The steering wheel kicked in my hands as the rental car hit a patch of packed ice and drifted half a lane toward the guardrail.

  “Okay—okay—” I breathed it like a prayer and eased off the gas.

  Yuna laughed beside me, cheeks flushed from the heater and the thrill of it. She had her phone up with the map app glowing blue-white in the dim, as if a screen could bully a mountain into behaving.

  “This is insane,” she said, nose nearly to the window. “It’s like the world got wiped clean.”

  Outside, the world was nothing but white and motion. Snow came in sideways sheets, wind-driven pellets that rattled the car’s body like fingernails dragging over metal. The wipers were on max and still couldn’t keep up; every sweep bought me maybe two heartbeats of visibility before the glass filmed over again.

  I stole a look at Yuna and felt that familiar tug—wanting to keep her smiling, wanting to be the kind of man who didn’t get rattled by a little weather.

  We were supposed to be doing a graceful “graduation trip” through the Tohoku snow country: hot springs, good food, photos that made our friends jealous. I’d told myself the forecast was just being dramatic. Now the road had narrowed to a single dark groove between rising walls of plowed snow, and even that groove kept trying to vanish.

  The navigation voice stayed calm. “Thirteen kilometers to your destination.”

  Thirteen kilometers might as well have been thirteen lifetimes. In a whiteout, distance stopped meaning anything. The mountain ate depth and direction until the only real thing left was the sound of the wind and the thud of my own pulse.

  Yuna wiped a circle in the fogged glass with her fingertip. The clear patch lasted a second before condensation bled back in and blurred it like a closing eye.

  “Do you think we should turn around?” she asked, softer now.

  I felt sweat under my palms despite the cold pressing through the doors. I turned the heater down a notch and forced my voice light.

  “We’re fine. They said the car has snow tires. Chains are in the trunk.”

  The word probably sat heavy on my tongue even though I didn’t say it out loud.

  By the time the sun started to sink—more a dimming of gray than anything like a sunset—an orange smear appeared ahead through the snow.

  Light.

  A lantern swinging under an eave. Then another. The outline of an old wooden building clinging to the side of a valley slope like it had been nailed there to keep it from sliding into the ravine.

  Relief hit me so hard my knees went weak.

  We rolled into the parking area and the tires crunched down into fresh powder. The lot had been cleared, but only barely; snow swallowed our ankles the moment we stepped out. Cold bit through my shoes like teeth.

  Yuna hugged herself and grinned anyway. “It really does feel like we came to the edge of the world.”

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  That line—edge of the world—stuck in my chest in a way I didn’t like. Like she’d said it without understanding the shape of it.

  When I slid open the front door, warm air and the damp-sweet smell of old tatami washed over me. The lobby was wide, but almost empty. A wood stove crackled in the center. Beside it sat a tripod and a camera case, set up like someone had been waiting.

  And then I saw her.

  A woman in a loud down jacket with a beanie pulled low, eyes bright in a way that didn’t match the sleepy inn. Next to her stood a man who looked like he’d been born holding equipment cases—silent, efficient, already wiping down a lens.

  Yuna made a sound like she’d found a treasure chest. “No way… Kikurin?”

  My feet stopped moving.

  Kikurin—the “sensitive” paranormal streamer. The one who went to haunted sites for views, screamed on cue, prayed on cue, cried on cue, and somehow made it all feel like a party.

  Yuna rushed over with her phone out, asking for a picture like we weren’t in the middle of a blizzard on a mountain. Kikurin smiled like she’d been doing that pose since birth. The cameraman stayed blank-faced, focused on the gear.

  Watching it, I felt a cold suspicion grow legs inside my ribs.

  Yuna hadn’t picked this inn at random. She’d shown me the listing, said the snow scenery looked pretty, that the food looked good, that it would be “romantic.” She’d left out the part where this place was also famous online.

  Or infamous.

  The innkeeper appeared from behind the counter—an okami with neatly pinned hair and a smile that looked pasted on. She bowed deep.

  I took the key and tried to sound casual. “Um… I heard a rumor. This place has… stories, right? Like something shows up?”

  Her smile twitched. Just for a blink, fear flashed under the skin of her face.

  “Oh, no,” she said too quickly. “That’s… just promotional planning. An event company’s idea. Our guests can relax in peace—”

  She kept talking without breathing, like if she stopped, something might slip out. My stomach tightened.

  Yuna didn’t notice. She was waving at Kikurin, glowing with excitement, tugging my sleeve like we’d won some kind of lottery.

  “Can you believe it? Staying here the same night as her!”

  Lottery. Yeah.

  The lobby had only a handful of other guests: a middle-aged couple with mountain packs, and an old man by the window cradling a teacup in both hands like it was the only warm thing left in his life.

  On the wall hung a painting: snowy mountains, black trees, and a woman in a white kimono standing between them. The eyes were smeared out, as if someone had painted over them in disgust. In one corner of the frame, strips of yellowed paper—talismans—had been slapped down in layers. The edges lifted and fluttered in the heated air.

  Kikurin leaned in close to her camera and muttered with a delighted little laugh, “This place is nasty. Like, in the best way.”

  Her tone made my skin crawl.

  As the okami started explaining the inn—meals brought to the room, bath hours, quiet requests—I found my gaze snagging on a door near the large bathhouse sign.

  It was set back a little, half-hidden in shadow. Old wood. A strip of red tape slashed across it diagonally. Over the tape, paper charms were pressed down hard.

  The message was plain even if the writing wasn’t: don’t.

  I couldn’t stop myself. “Sorry. That door by the baths… why is it taped off?”

  The okami’s face tightened. Her smile didn’t disappear, but it stopped being alive.

  “…Ah. That,” she said, voice dropping as if we were suddenly surrounded by ears. “It’s an old outdoor bath. It’s… deteriorated. Closed for safety. Please don’t go in.”

  Please, she said, with the weight of a command.

  I nodded, but the cold in my chest spread anyway. The red tape fluttered in the draft—just a faint movement. For a second it looked like someone on the other side had exhaled against it.

  I looked away fast.

  Yuna didn’t see. Kikurin’s laughter bounced off the high ceiling and died before it could settle. The stove popped and cracked, too loud in the empty space.

  The hallway to our room creaked underfoot. Small mirrors hung along the wall, all of them fogged or dull enough that they didn’t properly reflect a face. The lighting was weak, and knots in the wood looked like bruises.

  When we opened our sliding door, Yuna let out a happy little sigh. The room was larger than I’d expected. An old kind of charm—low table, scroll, clean futons. I’d blown a chunk of my part-time savings on this trip and, for a moment, it felt worth it.

  Outside the window, snow piled up like a wall. Beyond the glass, it wasn’t “night.” It was blank. Like the world ended at the pane.

  Somewhere down the hall, that strip of red tape waited.