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Behave well no matter the circumstances - a sentiment Miko had lived by for as long as she could remember. So it came naturally for her to keep shut and play dumb when the grotesque forms of deceased beings exposed themselves to her vision and became a constant part of her daily life.
Maybe her brain trained her to view ghost encounters as a form of reversed social etiquette. So that she would abide by the rules with ease, even without the stakes of her life on the line. Just be polite and respectful, not by acknowledging them, but to completely ignore their existence.
It was her best quality, wasn't it? “Well-behaved"? Be a good daughter that helped your mom with the chores. Don't raise your voice too high when you speak. Be delicate with your manners. Put on a smile and bow when you meet with your relatives. Get decent grades, didn't have to be straight A's, as long as they did not embarrass your mom and dad during family gatherings.
Then came Kyosuke, and she took on the role of a responsible older sister. Cancel your plans and watch him out when mom and dad were away. Not that she minded, for Hana would come over anyway. Help him with his homework. Cover for him when he sneaked out to play basketball with his friends when he didn't finish his homework. Tend to his wounds when he injured himself. Be gentle with him if he cried.
And should any uncomfortable situations arise, just dismiss it. Smile, say sorry, or okay, depending on the situation, make a simple excuse, don't think too hard of it, add honorifics when speaking to the elders. A general formula she accumulated over the years.
So the first time she ever saw one of them, Miko already knew she had to keep a straight face. She was having dinner with her family when a misty crooked figure loomed in the middle of the table. Miko froze on the spot. Her throat ached from the scream threatening to pierce through her mouth.
But her instinct told her to stay quiet and assess the situation. The figure was generally humanlike, a very tall one, but its skin was muddy and withering away. By the murky atmosphere surrounding the creature, and how Kyosuke literally just put his arm through it to grab a piece of sashimi, Miko could tell this was a ghost she was dealing with. And that neither her brother or her parents could see the terror in front of her. OF THEM.
When it twisted its neck and finally turned around, the bottomless holes that were once its eyes stared directly into hers. She could not afford to yelp, she knew, for the last thing she wanted was to cause a scene to no avail. What was the point when none of her family members could see the source of her fear.
And she knew, she just knew, that only trouble would come at the acknowledgement of its existence.
So she ignored her profuse shaking and sweating, put on the most neutral expression she could gather, and stay focused on her bowl of rice. When the creature finally turned away, Miko did her best not to let out a sigh of relief. Better safe than sorry that she alerted the creature anyhow.
She skipped the evening shower then went straight to her room, locked her door shut, and curled herself under the blanket. Couldn't risk the chance for another one popping up in there like the horror movies that she and Hana would watch during sleepovers. She prayed that sleep would overtake her at once, and all of this would go away by the time morning arrived.
Miko lay awake with the blanket drenched in her sweat until her alarm clock rang. When she opened the curtain and looked out of the window, she saw her neighbor walking right through a grimy soul standing in the middle of the alley.
Most of the time Miko was lucky enough to begin her day with a ray of sunlight peeking into her room. A moment of peace was always appreciated when the rest of her day was haunted by the dead everywhere she went. The corner of the alley. The bus. Outside of her school gate. Her classroom. The grocery store.
Some of them were scrawny and humanlike. The other Junji Itou gruesome-looking ones came with their tentacles or tails or spider legs or whatever monstrosity decided for them by some deranged higher being, Miko assumed. All possessed the murky blend of gray and purple mist around their body.
She never possessed the gut to walk right through them. So she made up excuses on the spot to move out of their way. Most of the time it was the fear of a cockroach or a spider in front of her. She said it out loud, just to make sure.
Only once in a blue moon when she was welcomed by a distorted face the moment she opened her eyes. She thanked the blurry vision from sleepiness that gave her a few second of ignorant bliss before the terror set in. Still, she was able to put it together and pretended that her following scream was only the realization that she was late for school. Took her only a trial before she managed to remain apathetic and move on with her day later on.
She couldn’t stay well-behaved all the time.
The ghosts had been manageable. Not when the exam week was wearing her out. 5 hours of sleep every day. Homeworks stacking up. Problems she could not figure out how to solve. Information that her brain refused to soak up even after an hour or two. By the middle of the week Miko along with her classmates had turned into zombies.
Except she was still a human being with exams to take and ghosts to pretend didn't exist. So when it had been 36 hours since she last slept and she still had class in the evening. When she had to grit her teeth on her way home with a crooked misty figure following her for whatever reasons. When the sky decided it was time for a downpour on the day she forgot to bring an umbrella.
And when she finally got home and there her father was next to the fridge with another one of the Junji Itou manga discount monsters looming over him.
It became unmanageable.
When she finally gathered herself together, she realized the agonizing scream she had just let out. Her dad was staring at her, concerned and confused. While the ghost next to him and the one on her back were now creeping onto where she was standing. They suspected.
Fear squeezed her heart tight. She had to fix this. Excuses, think of an excuse. She scanned the room back and forth, then noticed her dad was holding the half-eaten pudding she bought the other day.
So she began her unintelligible cry about pudding. How she was mad that he ate it without asking her first. Tears were streaming down her face and she choked up on her words as hiccups arose. When she felt the ghosts retreating and disappearing into the walls, she looked up at her dad again.
The confusion and concern in his eyes only grew further. Her heart dropped when he said sorry in his always gentle voice, then asked her if she was alright. She barely shouted out her apology when she started crying again then headed straight for the bathroom. She lay down on the floor for what felt like ages, ignoring her dad knocking on the door.
When Miko stood up and looked into the mirror, she noticed the paralleling lines marred under her reddened eyes. And a ghost behind her back. She expected it, almost.
Miko continued to splash water across her face and washed it with cleansing cream. She stripped herself off her still heavily soaked garments, breathing out a sigh from the release. A moment of hesitation and Miko decided laundry was for tomorrow.
The ghost stood still as Miko was waiting for the hot water to fill her bathtub. Another murky humanlike figure like she had encountered many a time, albeit naked. It was slightly taller than she was, with gray-ish decaying skin and hair reaching down to its knees. When Miko sinked into the tub now fully filled, it came along, and sat across from her at the other end of the tub. Completely still.
Miko decided the company was not unwelcomed.