Chapter 3: Hide and Seek

This chapter features some action, horror, and adds more questions than answers about the mysterious girl Minoru is now stuck with.

Chapter 3: Hide and Seek

The alarm blared. Minoru rolled over in bed, his mind full of obscene words. He found that his first thoughts on a school day were always full of curses. He turned off the alarm, sat up, and stretched, dreading another boring day at school. Wait, I thought it was Friday yesterday? Minoru grabbed his cell phone sitting on the table beside his bed and checked the date. Oh, today is Friday. Not yesterday. Damn it, I’ve been off by a day all week? 

Beside him, Momo turned over in her sleep towards him. Minoru reached out a hand to shake her awake, but then pulled back.  “Hey, wake up,” he said, though not loud enough. Momo just mumbled in her sleep in response.

“Hey, get up!” Minoru yelled.

Momo opened her eyes and said, “Alright, alright, sheesh. You don’t have to yell. What is it?” She didn’t look all that mad.

“School.”

“What? We have to go to school today too?”

“Believe me, I don’t like it either, but we have to go Monday through Friday.”

                “Seriously? That many times? Every week?”

“Yes, now let’s get ready. You can shower first.”

“What’s a shower?”

“You’re kidding. You’ve never used a shower before? Then how have you bathed in the past?”

“In rivers.”

“Forget I asked.”

And so Minoru took a considerable amount of time to show Momo how to operate the apparently highly complicated mechanism called a shower. He decided he would just shower that night instead of in the morning order to save time.

“Hurry up Momo. We’ll be late,” Minoru called from outside the bathroom.

“Hold on,” Momo answered.

“I’ll be waiting out here in my room,” Minoru said as the bathroom door opened.

“See Min-chan? I’m already done,” Momo said wiping her wet hair with a towel, while also neglecting to cover her body.

Minoru turned away. “Well, I see you haven’t learned your lesson. Just get dressed so we can hurry up and go. We’ve wasted enough time as it is. And the name’s Minoru.”

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“We made it…just in time…no thanks to her,” Minoru said bent over, hands on his knees, gasping for air. He and Momo had had to run to get to school on time. Despite all the running, Momo hadn’t broken a sweat and wasn’t breathing hard at all.

“Hey, how’re you doing man?” a friendly voice called out.

Walking up to Minoru with a big smile on his face was his close friend Shiraishi. Shiraishi was the polar opposite of Minoru. He was a tall blonde guy, a few inches taller than Minoru, standing at about six foot two. He was handsome too. All the girls at school adored Shiraishi; he always had a polite smile on his face, his perfect teeth showing, no matter the situation. In fact, he almost never stopped smiling, the total opposite of Minoru, who rarely smiled and was cynical, selfish and rude. Shiraishi made others feel good and was well mannered. He had cool greyish eyes, but his eyes were often closed for some reason. Minoru wondered how he managed to get around with his eyes closed like that.

“So Minoru, I was thinking that this weekend, we could all go to the mo--” Shiraishi started to say, but was cut off by a surprised shout from Minoru.

Momo had jumped on Minoru’s back and wrapped her arms around his torso, and her legs around his waist.

“What the hell are you doing Momo?!” Minoru yelled.

“Marking my territory,” she said calmly.

“Get off,” Minoru warned.

“Hey, that guy’s kinda cute isn’t he?” she said looking at Shiraishi.

“Not listening at all, huh?”

Shiraishi seemed to pay no mind to Momo’s strange behavior. He stepped forward with a smile and said, “Oh, you must be the transfer student I’ve heard so much about. My name is Shiraishi. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Momo.”

“Oh, you too,” Momo said, still clinging to Minoru.

“Why are you not more surprised about this thing that has attached itself to me and how do you already know its name?” Minoru cut in.

“Hey, I’m not an ‘it’!” Momo protested.

“Even though I wasn’t here yesterday, I heard from Konata and the others about the new pretty transfer student,” Shiraishi said, ignoring her.

At that moment, Konata Higyou, who had been passing by, walked up to the group to greet them. “Hey Shiraishi, nice to see you’re back,” she said then looked at Momo and said with a polite smile, “Oh, and hi Momo, welcome to our school. I hope you’ll like it here.” Momo returned the greeting, and slid off Minoru’s back.

After the group chatted for a couple of minutes, Konata asked, “I need to talk to Minoru about something, so could you two go on to class without us?”

“That’s fine. Well then, Momo and I will go on our way,” Shiraishi said with a smile, then turned and walked with Momo down the hallway. Momo glanced back at Minoru, her ruby eyes betraying no emotion.

