I can see you.
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To Hide and To Seek
—let's play hide and seek.
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i. Veil Yourself
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All shades of scarlet and orange strewed onto the asphalt road the afternoon Hino Kahoko chose to amble about the town's soothingly beautiful park. The sky was splattered with red painting all over from the distant horizon and the trees were dancing into the cold breeze of the climaxed autumn, the reddening leaves fluttering before her. If Hino were to be asked, she would definitely say everything around her then was a sight to behold.
The zephyr whispered good autumn to her—a beautiful day, an even more gorgeous afternoon, and a faltering twilight. It definitely told her the date this day, the thirty-first of October. Hino wondered curiously why people make out horrific stories for the last day of the tenth month—Halloween—when in reality, it was beautiful. It was just . . . there.
Hino closed her eyes, breathing in the gentle gust of wind, and travelling towards a familiar path towards the shore. The moment she opened her eyes, the waves were there, telling her of a silent song, and the sun stood at the far side, waving good-bye to her. When she looked up, half the sky was already inky with dotted diamonds here and there.
Beautiful, she thought. Hauntingly beautiful it was almost ominous.
Before the sun could finally let go of the day and invite in the moon and the rest of the stars, the redheaded violinist saw something glitter against the white sand, summoning heavy curiosity within her. Hino headed towards the object, not before removing her cerise-coloured ballet flats.
Bare-footed, she reached the item, to which she raised an eyebrow at. It was a bottle with a—
"Uh . . . a message in a bottle?" Hino questioned quietly, surprised and amused, to say the least. She uncorked the bottle, fished for the rolled script with little effort, and sat down on her bottom upon the soft sands. Naively, she reasoned to herself as she unfolded the paper, "This is so not snooping. This is being curious. . . . OK?"
The jovial teen was rendered speechless and horrified—she swore, her heart skipped quite a number of beats—when she finally finished the short message written on the paper. She had never been this . . . stunned before.
Hino Kahoko.
I can see you.
I am watching you.
Hide before I reach you.
You veil yourself.
I hunt you.
—because we'll be engaging in a game of hide and seek.
Just that, and suddenly, Hino found her world cramming her into a bottle of wretched oblivion, scaring her and taunting her. She looked around, wary, searching for the person who could have possibly thrown the bottle the moment she arrived by the shore. All rational thoughts evaporated from her head with the sudden scare.
There was no one, and it was dead silent into the early night. When she looked further, Hino realised that the lampposts were already lighted, moths and fireflies mobbing around. There were no other people with her—the place was deserted and she was left alone to herself.
Then it sunk to her.
Hino Kahoko, violinist from Seiso Gakuen, acquaintances with the prominent pianist, Hamai Misa, and ex-competitor in the prestigious concours, had someone—worse, a serial killer or a psycho stalker—up her tail and she had no idea where he or she was. Hino paled when she realised she had no idea where or how to start escaping this ridiculous situation and how she could ever evade the nagging feeling that told her, "Run. Kami-sama, just run!"
And just as her lax conscience asked her to, Hino Kahoko scrambled to her feet, put on her flats, and sprinted into the night, leaving the bottle flanking the flimsy paper with the sand. The wind blew and the sheet spluttered against the bottle, displaying a signature that Hino failed to see.
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ii. Seek You
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Hino warily looked around as she made her way towards her house. Now that she felt like someone was after her, she could not help but notice that the path towards home was taking strangely longer than usual. The night breeze was almost mocking, as if telling her that she would not be able to make it. Everywhere seemed to have someone eyeing her and the moon—it was a scary crescent. The glow was ill-omened, the shape sneering, and the stars were contemptuous. Hino felt a wave of shiver run down her spine.
She looked behind her back and paused when she thought she saw someone.
I swear I saw a person's silhouette!
Hino frowned and grasped her hands towards her aching chest. She pursed her lips together and stepped backward, only to feel something furry down her leg. Shaking, she looked down only to see a black feline staring up at her with luminous amber orbs.
"Aaaaaaahhh!" shrieked Hino as she made a move to scurry away back to the direction she came from. She had no other choice, had she?
Hino stopped on her tracks, sweating cold beads, and hyperventilated. What was she thinking? She was advancing to her "predator" even more—she was not avoiding him at all! She breathed in a shaky, heavy breath and exhaled.
