It was hot. It was really, really hot. I didn't really know at what point in the past hour it had gotten so hot, but the only thing that mattered was how I was suffering because of it.
Ironically enough, I'd actually slept rather well the past few days in preparation for today. Now, it seemed, the Sandman had come to collect interest. My eyes had crusted over, my hoodie was soaked with sweat, and my mouth swore up and down that it hadn't tasted moisture in days. It was the worst nap in class I had ever taken in my life.
Damn, it was hot.
I picked myself up much in the same way a disemboweled man would, feeling every second of inactivity my limbs had experienced all at once. My neck screamed at me in protest, and I forcefully returned the thing to its proper, centered place on my body, bearing through the pain. All the while, the irritatingly cheery voices of the others around me roused me back into reality.
They were cheerful because today marked the end of the entrance exams. Regardless of whether or not they did well, or were just glad to be done with them, they were happy. I understood them, really, as I too thought I did pretty well on the exams. Indeed, I understood their cheerfulness, but right now, at this particular moment, I couldn't share in their revelry. Because nothing is more annoying than a ton of noises waking you up.
I had to suppress my grimace as I looked around the room. Small groups of two or three were interspersed through the empty-looking classroom, laughing and chattering. The board still informed me of the name of our test examiner and the time we were allowed to leave, which was a full ten minutes earlier than the clock above it read. And, as expected, baleful rays of light crawled through the gaps in the window blinds, burning my skin wherever they touched. Well, no longer.
I got up very slowly, stuffing my pencil in my hoodie pocket and angling myself towards the door. However, no sooner did I stand up did I hear the squeak of sneakers against the linoleum floor of hallway, becoming louder by the second. The rhythm of the footsteps, to be frank, gave it away. They exhibited a flavor of never-changing exuberance that I could only pick out after years of practice. Thus, by the time my best friend rounded the corner, I already had his name on my lips and a frown to match.
"Daichi," I greeted, already exhausted from his appearance. He had a smile on that said "I know what I did, but I don't care" and had an outfit to match. He really didn't even try to practice subtlety. Only a fop like him could wear a scarf and long pants on a day like this. I only had my hoodie on because they had turned on the air condition before I went to sleep. Daichi Shijima, on the other hand, looked like he was fully dressed for the winter.
"Hey, dude! Sorry you had to wait for me. I had to talk to a few teachers after I left my exam room." He gave me the Daichi Excuse Gesture #4, scratching the back of his neck. The bastard wasn't sorry at all, and he knew I knew. Well, if that's how he was going to have it...
"No worries," I replied with a smile that didn't match my eyes. "I'd been taking a nap for a while, anyways." Daichi's eyes hardened and narrowed. Gotcha.
"Man, why'd you get the smart genes? I only got the stupid ones and the" he gave a fake cough, "embarrassingly earnest ones. Or that's what girls tell me, anyway." He glared lightly at me again, referring to the latest of his failed experiences with women. In this unfortunate incident, a girl I had played wingman for dumped on him the above quotation before proceeding to try and hit on me. Needless to say, he hadn't quite forgiven me for it.
I shrugged. "Ask my parents." I stopped there due to the sound of more footsteps. They were fast, orderly, and scuffed the floor with every movement. Telltale signs of a teacher, and not good ears for the conversations between Daichi and I. This one, incidentally, had business with him.
"Shijima? Daichi Shijima?" With the classic cluelessness of a teacher, he failed to notice poor Daichi hanging out directly in the doorway. A small wave seemed to be enough to get his attention, however. "Oh, there you are. You forgot your things." The middle-aged man pulled out Daichi's blue cell phone and what I presumed to be his exam slip. I subconsciously face-palmed.
"Oh, shoot! I left those? Thank you very much, sir!" Daichi was quick to show the proper deference to a teacher.
"You might find the going tough enough without leaving your things behind, Mister Shijima," the man clipped off while looking pointedly at Daichi's exam slip. The boy was left looking devastated as the teacher walked off.
After I made sure the teacher was gone, I patted Daichi on the back. "Dang, dude. That was pretty harsh. Sorry." Just as Daichi had shown his complete willingness to arrive late on me, I was not, in fact, sorry.
