there is nothing i love more than abrupt endings. gyahaha.
—
"What's up with this place, Honoka-san?"
"Nothing much. Shop's closed, anyway."
Honoka glanced to her left and found Misa-chan carefully looking around the oddly decorated house interior. Bright against the walls were hand-painted hieroglyphs and contradicting modern colonial and country decors, and lined up inside the antique-looking shelves were large volumes of books. Out of the corner of her eye she watched the girl stoop down to take a closer look at the titles. "Vanished? Silence of the Lambs? The Silent Scream?" she breathed out uneasily. Honoka stopped walking and turned to fully look at her.
"Ah. Seeing those books never failed to freak people out. Glad to see it worked on you."
"I was thinking about something else."
"Really," she muttered. She had always found Misa-chan's decidedly unfeminine bravery unnerving. Sometimes, she couldn't decide whether she loved or plainly hated her guts. "Oi, Usui-kun, stop wandering away. You haven't seen the rest of the place."
"I see you've brought us to a haunted mansion," he replied in a flat tone. "'Thought you would have come up with something infinitely better than this tourist trap."
"This is a real haunted house!" she interjected angrily. "With real ghosts!"
Usui was unimpressed.
"Ah. I tremble in fear."
Honoka narrowed her eyes and huffed as she struggled to regain her composure. "Strange things are said to happen in here," she grandly went on. "Many a number of people has claimed to have seen ghosts that enjoyed playing with emotions of innocent victims. I have experienced something of this sort the last time I went here with my college friends."
Her speech was met with apparent disinterest, and she was disappointed to find that her party by then had decided that they were better off inspecting the various rooms the house has to offer than pretend to endure her soliloquy. Honoka watched as Manager Satsuki and Subaru-san wandered off into another hall in search of anything remotely interesting. By then Erika-san had already enticed the Idiot Trio into some random room and hence disappeared.
Shintani Hinata scratched the back of his head as his eyes trained upward, the perfect symmetry of the ornate ceiling lost to him. "Um, can we go now? I'm really quite hungry..."
"Don't just go off wandering alone!" she snapped. "There are spirits in here!"
"Eh, but I'm really hungry!"
"Hungry? The dining room had, on more than one occasion, sent an otherwise benign visitor into a horrific rage!"
"'Can't be true."
"Can be, too!" She waved her hands dramatically. "Some people even felt such misery upon entering the parlor that they had broken into unexplainable tears!"
"Well, I don't care much about that. See, I smell the scent of something enticing, something of lemon and lime. See ya!"
Honoka stared at his retreating back with much chagrin, and she shook her head in regret. "Poor boy. He's in for a horrific surprise. Anyway," she looked around for company, and her eyes locked on the golden pair. Her eyes sparkled with malice as she acknowledged them. "Ah, Usui-kun, Misa-chan."
"What?"
"I'll have you know. There is one bedroom that supposedly elicited such feeling of uncontrollable lust that they had found complete strangers clasped in passionate embraces!"
.
.
.
"...superstitious nonsense," Usui declared flatly. Honoka risked a glance at Misaki—she might as well had the word 'disbelief' tattooed on her forehead.
"Fine, then, go on, ignore my words!" she burst out angrily. How come people just ignored her warnings? "But don't say I didn't warn you!"
And with those words, she retraced her steps back to the parlor and stomped out of the house. 'Someday you'll thank me for this.'
—
Ayuzawa Misaki bit her lip in worry as Honoka-san stomped out of her sight. She wasn't sure exactly how her friends had managed to invite her to come to Flag Street to visit the infamous haunted mansion, and even more confused as to the reason Shintani and the three idiots happened to have tagged along. Most of all, she wasn't sure how she'd ended up alone with stupid Usui.
He was busy inspecting the grandfather's clock on the corner, and Misaki took this as an opportunity to walk ahead and plot for her fastest way out of the pointless trip. It was only until he'd managed to wrap an arm around her shoulder that she'd realized he'd caught up with her.
"Going somewhere, princess?" he whispered seductively into her ear.
Instinctively, Misaki leaned away and brushed his hand away angrily. "Usui, you idiot! You—you perverted, outer space alien! What do you think you're doing? Get your hands off of me!" A blush rose on her cheeks, and she turned away from him to hide her embarrassment. Darned creep.
"Ah, I was only wondering whether you wanted to go check the Room of Lust together."
"You pervert!"
