Prologue: Sparks Before the Explosion

◆ Shiomi

I blink. The sun penetrates through the windowpanes and shines in my face, calling me to the morning. I rub my eyes and stare at the ceiling.

This is odd. The alarm… didn’t ring today.

Why?

My phone buzzes. I pick it up, and it boasts a message from Yui-chan.

Yui-chan ;):

Good morning, Shiomi-chan!

Let’s walk to school today?

I smile. Oh, sweet Yui-chan. I just wish everyone was like her.

It would make my life much easier.

I open the door of my room and the sickening smell wafts in immediately. Oh, right. I forgot the drain in the basement is clogged. I have to unclog it ASAP or next time Yui-chan comes around she will suspect something’s amiss. The neighbor two blocks down might smell it at this rate.

I grab for the agenda and write ‘UNCLOG BASEMENT DRAIN’ in big bolded letters for today. Then, I walk to the mirror and stare at myself for a moment.

For the love of Kirisaki do I look terrible. It’s like I’ve been hit by a bus, then thrown in the mud seven times while someone chanted a prayer for bad faces.

Well, it’s to be expected. I was up all night with the last one, since he wouldn’t stop biting my hand while I tried to stuff a sock in his mouth. People just don’t know when to cooperate.

But Yui-chan does. She always knows when to lend me a hand. All I need now is something to keep me occupied instead of shoving someone else in the basement.

I quickly dress myself up and tie my hair into its signature buns, all while humming my favorite song.

“Kanjou ga kirakira ima wa kirakira, anata dake ga subete sa… Kono amai sekai uso ni naru you na, sore iga no koto nante keshite shimaou…” With each word the room grows brighter, until my eyes have reacquired its signature shine in the mirror. Yes, finally. Ready for school, ready for life outside one more day!

…But first I gotta unclog the drain, as to not disturb the neighbors.

My legs are still aching when I arrive at the basement. In here, the smell is ten times as strong as from my bedroom, but it doesn’t bother half as much. But now, I find myself within a pool of red reaching up to my ankles. Carefully I move through and aside arms and legs and torsos until I finally find the drain. (Thankfully I changed out of my school uniform or it’d be a bloody mess right now.)

Ah, I’ve found the cause. Four mashed fingers, stuffed right where the drainhole is.

To who they belonged doesn’t matter. I need them OUT.

Wearing rubber gloves, I reach and yank them out of the drain. Blood spatters on my cheeks and my collar, and I thank the heavens again I have this janitor uniform I stole from… probably the woman lying in the far right or left corner, I don’t remember. I throw the resulting masses of flesh into another corner and watch the flood disappear calmly like flushed toilet water.

Good. Problem solved, now just spray some of that sakura, plum and iris perfume mix Yui-chan got for my birthday to cover this smell, change into the school uniform, and to Kirisaki Academy we go.

***

Just like she warned, I run into Yui-chan at the door. She grins at me, her ponytails flailing around as she speaks:

“I’m anxious for today, Shiomi-chan!” She says, talking so fast I can barely keep up with her words. “Today there’s a transfer student coming to our class, and I heard rumors that it’s a cute boy!”

“Well, it could ALSO be a gyaru who listens to Plastic Tree when no one’s looking,” I suggest, and she snorts.

“Or a Naruto cosplayer who secretly hates Naruto,” she adds. “Or a gourmet who actually hates food.”

“We’re both so terrible,” I gasp, and Yui-chan grins. “For suggesting such atrocities?” She asks.

“Probably,” I say, laughing so hard my guts could literally fall out. Not a very good sight, though. I want to spare Yui-chan from seeing that.

Finally we arrive at Kirisaki Academy, and a lot of our classmates are buzzing wild with chatter. I catch a whisper of conversation here and there, and it’s about the transfer student, just like Yui-chan mentioned. In the class, nobody can stop talking.

“Hey, Kirishima-san!” A familiar voice calls. I turn around, and it’s Tachibana-kun, sporting his usual grin. “Heard about it? New kid coming in!”

“Yes, I heard,” I say, smiling. “Why?”

“If it’s really a guy, then it’ll be another for your block list,” he teases. “They just can’t get under your skin.”

“That’s just how it is,” I say, sighing. “But I hope you find a girlfriend soon so you stop teasing me about my permanent title of bachelorette.”

“Okay, enough chatter!” Takahashi-sensei shouts. “Now, the event you were probably awaiting… Come in, please.”

The door slides open, and someone steps in. A boy, wearing a large hoodie instead of the school blazer over the sweater(?), shirt and tie, walks to Takahashi-sensei with his eyes cast downward. She writes a name in the board and gestures him to look at us.

“Um… hello,” the boy says. “I’m Asahi… Akasaka. Nice… to meet you all.”

Behind him, the name: 赤坂　あさひ. I catch Takahashi-sensei’s gesture and stand up.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Akasaka-kun,” I say, smiling as pleasantly as I can. “I’m Class 1-A’s representative, Shiomi Kirishima. In the name of the class, I welcome you into Kirisaki Academy.”

Akasaka-kun immediately turns bright red and hides under his hoodie, prompting giggles from some students behind me. I pay them no mind, and continue to smile as I sit down and listen to Takahashi-sensei assigning our new classmate a seat—the empty one right next to mine where Hakana Wagioku used to sit before she joined my basement audience. Well, her fault for trying to see who watched the show of my home life.

Akasaka-kun walks to the seat with uneasy steps and plops into the chair, avoiding everyone’s eyes. I turn my eyes from him to Takahashi-sensei—with certain difficulty, I notice—as she begins her lecture about the politics of the Sengoku era pre-Oda Nobunaga.

So far, out of all the boys I’ve seen in my life, this one was the first to strike me as… odd.

Not because he’s cute. That’s obvious. It’s just… I feel like he’s watching everyone. Watching ME. And like he knows something he shouldn’t know.

I must be careful.

***

The bell rings for the end of the day, and I watch as Akasaka-kun packs his things, pauses for a moment, then looks up and waves me a timid goodbye. I smile and wave back, prompting him to immediately hide under his hood again and scamper off, bag in hand. I giggle to myself, thinking about how adorable that is, but just as I’m about to follow Yui-chan out the door, I spot something.

A note, written on a post-it taped to my table. The handwriting doesn’t belong to anyone in the class I know, so it must be Akasaka-kun’s.

I pick it up, expecting something cute, but then freeze in shock. It reads:

Did you lock the basement before one of them escaped, Kirishima-san?

Did I… lock the basement?

He… he knows. About THEM. My little audience. But… how?! He just moved in, as far as I’m concerned. Because I never heard of any Asahi Akasaka in Kirisaki City before.

This… is an emergency.

I have to do something, NOW. He might be cute, but if he knows about my basement, he can’t go on any further.

And I need to cover whatever breadcrumbs he might have followed.

My mind races through the people who could help me. Yui-chan, NO. Tachibana-kun, NO in bold. Kurogane-senpai… questionable, but okay. Hoshizaki-kun, terrible playboy but won’t spread anything weird. One of them might help clean up this damned mess. If someone else appears that can apply, better. These two are strange, the less I involve myself with them the better. But I guess I have to.

Thinking this, I follow Yui-chan out the door, taking the note with me.

Night has fallen. I lay in bed, thinking.

Who should I confide in to clear up this mess? The only reasonable candidates, by now, are Hoshizaki-kun and Kurogane-senpai, both very questionable people who I can’t fully trust in. But I have no choice. Either this, or my basement will be revealed and everything will go downhill.

So, now, I have to choose.

And my choice is…