunching away from the oppressive noise, but it just seemed to press itself into him, filling the empty spaces inside of him until he couldn’t separate himself from the noise.
Look at us look at us look at us look at us
Tooru shook his head, his eyes closed tight, trying to back out of the room, but like before the door had disappeared. He whimpered, pressing himself back against the wall, and felt viscous liquid against his skin.
He gasped, his eyes flying open. He knew what he would see before he saw it—the walls bleeding, sticky darkness that latched itself to his bare skin.
He jumped away from the wall, his hands dropping from his ears to swipe off the reddish-black ooze (not blood, not blood). He staggered, his foot slipping on something white and tubular, and his ankle screamed in pain. He fell to his knee, hand landing on the floor, and for the first time he saw what the white sharp things on the ground were.
They were bones. Piles and piles and piles of bones.
Run run run run run run run run
Tooru couldn’t separate his thoughts from the screaming. Hysterically, he thought maybe they had become the same thing. Maybe that’s why he could hear words, terrified pleading to either him or someone else, he couldn’t tell. Please don’t, she’s just a child, I’ll do anything you want, how could you do this to someone you love?
Tooru's hand hit something solid and he gasped as pain shot up his pinky finger. But he grasped the table leg as if it were a lifetime, pulling himself up hand-over-hand until he could feel the top of the table. He heaved himself up, coming face-to-face with the three dolls hanging over the table’s edge. He pulled away quickly. “Calm down,” he whispered to himself, taking a shaky breath. “This is a dream. It has to be. Calm down, calm down, calm down.”
The wailing stopped.
Tooru’s breath hitched. The sudden silence was almost worse than the previous noise. Tooru shivered, hugging himself tightly and forced himself to look around.
There was still no door. Of course. He turned back to the table. There were so many dolls, some that he’d never seen before, others he’d seen around the inn. Most of them were in a circle, as they had been in his first dream, but not all of them. There, at the edge of the table was the one from his and Wakatoshi’s room. She looked concerned, as concerned as a doll could. Her arm was raised at a strange angle. Tooru followed it and his eyes widened.
The life-sized doll was still in her usual chair, but she wasn’t in her usual place. The chair had moved closer to the back of the room and turned so that her back was to Tooru.
There was a hole in the wall. And in the wall were more bones. Bones on bones on bones, cracked and bleeding, just like the walls.
help help help help help help help help help
Tooru whipped his head back to the dollhouse and this time, he screamed. Just a small yelp, but enough that all the dolls in the room turned to look at him.
The dollhouse had changed. Now, it was a house made of bone and every doll looked like miniature skeletons.
The screaming began again, high and screeching, piercing straight to Tooru’s brain, so many words stacked on top of each other, the weight of them pressing against his chest, against his brain.
He was quite certain, in that moment, he would smother under the weight of noise.
He opened his eyes.
Everything was silent.
In fact, he wasn’t even in the basement. Tooru blinked, eyebrows creasing in confusion as he saw the cool, smooth wood of the basement door under his hand.
He pulled back as if scalded. He glanced around, waiting for a punchline he knew wasn’t coming. A deep, primal fear washed over him, twisting around his ribcage, squeezing his throat. His breathing came in quick, shallow pants. He needed to leave, immediately, get away from this basement with the fucking dolls...
“Ridiculous,” Tooru muttered to himself and threw open the door.
Of course, everything was exactly where he left it. He flipped the lightswitch, squinting in the sudden light. There were no bones, no bleeding walls except for the cracks at the back of the room, elongated in the shadowy darkness. There were, of course, no dolls screaming.
It was an ordinary basement with an ordinary dollhouse and one life-sized doll who looked too realistic for its own good. But it was still just a doll.
Tooru nodded to himself and, with shaking fingers, turned back off the light and shut the door. As he walked up the stairs he tried not to think about how he got there, or why. He focused on his breathing, not thinking about those nightmares, not thinking about the fact that he had never slept-walked before he came here.
By the time he got back to his room (door ajar just slightly, just as he remembered it) he was shaking. He took in a great heaving breath, tears suddenly pressing against the back of his eyes.
When he crawled into bed, Wakatoshi moved. “Tooru?” he asked.
“Hey,” Tooru said, and his voice came out small and trembling. Wakatoshi sat up immediately, taking Tooru’s hands in his.
“You’re cold,” he stated. Tooru nodded, burying his face into his husband’s neck, breathing in his familiar scent.
Safe, warm, comfortable, home, his brain said, and he clung to him tighter.
“Hey, Tooru, you’re shaking,” Wakatoshi said, gathering him into his arms. Tooru relaxed into his warmth, taking a few more deep breaths. “What were you doing?”
“Nothing,” Tooru croaked. “It was another nightmare. I’m ready to go home, Toshi. I don’t want to be here anymore.”
Wakatoshi’s hand carded softly through Tooru’s brown locks, and Tooru felt him drop a kiss on top of his head. “Soon,” Wakatoshi promised. “I’m sure tomorrow the roads will be cleared, and by the next day we will be able to leave.”
“Two more days,” Tooru said.