"Hey, some score is better than none, right?" He held up his slip of paper weakly, before jumping back up, eyes wide in realization. "That's right! I wanted to show you something! Here, hand over your phone." He put out his hand in expectance, and I hugged my cell closer to my body. Teenaged boy asks if you want to see something? I'm wary. He needs your phone to do it? I'd rather trust a bear to cut my hair.
Daichi looked at me as if he were deeply injured by my hesitance, and gestured again with his hand. "Come on, don't be like that, man. It's only your phone."
"I'm not giving you my phone." Daichi looked like a puppy, and I wormed away from him some more. He followed me.
"Please?" He looked like a crying puppy who had just been kicked.
"No."
"It's only your phone." Like a kicked, crying puppy missing a leg.
"Not a chance."
"Just-" Now the puppy was crawling around.
"No!"
"-your phone," he whispered.
"God damn it." I cursed him, and whatever force that allowed him to be born among the thousands of other sperm cells.
I reluctantly handed him my phone, which he happily took. Before long, my paranoid instincts rose up again. I was about to demand it back when Daichi returned the phone to me, screen open, just as quickly as he had taken it.
"See, look at that! Amazing, huh?" The phone displayed a website with the word "Nicaea" printed on it in blocky lettering. The only thing amazing about it thus far was how he got it to load so quickly on a flip phone.
"Wow, Daichi. You figured out how to navigate the Internet. Now you can stop asking me stupid questions about homework." I moved to close the phone, but Daichi shot me a look.
"Not so fast, pal. I just thought I'd wow you with a bit of presentation before moving on to the meat of the event." He took a step back and postured his hands like he was shooting rainbows from them. "'Nye-kayah'!"
I gave him a stare that I hoped conveyed my disappointment. "'Nye-kayah'? Are you serious? I've seen toddlers with better phonetics."
"Come on, give me a break. I just failed my entrance exams." I wouldn't be forgetting about this any time soon. "Anyways, this is that 'images of death' website that's been going around the school recently. Apparently, if you sign up for it, you get to see pictures of your friends dying!" He sounded excited.
"Yeah, and what else do you need? Credit card number? Birth certificate?" This had to be the silliest thing I'd seen catch on in the past few months.
"No, seriously, it's cool! Remember that guy who died in the car accident last week? Well, apparently, his friend signed up for this website and saw it happen!"
"That sounds way creepier than it does cool. And if that actually were true, all it does is make the friend look like a murder suspect. Come on, Daichi, the disembodied voice in the band room was more believable than this."
Daichi crossed his arms. "Look, just put your name in, and if it's a bust, then I'll treat you to lunch sometime. Okay?"
I sighed. "Okay, but if I get some mysterious fees billed to my house, you know what else you're treating me to." Daichi gave me a noncommittal shrug, and I scrolled over to the Register button on the website.
Surely enough, it gave me two boxes and prompted my first and last name. With a small bit of hesitance still controlling my fingers, I typed in "Hibiki Kuze" and clicked enter. After the screen reacted, two animated figures walked from both sides of the screen to the center, prompting me again to make a choice. Both were remarkably detailed in spite of the phone's low resolution, but were still decidedly animated. The male was sharply dressed, and had all the gait and attitude of a wise butler. The female filled in a bunny suit rather well, complete with ears, tights and boots. Both had the purple and black motif going on. I looked to Daichi.
"Hey."
"Yeah?"
"Which one should I choose?" He looked to the screen and back to me. As soon as our eyes locked, nothing more could be said. We had an unspoken connection as two high school boys, now men, whom had grown up together. It was something that no amount of arguments or disagreements could ever break. So in that single stare, I felt as if I had known the answer my whole life. "Right. Of course," I answered simply, before clicking on the female "Tico".
I immediately regretted my decision.
"Um, like, welcome to Nicaea, home to your instant streams for images of death! I'm your guide, Tico-Tico!" Her voice, in the span of five seconds, had made me regret my entire existence if this was what it led to. It was like the military had spent millions of dollars engineering a method to cull the population of humanity just from audial-influenced suicide. I'm relatively certain that if I hadn't turned the volume down on my phone, the windows to the classroom would've been broken and ambulances would've had to be called. I looked to Daichi.
"Look at what you've done," I accused.
"What I've done?" Daichi warded off the negative stigma I was shooting him with his hands. "You pressed the button, man! It's not my fault." In the background, Tico-Tico kept talking.
