Synopsis: “A Night in Higashimura: The Candle Ritual”
Yuuta Morino is just a normal third-year high schooler, or so he tries to seem. But Yuuta has always felt out of place, like he’s halfway in another world. Some say the Morino family tomb is haunted. Others whisper Yuuta’s late sister Ayumi, who’ve no one seen in six years, is still in that street. Would you risk spending a night next to a tomb for a secret?
One crisp March evening, Yuuta and his best friend Kengo return from cram school by a shortcut through the old temple fields. A girl blocks their path. Pale wind, shadow hair, sharp in the half-light. She holds three red candles. ‘Play with me,’ she asks, eyes gleaming wide. ‘If you win, I’ll grant one wish. But lose, and you stay here.’ Kengo shivers, but Yuuta steps forward. ‘What’s the game?’
She grins: ‘We light these candles in the chain bridge shrine. Each story you can make the flames dim, your next wish gets closer.’ Candlelight bends in three slim arcs, silent dew flickers at their feet. Fear blends with hope in Yuuta’s chest. He thinks of Ayumi, her photo in his school bag. Could this girl know something? Why candles?
Kengo can’t help asking, ‘Yuuta, are you sure we should do this?’ Yuuta just nods. Would you trust a spirit if you could see your loved one again?
Night piles strange quiet on the shrine. Tall stone foxes stare with hollow eyes. The girl begins. Hers is the first story: ‘A cat that called a man to his grave.’ Her candle dimmed pale blue, flame split into two. ‘Who’s next?’ Yuuta clears his throat. He remembers that old photo of Ayumi on the riverbank, dress twisted by the wind. His story is gentle. He describes a goodbye, a lost bus ticket, footprints washed away after a spring rain. The candle shudders. Soft pink fire, almost going out, but it holds fast. Will spirits respond to truth?
‘You tell weird stories, Yuuta’, Kengo says. But even he feels the sigh tug at his neck, like unseen hands passing behind. He shakily tells his story next—a lie about a lost key and a storm. The flame vanishes for just a moment and returns shining deep red. The girl, pleased, claps her hands. Her skin is so cold Kengo gasps. ‘Good. One round done.’
Soon, candle smoke weaves through the trees, twining past the old temple gate. Something is wrong. Yuuta smells incense, then ginger tea—his sister’s favorite. Now he’s not in the shrine at all. He’s kneeling in the family tomb at sun-up. Ayumi sits beside him, face hidden by her long hair. ‘Why’d you call me, Yuuta?’
He wants to reach her. He tries, but his limbs are slow and heavy, like stuck underwater. ‘Come home,’ he manages. She shakes her head, and her shape blurs, dissolving into smoke. Yuuta screams, but no one hears. Not a soul in the shrine, only the dim tail of his own lie. Would you pull your sister back from the other side, if it meant you might go too? 
Kengo wakes him with a hard shake. Temple bells chime through the half-open night. Yuuta clutches the bag with Ayumi’s photo inside. The girl stands near the last candle, her black hair torn by cold wind. ‘You’re almost out of time, Yuuta-chan.’
Despite deep fear, he tries his last wish. Hoping—so much hope it’s close to pain—that he can get Ayumi back, even just for a night. Yet as he speaks, the candle’s flame leans all the way to the ground. It gutters, shivers, stalls. At that flash, shrine doors burst open—smoke, candlelight, soft laughter spill into dark air. With one last cry: ‘You can join her—if you want.’
Yuuta stands torn. Is the price too much? Would you stay among ghosts, if it means one last talk with family? Before he can speak, Ayumi’s voice rings clear: ‘Don’t follow! Go home.’ It breaks the candle’s spell. The spirit girl frowns. But as Yuuta runs from the temple, torch fading, someone—or something—trails by his side. Is that Ayumi’s song, or only wind?
The doors shut. The next morning, next to the chain bridge shrine, Yuuta finds three burnt candle ends, a pressed flower, and his sister’s key that vanished six years back.
Does he dare try the ritual again, or walk on? What would you choose?
