Summer has come to an end, and the entrance exams for Ryuujin were just around the corner.
Five days before said exams, Mayumi-san gave me a palm-sized doll she said she'd sewn herself.
"You may treat it as a good luck charm, Mifune-san," she said, thrusting the doll into my hands.
I looked at the doll, which has one button eye barely hanging on a single thread, eerily similar to an eyeball popping out of its socket which, to be frank, disturbed me a little. However, what creeped me out the most was its smile. Mayumi-san obviously intended to sew a jovial grin on its mouth, but her clumsy needlework made it look crooked instead. It was...unsettling, to say the least. For the heiress of one of the most successful toy manufacturing companies to date, she sure is surprisingly incompetent when it comes to things such as this. It contrasted heavily with her dignified ojou-sama image, which made her appear as if she could do anything and everything without much effort at all.
Nonetheless, I accepted the gift gratefully, forcing a smile on my face as I did so. I just hope my smile isn't as crooked as the doll's...
"Thank you, Suzuki-san. This is… quite interesting."
She nodded, obviously pleased with herself. I, on the other hand, was silently bemoaning my misfortune. If there is something I'm afraid of other than the death flags, it would be dolls. In my past life, I had grown up as an unwilling victim to my older cousin's shenanigans, whose favourite past time was to torment me with his horror stories. Knowing that my sore spot was dolls, he continued to make up stories about them, fully knowing I wouldn't be able to sleep well at night. That's why in my younger years, I developed the habit of sleeping with the lights on, much to the chagrin of my younger siblings who I share my room with.
That same mischievous cousin was also the one who thought that giving me a creepy Japanese doll on my eighth birthday was a great idea. Since I knew his gift would be something completely insensible, knowing his nature, I decided to open his gift after the celebration in the safety of my own bathroom. Fully expecting another toy rattlesnake or some any bizarre present, I unwrapped the gift carefully, bracing myself for the worst. The face of a smiling, disfigured Japanese doll met my terrified gaze, and at that same, inopportune moment, the lights went out. I instinctively dropped the doll in shock, and screamed. The lights did come back a mere couple of minutes later, but I was terribly shaken, so much, that I turned into a trembling, sobbing mess and had curled myself into a ball out of fear. And that was the scene that met my family when they burst through the door.
When my aunt found out about her son's prank that went too far, she dragged my cousin by the ear across the house, and spanked his butt multiple times for punishment. However, it wasn't much compensation since the damage was already done. Because of him, I've been plagued by nightmares every night, which worried my family greatly.
It took me almost a year to recover. But even then, my fear of dolls remained. And to my utter misfortune, it even followed me to this second life.
If you ask me what happened to that creepy Japanese doll my cousin gave me, naturally it was thrown away by my irate parents. But this... Unlike that cousin, Mayumi-san had pure intentions. She even handsewn this herself, when she could just purchase as many dolls as she want, or she could just ask her parents to design a doll to her liking. It showed just how much effort she put in into making this into a charm for me...especially for me. I smiled at that thought, now viewing the doll in a new light.
I guess I'll just fix this up later...
"...on that note, you can also have this," Mayumi-san was saying, which snapped me out of my reverie. I watched curiously as she took something out of her purse. "Please hold out your hand, Mifune-san."
As I did so, she deposited a sharp, slender needle onto my palm.
Eh?
"This charm doll is even more effective when you stab this needle on its body however many times you want to. The more you stab it, the more luck will surely come your way. It would surely help you on your exams and even on your future endeavors..."
I didn't listen to the rest of her explanation as I stared blankly at the said needle.
Is Mayumi-san – the elegant, graceful, ideal ojou-sama Mayumi-san – practicing voodoo? And worse, trying to rope me into also doing it?
...should I need to get concerned for her sake?