Minoru turned to Konata with a skeptical look on his face. “So what did you want to say that you needed them to leave first?” he asked.

“Well, I’m just curious about that Momo person. You seem to be getting along with her really well considering she just got here yesterday.”

“That so,” Minoru said passively.

“You’re usually too shy to talk to people you don’t know, Minoru. Especially pretty girls you don’t know,” Konata said, her eyes penetrating Minoru. Minoru hated how perceptive she was. Konata knew him too well. Part of him wanted to tell the truth, but he knew the truth was an unbelievable story. How was he supposed to explain that he met Momo the day before she transferred during a fight with some gangsters, and that Momo had moved in with him and she had weird powers and erased a person from everybody’s memory? Even if she did believe him about Momo, Minoru also got the feeling Momo might do something to him if he told others about her. If Konata asked why Momo was hanging around him, he’d have to admit to Konata that he had become some kind of monster"or rather, a demon parasite was slowly munching on his tasty soul. Yum.

“Well, I didn’t know her before she came to school yesterday. We have gym now, so we’d better go or we’ll be late.” With that lie, Minoru turned and headed for the locker room.

Konata went to the girls’ locker room and started changing with the other girls. She kept glancing over at Momo, wondering why she had this weird feeling about the girl. I heard what Minoru said, but…ah, forget it. Momo hadn’t done anything wrong. Konata felt guilty for feeling suspicious of the girl for no reason.

Even so, she was still curious how Momo had gotten close to Minoru instantly. Konata had been friends with Minoru for years, so she knew him pretty well. Minoru liked to put up boundaries between himself and other people. Minoru was the type of guy who had to put in conscious effort to talk to someone he wasn’t already really close to. And even with his close friends, he rarely opened himself up, though he at least talked to them easily. To other people, Minoru’s behavior made him seem cold hearted, mean, unfriendly, or completely emotionless. He could stand to smile more and be more sociable, she thought, then he would be able to make friends--and other relationships--much more easily. His default facial expression lay somewhere between bored and annoyed.  He actually had a cute face, but it was marred by his perpetual scowl. 

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“Hey guys, I’ve got a hangover, so just decide what to do yourselves,” Ms. Retna Shizuka, the Physical Education teacher said to her students assembled outside the gym.

“I just wanna go home,” Minoru muttered under his breath. He was sitting on the ground outside the gymnasium in his school gym uniform, which was really just a white T-shirt and navy blue athletic shorts. The girls wore the same thing. Minoru looked up at Ms. Retna - -the students called her by her first name- -who was taking suggestions from the other students who were fervently discussing what they should do for P.E. Minoru always thought that Ms. Retna didn’t look much like a teacher. He didn’t know her exact age, but she was very young looking, maybe twenty-six at the oldest. She always had her light brown hair in a high short ponytail, the ponytail part containing red streaks. Ms. Retna dressed kind of like a biker girl, wearing jeans and a short denim jacket with a tight black shirt underneath that left her midriff bare. She also had a silver necklace and an unusual tattoo on her left abdomen that looked like “H” with arrow points surrounding it, each pointing north, east, south, and west. Minoru always wondered what it was. It looked like the letter H, but also a sideways capital “I”. Who knows, could be the initial of a past lover, he thought. The students continued arguing.

“I have an idea!” a playful voice cut through the commotion.

Everyone turned to look at Momo.

“Let’s play hide and seek!” she said with a big smile.

Minoru smiled to himself. What are you, stupid? No one’s gonna want to play that at our age. He figured she was just trying to look cute or something. In any case, no one would buy it, she had fai"

“That’s a great idea!” one boy cried.

“Momo’s so smart!” another student yelled.

“Yeah, let’s do that everyone!” a third boy proclaimed. Soon everyone was on the bandwagon, they were all ready to play hide and seek.

Minoru could’ve sworn he heard his jaw drop to the floor. This is stupid! Has she got them under some sort of spell?! Oh well, at least Ms. Retna won’t agree to it…

Ms. Retna quieted the students down. “It seems the majority wants hide and seek. You may hide anywhere on campus. I’m goin’ out to lunch, so see ya!” With that, Ms. Retna walked away, leaving the students to manage themselves. The majority of the kids decided Momo should be ‘it’ since the game was her idea.

“Ok then, I’ll start counting. One…” Momo began after closing her eyes. All the students of class 2-A took off in different directions to find their hiding spots. Some went in pairs or groups, others went alone. Minoru and Shiraishi paired up and started running toward the main academic building.

