"Aaaaahhhhhh!!!... Why are we here? What possessed you people to crash here… do any of you have a single brain cell? Why am I your friend? What possessed ME to associate with you all!!!... Fuck!!!"
The girl screaming with all she had, her voice hushed yet rising from the very depth of her heart, was Nakamura Fuyumi, a university student of Akebono University.
At the time, she, along with her six other friends, was venturing inside a supposedly 'haunted' mansion.
One would ask why she followed them if she was such a scaredy-cat, and to that… Nakamura would say: I'm not scared, bitch!
Yes…
She herself had decided to join the group, yet here she was, throwing curses as easily as breathing. She was a person who one would call a loudmouth. And currently, her obnoxiously loud mouth had gotten her into trouble.
And looking at her pitiful state, her friend Okabe Souta decided to tease her a little.
"Hush… stop screaming, Fuyumi… I heard a mumble just now. I think someone is here… it's not one of us."
Just as the words left his mouth, Fuyumi's blood drained from her body. With the flexibility of a rusted robot, she carefully looked around her in pure, unfiltered fear.
The long, empty corridors of the mansion seemed especially haunting to her. The darkness, pierced only by their phone lights, made the atmosphere even more chilling.
Fuyumi gulped and cautiously checked every part of the windows, doors, gaps, and the wooden floor. And to her blissful surprise, she saw nothing out of the ordinary.
"Phew… nothing was there."
Wiping the sweat pouring from her forehead, she spun on her feet, ready to jab a finger at Souta.
"You utter piece of dogshit… what?"
Her words died in her throat before she could properly curse him to her fullest. To her utmost horror… no one was behind her.
Out of her six friends who had come with her
—excluding Ryuga, who separated from them at the very beginning—no one was behind her.
"Guys… guys… I was just joking around. I really do like being friends with you all. C'mon, we're such good friends; surely we'd be there to help each other at our worst. Stop playing games dude… I'm seriously scared. Where… are you all?"
Her words echoed in her ears. The long corridors of the mansion seemed even more still than before.
"Guys… sob… sob…"
Tears started to stream down as her words choked in her throat and her body began to faintly tremble.
Just then, as if hitting the final nail in the coffin, at the very edge of her periphery she saw a vague figure.
One shrouded in the darkness of the night, its full form masked by the shadows of the corridor.
Her breath hitched the moment her eyes landed on that figure.
Her fight-or-flight response kicked in… and she collapsed on the floor.
Even words stopped coming out of her mouth. Her body turned as stiff as stone. Only her eyes moved… erratically spiralling.
Step— Step—
As if the universe was against her, or her final moments were now here, the vague figure shrouded in darkness started moving.
Step by step, slowly and deliberately, it moved closer to her.
"Haaah… this is the end. It was genuinely the worst time that I spent with these fuckers. I hope to be born as a solitary creature or just a rock. I don't need no friends. O great creature of the dark, take my soul and avenge me! Butcher the vile maggots who dared to step in your terrain and disturb your peace. Take my soul and grant me the wish!"
Perhaps the great creature of the dark had heard her heartfelt call. Its steps stopped mere inches away from her.
Fuyumi slowly garnered the tiniest bit of courage dormant inside her and looked up with the conviction of a dying ant.
"Tch. Tch. Such a friend you are… seriously, you were trying to sell your soul to take us with you? Sorry to disappoint you, girl, the devil has better taste than to take your filthy soul. Even the devil has standards higher than taking the soul of a backstabber—Fuck me!"
To the grand welcome of the so-called devil, it was greeted with a punch to the groin—which, without a sliver of doubt, no matter how skinny Fuyumi was, was painful as hell.
"You shameless filthy maggot, you crawling little vermin, you brainless blobfish, you intellectual koala! What the fuck is wrong with you! Do you have no heart? Playing with a beautiful maiden's heart… There are other ways to do it! Not this!!!"
Fuyumi was NOT satisfied with punching him in the nut. Perhaps his squirming, writhing figure crawling on the ground and gasping for breath seemed like a bastard's laugh to her.
She grabbed his collar, yanked him toward her, and glared at him.
"Tell me how do you want to die…"
Her words were spoken with such conviction that the so-called devil flinched in response.
"How about you don't kill me? Wouldn't that be so much better? We still have to get away from here unscathed, and for your kind information, this haunted mansion can only be cleansed by your exorcist friend here… so? Deal… is a deal?"
Fuyumi slowly shook her head. She was more focused on beating the shit out of him than getting out. Maybe she had even thrown away the thought of leaving the mansion altogether.
Fortunately for him, the other members of the group arrived at the right moment.
The female members, namely Hina Morimoto and Sayo Ayazaki, grabbed the fuming Fuyumi away from the sprawled Kami Ryuga—the so-called exorcist.
"Hey! Oh… you fuckers are here too. So you bastards were in cahoots with this guy! You're no better! Release me this once! I wanna beat you all!"
Fuyumi flailed like a dying duck in heat, but through the collective efforts of Hina and Sayo, they managed to calm her down.
Not mentally—just physically.
Because her stamina was as good as a sloth's. She quickly calmed down. To regain her strength, she sat cross-legged on the wooden floor of the mansion. While she gasped for breath in uneven patterns, her eyes remained glued to Ryuga, who was fixing his black oversized t-shirt.
"Girl… you need therapy for sure. Like seriously, your reaction was so out of pocket. I know you're angry and all, but for the love of all that's sacred to you… why did you hit me in the balls?"
"Oh, seriously? Says who? You! I'm damn sure this set-up was done by you! There's no doubt about it. Instead of apologizing, you're here crying like a little girl for being hit. Tsk. Tsk."
"HUHHH? For your kind information, I saw you nearly crying on the ground. NO! You WERE crying on the ground. And as your good friend, I slowly approached you so as to not scare you! Yet instead of a thank you… I was punched in the nut?! And on top of that, you're lecturing me!! Where's the damn justice!!"
"Wow! You seriously know how to lie straight through your teeth. I'm surprised how genuine you seem while lying… if I didn't know you well, I would've fallen for it. Damn! This is what you study in psyche?"
Their fight was escalating so much that it was as if sparks of lightning were crackling behind them.
Sensing the distress and the miscommunication between the two, Hayakawa Ryouma intervened. He placed a hand on each of their shoulders and slowly rubbed them.
"Guys, chill out. There's some serious misunderstanding going on here. For the record, Fuyumi, no one here was in cahoots with anyone. And we didn't just abruptly leave you—it was Daichi who secretly pointed at a certain painting here, which he found very interesting. You were busy glancing around the corridors and probably didn't hear us… it was wholly our fault for not getting you. But to be frank, we lost track… if it weren't for Ryuga's screams, we wouldn't have found you."
Fuyumi's eyes widened at his revelation. She glanced toward Ryuga with moist eyes, her lips pa
rted, yet no words came out.
In the end, she could only clench her fists and faintly murmur…
"I'm sorry…"