"On this website, the friends you're tied to by fate... like, not just the people you meet, but your super-duper best friends who you know rilly rilly well... We'll show you ahead of time how they die in some ree-ally nasty detail! I'll keep you in the loop for when we upload new videos, so don't lose your phone! Have a nice wheeee!" With that, the website went back to the main menu and now displayed a 3x3 grid that I didn't bother looking at.
"Rilly amazing, Daichi," I deadpanned, before slipping the phone into my pocket.
"Okay, look, it's a bit of an investment, but it only means we haven't done anything dangerous yet! Come on, they always talk about how they want school to be the safest place possible, right? So it only makes sense that we couldn't die here! So..." I knew that look. The look that meant Daichi was about to suggest we go do something I wouldn't ever want to actually do. My brain registered it happening before my mouth could react. It was like a car accident happening in slow motion. His lips moved, and I was powerless to stop it.
"You don't have any afternoon exams, do you?" His lips turned up into a devious curve, and my eyes flicked to the clock. 12:17. Damn, if I had afternoon exams, I'd be two minutes too late for it. Daichi was staring at me now, and he was gearing up for another pass. Think, damn it, think!
...
Aha!
"Heh, my mom actually told me this morning to get home early. I have to help her do a few things around the house. You know how it goes." Flawless. Daichi lived on the other side of the city, and he wouldn't want to go anywhere without me. He didn't have my mom's phone number, and his mom was out for work, so by the time he figured out my clever ruse, it'd be too late for him to do a damn thing about it. Truly, this was my true intelligence shining. So why was it that he was still smiling?
"Funny you'd say that, Hibiki, because my mom gave me a very interesting piece of information a few nights ago." A bead of sweat broke out on my forehead, and I hoped very dearly that it was from the heat. "Apparently, your mom called mine to let her dear friend know that she would be out of town for a few weeks with her husband." I hate friendships. And everything else. "Isn't that just so incredibly interesting? Hi-bi-ki Ku-ze?"
"You sadist," I muttered. Daichi responded with that irritating smile of his.
"Anyhow, how's about we go to this new store in Shibuya? Huh, pal?" He put his arm around me and began leading me outside, forcing my stiff limbs along. I think I left skid marks in the floor as he pushed me through the doorway.
"Of course, best buddy of mine," I spoke with gritted teeth and a tight smile.
God, I hated shopping.
"You shop like a girl, Daichi."
"Whatever do you mean?"
"I think you know exactly what I mean, and it's in my hands."
"Oh, those? Those, my dear friend, are for the ladies. Just look at this shirt! Total chick magnet."
"I don't know what world you're living in, but if you keep buying as much as those ladies, you'll need to get a job to start paying for it." I don't know how long it had been, just wasting the day away, grousing about shopping and carrying Daichi's things for him. And did this guy ever buy a ton.
"Yeah, but I do have a driver's license, now." He slid the small slip of plastic out of his pocket to show me with a smug look on his face before sliding it back in like he just flashed me. "It shouldn't be so hard to keep a job now. Although, getting a job does require me to pass the entrance exams..." His voice turned mildly severe towards the end.
"Hey, cheer up, man. The burger place by my house'll probably take you." I snickered, covering my mouth with my hand as Daichi whirled on me. After finding nothing of value in my expression, he turned back and pressed the button on the crosswalk.
"But seriously, though, I don't think I could do so well in a wage job if I didn't enjoy what I was doing."
"Money's money, Daichi." I rolled my eyes.
"I know that, but it's still the principle of the thing, y'know! I don't want to be Daichi the Register Jockey. And it's easy for you to say. You're the guy who aces literally everything. Sports, grades, you name it!" The light turned red, and we walked across the street. The bags were getting heavy, now.
"And most important of all to ace: my friends' hearts." I winked and shot him with a finger pistol.
"Ha ha. But really, I don't know how you do it."
"I don't know how you don't. I just do the work and exercise occasionally. Maybe you're just lazy."
"Maybe you're right. I do play video games an awful lot..." Daichi put a hand to his chin as if he were seriously considering that for his reason of failure.
"But then again, I do play just as much as you, most of the time," I added offhandedly. Daichi gave out an exasperated sigh.