Misaki turned on her heel angrily, eager to get away from him. She grasped the knob of the first door she encountered on her right—it opened to the sight of the Idiot Trio dancing the Conga. They were doing perfect 360 spins and trading off partners and twirling and—dipping?
"What in the name of God are the three of you doing?"
Shiroyan looked up, tears streaming down his face. "Misa-chaaaaaaaan, help us! We were just looking for a place to rest and then we happened to enter this room and suddenly we were dancing!" He paused as Ikkun grabbed his arm and held his hand high. "And we can't stop! Gaaaaaah!"
"My God, the room's making us dance the...noooooo! Not the rumba! Kurotatsu, get away from me! Nooo, DO NOT TOUCH MY BACKSIDE— "
In a rare moment of non-sympathy, Misaki slammed the door shut. 'Let those guys tire themselves inside the room for a while, just so they won't have the strength to fool around later.' She walked on.
"That was heartless, Misa-chan. Those guys worship you."
"I didn't ask for it," she snapped. "Well, I'd be sure to let them out later," she amended. "But you know what? At least those guys would be ready for next week's Physical Ed. I'm sure they'd dazzle everyone with their terrific dancing skills."
Usui chuckled and matched her step. "What Honoka-san had been saying is true, then. What now? Should we go check the other rooms?"
"Um, okay," Misaki agreed. "I'm kind of worried what the others have been up to."
They rushed to the farthest section of the hallway and headed for the door that had been painted with the color pink. Laughter erupted from within, and so Misaki rushed anxiously inside the room.
"Satsuki-san? Subaru-san? Are—are you alright?"
She found the two sprawled on the floor, laughing their hearts out. Satsuki-san was clutching her stomach and Subaru-san was close to tears.
"Do you—remember the time when—Honoka-san and I picked up—items at the discount store? One of her items had no price tag and—and the checker got on the intercom and boomed out for the entire store to hear, 'PRICE CHECK ON LANE THIRTEEN, TAMPAX, SUPER SIZE?'"
"Ahaha, I do remember," cried Satsuki-san; they were both oblivious to Misaki's presence as she stared at them in incredulity. "And then somebody at the rear of the store apparently misunderstood the word 'Tampax' for 'Thumbtacks.'
"—and then, and then..." Subaru-san paused, her glasses askew, her face beet red from laughing too much. "...and then a voice boomed back over the intercom: ''DO YOU WANT THE KIND YOU PUSH IN WITH YOUR THUMB OR THE KIND YOU POUND IN WITH A HAMMER?'
"Ahahahahaha!"
"Wahahahahahahaha!"
"Satsuki-san! Subaru-san! My goodness, are you two alright?"
"Ahaha, we are, we are! Why, Misa-chan, we didn't notice you before! Do you, ahaha, remember the time when—"
"That would be enough," interrupted Usui smoothly as he grabbed Misaki by the arm. "Satsuki-san, Subaru-san, let's get out of here."
"Oh no, you two can step out," replied Subaru. "Manager and I are having a really great time. We haven't had a good laugh in ages. Go on, we'll find a way to get out of here later."
"Eh, are you sure?"
"Yes, go on. Hurry, before the room makes you laugh uncontrollably, too."
Misaki shook her head in disbelief as they stepped out of the room. "A room that makes people dance and another to make people laugh non-stop. What have we gotten ourselves into?"
"I have no idea."
"Oh look, there's the exit!" Misaki pointed to the last door to the right, and beyond the windows they could already see the large Kuromatsu trees that surrounded the mansion. Both of them breathed in relief, and they headed for the door.
"Wait, Usui-baka, how about Shintani?"
"What about him?" Usui challenged, his eyebrows cocked. "He'd just have to get himself out, eh?"
"Er. Right."
"You do know how to make a guy jealous."
"What?"
Misaki glanced uneasily at Usui as soon as they got a fill of the interiors. There had been no mistaking the mysterious room of lust when they found it. The four-poster bed draped in red velvet and luxurious satin seemed designed to stir up suppressed desire and it wasn't until he met her intense golden gaze that she realized just how successful the design was.
She could not say who reached for the other first but before common sense could make its presence known, she was in his arms, his lips crushed against hers, her arms clutching his shoulders as desperately as he grasped her slender waist.
They were just about to tumble deliriously to the canopied bed when a sudden knock sent them reeling from each other's arms.
Honoka-san and the rest of the entourage were standing in the doorway, their expressions a mixture of embarrassment and shock. It was Shintani who finally interrupted the silence, clearing his throat and gesturing to the bedroom across the hall.
"Guys, the room of lust is over there."
—