Chapter - 5
Aikawa had woken up from her sleep. She recalls everything and then shortly gets off of her bed. She looked at the clock, it was 10:34 pm. She then looks around to see if Ryota was still there, after looking around the house for a while she finds Ryota sleeping on the sofa in the living room.
Ryota didn't wake Aikawa up and as it was already late at night, he decided to stay there; Also for Aikawa's security reasons, Hence, he informed his home that he would be sleeping over at a friend's house today. he locked up the entrance doors of the house after finding the keys in Aikawa's room, and then went to sleep in the living room.
After seeing Ryota, Aikawa said to herself with a little bit of anger "he should have just slept in my room, why sleep on the sofa [(she is a pure hearted person) apparently all other rooms were locked]". Aikawa got a blanket and covered Ryota's lower body with it, also fixing his sleeping position and getting a pillow under his head
After checking if everything was alright she went to the kitchen, got some food to eat and afterwards took her medicine and shortly went to sleep.
During morning
It was around 6 am in the morning, Ryota had just woken up. He gets up and thinks "it's already morning, I should go back home now" he decides to first check on Aikawa but she wasn't in her room suddenly a voice comes from back "Ryota-kun".
It was Aikawa, she had already woken up. "Uh! Aikawa-san, I thought you were still sleeping" Ryota was a bit surprised as he had planned to go back home before Aikawa woke up to make a good impression (the reason why he thought that is unknown). "Ofcourse, I am not someone who could sleep 12hr straight" Aikawa gave a mild laugh while saying this.
Aikawa : I have already prepared breakfast
Ryota-kun. you can brush your teeth there; there should be some unused brush. Then tell me when you need breakfast
Ryota : Sure thing!
Ryota thinks; I'm feeling kinda awkward but whatever, I get to eat breakfast made by Kei-san. Hehe.
Ryota brushes his teeths and then sits together with Aikawa to do breakfast. "Does it taste good!?" Aikawa asked with curiosity and a sparkle in her eyes. The food tasted like heaven to Ryota for some reason, thus he answered "yes, it tastes fantastic to be honest!". "I'm glad to hear that Ryota-kun!" She was happy that her food tasted good as she was still inexperienced.
Ryota went home after the breakfast but before leaving, he united his courage and asked Aikawa "would you like to go to the upcoming Tanabata festival with me, just the two of us" (he was indirectly asking for a couple date)
As much worried as he was about Aikawa's reaction, it went quite smoothly and Aikawa nigh-instantly agreed on Ryota's proposal "Ofcourse! I would love to." This elevated Ryota's happiness to heaven and made him eagerly wait for the day he goes with Aikawa - technically - on a date.
*Yawn..!* Man! I wonder why am I still feeling so sleepy as if I barely slept at all even though I slept for around 8hr or some…But whatever, minor things like these shouldn't be my concern when I got a date to look up to (he had presupposed it to be a date already).
*The next day*
Ryota was at his school with his friends and Suguru suddenly proposed an idea in front of everyone "hey guys! Do y'all know about the haunted place, the one where people has gone missing?" Someone replied "yes, what about it?"
"Let's go check it out, an urban legend hunting!" Suguru was feeling a thrill down his spine though it wasn't the same for everyone "meh! Why do you always get the worst of the ideas". "Huh? Why!?" Suguru's mood suddenly got down, "why you ask? Isn't it simple, because it's too dangerous there".
Everyone was against the idea except one "well, I'm all up for it, because I like thrills", it was none other than Ryota who said this with a grin on his face in the attempt to impress a certain other person present there at the moment; Aikawa!
"I will go too if you're so excited to go there, after all there should be someone to look after you, Suguru-kun", "huh Yumeko you're saying it as if I'm a careless person" Yumeko didn't say anything on this but her facial expression clearly implied "Yes".
"If you guys are going then I can go too.."
Aikawa asserted this with a courageous expression though Ryota's reaction to it was quite dreadful "it would be really dangerous there Aikawa-san, I won't suggest you go with us." Showing that he was worried for Aikawa.
On which Aikawa replied "oh...but don't worry about that Ryota-kun, I may not look like it but I'm quite experienced with urban legend explorations!" She was full of spirit and Ryota realized that he couldn't get her to change her mind.