"Calm down, Kaho," whispered Hino to herself before walking back to the track towards her home. "This is just a ridiculous . . . ridiculous thing you came up with and—and—ugh, just calm down."
The seconds continued to come and go, the world continued spinning, and Hino . . . . She gripped her hands tighter, urging herself to ease. Along the way, she swore she could see floating—
"Aaaah!" she screamed, falling onto her bottom. She could attest she saw floating jack-o'-lanterns. It was there, on the other side of the street—it was just a matter of removing the throng of trees and it was definitely there—there!
There were . . . three floating jack-o'-lanterns. Three.
Heart thudding strongly against her breastbone, Hino clambered to her feet and staggered as she ambled her way back to home. She just hoped she was merely conjuring up ideas because it was Halloween and people were making up stories. Things that come up to her head were wild influences of these idiotic stories that would never fail to make the listener jump into the vast field called fright.
Hino's cell phone rang.
The redhead did not stop from walking as she got a hold of her phone from her pants' back pocket. Not looking at the caller ID to know who it was, Hino answered blindly.
"Yes?" she said. She waited for a long while for the person to speak from the other line, but all she received was silence. An eerie silence at that. "He—Hello? Please answer or else I'll put this d—"
A gruff voice cut her off with the statement "I'm watching you."
That was all Hino needed to break into a speedy sprint towards her home.
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iii. I Close In On You
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It started to shower sprinkles of cold rain when Hino reached her house. The atmosphere was even more ominous than it already was, and to make matters worse, the moment she entered through the front door, ready to sigh in utmost relief, the electricity went off, making Hino scream.
"Okaasan?" she called out, closing the door behind her. She gulped lightly, head brimming with frightful imagination. "Oneesan? Er—Where are you?"
The violinist waited for responses only to have stillness echoing into the darkness. She took small, nervous steps forward and blindly sauntered towards the stairs for her room. Along the way, she thought she saw eyes that shone somewhere deeper into the house, digging holes into her shaking silhouette.
Electricity within her body jolted Hino to chariness when, out of the blue, came music. Colours washed out from her face when she realised it was a violin—a violin that played Mozart's Requiem Mass in D minor. This person—this psycho—he surely was taunting her. He knew she played the violin, he knew she was into music—
Then her phone rang again. She unsurely fished it out and stared at the caller ID—Unknown Number. Biting onto her lower lip, Hino pushed the red button. Better not answer the damned call. It rang again. The teen cut it off with a swift press on the end key.
The cycle repeated, though. Her cell phone would ring, she'd cut it off. It would ring again. Cut. Ring. Cut. When Hino's patience ran out, and her panicky side prevailed, she shut it off, pressing deeply into the power button.
There. No more incessant and unwanted phone calls. It was just her and the damned music.
As though a bucket of ice-cold water had been turned upside on her head, Hino's skin prickled into Goosebumps when she noted, No. It's not just me and the freaking music. It's me and . . . and . . .
Hino wondered if she should refer to the person as a person or as a stalker. Cold silence deafened her ears, and her whole body shook as she warily looked around the dark, eerie house. She was near the stairs already—it was just a matter of a few steps—but she could not bring her self to actually walk.
Then and there, she felt it.
A whisper to her nape. A zephyr to her red tresses. Cold to her skin. A presence stood closely behind her—a cold, freezing presence. Somehow, despite the fear boiling in within her, Hino noticed that the music had stopped and something—something so cold—was pressing against her nape.
She gasped.
The redhead could not interpret the unfathomable experience. She was rendered still and unmoving, her appendages ineffectual against the situation. She could not turn her head and look over her shoulder to see who the person was. Hino wondered if her stillness had anything to do with her anxiety but—
"W—Who the hell are you?" she questioned, her voice quivering. The thing pressed to her nape was retracted and warm breathing stood in exchange.
"Why scared?" the soft, rough voice asked in return.
Hino pursed her lips and made a turn. She could only see the dark silhouette of the person as she said, "Because you're scaring me! What—What do you want, anyway?"
There was a sigh before the person spoke, "Hino, you idiot."
