Friday, April 10th - 2:30PM

The bell rings to signal the end of the class. The words "stand, bow, sit" echo throughout the school, as the class representatives in each class go through the closing motions. Students begin to file out of the rooms.

The school year has just started, and the end of the first week draws close. The opening and welcoming ceremonies have already come and gone in the past days. Second and third year students have reunited with their friends, cursed or thanked the administration for the classes they were put in, while first years become familiar with their new classmates.

The weather for the past week has been pleasant, and the sakura trees drop their petals on the roads, the campus grounds, and the buildings with abandon. The forecast calls for light rain over the next two days. The air is warm, but humid.

The rumors about the old building have already circulated through the students. The newest one, the one about the barricade disappearing, is just starting to bud. Those that hear of it say, perhaps jokingly, that they would check it out. Most of those people never get around to actually doing so.

Most of those people.

---

Haruka yawned, turning her head from the window down onto her desk. She'd been thinking about what would have happened if she was inserted into her favorite anime. Standard fare for her, really. She stared at her notebook, before stuffing her things into her bag.

She stood up, looking around the classroom. Almost everyone had already left, and those that stayed did so because they were on cleaning duty. So, Haruka left the classroom. She made her way to the stairwell before stopping. She turned, looking out the window towards the old building.

She saw something moving in the second floor window of the old building.

"Ah..."

It was the quiet before the storm.

A flash of tongue as Mitsuki Ishikawa licked her lips. The air was full of moisture. There was something anticipatory about it. Light rain was the prediction. She was hoping for a typhoon.

Everyone shuffled out of their classrooms and she was no exception. All her things had already been packed without fuss. But she did not go home with the press of the crowd and the laughs and conversation of her peers. She went up the stairwell instead. A thrill called her. The roof, the coming rain. But something unexpected stopped her. A girl standing there. One of the upperclassmen. Beyond her through smudged glass there was movement where there should have been none.

Mitsuki caught the girl's attention as best she could. She waggled her eyebrows. Social hierarchy was forgotten. There was a smirk on her face, a sparkle in her eyes.

Perhaps there was truth to the rumors.

“Hey, Sato!”

Sho turned at the sound of his name. One of his friends from the previous school year, Ryu, was approaching him at a trot. He had a glint in his eye as though he knew something that Sho didn’t.

“Have you heard the news?” Ryu asked, purposefully trying to build up suspense by refraining from getting to the point. Sho humored him and shook his head.

“Y’know,” Ryu went on, raising his brows as if surprised that Sho had no idea what he was talking about. “That old building by the school. I heard a rumor that the barricade disappeared last night. Of course, some attentionmonger probably just made it up, but who knows? I’ve heard some pretty spooky stuff about that place.”

“If you’re so curious, why don’t you just go check it out yourself?” Sho countered. “You’re always going on about wanting to meet your soul mate. Maybe yours is an actual ghost. How about you head down there tonight and tell me all about it tomorrow.”

“Who, me?” Ryu put a hand to his chest dramatically. “Fate wouldn’t be so cruel as to give me an undead girlfriend, Sato. Besides, I can’t go down there. What if some evil ghost sucks the life outta me? The school would fall apart without my awesome self to keep everyone’s spirits up. Hmm…” Ryu paused, scratching the stubble on his chin in thought. “I know! How about you go in my place? It wouldn’t make much of a difference around here if you went missing –ouch! Don’t hit me– and haven’t you told me you were curious too?”

“You’re such a baby,” Sho rolled his eyes. “Fine, I’ll go. Just remember, if I meet some hot undead chick, it’s your loss.” He adjusted the strap of his backpack over his shoulder and walked past Ryu, ignoring his friend’s sharp comeback.

As he strode down the hallway, Sho glanced out the window to look at the old building. It was indeed creepy, as any good haunted place should, but there was also something deeply disturbing about it. Sho just couldn’t put his finger on what. He stopped walking and just stared at the building. After a moment, he shrugged, putting the feeling off as his own paranoia.

