The Boy, the Assassin, and the Flower

Club activities weren't compulsory in my school, so I decided not to go. That should have been the end of it, but I had failed to read the room.

Every day I could hear my colleagues talk behind my back. Every time, the same questions would go around.

"Hey, is he ok?"

"Do you think he has problems at home?"

"Maybe he has friends outside the school?"

"I think there's something special about him."

They taught us in school: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Of course they wouldn't say anything bad about me, but I knew what those words were hiding.

"Mimoru... Is everything okay at home?" the class rep came to my desk and asked. I just nodded in response.

"That's great to hear! You know, I've been thinking... Have you ever thought about joining a club?"

I shook my head. Class Rep suddenly got really close to me, putting her hands on my desk. She knew doing that would make me nervous, yet she did it to prove her dominance.

"The truth is... I've been part of this 'occult club' for a while now. We talk about all kinds of weird happenings around Tokyo. Doesn't it sound fun?~"

"I... It's been two months since school started... I think it's a bit too late for—"

Before I could finish my sentence, I felt her cold finger seal my lips. My face turned red instantly, and I jumped off my chair.

"Don't say that, Mimoru-chan~"

Class Rep looked at me with sad eyes. She sighed and sat herself on my desk. She waved with her hand for me to take a seat back on the chair, but I decided not to.

"Ahh..." 

The next moment, this girl with short black hair—who by all means looked like the ero-shy-serious type—reached for my hand, her smile blooming once again, but looking much less genuine than before.

*****

I never wanted to join that club, but the pressure was just too much.

Class Rep welcomed me with open arms. She and the other members treated me like their best friend. We laughed, told each other some stories, and even shared a bag of chips.

On the first day, that is.

"Hm? In a couple of years we'll become adults. Staying late is normal for them, so consider this our training."

Her words on the second evening felt like a hand gripping at my heart. I would have called Class Rep out for bullying me, but she stayed late with me. No, all five of us stayed late. One guy slept the whole evening, two girls spoke to one another, and Class Rep kept herself busy with a book. I had nothing to do, and nobody to talk with. Still, I had to stay there.

Even so, my life at school had its good parts. After joining a club, people started speaking to me, and I even got to make a couple of friends. Going home late was tough, but it wasn't enough to make me hate life.

Once again, the sky got dark by the time I managed to sneak out. My parents were away on a business trip, so I took the chance and walked around the city.

Being alone felt good. As much as I hated to admit it, I had a tough time speaking to people. Girls were especially troublesome; hence, why Class Rep only had to use her charms to get me to join that club.

"Should I thank her? Should I be mad?"

I didn't know what to think of her. I knew she'd gone through the trouble for the sake of the class, not because she cared about me. Even so, being accepted by the rest didn't feel bad.

"If that's what makes the world spin, there's no point in trying to fight it," I said to myself.

With Class Rep on my mind and a face painted beet-red, I jumped around some abandoned train tracks on my way home.

They say train tracks have to be changed and given time to cleanse themselves. Millions of people travel them daily. 

"They see and hear all kinds of evil. If they had a mouth, I'm sure they would also speak it."

If there was one thing I stood my ground on, it was that I didn't believe in such senseless stories. For a member of the occult club, I was a weird one, treating everything solely as bedtime stories. Hence, I had no trouble walking along the rail.

That's when I heard a small whimper.

"Ah! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!" I started blabbering.

The whimper came from beneath my foot and had me jump and apologize, thinking I'd stepped on a small animal.

"Huh?"

When I lifted my leg, only a flower was there. It was a beautiful flower, but flowers can't make sound.

I looked left and right, shrugged my shoulders, and pulled out a cup from my bag, then I filled it with dirt. I had no idea why, but I felt like I had to take that flower with me. It was just too beautiful to be left there.

After getting myself a new friend for the road, I left the tracks and headed home.

*****

It was already the middle of the night when I heard a woman's scream. Worried about what might have happened, I ran towards the source of the voice.

The screams kept getting louder and louder. It was crazy to me that somebody could scream so loud.

I ran as fast as I could, hoping I would get there before it was too late. In my mind, scenes of me being a hero and saving the damsel in distress kept repeating. It was shameful, if anything.

Only when I got to the scene did my breath catch up with me. I slowed down the moment I saw the back of a man already at the scene. Soon after, my breath caught in my throat.

What am I doing? I'm not a hero. I have no business being here. Who am I trying to protect?

My vision started spinning from all the thoughts overwhelming me. It was in that moment that I saw it.

The woman screaming was of a pale white, almost shining in the light of the lamps around. The man behind her was dressed all black, and he held...

I covered my mouth with one hand, holding the flower with the other. Before my eyes, the man stabbed the white lady, and she vanished into thin air.

Murder? A ghost? Exorcism? I thought, and before I could leave, the man turned around, staring me in the eyes with a stern, scary gaze.

That night I had seen and heard evil, and as stupid as I was, I didn't let it end there.

Only upon calming down did I realize I had been cursing that whole time, under my breath, shocked by what was happening before my eyes. I managed to speak more evil that night than I had ever before.

With no other taboo to commit, I sighed, accepted my fate, and posed a single question to the man, one that seemed to have made his night much worse.

"What's that?" I asked, pointing at his fancy smartwatch.