I see, then I would be looking forward to accompany you along, Aikawa-san.
"Sure!"
You may think that Ryota was just worried about Aikawa's safety but in all actuality, he was just worried about his scaredness of ghosts and alike conceptions to get exposed in front of Aikawa.
Hence why he became dreadful the instant when Aikawa asserted that she would also go to the haunted place with them which got even worse when she told Ryota that she has experience in urban legend explorations because Ryota - you could say - was still a virgin in this. Though he immediately calmed himself down by making himself focus on the opportunity of being on a 'dangerous adventure with Aikawa', as he pictured it.
"Alright! So is anyone else coming?" Suguru was ebullient yet again after he got support from the aforementioned people though - quite surprisingly - no one else was ready to go so the plan was made only with the 4 of them and they decided to go there the same day after school.
They were to go home first, change their clothes and get any necessary stuff with them or something that may come to use. Then they were to meet at a certain park and when everyone would be gathered there, they would head for the planned destination.
Everyone had reached the park and then they went straight for the haunted place by a bus, it was a couple of miles away from the main city. The place was close to mountains, quite forestry with multiple abandoned buildings to be seen in the area
It also had very less traffic, all much because of the recent two missing cases of the two girls, approx 20yr old aged. No body or proper evidence was found but from an eyewitness, the girls were last time seen on 'the place'.
Rumors spread that it was the work of a supernatural force and thus giving birth to urban legends which caught the interest of Suguru and the others hence they came to explore the area even though it was highly advised by officers to not wander near there.
Ryota and the company had reached 'the place' and wandered around the nearby area for a notable amount of time, also checking a couple of abandoned buildings though they found nothing unusual and were slowly coming to a conclusion that they won't be seeing anything "supernatural" here.
But then Yumeko's sight fell on a suspicious abandoned wooden house, it seemed that someone had been there from the looks of it and it was quite huge for someone to hide in it too. She told the others about it, Yumeko was a sensible person and thus she advised the others to not go in there, also suggesting that they should head back home now.
Aikawa was in favor of Yumeko but Suguru was thrilled down his spine to go and explore that building and told everyone to hurry up there. Yumeko tried to stop Suguru but he didn't listen to her and went on with his decision by saying that "nothing would happen don't worry, let's just go!". The others couldn't leave him alone and hence they had no choice but to follow.
Suguru reached the front gate of the house, and he slowly opened it. The opening of the gate made an unpleasant sound followed by a period of complete silence coming off from the house as it had no sign of life. "Let's go inside." Suguru said in a low tone to the others. Suguru and Ryota had a baseball bat in their one hand and Yumeko and Aikawa had torches. Their mobile phones were in their pockets.
They explored the rooms one by one, still finding no sign of anything unusual in there, only getting their hands on scraps, old furniture and accessories.
The house was of two floors, so they decided to go to the upper floor though Yumeko was still in favor of ditching this. After getting to the upper floor, Suguru rushed ahead to the balcony following a room, the others were still behind thus they decided to follow Suguru. Suguru was suddenly out of sight, the others called out to him but there was no response.
Yumeko got very anxious, suddenly, they heard a sound from the nearby room. Yumeko rushed to the location, Aikawa and Ryota behind her.
When the two reached the room behind Yumeko, they saw Yumeko lying on the surface and beside her standing a tall (around 6ft) and mildly muscular man with a stun gun in his hand.
The man started approaching Ryota and Aikawa, first targeting Aikawa but Ryota rushed with his bat to hit the man in his head before he does anything to Aikawa, the shot hit and the man was disbalanced a bit, his head turned to the side and blood started coming out of his head.
Ryota suddenly held Aikawa's hands and shouted "Run!!" They sprinted with all they had but suddenly Ryota's head was grabbed from behind and instantly slammed into the wall beside, it was the man who did it.
The sudden shock was slowly making him lose consciousness, he was then thrown on the floor. His eyes were going blurry and blood coming out of his head were covering his sight as he saw the man approaching Aikawa; who had fallen on the surface and was shocked to her core. As Ryota was going blank he murmured "Aikawa..run..you have to.."
…Ryota's eyes closed, he had lost his consciousness.
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ To be continued…