“And so it turns out like this anyway…f**k my life,” Minoru complained as he ran alongside his friend.

Shiraishi was cheery as always. “Aw, come on. Don’t be like that. This could be fun!” he said with a smile.

“Whatever, let’s just find a hiding spot.”

“Agreed.”

                They quickly made it inside the academic building, ran up the staircase to the third floor and stopped in one of the hallways to take a breather.

“Hey, Shiraishi, now that we’re here, let’s find a suitable place to hide. We can’t stay here in this hallway after all,” Minoru said in between taking big gulps of air.

No response.

Minoru looked around. No one. “Shiraishi? Weird, when did we get separated?” Minoru asked aloud. He decided to move on by himself.

Minoru had barely taken a couple of steps when he was startled by an ear-piercing scream. What the hell was that? He couldn’t tell where it had come from, only that it came from inside the building he was in. He stood alone in the hallway, suddenly aware of how dark it was. Unnaturally dark. It was first period for crying out loud! It wasn’t pitch black, but the light was dim enough that he could only see a few feet in front of him. The sound of footsteps caught his attention. Someone was coming.

“Hello, Min-chan. I found you,” Momo sang with an evil smile. Minoru turned around and saw her standing at the end of the hall. She seemed to have an eerie glow about her despite the darkness, but even more frightening was what she held in her hands. In one hand, a knife that appeared to be dripping with some dark liquid, and in the other hand, a garbage bag full of"something soft and lumpy. It made a disturbing wet sound as she dragged it across the tile floor.

“H-hi Momo, what’s with the knife? …And the garbage bag?” Minoru failed to say nonchalantly, his body shaking with fear.

“Don’t worry about little details.”

“I’m beyond worried! Damn it I’m horrified! What’s in that bag?!”

“Let’s just say I…’found’ Shiraishi. Yeah, let’s go with that.” She shook it a bit, and a sickening wet sound came from the bag.

Minoru heard a scream, and then realized it was him. He turned away from Momo and sprinted down the hallway in fear.  Holy crap, she killed Shiraishi!

I’ve got to warn the others, Minoru thought. “There’s a murderer in the building! Everyone run! This is no time for hide and seek!” he shouted as he ran.

The students hiding in the building poked out from their hiding places, worried that they had heard someone screaming about a murderer. They didn’t see who had been screaming though.

Hopefully the others heard me and will escape too.

“Aahhhh!”

“Mommy!”

A chorus of terror rang in Minoru’s ears. He stopped. All those screams…Don’t tell me they’ve all been…Minoru forced himself to keep moving. It had become even darker. Visibility was near zero. He searched through the darkness for an exit, or at least some place to hide. He probed the area in front of him until he felt a door knob. I think this is a supply closet. Good, I’ll hide in here! And with that Minoru turned the knob and rushed into the closet and shut the door behind him, only to bump into something.

“Oof! What the?” he exclaimed.

“Ah!”

Feeling around for a light switch, Minoru grabbed hold of something soft. “Huh? What’s this thing?”

A light suddenly came on revealing a shocking sight. What Minoru was grabbing was definitely not a light switch. It was Konata! Well, Konata’s breast to be exact…

“Minoru, you know what I’m going to say, right?” She looked pissed.

“Uh…’Oh baby, do me like you always do’?”

“Wrong.” Not even a smile.

Before Minoru could try to explain himself, he heard another chilling scream. Damn, she got another one, Minoru thought.

“What was that?” Konata asked. She looked a little spooked.

Minoru had put his ear to the closet door. “Hey, Konata, it’s gotten quiet out there. Let’s bolt out the door when I say ‘go’.”

“Minoru, what is going on? You’re not making any sense,” Konata was getting annoyed.

“GO!” Minoru shouted. He quickly opened the door and rushed outside, ending up face to face with…Momo.  Shock and confusion left him paralyzed.

“What’s wrong, you don’t look very happy to see me,” Momo said. She was smiling. “Or are you unhappy because Konata’s gone?”

What did she say!? Minoru whipped around to look behind him only to see…no one. There was nobody in the closet behind him.  B-but how? Konata’s gone too!? His head was spinning, the darkness closing in on him, ready to extinguish the quickly diminishing flame of will within him. He felt his eyes start to tear up.

“Aww, are you gonna cry?” Momo asked with fake sympathy. “Sheesh, I didn’t know you were so sensitive. Does it really matter if I killed a bunch of your classmates? Everyone dies eventually; I just brought them to their deaths earlier.”