"Come on, man, can't you just let a guy dream?"
"Nope," I said seriously. "I had to shoot you down before you got any ideas of us being equal."
We both grinned, and the conversation continued something like that until we arrived at the subway station. The platform was crowded and cramped like usual.
"...and there was this one guy who kept going on and on about our mid lane in Russian, and-" Daichi cut off for a moment, interrupting the story. He stared off over the heads of all the other people and squinted. I waited a few seconds before getting his attention again.
"Hey, Creepy. What are you staring at?" I followed his gaze until I caught a glimpse of a very... healthy girl with a brown bob cut, dressed in our school uniform.
Daichi gulped and bumped my shoulder. "Is that who I think it is?" I raised an eyebrow and made a point of brushing off the spot he touched before racking my brain for a response.
"A walking endorsement for the benefits of good nutrition?"
Daichi gave me a really creepy smile at that and nodded. "You got that one right, but look again. That's Io Nitta. You know, from Class C?" It rung a bell, that was for sure.
"That's right. Number one on Daichi's List of Perfection."
"Right again, my best friend and confidant. Oh, sweet Io. She's cute, gentle, innocent..." And probably not attracted to the aggressive weirdness I'm seeing now.
"Okay, Daichi? Deep breaths. Taper it down. What if Io saw you like this?" She'd probably wish she could unsee it.
"What? Don't be paranoid, dude. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah! Sweet, modest..." He started counting on his fingers, blissfully ignorant of the approaching presence behind him.
"U-um, excuse me," a sweet and modest voice came from behind Daichi. I snorted in an attempt to stifle myself.
"Yeah, whaddaya want? Can't you see I'm-" Daichi responded like a true chump, berating the cute, gentle and innocent presence behind him for interrupting him about... "I-Io?! Ha... haha... What a coincidence!" Oh, what a delightful hole Daichi's dug himself this time.
"Oh, were you two talking about something? I-I'm sorry, I just noticed you two were wearing my school's uniforms and..." Truly, Io, you were as sweet as my sources had suggested. But the call for true evil was far too strong.
I showed a toothy smile and did my worst. "Well, actually, we were- mmph!" I gave a muffled yell in surprise as Daichi grabbed a sock from his bag and stuffed in in my mouth, knocking me back into a bench. He hovered over me by placing a hand on the wall above me and crossed his legs over one another real cool-like. Io, meanwhile, after seeing all that, put a hand over her mouth in adorable shock.
"-talking about nothing! Haha! Nothing at all!" Daichi covered his tracks, and I decided it best to see how he handled the situation. For the moment, though, I had gained a free pair of socks. "S-So, Io... what brings you here?" Daichi's voice had miraculously dropped an octave.
"Well, you guys came from the exams, right? I got here a little late..." She looked to the ground sheepishly. A little late? Morning exams started at 8:00!
"Oh, those? Pshh. Easy peasy." Daichi flicked his wrist up and down and looked to me only for a moment, as if daring me to contradict him. "Afternoon exams started a while ago, but evening exams should be okay to make by six. Everyone should still be there, and you'd be okay to get practice questions too." He flipped the hair out of his eyes and waited for Io to respond. I started for her.
"Wow, Daichi, you actually were paying attention!" I couldn't help it.
Daichi turned and stared at me like I had just farted. "Hey, numbskull-" he was about to say, when both ours and Io's phone's buzzed with the sound of receiving an email. "Woah. At the same time, too," Daichi commented, before turning his attention to Io again. "Must be on the same wavelength, huh?"
I interrupted his attempts at wooing Io again. "Hey, Daichi, this is a video. That's gonna rack up my cell phone data real quick, man. I'm regretting signing up for Nicaea now."
"Nicaea? Hmm..." he opened the email, and his face went a little bit pale. I pocketed my phone.
"What... is this? Creepy..." Io sounded irrationally distraught for just a video. I got up to sneak a peek.
"Hey, Hibiki? That's you, isn't it?" Daichi mumbled with a slight quiver in his voice. Oh, so it's one of those death videos, huh? Now I was morbidly curious. I gestured for him to hand me the phone, and I restarted the video from the beginning.