“Two more days,” Wakatoshi confirmed. “And if not, I think we should walk.”
Tooru couldn’t help it. He chuckled softly, and it sounded a little less broken than he thought it would. “Thanks, Toshi,” he whispered.
“Of course,” Wakatoshi said. “I’m worried about you. You’ll rest tomorrow?”
“Yes,” Tooru said. “I’m not leaving bed.”
“Good,” Wakatoshi said, kissing his cheek. “I won’t let anything hurt you.”
Tooru nodded. He was thankful for the sentiment, but deep down, he wondered if Wakatoshi could truly keep him safe from whatever was happening in this inn. But he didn’t say that. Instead, he closed his eyes, and before he knew it he was asleep.
This time, it was dreamless.
Wakatoshi had never considered himself more superstitious than the average person. Sure, he made sure to honor those who have passed on and pay his respects to the spirits in nature routinely. And maybe he was wary of things that couldn’t be explained by logic and reason, and shuddered at common horror tropes, but he figured most people did. And at first, the doll thing didn’t seem like an insidious thing. It was a collection for an old, grieving, lonely woman. Wakatoshi would never condemn her for that.
But in their short three days of staying at this bed and breakfast, there had been too many odd coincidences for Wakatoshi to feel comfortable. He was ready to get out of the situation, pride be damned.
He woke before Tooru the next morning. That wasn’t a surprise. Tooru had slept poorly—even having missed most of his nightmare episode, Wakatoshi could tell by the paleness in his face, the dark smudges under his eyes, the way he didn’t even shift when Wakatoshi sat up. At least his breathing was deep and even, and he hadn’t moved since he’d crawled back into bed last night, shaking and cold. Wakatoshi placed a gentle hand on Tooru’s forehead, relieved when he felt a normal temperature, not a fever or a chill. He tucked a stray strand of his hair behind his ear, then leaned down and kissed his cheek before leaving.
The world outside was bright, the morning sun glaring off the stubborn snow. It shouldn’t be this cold, and the snow shouldn’t have stayed so thick. He peered out the window, trying to remember the path they had taken to get here. He wasn’t joking when he had talked with Tooru the night before—even if they had to walk, Wakatoshi was fully prepared to leave the next day. It should not be too hard to find the car, and even if the roads hadn’t been plowed, surely there had been traffic on the road enough for them to get through. This was a popular mountain pass.
“You’re awake.”
Wakatoshi turned to see Koyuki tottering out of the kitchen, a small smile on her face. Her eyes were sharp behind her wire-rimmed glasses, and Wakatoshi suppressed a shiver at the coldness that seemed to flit across her face for an instant before smoothing out to something indulgent and perfectly grandmotherly. “Yes,” Wakatoshi said, drawing away from the window. “Tooru is not feeling well. Do you mind if I take food upstairs to him?”
At the mention of Tooru, Koyuki’s expression brightened. “Of course you can! The poor thing. I told him to take a break yesterday, but he was so adamant he would be fine. Is he always this hard of a worker?”
“Yes,” Wakatoshi said fondly, thinking back to high school, when Tooru worked so hard to become the best volleyball player, and then college, where he worked two jobs to help put both of them through school. Even now, Tooru was always busy, never one to have idle time on his hands.
“I thought as much. He’s a good young man.”
As had happened the last few times Koyuki talked about Tooru, a strange, uncomfortable feeling lodged itself in Wakatoshi’s stomach. He was used to Tooru being the center of attention, the one who received the compliments, the one people wanted to talk to. But this felt strange. More than a casual interest. More than an intense interest, even.
An obsession.
Wakatoshi cleared his throat. “The food?”
“Ah, of course,” Koyuki answered, and disappeared into the kitchen again. Wakatoshi let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, glancing back out the window. And there, on the sill, was a doll, standing with her head pressed to the glass. Wakatoshi took a step back with an involuntary shudder.
Once Koyuki came back with the food, Wakatoshi delivered it to Tooru, who was sitting up in bed, stretching. “Morning,” he greeted, kissing his forehead. Tooru smiled. He still looked pale, his eyes slightly glazed over, but he seemed better than the night before.
“Smells good,” Tooru said, immediately picking up the steaming cup of tea. “I’m addicted to this stuff. Have you tried it?”
Wakatoshi shook his head. Generally, he left fancy teas and drinks to Tooru. Just a whiff of it reminded him of a flower garden, and he’d never had the urge to taste one of those. Tooru shrugged, taking a sip before digging into his food. “More for me, then. You still don’t have service?” Tooru asked.
“No, I don’t,” Wakatoshi answered. He’d found himself checking often during their stay—he wasn’t usually attached to his phone, but not having access to the outside world was unnerving. He knew there were things that needed to be addressed. First and foremost, the fact that he and Tooru had never arrived at their weekend getaway with Tooru’s high school friends. He knew they would be worried, and he knew Tooru was worried about letting them know they were okay.
Tooru sighed, moving the food left on his plate around before taking another lackluster bite.
When Tooru was done with the food, Wakatoshi gathered the tray back up. As he stood, he frowned at the shelf closest to him.
