'Are we still going to Shuko's school festival together?' I asked Tsunan, as he was putting on his shoes to leave for work in the morning of the following day.
*Flashback*
Four days ago…
'I've made Onigiri for you,' I said to Tsunan with a cheerful smile, as I came out of the house to head for the train station. 'I know that you like Onigiri!'
'Thank you for the attention!' he told me. 'And take care of yourself, okay? Don't take any unnecessary risks!'
I nodded, with another smile. I was about to turn away when he began to say, 'Also...'
I paused, looking back at him.
'I wanted to ask you... Do you want us to go to Shuko's school festival together?'
The teenaged girl had invited everyone at the organization to come.
'I mean, if you're back from mission by then?'
'Yes. I'll be very pleased to accompany you,' I murmured, gazing at him and blushing.
***
Shuko's school festival was for today.
'Yes, of course,' he answered, with a gentle look.
I smiled happily and handed him his bag, as he got to his feet to leave.
'Ittekimasu!'
'Itterasshai!'
***
In the late afternoon…
'Are you ready to leave?' asked Tsunan when I came down into the living room and he turned around to face me.
'Yes,' I replied, and found him watching me intently.
'You're wearing the lipstick that I gifted you. It suits you well.'
I lowered my eyes and blushed.
Something occurred to me, suddenly.
'Say,' I murmured, hesitantly. 'Do you- Do you find that my dual-colored eyes make me resemble... a monster?'
'What?!' He sounded shocked. 'Of course, not! What takes over you to say such a thing?'
'Oh no, nothing! Forget it!' I whispered, feeling a bit uncomfortable for having asked him this question. I was about to make past him when he grabbed my lower arm, causing me to stop and look at him in the eyes.
'Shun! You can believe me! I find you very beautiful!'
I stared at him, my face heated up at his words. After a minute, I looked down shyly and my eyes fell onto his bandaged hand which was still on my lower arm.
'Does your hand hurt you a lot?' I inquired, with deep concern. The cut was quite profound.
'No. And you, your injuries?'
'I'm fine,' I replied, with a smile, meeting his eyes again.
***
A short while later...
Toda High School was the only high school of the town.
It was in this very high school that Tsunan had followed his studies, as well as, several other members of the organization.
There was one of a crowd at the festival.
The courtyard of the school has been transformed into a fair and a podium has been set on the outdoor playground where students held group performances.
We reached the festival in time to watch the dance performance of Shuko and the girls in her class, which marked the close of the spectacle, by sunset. Tsunan and I moved to the fair after that.
We tasted many different foods and we stopped at several stalls to have a look at what were being sold. At one of stalls could be found face masks, each of them representing a different animal of the Chinese zodiac and we tried a few ones just for fun.
'Look over there!' I exclaimed, then, pointing at one of the stalls on the other side of the lane, where people were playing the traditional Japanese game Kingyo-sukui. 'I want to try that!'
I hurried for the stall of the said-activity, Tsunan tagging along.
The rule was very simple. Players could take the scooped goldfish home and the game was unlimited, so players could scoop until their pois are completely broken.
After I have paid the participation cost, the stall keeper gave me a poi and a bowl.
'I'll put them in the pond on the side of the house!' I told Tsunan cheerily and crouching down in front of the pool, I started with the game but, unfortunately, I didn't succeed to scoop even one goldfish.
'Oh no!' I moaned, showing Tsunan my broken poi. The game was over for me.
'Wait! Let me try!' he said, deciding to participate at his turn.
I watched him as he scooped one goldfish after another and put them in his bowl with much rapidity and care.
'Sugoi!' I exclaimed, falling into admiration in front of him. He had succeeded to scoop five goldfish at all!
The stall keeper put them into a special bag for him and the doctor handed it to me. 'Here!'
'Thank you!' I told him in delight, gazing at the goldfish happily.
I caught sight of a familiar face in the crowd at that moment.
'Ameonna!' I exclaimed in surprise at the female spirit, who was coming towards us.
'Good evening!' she greeted, pleasantly and she gave me a small hug, which I gladly returned.
'It's so nice to see you again!' I told her and a flush of color adorned her cheeks as she announced, 'Well, we're going to see each other more often now! I've decided to stay in Toda!'
'Really?'
'Yo, Tsunan!' came Hatsu's voice out of the blue and the doctor and I looked at the blond male standing a distance away, alongside Heihachi, the two waving at us.