Wait; hold the phone.

Sho’s eyes widened in shock when he saw something move in the window of the other building. But that couldn’t be right. The building was off-limits, so no one would be stupid enough to sneak inside during the day. Maybe his little joke wasn’t so farfetched after all. Sho mentally cursed himself. He had already told Ryu he was going to check it out. He didn’t want to look like a coward, so there was no backing out now.

He would find out what was hiding in that building whether he liked it or not.

deleted there was an issue with posting soz.

Toby thought as he grabbed his things and hurried to the door, he had a shift to get too at the pawn shop and Ojii-san had promised him a gift after work for spending so much time getting everything cleaned up and organized. While he had no idea what the man had intended to give, he was really hoping that he was going to get that ancient samurai face guard Ojii-san kept behind the counter. That thing was worth twice it's weight in yen, and it would take him not eating for a month to gather up that kinda spending money even with his uncle's stipends.Ryo was being loud again about something or another as he was leaving, but then again he was always being loud about something. He instantly felt bad for the ruined structure. He couldn't help but feel that the thing must be in pain. In his distracted state he bumped into Sho and fell promptly on his butt. "tch tch tch." he rubbed the new sore spot that he landed on, "S-s-sorry! didn't see you standing there!" He quickly darted his eyes back and forth making sure nothing fell out of his backpack before jumping to his feet and bowing repeatedly.

He didn't particularly dislike the boy, he wasn't mean by any means. Yet at the same time other students in general seemed to dislike Toby and usually when something starts off bad, it gets a lot worse when they found out it was him. It didn't help matters at all that Sho was far more imposing then Toby could ever hope to be and even standing he was a good foot or two taller.

"Okay, Bye!!"

Suzume walked briskly down the corridor. Even though she considered it walking, it was more like a bouncy small skip. She was in a pretty good mood, due to being back in school, chatting among her classmates and enjoying the day. The classroom she just got out of was on the second floor. She stayed a little bit longer to discuss a fun project that was going on. She always like being on higher floors to be able to see out more; it gave her mind room to fly, as she put it. She passed a group of chatting ladies who seem very enthusiastic about a topic.

"Didn't you hear about that building?"

"Oh, don't tell me you believe in that too. You can't believe everything boys say."

"No, I heard it too! It's not some weird joke.."

Weird joke? Sounds like they are serious about all this, she thought. Come to think of it, she heard rumors too. Strange rumors about the old building becoming open only at night. Sounds pretty cliche to me. She giggled thinking the boys said it to get girls to be scared and jump into their arms. Like a princess into the brave knight's protective embrace. "Fairy tails, ghost stories, myths and legends!" she chirped in a singsong voice.

She looked at her palm to see a small, little blue fish plushy key chain. She gave a warm smile to this little toy, but it was kinda special. Her father gave it to her when she was younger. When they moved a lot, he gave her this, and he said to take it with her on her first day to school. This fish will bring her good luck and comfort, he told her. Suzume always brought the fish her; it normally hung on her backpack, but she put in her pocket every year on the first day. Her lucky blue fish, who's name is Po
.
She pulled out of her memories about Po and looked ahead of her; a young man stood look out the window. Actually, no, there's two. She jumped back and hid behind the wall, then she peaked around the corner. She knew one of them, maybe, wasn't he in her age in grade? And something about a goof. And the other was on the ground for a second, which caused her to tilt her head in question. But the one boy, he didn't look like he wanted to play, he looked more fixed. He noticed his gaze, which made her very curious. What's he see? I wanna see too! She stepped a little ways from the corner to face the windows. Her eyes opened more, and she knew. It's the old building. She always called it forbidden . She let her eyes flow over it, her mouth opened with a little gasp in wonder and disbelief. "...It's..It's open."