“We only had one doll in our room,” Wakatoshi said, his eyes registering two dolls.
Tooru looked up, then shrugged. His eyes looked vacant as he said, “There are dolls everywhere. Maybe we miscounted.”
“Miscounted to two?” Wakatoshi asked, but when Tooru rolled his eyes he dropped it. He reached up, pressing the new doll’s outstretched arm down lightly, smoothing down her hair. There was a hat sitting next to her, and he wasn’t sure what compelled him, but he took it and placed it on her head.
“There,” he murmured. “If you’re going to be here, make yourself useful and watch Tooru, okay?”
He didn’t know what compelled him to say it, but he figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask. He would rather be on friendly terms with the mysteriously moving dolls than enemies with them. He looked down at Tooru, prepped to fend off his snide comments, but was surprised to see that he’d already closed his eyes, his breathing becoming slow and deep, so slow he could hardly make out his chest moving. Wakatoshi ran a thumb along the smooth skin of his cheek before placing a thermos of tea on the bedside table and leaving.
Now that he was looking, Wakatoshi could see dolls everywhere. Most of them were hidden—behind the bodies of lamps or vases, on the wrong sides of bookshelves or sequestered in corners. They all seemed to be looking at him, which was a ridiculous thought. They didn’t shift positions, no matter how many times he walked in and out of a room.
Even the workshed he’d found himself working in had dolls in it. Two boy dolls sitting on either side of the tool box, a girl doll at the window in a similar position as the one he’d found in the kitchen just that morning. He acknowledges them with a quick bow of his head before getting to work.
Working with his hands has always been something that calmed Wakatoshi. It was a big reason he was so handy with tools—he had jumped at every chance to help around the house. He liked the meticulousness, the fineness, the way he could create something useful and functional. The day before he had finished the table, and had just started with the chairs. He figured that he could finish that night. After all, it was the least he could do for the woman who had graciously opened her home to them during this strange snowstorm.
By the time his stomach growled to alert him it was well past lunch, he had finished three of the four chairs. He placed his tools to the side, in a neat, orderly row, memorizing where the dolls were before leaving.
His thoughts were so consumed by the dolls, the storm, and his project for Koyuki, that he didn’t knock on the door before entering like he usually did, and as he entered the kitchen he said, “Tano-san, do you happen to have…”
He watched it happen. The knife Koyuki had been using to cut carrots cut straight into her finger, a horrible thunk sounding that Wakatoshi prayed was the vegetable but knew probably wasn’t by the immediate gush of blood. “Tano-san!” he gasped.
“It’s fine, it’s fine, you startled me is all!” the old woman said with a laugh that didn’t sound like someone who had just sliced through her finger.
“Where are your first aid supplies?” Wakatoshi pressed. “In the bathroom?”
“It’s really fine!” she said, her voice still cheerful. She had covered her finger with her apron but Wakatoshi wasn’t convinced. He moved toward the bathroom, if not for a bandage then at least something to stop the flow of blood. Before he could get past, Koyuki’s hand (the one not cut) shot out, grasping him firmly. “Look. You’re overreacting. It really is nothing.”
And with that, Koyuki wiped her finger off on her apron and showed it to him. He stared at the place where he had once seen peeled skin, the white of a bone, now perfectly knit together with the slightest ooze of blood from a tiny knick. “I apologize for startling you,” Wakatoshi finally said, unable to think of anything else.
She waved the apology away. “Nonsense. I was just lost in thought, happens all the time. Dinner will be ready in about a half hour!”
With his empty stomach forgotten, Wakatoshi exited the kitchen, making his way up the stairs to his room. The sight of Tooru sitting up in bed with a book on his lap relieved him instantly. “Are you feeling better?”
Tooru didn’t answer, just continued looking at the book, eyes bright and unmoving. “Tooru?” Wakatoshi asked again. Heart beating hard, Wakatoshi placed his hand on Tooru’s shoulder, shaking him slightly. He watched Tooru’s eyes blink slowly, life filtering in slowly.
“Did I fall asleep?” Tooru asked, his words groggy. He reached up, rubbing at his eyes, the movement languid as if he really had just woken up. People could fall asleep with their eyes open. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Have you been resting all day?” Wakatoshi asked.
Tooru’s eyes shifted to the door for a mere second before he smiled at Wakatoshi. “Yeah. It’s been nice to… rest.”
Wakatoshi had never seen Tooru quite like this, spacey and vacant and hardly able to hold a thought in his head. The closest he’d come was a few years back, when Tooru had worked himself to the bone his last year of college and tried to push through a cold that grew so bad they’d ended up in the emergency room, Tooru delirious with fever. But even then he’d looked—not lively, but at least life-full. Now he looked limp, like a teddy bear who had lost most of its stuffing.
“I can bring dinner to you,” Wakatoshi said, voice deliberately slower than usual.
Tooru shook his head. “No!” he said, voice a little higher than normal. Wakatoshi wondered if he had experienced more nightmares, especially when he said, “I’ll come down with you, I… Can we spend the evening together?”
