"Hey, any of you seen Take?" Tsuchiya questioned. "We were supposed to hit the arcade right around now, but he's still not here."
Tsuchiya looked to his watch for the 14th time in the past hour as he impatiently waited. Lunch had long been finished by this point, and the entire 3D class was waiting for the final bell to sound and school to be over.
In response, he received a couple of shaking heads, with an added, "Maybe he slept in."
"Until three o'clock?" Tsuchiya said, gripping his paper fan tightly. "You!" He continued, pointing said fan directly at Ryu. "Give him a call, my cell's got no battery."
Ryu said nothing, but silently flipped open his cell phone. He dialed, waited, and then hung up. "No answer."
A few worried looks shot across the room, but before another word was spoken, Ryu's phone started to ring. He flipped it back open, spotting the name Takeda Keita listed under the caller ID.
"Hey, Take," Ryu said without missing a beat. "What's going on? You didn't pick up."
"Shut up and listen!"
Ryu flinched at the stranger's voice. Right after, Hayato gasped and quickly realized what was going on. He rose to his feet in anger and gripped the edge of his desk so hard that his knuckles turned white as he strained to listen.
"Who is this?" Ryu nearly yelled into the phone.
"I said SHUT UP!"
Immediately, Ryu went silent, as did the rest of the class.
"I'm sure by now you've figured out that your little friend has gone missing. To tell you the truth, he's not looking all that good..."
Ryu cringed at the thought of Take being held by whoever the hell was on the other end of the line. Unable to slow his thoughts, all sorts of things came to the forefront of his mind. His reaction wasn't lost on his classmates either and they began to fear the worst, which brought their group anger to a whole new level.
Finally after a long pause, Ryu replied. "What do you want?"
"I want you and that other piece of Kurogin trash Hayato to come to the old warehouse ALONE! If I see anyone else – classmates, the police, or especially that whack job of a freak you call a teacher... well, I'll let you guess what will happen. Understood?"
"Yes."
"Good, now let me make this crystal clear for you... Because I know how few braincells you Kurogin morons actually have. You and Hayato... in the warehouse... alone. You have one hour to get here and I better not see anyone else!"
The line went dead and Ryu snapped his phone shut. He released a breath that he wasn't aware he'd been holding and turned toward the others. Their eyes demanded to know what was going on and it was up to him to tell them.
'^'^'^'^'^'^'
Sorry for the rather short 'teaser chapter', but the idea was in my head, so I thought there might be someone else out there interesting in reading about it. As the ideas flow, I'll work on updating. (The next chapter should arrive fairly soon however, as I've already jotted down some notes to get me started.)