She saw things moving in the old building. A sweep of peaking shadows, but she stared straight back. Suzume wasn't a medium or a crazy person, but she knew what she saw. Her brows came closer together slightly, and her normally gentle, innocent face became solid with a curious light in her eyes. That place... it's insidious. From here I can feel it's infested. But so many questions. So strange. With questions, there's answers, and something else in there.

She looked down at her blue fish, "What do you think about all this Po-Po?"

Ugh. The main character seat. Why the hell had he been assigned the main character seat? Akira glared at the window next to him. Sidestepping responsibility was just so much work, and now the universe was hinting at even more trouble? He studied his reflection. His hair wasn't spiky or an unusual color. Alright. Good. That probably disqualified him. He'd have to be on the lookout, anyway. Make sure to avoid any mysterious girls with mismatched eyes and huge guns on the way home from school.

God, he was being stupid.

Akira sighed. An expressive sigh. A sigh that summed up life. "I know where I am right now, and I don't give a shit." That kind of sigh. He'd practiced sighing a lot. There were varied types of sigh, and Akira was a master of them all, from the "Are you kidding me?" to the "Screw this noise." Only a true expert in the field could tell the difference. Translation: no one else cared. That summed up life. Good for it.

Oh. He was alone in the classroom now. That was probably a sign. As a member of the esteemed Go Home club, Akira didn't exactly have anywhere to be. No need to hurry. He could leisurely stroll home. Put on some chill tunes, continue not caring. The good life of mediocrity was the life for him.

An intelligent man would have continued walking when he saw a strange girl peeking out from behind a wall at two other dudes on the second floor. Love triangle? Secret crush? The formulation of a crime spree? Akira didn't care, but he ended up watching her anyway for lack of a better thing to do. A sane man would have walked away when she began talking to the key chain in her hand.

Instead, Akira loomed behind her and said "I think that you are very bad at spying. One out of ten. F minus. Redo the course. Make sure to pay tuition." He kept a straight face.

Kimiko was normally not one for the weird rumors.

Juicy gossip was appealing, sure. If something was going down with someone she knew, that was worth talking about. But fantasy stories about monsters and demons or ghosts or whatever? That gave her a laugh, but not much else. Kimiko didn't believe in ghosts, so the idea of some kind of haunting was usually brushed off without a second thought. After all, how could something imaginary show up in your mirror or closet?

This one was a little different though, because Kimiko wasn't just hearing about it down the line. She'd seen moving figures in the abandoned building herself, and while she'd brushed that off as an animal or reflection or something, it was harder to explain the barricade vanishing, and Kimiko had seen that too while walking home from a friend's house. A prank maybe, but it gave her an uncomfortable feeling.

So now, as she walked down the hallway with her friend Hiro, the other girl's sudden gasp caught her off-guard. "What is it?" She inquired, looking over to her see what happened. Hiro's gaze was fixed out the window, and Kimiko felt a chill run down her spine. "Did you see something?"

Hiro looked over at her and nodded. "Yeah, I saw a figure in the window of that old building." Kimiko opened her mouth, but Hiro continued, "And yeah, I know you don't believe in ghosts and whatnot, but doesn't it seem suspicious?" Kimiko had to concede that that was a good point. "Yeah, I guess. Hey!" She exclaimed. "What do you say we investigate? I've heard a lot of people talking about it, but I want to figure out what's really going on."

Hiro winced. "I dunno Kimiko, even if it's not ghosts, it might be dangerous."

"So?" Kimiko glared at her. "We'll be fine. I guarantee you it's not ghosts."

Hiro sighed. "Alright, but...I don't think I'm going with you. Call me crazy, but I have a bad feeling about it."

Truth be told, so did Kimiko. But she wasn't about to let that kind of thing stop her. Ghosts didn't exist after all, so how could something pretend hurt her, right? So as she continued down the hallway and they returned to their original conversation, Kimiko started to mentally prepare herself.