“Of course,” Wakatoshi answered, taking Tooru’s proffered hand. It was smooth, cool. No fever. He helped Tooru stand. Once on his feet, he seemed a little more lucid, even as he clung to Wakatoshi as he walked. He told Tooru of his day in the workshed as they went down the stairs. By the time they got to the table, some color had come back to Tooru’s cheeks.
When Koyuki came into the dining room, she beamed. “Ah, there you are! Get some food in you; you were asleep when I came up to check on you for lunch.”
Tooru’s smile was wan and a little strained. It was the first time Wakatoshi had seen it happen around Koyuki. She seemed oblivious though, smiling gently back and pushing his food closer to him. Mechanically, he ate a few bites before returning his chopsticks back to the table. Wakatoshi placed a hand on his thigh, ignoring the strange, biting look Koyuki seemed to give them.
After dinner, Wakatoshi insisted they go back up to their room. Tooru nodded, once again grasping onto Wakatoshi as they went. They had to stop twice on the stairs as Tooru caught his breath.
Once back in their room, it seemed both of them could breathe easier. “I downloaded some movies onto my phone before we left,” Tooru said suddenly. “Maybe we could watch one?” Of course Wakatoshi said yes, and soon they were snuggling on the bed, Tooru’s head resting on Wakatoshi’s chest.
Throughout the movie, Wakatoshi’s thoughts strayed to some of the things he had thought about that day. The strange snow. The weird way the horizon warped. The dolls, seeming to have something to say but trapped in their porcelain skins. The way the skin of Tooru’s arm felt smooth and chilled under Wakatoshi’s fingers and his alarmingly vacant eyes when he’d walked into the room.
When the movie finished, Tooru was asleep. Wakatoshi eased Tooru down onto his pillow, tucking the blankets around him tightly. He’d gotten steadily cooler the longer they’d sat together, which wasn’t normal, but might be explained by the chilly air. After Tooru was saturated, Wakatoshi slipped out of bed, padding softly out the door and down the stairs to the unlit kitchen, where he grabbed a glass of water and downed it in one go. He saw the doll at the window above the sink still there. After casting one suspicious look around the room to make sure he wouldn’t be interrupted, he sidled up to her, looking at where her arm was pointing.
His eyes widened. He found himself gripping the glass in his hand so tightly he was afraid he might shatter it. “Tomorrow,” he whispered, and hurried to clean his glass and make his way out of the kitchen.
Before he could go far, a small thump drew Wakatoshi’s attention to the basement stairs. He glanced at the half wall, where he knew a doll had balanced precariously just moments before, and realized it wasn’t there.
He should leave it. There was no point in getting it, and he had a lot of thinking to do.
He went down the stairs slowly, making as little noise as possible. The doll was easy to find—it lay face down next to the door to the basement. If Wakatoshi thought about it, he’d know that the doll would have had to get some serious air to make it where it landed, but he shut the thought down. There were too many strange things happening; this was the least of them.
The doll had a hairline crack along the side of her face. Wakatoshi frowned, pressing his finger against it. His eyes shifted to the basement door. The easiest place to put it would be with the other dolls on the table with the dollhouse. And, as much as he didn’t want to admit it, he could also check on them, make sure that nothing odd had happened.
He placed his hand on the door handle, frowning at how warm it was, as if someone had just held it. He’d just started turning it when he heard a voice. “...soon. Tomorrow, won’t that be so lovely?”
It sounded like Koyuki’s voice, but distorted. Less frail, deeper. Wakatoshi was about to push the door open when he heard something else. A low growling voice saying words he couldn’t understand, if they were real words at all. He swallowed as a primal fear washed over him and it took everything in him not to turn and run, screaming.
As slowly as he could, he turned the door handle back to its original position, holding his breath at the slight snick. When the rumbling of the voice didn’t stop, Wakatoshi let out a controlled breath, then turned around to walk silently back up the stairs.
He had just stepped onto the landing when he realized there was a figure standing in front of him.
“Tooru? What are you doing here?” Wakatoshi asked. Because it was Tooru. He stood strangely still, his skin eerily white in the dim lighting of the room. His eyes were vacant.
“I…” He peered over Wakatoshi’s shoulder. “I have to go to the basement. I have… have to…”
Tooru took a step closer to the stairs. Alarmed, Wakatoshi stopped him, wrapping his arm around Tooru’s chest. Tooru’s breath quickened and with alarming strength in his sickly state tried to prise himself out of Wakatoshi’s grasp. “I have to… They’re in the basement. We have to find them, we have to burn them. Do it, don’t do it, let me go, I have to go, Grandma, I just want to die!”
Tooru’s voice rose to a scream, his eyes wide and wild and sightless as he fought against Wakatoshi, whose foot had begun slipping off the top stair. He stabilized himself, grunting as he heaved his weight against his husband, shoving them both away from the ledge. With a small, strangled cry Tooru pressed against him one last time before going limp in his arms, his dead weight almost causing Wakatoshi to drop him.
“Tooru!” Wakatoshi gasped, pressing his hand to Tooru’s cheek. It was smooth, pale, and cool. His eyes were closed, and if it weren’t for the long exhaled breath Wakatoshi would think he wasn’t breathing at all. He shook Tooru lightly. “Tooru, please, wake up. Tooru.”