The redheaded violinist looked appalled. And this person had the guts to—to—her eyes widened. That voice. That freakishly low, baritone voice.
The electricity went back just as she exclaimed, "Tsukimori-kun?"
Much to Hino's chagrin, the cold item pressed to her nape was actually the head of Tsukimori Len's violin.
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iv. Just Wanted To Say
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Hino set the cups of tea on top of the coffee table as she sat herself on the loveseat across the cerulean-haired violinist. She glowered heatedly at him as she said, "What were those for? Those things that freaked me out—"
"—because you're being an idiot," supplied Tsukimori as he rolled his golden eyes.
Cheeks puffed out as Hino blushed. "I am so not an idiot," she muttered, turning to look at her fiddling and cold hands. "Who wouldn't be scared when you practically have someone up your tails?"
It looked like Tsukimori was merely fighting the urge to roll his eyes the second time that night. Hino was so stupid. Who in his right mind would scare himself as thoroughly as Hino did?
"Maybe you've forgotten," started Tsukimori as he held the bridge of his nose in between his fingers, "but we have to practise for the upcoming interschool competitions. Requiem Mass in D minor, just to remind you."
Hino gaped. She opened her mouth to speak then closed it almost instantly. What did she have to say to that?
"I saw you by the park," Tsukimori continued, now taking a sip of the tea Hino had prepared. He looked Hino in the eye. "I confirmed that yes, you, being the idiot that you are, forgot all about the practise. So I grabbed a pen and paper from my bag, placed it in a bottle that I've seen lying on the ground—threw it to you."
Hino drew in a breath. She blinked and stared long and hard at Tsukimori, wondering if she had somehow imagined everything he had said then.
"Then why did you have to write all those 'hide and seek' material?"
Tsukimori shrugged, to which Hino rolled her eyes at.
"Tsukimori-kun, you're such a daft!"
"Says the girl who freaks out at everything I do."
"What did you do that for? Why not just phone me?" When Tsukimori did not reply soon, Hino continued in a suspicious tone, "Don't tell me . . . you're the one who phoned me senseless and told me all those—those—I can see you crap?"
Tsukimori shrugged yet again, his broad shoulders seemingly heavy at the action. Hino's eyes widened.
"The violin?" she demanded. She almost stood up as she leaned in closer to face Tsukimori. "You're the one who's playing the violin, aren't you?"
"I'm practising, idiot."
The redheaded violinist shrieked. "Don't call me idiot, Tsukimori-kun!" she said. "Mou . . . . You didn't have to practise when the power's out—"
"Hino."
"—and those floating jack-o'-lanterns—"
"Floating jack-o'-lanterns?"
"—your freaking song—"
"Hino."
"—the incessant phone calls—"
"Hino."
"—your weird way of saying you know I'm not practising. At all."
"Hino."
"Andandand you sneaking inside my house!"
"Hino!"
The red-haired lass blinked rapidly and stopped her babbling. She blushed different shades of red when she realised all those terms she had used against the Tsukimori. This was not going anywhere well.
"Y—Yes, Tsukimori-kun?" she asked, suddenly coy. She bit her lip when he frowned, as if he forgot what he had to say.
Tsukimori hesitated before saying, "Just wanted to say—"
Hino's eyes widened.
"—you're such an idiot."
". . ."
". . ."
". . . Mou, Tsukimori-kun!"
"Oi, Hino."
"Hm?"
"I love you."
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v. I Love You
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Author's Note: 1) I'm back. Not really, but I'm still here. Yes? :) This is my entry for our Halloween Special. I didn't do any collaboration for now, just on Christmas day, hm? Yep.
2) The floating jack-o'-lanterns aren't floating, really. XD It seemed they're floating because the kids doing their trick-or-treats that night were wearing black, and it so happened to be night. xDD Hino's jumping to conclusions because, well, because she's panicking?
3) Hino's panicky side has a reason—who wouldn't imagine things when all you've heard throughout the day were horrific stories that would really have the hairs on your skin stand? :P
4) Questions? Ask away. :)
5) I'll be back soon, I promise. :DD Let's keep in touch, OK? In Facebook and everywhere else? C:
6) I love you all, and show me you do to me, too, through reviewing. Yeah? Yeah. =D
Love,
~Aira