"Hmm... huh...?" Haruka mumbled, turning slowly to face the girl.

"Ah... hello. I don't recognize you. Are you a first-year? Ah... that must be the case. Hello. I'm Haruka Oshiro. Oh... is there someone you came to see up here... a secret crush? Maybe? Or... hmm... oh... hmm..." she paused, as her thoughts wandered again.

"Oh!" she suddenly blurted out. "Did you see? Someone... or something... was moving around in the old building. I wonder how they got inside..."

She turned back to the window.

"Ah... I see something again." she mumbled, as something splattered inside another one of the old building windows. The splatter faded quickly.

"Red...?"

Now this was definitely strange. Having one weird phenomenon happen in the old school building was bad enough, but two? Oh man, this must be one of the Seven Mysteries of Shin'youju. That was it.

Haruka chuckled slightly.

Mitsuki sobered quickly at Haruka's words. She had forgotten her facade. Quiet girl. Bookish girl. A girl who did not need attention. Not a girl who would be thrillseeking. Not a girl who would be smirking and laughing at a reflection or a spirit or a trespasser in the old building.

Or a splatter of red. Paint? Blood? Neither evaporated quite like the splatter had. There was something going on in there. She was sure of it now.

A chill ran down her spine. She was excited and a bit spooked and blushing at the mention of a secret crush all at the same time. But she had a facade to keep up.

"O-oh. Sorry. Really! I'm, uh, Mitsuki- I just thought you were someone else." She stuttered out that excuse as quiet as she could. Forced a smile and bowed awkwardly and excused herself.

If her words came out a bit fake it hardly mattered. She was sure she would never see Haruka again. Not in anything familiar enough to matter.

But she would be back for sure. Forget the coming rain. Forget the wished-for typhoon. Now it was the mysteries of the old building that weighed on her mind. When there was no one around to watch her, she would be back. The excitement could keep until then.

Mitsuki skipped all the way home. She only stopped when she almost ran into a truck.

Oh, wretched mother of hell, Akira should have known that something was missing. He had his earbuds, but not his trusty iPear media player. How could he listen to chill tunes without the tunes? Christ, he was a failure, straight to video, right there on the big screen. Literally the worst. He'd have to abort the current operation.

"I hope you've learned your lesson. Any lesson. I don't really care which. Have a mediocre day." A shame he couldn't stick around to see her reaction, but baffling people was almost as fun. The priceless moment of "what the actual fuck, Akira?" was what he lived for. Metaphorically speaking. He didn't actual live for it. What did he live for, again? Not dying. Yeah. That sounded good.

Back to the third floor he went. There'd been some weird rumors floating around about some weird building, but Akira could care less. He could, but he didn't. He cared enough to avoid caring. Investigating rumors was what main characters did. Akira walked back into the classroom he had recently vacated. There actually had been people inside, two dudes he knew. They were okay dudes, he guessed. Akira wasn't sure how he overlooked them, but it didn't really matter. What mattered? That was the question. A bad question. A question to avoid. Akira went to his desk.

Despair. Sorrow. Trauma. It wasn't there. Akira turned to face the others, face as grave as a military funeral. "The music. It died, today. Either of you seen it?"

Suzume heard a voice behind her. She jumped with a squeak, while dropping Po. Quickly she bent down to retrieve her fish, and spun upwards to see a boy walking about snipping about earbuds. "Hey there, Black Cat!" she called after him. She could see he was ahead of her. Man, he scares a girl then just, poof? Silly. But she didn't want to chase after him. He was going back up to the third floor, so she just stood there and watched him go. I'll catch up with that cat later.

She tip-toed away from the two boys she was previously snooping on, and walked to another hallway. She looked up from Po, and saw a girl looking out of the window. Her feet stopped and she curiously looked at her. Observing, she let her eye fix on what she was looking at; the old building. Her face dropped slightly, that place. A cold feeling gracefully danced up her spine, like fingers of a ghost. She gave a small shutter, and turned her focus back to the girls; So, I'm not the only one? Suzume stepped forward to become more visible. She closed her hand snugly around Po as she spoke up.