'Will you please excuse me?' said Tsunan, and he moved away to meet up with the two younger males, leaving Ameonna and I alone with each other to chat.
The female spirit and I headed for a quieter place to talk and we took seat under a tree on the side of the school building.
'After we parted the other day, I came across of Yosunori Shimazaki again. We've sat down and had a long conversation. He managed to convince me to stay in Toda,' she informed me, smiling at the ground. Then, flushing up, she looked up at me and told me in a panic, 'But don't go imagining things, huh! We're just friends! I did it mainly for Natsuhiko. He held on a lot to moving in Toda such that he can spend more time with Gakkuri! I thought that the kid and I could live together.'
'I see,' I said, smiling too. 'It's very kind of you. I'm glad to have both of you here.'
'Natsuhiko and I had wanted to give you the news earlier, but we learnt that you were gone on mission.'
'Yes. In a village named Ogita.'
'Ameonna! Shun!'
We looked up at the sound of Yosunori's voice. I guessed that the female spirit and he had come to the festival together.
'There you are!' he said to Ameonna, his expression nervous.
Ameonna seemed to be nervous too in his presence.
Tsunan, Heihachi and Hatsu joined us too at that moment, and getting to my feet, I told the female spirit, 'Ameonna, I present you Hatsu and Heihachi!'
Standing up too, she greeted the blond male good evening and then, looking at Heihachi, she giggled, 'I believe that we've met before… Kōmori-san!'
The latter scratched the back of his head in embarrassment.
I chuckled.
'Do you know what I was thinking?' declared Hatsu, all suddenly. 'This school festival has reminded me of our childhood and the games that we used to play at the time. How about we play hide and seek?
'Aren't we a bit too old to play this game?' asked Heihachi.
'I'm in for it!' Ameonna declared at the blond, eagerly, putting a hand up. 'I've always wanted to play this game!'
'In this case, me also!' stated Yosunori, taking a glance at Ameonna.
'Well, I'm in for it too!' I said, putting my hand up similarly. Then, looking at Tsunan with a pleading look, I asked him, 'Will you please play with us?'
'Alright,' he agreed, and I gave him a smile, pleased.
'Well, since everyone wants to play...' Heihachi trailed off, and Hatsu exclaimed, ecstatically, 'Yosh!'
Hatsu was designated as the seeker and as he began counting to ninety, we all split up to hide. The players who would get caught would need to help him seek the other hiders. The hider last found would be the winner. We could hide anywhere in the school, except within the fair.
I decided to hide myself in the genkan of the school.
Just as I entered through the door, abruptly, a hand covered my mouth from behind, pulling me backward.
I looked over my shoulder instantly and saw that it was Tsunan.
He put his forefinger over his lips to indicate me to remain silent, before he lowered his hand from over my mouth, and gave me a gentle smile, which I returned.
Hiding together, we took a peek outside of the door and caught sight of Hatsu who had finish his count and was seeking for the hiders. He didn't look towards the building and simply continued his way ahead.
'He's gone,' said Tsunan after the blond was gone out of view, and the doctor and I looked at each other.
A frown creased his forehead.
'Shun, I wanted to talk to you about Cho, Agasa and Yanagi. Hatsu told me everything. That is, I've pushed him to.'
My breath caught. I guessed that he suspected something that evening of the Chocolate Day.
'I'm sorry,' I told him, sincerely, lowering my head. 'I know that I should have told you about it, but it's just that I didn't want to create any tension between the girls and you. Also, I feared that you might begrudge yourself for what they did.' Looking up into his eyes then, I assured him, 'But it's alright. Till now, they haven't done anything too bad.'
'Shun, I don't want you to hide these kinds of things from me,' he stated, staring at me seriously.
'I promise you that it's the last time.'
Unexpectedly, he took hold of a lock of my hair and gently let it slipped out of his hand, causing me to blush.
We didn't tear our gazes from each other for a whole while until, a familiar voice exclaimed, 'Oh, you're so cute together!'
Our heads snapped around at Hatsu who was leaning against one of the lockers with his arms crossed over his chest, a large grin on his face.
He had entered the room silently through the inside door.
I blushed at his comment, before I realized that Tsunan and I have been found!
'And two hiders for me!' the blond exclaimed, triumphantly.
The doctor and I came out of the building with Hatsu to search for the others with him.