The first thing I noted, again, was how good it looked in spite of the mildly cartoony style it was presented in. The second thing I marveled at was how it was in the exact location the three of us were in, right now. And the depictions of us covered and crushed by rubble were real top notch. The runaway train thing was a little contrived, though. The only thing that could cause that would be if it didn't slow down properly around a curve, or if someone sabotaged the line. Maybe if the conductor miraculously died, but that was even less likely. I think they locked the doors on those things.
"Pretty slick, huh?" Daichi sounded pretty impressed by the whole thing, and, to be frank, so was I.
"Yeah. You win, Daichi, no free food. But the way they knew where we were was pretty creepy, though," I commented. I'd probably have to look this up online when I got home. Looking at my splattered brains on the concrete was a surreal, and slightly unpleasant experience.
"I-I think you're in this too, Daichi," Io spoke up. Under any other circumstance, Daichi probably would have said that was creepy.
"Oh, you know my name, Io?" he spoke up dreamily. I suppressed a shiver and a cringe, and settled for rolling my eyes. The digital jingling of the bells rang across the subway platform, and the sound of an engine drew closer. "Oh, the train's here." Then, all hell broke loose.
The ground started rumbling, and I braced against the bench. Lights started flickering, and everyone around me fell or stumbled slightly at the shaking. It felt like a fifty pound weight had sunken to my gut and refused to leave. Io had fallen in a rather convenient way across my lap, but she quickly recovered and stood back up, a slight blush across her face.
"What the hell? Was that an earthquake?" Daichi half-questioned, half-shouted over the sound of everyone else panicking. I was going to respond, but then I saw something that made my voice die in my throat.
A big, runaway train.
I could have said a multitude of things. "Run", maybe. Or a prayer to God. But as I looked to the front of the train hurtling towards me, a bloody splatter across one of the windows and the mutilated body of a conductor inside, I only had one response.
"You've got to be kidding me." The last thing I saw in my reflection was shaggy, black hair and yellow eyes staring back in my place.
I awoke in purgatory. A big, black void where no light could have possibly existed, but where I could see perfectly well. There wasn't a scratch on me, and I don't recall going to sleep, however, so I can't really say I woke up. I couldn't say where I was, either. There were a bunch of things I didn't understand.
Then, Tico-Tico appeared in front of me, in the flesh, and I confirmed one of my facts.
"Ah, I see. This isn't purgatory. This is Hell." I started to repent for my sins.
"Aww, don't be like that! You're not dead, silly! Well, not yet, anyways!"
"Are you sure? That train was coming pretty fast."
"Well, yeah, but a computer's waaaay faster, right? So all you gotta do is say you wanna live, and the Demon Summoning App'll do all the work for you!" What.
"...you serious?"
"Uh-huh!" Tico2 smiled irritatingly and nodded so fast I thought her head would shake off.
"What's the catch?" This sounded like a deal with the devil if there ever were one. And I had done more than one of those. Wait...
"No catch! Just say you want to live, and you're good to go, Hibi!"
"Don't call me that," I said quickly. That's all, huh? Well, in that case. "I want to live."
"Sweet! Sorry, by the way! Just had to check for legal reasons. Okay then! Have a nice life!" She smiled again, and she disappeared from view inexplicably. Then, the world began to shrink. How I knew that, I didn't know, because everything was black. But everything just got farther and farther away, until I could barely hear a small voice cry out.
"Hey! Wait for me!"
And then there was pain. I felt a dull pain on my head. The black void had turned into my closed eyelids, and I felt out of breath. I was on the ground, pebbles all around me. I touched at my forehead and gradually picked myself up, and I smelt scorched metal all around me. A bit of liquid dripped into my lips while I was gasping for air, and a single taste confirmed it: I was bleeding.
"H-hey, are you okay?" a small voice said next to my ear, prompting me to open my eyes. The darkness of the subway, somehow, could not fool them. My mind was a bit rattled before, but the crashed train and destruction around me confirmed my situation pretty easily. The dead bodies were a good indicator as well. And although my brain registered it was wrong, my stomach didn't respond. It was like I had seen scenes like this before.
The last thing to catch my immediate attention was the tiny lady with wings floating next to my ear, her height no longer than my forearm. She wore a navy blue leotard with stockings and gloves to match, as well as red hair conveniently arranged into a pixie cut. She had her hands together and her face scrunched in worry, and I felt my heart lurch. My mouth spoke before my mind caught up.