Wakatoshi had never felt this tight, strangling fear before, panic lodging itself in his throat, his brain empty of any thought other than Tooru. He couldn't get the horrible sound of Tooru screaming out of his mind, the visceral fear that had twisted his face. After what felt like an eternity, Tooru shifted. Wakatoshi gasped, cradling him close as he opened his eyes. “What…” Tooru said, his voice hoarse. He lifted his hand, pressing his shaking fingers to his hairline. “My head.”
There was a thin cut underneath Tooru’s fingers. In fact, it mirrored the one on the doll completely. And now that he was looking, Wakatoshi could see many little knicks and scratches where Tooru definitely hadn’t had them yesterday, littering his arms and hands. “We’re leaving,” Wakatoshi said firmly. “First thing in the morning.”
Without waiting for an answer Wakatoshi scooped Tooru into his arms, staggering under his weight. Tooru threw his arms around his neck to stop himself from falling. “You don’t have to,” Tooru said but made no move to get down. Wakatoshi wouldn’t have let him anyway. He was so preoccupied, he didn’t hear the door to the basement snap shut behind him.
By the time they’d arrived back at their room, Tooru’s eyes were closed again. His breathing was slow, so slow that the only indication that he was doing it at all was the slight rise and fall of his chest over gruelingly long seconds. Wakatoshi considered waking him—he didn’t like the way Tooru looked like he was two breaths away from dying.
He had completely forgotten about the doll he’d still been holding until he looked down, thinking it was his phone. The crack had widened ever so slightly, a dark red substance oozing from the split. He had a sudden, visceral urge to bring the doll’s head down on the edge of the table, shattering the porcelain of her skin and taking her out of her misery. But after a glance at Tooru, he didn’t. Instead, he grabbed a tissue from the end table and dabbed away the goopy liquid, then set her with the other two dolls in the room, who were holding hands, looking down as if ashamed, and then he crawled into bed next to Tooru, too busy planning the best course of action to escape tomorrow to go to sleep.
When he touched Tooru’s hand, it felt as smooth and cool as the porcelain face he’d just wiped the faux blood from.
When Tooru’s eyes snapped open, he felt more refreshed than he has in days. He sat up slowly, rubbing at a dull throbbing pain on his head. Wakatoshi stirred in his sleep, but didn’t wake. His brow was furrowed as if he were having a bad dream. Tooru could relate—the last two days had felt like nothing but a long, drawn out nightmare.
He should have told Wakatoshi about the weird, reality-bending dreams he had had the day before, when he was supposed to be resting. He was fairly sure he hadn’t left the room this time, but all of his dreams had revolved around the basement—him walking into a bloodbath, him smashing all the dolls and setting the room on fire, him not himself but other people lured down there and chopped into fine pieces or hacked away so only the bones were left. And every time it was Koyuki, the smiling old lady, doing the dirty work.
“For Rin-chan,” he had heard her say before he woke up, over and over until he was dizzy, the words echoing in his head long after he’d woken.
He also found it hard to move. He was just so tired, his arms and legs too heavy to use, his neck too stiff to turn. He’d noticed strange skips in time—seeing the cup on his bedside table disappear and reappear in the span of one blink, or the sun go from one side of the room to another as he opened his book. He hadn’t told Wakatoshi. He wondered why he’d kept it a secret.
Well. No matter. Tooru slipped quietly out of bed, and he felt almost as if he were floating, so heavy his limbs had been just hours before. He sighed with relief, and before he quite knew what he was doing, he had made his way down the stairs, his hand sliding lightly against the railing.
The stairwell to the basement gaped ominously. Tooru hesitated, his eyes shifting one way, and then the other, as if someone were watching him. When he was sure no one was there, he descended the stairs, still feeling weightless.
The door opened smoothly under his touch. He held his breath, waiting for the screaming, the bleeding walls, the skeletal dollhouse, but there was nothing except for the pitch black room. Tooru flipped the lights on.
At first glance, everything looked as it had two days ago when he’d been there last. It was when he moved closer to the table that he realized that there were less dolls in the dollhouse then there were before. He frowned, looking around to see if they'd been placed somewhere else.
There, on the floor, were some of them. “How did this happen?” Tooru muttered to himself as he walked around the table, ignoring the life-sized doll as he started picking up the dolls. As he stood up, his eyes snagged on the wall, which seemed to bulge out slightly. And… the cracks. The ones that seemed to get bigger and bigger every time he dreamed he were here. Apparently, he hadn’t dreamed them entirely.
He placed the fallen dolls back in the dollhouse before moving back to the section of the wall that had caught his attention. He squatted down, studying the wall closer. Not only were there cracks along the wallpaper, but the wallpaper was newer than on the other walls, with a slightly reddish tint to it. He scratched at the plaster, surprised when it flaked to the ground under his touch. With one last glance back at the dollhouse and barely a thought to what he was going to do to repair the wall, he started chipping away at it.
