Chapter 9:

10 Years Ago (Part 9)

Hunted


The Missing Body Has Been Found

Breaking News: A body of what appears to be of the missing student Himura Sora has just been found. The police have confirmed this and the family of the boy has just been informed.

A local woman whose identity will be kept a secret for safety purposes has stated that she was out on a walk with her dog this morning when he came back holding a locket, that locket belonging to our victim.

Police are still investigating but have found no links to any gangs or anything that could be potentially life-threatening. More on this as the story uncovers.

This morning our phones blew up with this news, Emi and I passed each other a glance before our phones started ringing, everyone was calling everyone asking if they saw the news and how they all thought it was an accident.

About 5 minutes later Emi couldn’t take it anymore and switched her phone off, a girl from class wouldn’t stop hounding me with questions and theories, oh my God! I think she must’ve been talking non-stop for an hour about how she thinks that one of her father’s business rivals must’ve found him hiking near the place and killed him there, well better him than me.

She paused for a second to catch her breath which gave me the leeway to tell her I have some essays to complete and I should be going, once I finally got off the phone, I also switched it off.

I made some breakfast while Emi watched some TV, I could hear her flicking between the channels while I poured the chocolate cereal into our bowls, added the milk, and grabbed some spoons, I carried them into the living room when I saw that she had the blanket up to her eyes.

I placed the bowls on the coffee table and grabbed the remote putting on some anime instead, Emi looked up at me and I sighed before passing her her bowl of cereal.

“If you know it’s going to upset you, why are you watching it?” I asked.

She swirled her spoon in the milk making it chocolaty.

“I don’t know,” she whispered.

“Hmm,” I hummed.

We sat in silence for a minute before we heard a loud banging on the door making us jump up.

“Reiko, Emi, you girls in there?” the familiar voice called out.

We sighed in relief before I got up to open the door.

“Kazuki, Daisuke?” I opened the door for the boys.

“Who bangs on the door like that?” Emi got up to face them.

“Who keeps their phone switched off at a time like this?” Kazuki seethed.

“We almost shit ourselves thinking something happened,” Daisuke added.

It was then we realised the boys were fuming, Emi and I quickly turned our phones on and saw loads of messages and missed calls from them.

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

“Why were your phones off?” Kazuki asked placing his hands on his hips.

We felt like little kids with the way they were telling us off.

“Because everyone kept calling us and we were getting sick and tired! A girl called Reiko and spoke to her for over an hour about the whole thing, we had no choice but to switch our phones off for our sanity,” Emi folded her arms across her chest.

The boys looked at us sympathetically before Kazuki pulled me to his side wrapping an arm around me.

“Seriously an hour and a half?” he asked me, surprised.

I nodded looking up at him, “Yup.”

A few minutes later I remembered something important, “Shit, I had to show you all something, really important, wait here.”

I quickly left Kazuki’s side and ran to my room, opened my desk drawer, and took out the phone, once I got back to the living room all eyes were on me.

“Okay, this is important so before you all say something hear me out first,” I walked up to them.

They all looked worried but for some reason, Kazuki looked the most worried, he slowly walked towards me and cupped my face, he searched for something in my eyes before exhaling slowly, this time I was the one getting worried.

“Kaz?” I looked up at him.

“Shh, it’s okay we’ll get through this together,” he pulled me into his embrace.

“Oh, you guys already know? But I didn’t tell you,” I looked at them, confused.

“We’ve known for a while,” Daisuke stood up.

Kazuki guided me towards the sofa and told me to sit down.

“So, what are you planning on doing, are you going to keep it or…?” Emi asked.

“Get rid of it fast,” I told them making them all audibly gasp.

“Excuse me! Don’t I get a say in it?” Kazuki stepped back defensively.

“Of course, you do, Kaz,” I look up at him surprised by his reaction.

“Look, we can do this together, I’m not letting you get rid of the baby!” he yelled.

“What?”

Did I hear him right?

“Yeah! We’re not letting you get rid of the baby,” Emi stood up.

“Whose baby?” I asked standing up quickly.

“Your baby!” they all spoke at the same time, staring daggers at me.

Did I skip a few chapters? Since when did I have a baby?