"You know too, don't you?"

Kozue had been deeply engrossed in the word game he'd been playing on his phone, and hadn't noticed Akira re-enter the room. He was startled when the other boy suddenly spoke and jumped a bit, causing the chair he was leaning back in to teeter for a few heart-stopping moments before it settled safely on all four legs. See, this was why he didn't normally talk to people. If you just came up to someone and started talking to them, you could potentially make them fall and die in a traumatic chair accident.

After taking a few moments to recover from his mini heart attack, Kozue turned to look properly at Akira; he'd been so concerned with not dying that he hadn't actually processed what Akira had said.

"I, uh. I didn't quite catch that. What?" He looked to Yori for help, which he did not receive, because Yori was drawing and not paying attention to Akira either. Thanks, Yori.

The slow division of the empty white paper by thin, light black lines pleased him. It was disruption. Transition. Transformation. The natural progression from the immaterial to the material.

He did not care what he drew. He simply drew what he saw. What he saw right now was a tree, so that was what he drew.

He did not see Akira attempting to get his attention to look for something inconsequential. He did not see Kozue begging for his assistance with his eyes. He did not see Akira's treasured MP3 player. He did not see these things because they were not important.

The tree was important. It offered stimulation. Gratification. Kozue and Akira offered to waste his time.

The choice was simple. Kozue would forgive him later.

Akira blinked as Kozue, apparently scared shitless, almost fell backwards in his chair. Yori didn't even seem to notice that Akira existed. The sign of a great man. A man after Akira's own heart. Akira could admire a man like that. He didn't. But he could. Akira turned to face Kozue directly. The guy seemed really nervous, for some reason. Could he be the culprit? If so, he had to be brought to justice. It was the only thing Akira was willing to expend effort on.

"You see, there is a small box, created by a great man." Akira made a vague gesture to indicate the box. "This box contains the heart and soul of music. I was entrusted to keep it safe. I left it at my desk, but it is no longer at my desk." Akira pointed to the protagonist seat. "If I fail to recover it, some evil force may acquire it, and call my taste in music lame. This must be prevented at all costs."

Akira leaned in uncomfortably close to Kozue, resting his elbows on the desk, eyes wide and unblinking. "Do you know anything?"

Now on the list of things that were not okay, how close Akira was getting to Kozue was definitely not okay. He leaned back to match how Akira was leaning forward, keeping hold of his desk just in case his chair decided to start any more shenanigans.

"That... sounds like a video game quest. I don't really play video games." Kozue tried to smile disarmingly. It looked and felt forced. "I dunno, man. We're not even in the same class, why would I know?"

Actually, one of those video game features where you could just press 'X' to skip past a conversation was sounding pretty good right about now. "Yeah. I-dee-kay, as they say." Kozue didn't know anyone who actually used chatspeak in real life, other than some of the girls who liked to crowd around his brother after baseball games, but a nice vague "they" made it sound like he had people on his side, right?

"That isn't your desk," Yori stated. He didn't bother to break his gaze from the page to be sure. It was simply a fact that did not need verification. Akira was not in their class, therefore it could not be his desk.

Akira was the sort of individual who had traditional intelligence in spades, as well as the arrogance that came with it, without any of the common sense to employ it properly. It was unsurprising that he'd mixed up their classrooms. Again. It was a pattern. A waste of time. But he would acknowledge it briefly, if only to gain peace.

His hand waved in vague direction. "Three doors over, Akira. As always."

Aw. Kozue didn't play along. His awkwardness was kind of amusing, Akira guessed, but he felt kind of bad now. Not that bad, of course, but a little bad. Akira nodded and backed up from the desk. "You are a poet and you are wholly unaware, I see. Have a slightly better than average day." He waved and was just about to return to his desk when Yori spoke up. The nerd.