In less than five minutes, Tooru had torn away the cracking plaster to reveal not a wall, but a bulging safe, so full that it wasn’t even latched correctly. A rank smell of rotten meat with an undertone of rust assaulted him—he coughed, using one arm to cover his nose while using as little of his finger as possible to nudge the safe open.
At first, he couldn’t understand what he was seeing. It was meat. Kind of. But it was mostly white, porous stick-like things, stacked and discarded like chicken bones or ribs.
No. Not chicken bones. Human bones.
Tooru gagged. He fell over, scrabbling away from the gaping safe. His eyes took in more—yes there were bones, but there were also half-made dolls, all with smooth, half-made faces, naked with no hair and eyes.
Help us. Save us. Burn us. Run run run run run run run run
It felt as if his head were splitting open, the cut on his face growing and pulling. His arms too felt as if he’d taken a knife to them, slicing deep enough to hit and mine his bones. The weightlessness disappeared and suddenly all he wanted to do was sleep…
“Oh, my dear, what have you found here?” Koyuki’s voice rang out, shattering the voices that had taken over Tooru’s mind, and a hand fell to rest gently on the top of his head.
Tooru gasped for air. He felt as if a house had settled on his chest as he struggled to breathe. His fingers scrabbled for purchase on the sheets beneath him as he strained against the weight, finally finding Wakatoshi’s arm. His eyesight dimmed, and he heard the sharpness in Wakatoshi’s voice as he said, “Tooru!”
When he opened his eyes again, he could breathe. He sat up with a gasp, trembling, glancing down at his hands as if they were foreign. He glanced to the side, but Wakatoshi wasn’t in bed anymore. Tooru frowned. A sharp pain lanced up the side of his face. He closed his eyes, reaching up to touch the cut he wasn’t sure how he received.
“I have breakfast.”
Tooru squinted. It was bright outside. His hand was still pressed to the side of his face. He pulled his hand away slowly, his joints stiff. He struggled to listen as Wakatoshi talked, his vision swimming. “... Finish outside…”
A primal panic rose in Tooru’s chest. “Don’t leave me!” he said, reaching his arm out…
“...Drink your tea like a good boy…”
Tooru couldn’t open his mouth, and he tried to tell Koyuki that. Besides, he was tired of the tea…
“The car keys, Tooru. Fuck, your skin… we need to leave.”
Wakatoshi never swore. Tooru could see the panic in his eyes, feel the weight of his hands on his arms, even though he couldn’t feel his heat.
“Tooru. Tooru!”
“Hmm?” Tooru murmured, trying to focus his attention on Wakatoshi.
“How many cups of tea have you had?” he asked. Tooru shrugged his shoulders, relieved that Wakatoshi had finally figured out what Tooru had also pieced together. Or he thought he shrugged. At least, he tried to, but his body didn’t respond the way it usually did.
“A lot,” he finally murmured. “I’m kind of tired, Toshi.”
“Don’t fall asleep.”
Blink
“I won’t,” Tooru said. But the room had changed. He was back in the basement, at the table. He heard the door shut, and a high warbling whistle. He turned his head so slowly on stiff, aching joints.
“Where’s Toshi?” Tooru said, and missed Koyuki’s answer as she disappeared behind him.
“He’s not suitable for this, not like you,” Koyuki said. “But don’t worry. I’ll make sure he has a proper burial, to show respect for such a fortuitous blessing in you.”
“I don’t… I don’t…” Tooru said, or tried to say, or maybe said. Everything was blurring. “I don’t want to be a doll.”
“But darling.” Instead of Wakatoshi, Koyuki was in front of him, her voice stronger and deeper and wrong, as if it could penetrate through to your very soul. “You’re the perfect doll for my Rin-chan. Here, have one last cup of tea.”
Wakatoshi needed to hurry. He couldn’t believe how slow he had been to realize what was happening. But really, who would have thought that there would be someone who had figured out how to turn people into living dolls?
He should have tasted the tea sooner. Not that he probably would have tasted anything wrong with it at first, just as Tooru hadn’t. But the smell had been so pungent that morning, he couldn’t help but sample it.
A shudder ran through him just remembering it. He ran faster down the trail, sure this was the way they’d come that first fateful night.
All through his time in the workshed, he’d been studying the surroundings, trying to work out where to go. And after he’d figured out the illusion last night in the kitchen, with the help of the doll at the sink, it hadn’t been hard to figure out the most likely way to get to the road.
The air around him stiffened, taking on a syrupy quality. Wakatoshi didn’t stop to think. Instead, he continued pushing through, determined to break, or pop, or destroy whatever was keeping them locked in this pocket of horrors. “It’s always the dolls,” he muttered to himself, and as if the words were a key, he pushed through to the end, stumbling as the air became normal again.
There was no snow on this side of the bubble. Of course. Wakatoshi glanced around, desperate to find a landmark he recognized. His eyes finally landed on a tree he had found particularly interesting during their hike, as it still had mostly its green leaves instead of the fall colors of its neighbors, and jogged about a quarter mile back to where their car lay abandoned on the side of the road.