'How many do you bet that Ameonna and Yosunori have also hidden together?!'
The blond male's intuition turned out to be correct. We found the two hiding together behind the podium.
That left us only Heihachi out to seek. The latter was the winner.
'You know, this round of hide and seek reminds me of an old scary story from my hometown,' declared Hatsu while we were seeking out for Heihachi. 'In the high school that I used to go, there was an urban legend which said that, if you intrude yourself in the school and play hide and seek at the hour of the bull, that is, between 2.00 to 2.30 a.m- which is the witching hour for Japan when the veil between the world of living and that of the dead is at it's thinest- one of the players inevitably disappears.'
'They-They disappear?' stuttered Ameonna.
I gulped.
'Yes,' he replied, taking a glance at the female spirit over his shoulder. 'They simply disappear and are never found again. The legend has started when a group of ex-students had intruded the infrastructure one night to look back over their school days. They decided to play hide-and-seek. They were six people at all. The "it" found all the hiders except one. At first, they thought that the latter had simply hid himself extremely well. But then, they found one of his shoes lying on the roof of the school!'
'What was one of his shoes doing on the roof? Why would he remove it?' asked Ameonna in a gibber.
We entered the building of the school. The corridors were desert, all the lights off.
I began to feel a bit jittery.
Hatsu carried on with his story, telling us, 'They believed that he was playing a prank on them and they continued to search for him. At daybreak, they still hadn't found him. They told themselves that he had probably gone back home, still thinking that he was pranking with them. So, they headed home too. But the next day, they learnt that he hadn't gone to work. His family didn't know where he was gone anymore. The police viewed the cameras on the other side of the street that had a clear view onto the gate of the school, but their missing friend is not seen coming out of the school.'
Ameonna and I exchanged a look, breaking into cold sweat. We were climbing the stairs now.
'Where could he have disappeared? The five remaining friends remembered the scream they had heard which had brought them onto the roof of the school where they had found the shoe. It had been their friend's voice and the time at which it had occurred was during the hour of the bull!'
We were almost to the rooftop of the building.
'The legend continued with another group of six friends. They were three couples, and the boys wanted to show their girlfriends their old high school. And one of the girls had disappeared. She was the last hider. The others heard her scream, they rushed on the roof of the school and found only one of her shoes. The rumor spread very quickly and the school attracted many skeptics who tried to prove the legend to be false by playing the game at the said time.'
Hatsu paused down to face us, his expression sinister.
'And every single time, one of the players… disappeared!'
All color drained out of my face and I was resisting the urge of screaming out in horror. Ameonna was in the same state.
'Stop it! You're going to scare them!' Tsunan groaned at Hatsu.
'Wha- What are we doing here?' stuttered Yosunori, and we realized that he had gone pale too.
'I'm sure that Heihachi is hiding on the roof!' replied the blond, in an even tone, thumbing over his shoulder. Turning around, he made the rest of the way up to the door and yanked it open.
Tagging along, we followed Hatsu onto the roof.
We took a look around us searching for Heihachi when, our eyes fell onto the piece of item lying there on the floor.
My blood ran cold.
'Is this… a shoe?' asked Ameonna, her teeth clattering.
'Is- Is this Heihachi's shoe?' I stammered.
'It can't be! We're in Toda and it's not the hour of bull yet!' gibbered Yosunori as he checked his watch, forcing himself to grin in order to reassure us and himself.
Heihachi's voice came at that moment, in a blood-curdling scream.
Ameonna, Yosunori and I fell down on our behinds, screaming our lungs out with terror.
'Aren't you ashamed to scare them like this?!' Tsunan reprimanded the blond male, and grinning widely in self-satisfaction, the latter told us, 'Relax! I've invented the whole story!'
My mouth fell agape.
He- He invented everything!
'Hatsu!' called Heihachi, who arrived from behind us.
'Yo! Heihachi! How did you know that I'd try frighten them with my scary story?' the blond asked his boyfriend.
'I suppose that I know you well!'
'Same here!'
They grinned at each other in complicity.
Hatsu!!!
Thank you for reading!
Glossary
Kingyo-sukui - Scooping Goldfish
Poi - paper scooper
Ittekimasu; Itterasshai - the first expresses "I'll get going now, but I promise to return safely.", the second is the response to send the person off and wish them a good time, telling them to come back safely.