Akira turned and stared at him. Oh. That explained why Kozue and Yori were in his classroom. He was in their classroom. Like usual. He wandered into their room often enough that he considered them to be honorary classmates. That wasn't really a high honor. The equivalent of a "you tried" medal. Made of plastic.

He considered stopping to mess with Yori for a bit, but the guy was clearly in a "don't even try to fuck with me" state of mind, and Akira didn't feel like having a pencil thrown at him. So instead he nodded, said "Have a nice minute." and left the classroom.

Sho dragged his gaze away from the building when he felt someone collide with him. He staggered slightly, taking a moment to regain his balance. When he looked down, he saw a guy from his class on the floor. He snapped out of his stupor long enough to offer the poor guy a hand up off the ground.

“Um, sorry,” Sho said, still in a bit of a daze. “I should have been watching out. I didn’t realize I was standing in the middle of the hallway.”

He hesitated, struggling to remember the guy’s name. Tomo… Torai… Toushi…? Oh right, didn’t this kid have a nontraditional name? It was English, or something. Sho racked his brain, trying to pull out the memory. After a moment, he finally remembered.

“Toby, right?” Sho said, offering an uncertain smile. He felt his eyes slowly wander back to the window. He was hoping to look back and see nothing, if only to reassure himself that the figure in the building was only a trick of the light or his mind playing tricks on him. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Sho felt his blood run cold as a deep crimson liquid spattered the window of the abandoned building.

What the…? Was somebody just murdered?

“Did you see that?” Sho asked anxiously, his voice a bit higher pitched than he had intended. He wasn’t a coward by any means, but paranormal activity always gave him the creeps. Besides, even if it wasn’t a ghost, that would mean he just witnessed someone’s death. He blinked and looked back at the window, but the red stain was gone. Maybe he was losing it, but Sho refused to believe that he had imagined it.

He spun around when he heard a couple of voices behind him. Someone was standing behind the wall where the hallway turned a corner. Was someone watching them? He gestured for Toby to follow as he approached the corner. When he peered around the side, he saw a girl from his homeroom edging away from them. He considered calling out to her, but held his tongue. Instead, he tailed her down the hallway, keeping a respectable stalker distance of five meters.

The girl walked to another corridor, where she met up with two others who were also looking at the building. Sho frowned. Okay, now this was getting weird. Why the sudden fascination with the abandoned place? But then again… He stepped over to the group of girls and cleared his throat.

“Yo,” Sho said, flashing a friendly grin. “Seems like I’m not the only one interested in that place today. Would any of you lovely ladies like to accompany me on a midnight ghost hunt?” He paused, tilting his head slightly, and then looked at Toby. “Oh, yeah. You’re not nearly as pretty, but you can come too.”

"Whoa. The girl has changed shape and teleported to the other... oh. Right." Haruka mentally slapped her forehead. In her lapse of attention, Mitsuki had already left, and there was another girl beside her now.

"Eh? Hey, you're Suzume-chan, right? Uhm..." where did she know her from? She recognized her, and put the name to her face, but why...

"Ah... right. We were in the same classroom last year. Hello," she said, waving to the girl in front of her.

She turned back towards the old building.

"It must be one of the Seven Mysteries of Shin'youju. Or maybe it's all the Seven Mysteries. You know, they must all be hiding in that building, those mysteries."

Haruka yawned again. Eh? Haruka wasn't sleepy. Nope. It was a... boredom yawn. Yeah that was it.

She was kind of bored right now.

"I'm kind of bored right now. Say, Suzume-chan, do you want to see what's going on in the old school building? We can come back at night, because the barricade opens up then... ehh... ah, not that I would know. That's just what I've heard."

Haruka turned when she heard someone else calling from behind them.

"Ah... Sho. Toby. Hello."

Haruka was good with names, even those of people she didn't know that well.

No, that's not strange at all.