It looked in good condition. Wakatoshi held his breath as he slid into the driver’s side door. “Please,” he muttered, not sure who he was praying to at this point. “Please, please, please.”
It took the engine a few seconds, but eventually it turned over. He didn’t have time to be relieved; his husband was still in danger.
Wakatoshi shifted the car in drive and sped back the way he had come. The resistance coming this way was less, and he noticed that the snowy surroundings were quickly turning back to their normal fall coloring. He must have broken the illusion. It was probably why the car worked at all.
When the bed and breakfast came into view, he jumped out of the car, leaving it running as he sprinted back to the door. He tried the door handle.
It was locked.
“Fuck!” he said, for the second time that day. He rammed his shoulder against the door once, twice, but there seemed to be something holding it in place. He looked around desperately, ready to try breaking one of the windows. He had just looked down to see if there was a rock big enough to throw, when a doll caught his eye. It was the one he had rescued the day before, with the hairline break.
It was holding a key.
He bent down, picking up the doll and grabbing the key from her hand. “Thank you,” he said solemnly, then stood and tried it in the lock. It fit.
As soon as he stepped into the house, the door slammed shut. Everything went black, as if it were midnight instead of midday. He froze, then began his slow trek through the room toward where he knew the basement stairs were.
He tripped over something about halfway through his journey. He almost continued, but remembered the doll he still had in his hand. He bent down, his hand finding a metal and glass contraption.
A lantern.
He picked it up, holding the doll between his arm and his side as he fumbled for the switch. Surprisingly, when he flipped it, a flame lit up instead of a lightbulb and that’s when he realized how old it was. He was surprised it even worked. He could make out another doll on the floor, the one who had been in their room from the beginning. After a brief hesitation, he picked that one up too.
He was just standing back up when a sharp pain exploded on his back. With a gasp, he fell to one knee, the flame in the lantern flickering wildly as he caught his balance. “Naughty, disrespectful little dolls,” Koyuki hissed, her voice low and echoing. Wakatoshi shuddered. “How dare you betray the one who gave you life?”
Another pain sliced through Wakatoshi’s back, and he stumbled away from her voice, swinging the lantern around. He watched Koyuki’s shadow move away from the light and heard an animalistic hiss. He continued swinging the lantern wildly, watching as her shadow darted from the light—or the flame. “Why are you doing this?” Wakatoshi asked, as if he didn’t already know. His back screamed in pain.
He backed away toward the stairs as Koyuki answered. “For my Rin-chan of course! She was so heartbroken as her friends died or moved. I thought, why not memorialize them? There’s no better caretaker than her.
“And then she herself became sick. How could I just let her go? But she was so young, and still had so much life to live! I wanted to give that to her. I’m going to give that to her. A family. A home. This is all hers!”
Wakatoshi had found the stairs. With one last desperate swing of the lantern, he turned and ran down them, not sure if Koyuki’s shriek was one of pain or outrage.
He was hurt. The pain in his back wasn’t going away… in fact, it was getting stronger. He thought maybe she had stabbed him, and then he didn’t think about it again. He focused only on his next objectives. Get Tooru. Get out of here.
There were dolls pressed against the bottom of the basement door, as if they had pushed it open. Wakatoshi sent a silent prayer of thanks as he rushed in.
The flickering of the lantern only showed Wakatoshi glimpses of the room, but it definitely didn’t look anything like the basement he remembered. The dollhouse took up most of the room, as if there were a house inside of another house. Tooru now sat at the table in the living room with the life-sized doll, both of them staring into the distance.
A crash behind him spurred Wakatoshi to action. He sprinted to Tooru, putting the lantern down on the table. “Tooru!” he said, slapping his cheek. It was cold, smooth as porcelain. Panic fluttered in Wakatoshi’s chest and he grabbed Tooru, heaving him up over his shoulder. Searing pain in his back caused him to fall to one knee, and his vision darkened.
Don’t faint, don’t faint, Wakatoshi chanted to himself, grunting as he stood fully, Tooru hanging limp off his shoulder.
A scream rattled everything in the room. “You can’t leave. YOU WON’T LEAVE He’s mine!!! They’re all MINE!”
The room was growing brighter, hotter. Wakatoshi found his way to the wall closest to the stairs, pressed himself against it. He held his breath, waiting… waiting…
Koyuki tore into the room, still howling with rage. As soon as she passed him, he darted out the door, one last desperate pump of adrenaline coursing through his veins as he took the stairs two at a time. His feet were hot, and the floor seemed to be rotting away beneath him, the walls now peeling paint and ruined, but he didn’t stop to think, just ran toward the already opened door, not even bothering to shut it.
The car was still running. The car was still there. Vision swimming, Wakatoshi deposited Tooru into the backseat, glancing back at the inn as he did.
It was in flames.
His hands stuttered as he stared. That lantern shouldn’t have been able to do that so quickly, his hazy mind tried to argue, but after the last few hours, it was easy to turn that part of his brain off and focus on staying conscious enough to get down the mountain. When he looked in the rearview mirror, Tooru hadn’t changed position, his pretty brown eyes still open and sightless as a doll’s.