“Shut your mouth you b***h! I didn’t think you were this deranged...” Tears streamed down Minoru’s cheeks. He was struggling to breathe properly. His body felt tingly, as if he were about to faint.  His black hair became longer and unruly. Canine teeth sharpened. Then, the burning sensation.

 “I swear…I’ll get her…” he muttered under his breath.  His green irises blackened, his pupils turned white.  The burning sensation, along with an intense rage spread throughout his body as a dark force welled up within him. He wasn’t sure if it was a foreign force or one that had always been part of him"no matter. Right now, all he wanted was for Momo to pay.

Momo gave a cheery smile and cupped a hand around her ear. “What was that? Were you apologizing for letting everyone die?”

“Shut up! I swear I’ll kill you for this!” With that declaration, the dark force within Minoru surged out from his body in a hazy aura of black and blood red. The aura split off and danced in the air around him like serpents from Hell. The aura started to dissipate as he focused the ghastly matter into his left hand. In a few seconds his left hand was covered in the mysterious black and red aura, holding a greater concentration of it in his palm.

“Momo, I’m gonna rip that damn smile of your face!” Minoru took off running towards Momo at breakneck speed, the shadowy orb of death in his raised hand.

His speed is impressive, Momo thought. She quickly backed up until her back hit the wall.

Minoru soon reached her. “Die!” he screamed as he brought the orb towards her face. Now I’ve got her! This b***h will get what she deserve- - Minoru’s orb made contact with the wall, disintegrating it and leaving a gaping hole there. But no Momo.  Where’d she go?

“Hmm, so you didn’t cause an explosion, you decompose matter,” her voice called, “You’re still new, so after using that much power you’ll probably fall apart again.”

Minoru looked around for the voice with no luck. He then looked up at the ceiling, from which Momo stood upside down. Wait, she’s standing on the ceiling upside down!?

“Look, right now, I don’t even care that you’re defying the laws of physics. Just get your a*s back down here so I can tear it apart!”

She stayed on the ceiling. “Oh, so you like it rough, huh Min-chan?  Oh, by the way, three…two…one…”

“Why are you counting…Ugh!” Minoru’s entire body was suddenly overcome with unbearable pain. It felt as if someone were trying to force a rock into his skull. He tried his best to hold on, but it was too much to bear. He soon lost consciousness and collapsed on the cold marble tiles.

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“Hey, Minoru! Wake up, man!”

Minoru slowly opened his eyes to find he was lying on the floor in the hallway.

“You finally woke up!” a cheery voice chimed.

Minoru was still feeling groggy, but he realized it was Shiraishi who had been speaking. Shiraishi was standing over him, looking down at him with his usual warm smile.

“Hey Minoru, the strangest happened. It seems that our whole gym class fell asleep, and after talking to the others about it, it appears we all had the same dream!”

Minoru suddenly sat up. “You mean everyone’s ok? Even Konata!?” It had all come back to him.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t they be? Oh yeah, we all kind of slept the whole period away, so we need to go back to the locker rooms and change for the next class. Everyone’s already gone on ahead. I’m going to go change now as well.”

“Huh? Oh…sure. I’ll be there soon. Just give me a minute.”

Shiraishi left Minoru alone to think about what had happened. What had just happened? Had it all been a dream? No, that couldn’t be, since everyone reported having had the same dream. Argh! I should’ve asked what they dreamt about! Come to think of it, didn’t that weird transformation occur again- -

“Don’t worry, I made everyone believe they dreamt about a normal game of hide and seek. Only you remember the ‘truth’,” Momo said with a smile. She had already changed back into the black modified sailor suit and blue skirt of the girls’ uniform.  She was standing behind Minoru.

“Momo!?” the shock on Minoru’s face was obvious.

“Come on, hurry up and change. It’s almost time for our next class.”

Minoru got to his feet, the shock instantly turned to anger. “You’ve got some nerve showing your face. Do you have any idea what I’m about to say?”

“Hmm…'Mistress Momo, please use me as your foot stool as punishment’?”

“No!”

“How about, ‘I could use some dirty love’?”

“NO!”

“I’m bored, Min-chan. Let’s go to class.”

“What!? Ugh…fine. I give up.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

Sorry this took so long. Please tell me what you think! There will be more to come, hope you enjoy it!

Reviews

[Minoru Kusari]

I apologize for the delay, the next chapter will be up eventually!