"P-pixie?" How I knew that, I wasn't sure, but the name felt just right on my tongue. Apparently it was alright on her ears, too, because her adorable little face perked up in excitement, and she threw herself onto my face.
"Naoki! You remembered me!" she squealed, and I scrunched up my face in pain and confusion. Naoki? The name was unfamiliar, but like her name, it felt... right, somehow. What the hell was going on here?
Apparently Pixie noticed my discomfort, and said: "Oh, I'm so sorry! I forgot you got hit by a train! I'll fix you up real quick, okay?" Her voice was not unlike the female Tico's, but it was more reserved, and it set my emotions less towards the side of annoyance and more towards acceptance and safety. Additionally, as soon as she said so, a warm feeling spread across my body, and the word Prayer resounded through my head like a heavenly narration. I knew exactly what she was doing, and I felt like I could do it too. Like I was suddenly healed in more ways than just my head wound. That, however, only made me more confused.
"Thanks, Pixie, but-" I fell to one knee as a headache asserted itself, but I ground out the words. "Daichi and Io... they're..." I gestured around where I thought they were, and Pixie followed my gaze.
"Got it!" she said cheerfully. "You can leave it to me!" And she flew off to heal the both of them. My head still pounded with pain, despite being healed, and my brain flooded with confusing bits of information that made no sense. Demons, ghosts, Amala... a thousand different terms that had no definition but all the meaning. I couldn't handle it. I needed to deal with this later, because my friends needed me.
Daichi gradually regained consciousness and looked to me, with Pixie behind him healing Io. "What... did anyone get the number of the plate that hit- what the hell is that?!" he said groggily, before jumping and sprinting to my location. A stocky, red creature appeared in a flash of digitized blue and looked around, not blinking an eye at the carnage. Not that I could see any eyes to speak of. It scratched at itself lazily before settling its gaze on us.
"Phew! Human world! Wow, I actually thought that train would be heavier. Anyways, I'm Obariyon, and you owe me one!" It yelled in a whiny, high-pitched voice. Its malicious tone told me that whatever it wanted wasn't something I wanted to give.
"Ahhhhh!" Io had also apparently woken up. Poor Pixie put her flying skills to work and dodged out of the way when Io followed Daichi's lead and took off like a light. She planted herself firmly behind him, who was behind me, until we looked like a congo line of frightened high schoolers.
"Yeah, that's the spirit! I think I'll kill all of you to break in this new body of mine!" The Obariyon started rolling its shoulders comically while it bared its teeth. I'll be honest. I was scared. A train had almost killed me, and I was going to be killed by a red, deformed chimpanzee. But even in spite of that, some faraway part of my brain convinced the rest of my body to stop shaking and take a combat pose. What I could do against it, I wasn't sure. Whatever it was, though, I was gonna try it.
Before the demon could take a single step, though, Pixie planted herself between me and the demon, arms wide. Daichi and Io took a few steps back and fell onto their behinds simultaneously. I also heard a small, girlish yelp, but I had my doubts it was from Io. I was only shocked. "Pixie?"
"If you think I'm going to let you lay a single claw on Naoki, you're dead wrong! You aren't even worthy to be killed by him!" She defended me with such ferocity that even the Obariyon was shocked. My mind started running again, and I couldn't help but wonder how many times I had seen this sight. This small fairy, standing between me and harm's way, as far as I could remember. I had to stop myself from reaching my hand out to her, reminding myself that I was in a combat situation.
"Hibiki, what...?" I heard Daichi speak up behind me.
"That's how it's gonna be, huh?" The Obariyon looked offended. "Alright then, if you're gonna side with your human buddies there, then it's only fair that I get to summon some friends of my own! Come on guys!" With a snap of his fingers, two more demons inexplicably appeared, and I knew both their names. The Poltergeist and a member of the Jack family: the Pyro Jack. Both were not known for their excessive kindness.
As the three demons approached, and Pixie and I stood to greet them, my mind flashed to the conversation between Daichi and I about jobs. Daichi talked about doing something he liked, or else he couldn't live like that. I finally had something interesting to add to that.
What if to live, I had to do something I liked?
It was a strange thought, to be sure, but as I felt an equally strange smile come to my face, I knew it to be true.
This was what I loved.