I had to sit back down to take in this revelation about myself that apparently, I didn’t even know about.

“Guys I’m not pregnant!” I facepalmed.

“You’re not?” Kazuki asked, rather sadly than I would’ve liked.

“No!” my voice went a lot higher in pitch than I would’ve liked, but who cares as long as they got the message

“But you’ve been throwing up for so many days, and you’re glowing, and you missed your cycle,” Emi listed her explanation of her assumption.

I got up and went to the kitchen cabinet, moved a few things aside and took out a bottle of alcohol.

“To answer your first question, I’ve been secretly drinking every night, my body cannot handle the alcohol which is why I’ve been sick, also sometimes after drinking I make myself sick, my anxiety has been going through the roof after the whole incident and I didn’t want to worry you guys which is why I’ve been doing it at night, sucks to be though if I’m sick once I’m sick all night,” I chuckled a little.

“To answer your second question, my cycle is never regular, nothing to worry about it’s completely normal,” I reassured them as I walked back after placing the bottle back in its place.

“Also what I originally wanted to show you was this,” I took the phone out of my back pocket and placed it on the coffee table they were all crowding around.

“What’s this?” Daisuke asked.

“What do you think?!” I whisper-yelled.

I looked around, can’t be too careful even the walls have ears.

“Sora’s phone,” I told them.

“Shit.”

“Fuck.”

“What the hell?”

They all spoke one after another.

“Yup, I know,” I nodded placing my hands on my hips.

“Okay, err, good job and I’ll take care of that,” Daisuke swiped the phone off the table and dropped it in the inside pocket of his blazer.

“Aren’t we going to destroy it?” I asked him.

He sighed, “Look, just leave it to me alright.”

I nodded and just left it as it was, the boys decided to stay over for the night to keep us company, luckily they had spare clothes here anyways since they sometimes stayed nights over.

I found Kazuki on the balcony just looking up at the night sky, after everything that happened today I didn’t know how to approach him, I didn’t want him to be disappointed in me or anything.

“Hi,” I called out softly from behind him.

He turned around and gave me that crooked smile he always did.

“Hi, you,” he replied.

We stood there for a few minutes before I broke the silence.

“I’m sorry,” I told him.

“Sorry?” he raised his eyebrow a little in confusion.

“For you know…” I pointed towards my tummy.

“Oh,” he laughed which surprised me a little.

“Yeah, that was crazy,” he smiled.

“You’re not… disappointed?” I asked him.

He turned towards me and snaked one hand around my waist pushing me towards him, at first I was surprised by this but after he kissed me for a few minutes I relaxed.

“Of course not! I was at first, but then I realised with everything that happened I’d rather not, we’re still young, got our whole life ahead of us to think about that, for now, let’s enjoy each other’s company,” he smiled.

I nodded smiling.

“Besides when it happens, you’ll know,” he smirked with a wink.

I lightly smacked his chest making him laugh.

“I’m sorry,” he looked at me sadly.

“Why?” I asked.

“I didn’t know what you were going through,” he looked down.

“Hey,” I touched his cheek to make him look at me.

“It’s not your fault, so I don’t want you blaming yourself, okay.” I made myself clear.

I saw he was going to protest and present me with his side of the argument but if he’s stubborn then I’m his girlfriend I’m 10x more persistent, but luckily he was quick to understand because he clamped his mouth shut.

“Anyways, enough of this depressing stuff, let’s watch a movie,” I grinned.

He nodded with a smile and we moved to the small sofa we sat down with me in his lap sideways so my head was on his chest, and his arms were wrapped around me with a blanket over us as it was still really cold.

An hour later his phone’s notification bell went off, Kazuki checked his phone and it wasn’t good because Emi and Daisuke soon walked into the living room wearing the same expression.

“What?” I asked them all.

“Sora’s parents decided to call off the investigation and decided it’s time for the funeral,” Emi told me.

“And we’re all invited,” Daisuke added.

I looked at them in disbelief, if keeping this a secret was hard before it was going to be even more difficult tomorrow! But the funeral is the final test, so if we pass this then we’ll be fine, but if we slip up then we’re all fucked in more ways than one.

Koyomi
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IceDonut
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Katsuhito
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