It hurt to open his eyes. In fact, it hurt to do anything, and so Tooru stayed still with his eyes closed as he listened to the bustle of what sounded to him like a hospital around him. He thought he heard some raised voices, some panic at the next bed over, but he couldn’t turn his head, or focus on the words.
When he finally opened his eyes, it was to a stranger leaning over him. He thought about being terrified, but after the ordeal he’d just experienced, he figured there wasn’t a lot that could elicit more fear from him. “You’re awake,” the person, who Tooru now figured was a nurse, said in a cheerful voice. “We were a little worried there for a while, but it seems you’re on the mend, just like your husband.”
“My… Toshi!” Tooru struggled to sit up, but the nurse gently pushed his shoulder back down.
“Settle down, he’s okay. Look, he’s right next to you.”
Tooru followed the nurse’s finger to the bed next to him where Wakatoshi was lying on his stomach, sleeping. Tooru could just make out bandages criss-crossing his back. “He’d been stabbed in the back quite a few times. Luckily, the knife missed his vital organs, but he’d lost a lot of blood. He was incoherent when he got here. Saying something about a bed and breakfast in the woods?”
An unwelcome flash of Koyuki’s dollhouse flashed into Tooru’s mind. He shuddered, wrapping his arms around his stomach. The nurse didn’t seem to notice. He just continued talking. “Of course, there’s nothing there now. Just the remains of that old secluded cabin that caused a pretty major fire about thirty years back. And all they found was shattered doll remains. The pictures were enough to cause nightmares.”
The nurse guffawed good-naturedly, but Tooru was frozen, trying to absorb the story. After a few seconds of silence, the nurse got serious. “You don’t remember anything, then?”
Slowly, Tooru shook his head. The nurse pursed his lips, writing a note down on his chart. “You’ve been poisoned, but we aren’t sure with what. Nothing we’d ever seen. Stiffening joints, slow brain reactions, frozen organs. It was as if you were being petrified.”
The nurse laughed as if that were funny, but Tooru remembered struggling to breathe, the way it had hurt to move his arms, forgetting ages and ages of time. He reached up, touching the cut on his cheek.
“That’ll scar, unfortunately,” the nurse said, his voice regretful for the first time during the conversation. “It was deep when we got to it. So weird, it had such a similarity to broken glass, the way it cut so cleanly.”
“Broken…” Tooru whispered, but the nurse was already moving toward Wakatoshi, doing something with his IV. Tooru glanced at his hands, rubbed one over his arm. His skin felt warm again, if a little smoother than normal. He was shaking—with relief, with anxiety, he couldn’t tell.
The nurse turned back to Tooru. “Oh, your husband said to make sure these stayed safe. They’re cute. Are they a gift?”
The nurse held out two dolls. One, Tooru recognized from their room. The other had pretty black ringlets and eyes such a deep blue, it made her navy dress look pale. She had a hairline break on her face and looked identical to the life-sized doll that had once been Koyuki’s granddaughter. “No,” Tooru said, his voice distant. “They’re mine.”
The nurse left not long after that. Tooru held the two dolls, one in each hand, staring at them. He fixed Rin-chan’s hair, then brushed his finger over the cheek of the one from their room,
That’s when he realized. “Sakura-chan,” he breathed.
“They saved you.”
Tooru’s eyes jumped to Wakatoshi, who had woken sometime during Tooru’s stupor. Tooru hadn’t realized how worried he’d been until his eyes met Wakatoshi’s tired ones. He sighed. “I’m pretty sure you saved me.”
Wakatoshi shrugged, wincing as his cuts pulled. He looked uncomfortable, and his voice slurred a little as he continued talking. “One of them gave me a key. The other, the lantern that burned that demon up. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without them.”
Tooru looked down at the dolls again, his chest tight with panic. He looked over at Wakatoshi, whose eyes had drooped closed again. The dolls did nothing but lie there in Tooru’s grip as he fell into a fitful sleep of his own.
This time, it was dreamless.
The dolls stayed with Tooru. Every time he tried to put them somewhere else—on the nightstand, on the entertainment center, on the window sill, he woke up screaming and disoriented, waking the whole ward with his terror. It was as if they had become the only real thing—everything else seemed so distant, so wrong. Even Wakatoshi couldn’t fully make Tooru feel safe and he hated it. He hated that this is what he had become.
Two weeks, many incredulous visitors, and no true explanation to what had happened to them later, both Wakatoshi and Tooru were given the okay to leave. Tooru had been clutching onto both dolls as they were delivered the news. “Finally,” Wakatoshi had said as soon as the doctor had left. It was almost midnight, and Wakatoshi's eyes were falling closed. “Are you as ready to go as I am? I miss sleeping next to you.”
Tooru looked at both dolls, one in each hand. Wakatoshi so rarely shared such intimate feelings with him. “Yeah, Toshi-chan. I’m ready to go home.”
He had taken too long to answer. Sometimes, that still happened. Tooru watched his husband’s chest rise and fall with sleep, then turned both Rin-chan and Sakura-chan face down on the bed, covered his face with his hands, and cried.
His cheeks were cool and smooth as porcelain.