Yay a new chapter! The magic of summer vacation, its wonderful isn't it?

Yeah I don't have much to say in this opening note so just enjoy the chapter

Edited: 3/8/13


A walk, that was just what I needed a nice long walk. I stared up at Mikami with my best puppy-dog face. She rolled her eyes and folded her arms across her chest. That was what she did when she was trying not to give in; I knew that I was beginning to crack her stone hard resolve. I heard Ariwa and Kasai snicker from behind me. I ignored them. This was precisely why I never asked for permission; it was always too much hassle. This is why I just didstuff and cared for the repercussions later.

"Please, Mikami," I begged.

She sighed, "I don't know, Hyōka. You only woke up two hours ago and I think you should stay in bed after what happened last night."

I groaned as Ariwa and Kasai sent me worried looks. I hadn't told them about last night yet. Kasai would bug me nonstop about it and Ariwa would have gone into 'mother duck mode'.

"Hold up, if something happened last night I don't think you should be leaving the house at all," Ariwa spoke up. Like I said mother duck mode.

I shot a harsh glare his way. Did he always have to be a stick in the mud? "I feel fine now. Whatever happened is all a thing of the past," I turned back to Mikami. "And would you rather I spend all my time in bed and waste away or go outside and get some exercise? If I get fat when I'm older then it's going to be all your fault."

She shook her head. "I just don't think that you should be out of bed yet-"

"It was just a panic attack it's not like I'm recovering from pneumonia or anything," I threw my hands up into the air.

"Plus, it's not like Kazu's house is that far away; It's only a fifteen minute walk," Kasai stated.

Mikami seemed to consider this for a while.

"And if anything does happen Kazu's mom works part time at a nursing home and I know first aid," she went on.

I raised my eyebrow at her. She was talking like I was going to drop down with a seizure or something.

Mikami chuckled, "Fine you can go. But if anything happens I want you to tell Kazuya's mom and call me or Teito right away, I mean it, Hyōka."

I nodded.

"And I want you back home before six."

I nodded again.

"And take a jacket it's chilly out today."

"Anything else?"

"And try not to get into trouble."

"I'm going to Kazu's house, Mikami, how can I get in trouble?"

"Knowing you, you'll somehow find away," she sighed and shook her head. I shrugged what could I say? I had inadvertently made a name for myself.

...

The three of us took a short cut through the park. Well, it would have been a short cut if we hadn't decided to stop a while. Kasai and Ariwa sat on the swings while I sat on the ground playing with a few blades of grass.

"So, what happened last night?" Ariwa asked.

I sighed and uprooted a clump of grass. "Nothing, I just had another panic attack."

"You've been having a lot of those lately," Kasai noted kicking off with her feet and swinging high into the air. I felt sick just watching her go that high. "Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't it be?" I mumbled turning away from the swings.

She shrugged. "I dunno, you tell me."

I glanced over at Ariwa. He was staring at me with a small frown on his face. I knew that he was trying to hide it well, but he was obviously uncomfortable when we discussed my anxiety. It really was strange for a twelve-year-old to have anxiety especially when most twelve-year-olds didn't even know what anxiety was. No matter how much I insisted I knew that Ariwa thought that it was some sort of physical illness and that I had to be handled with care. He acted like an older brother sometimes; he kept on telling me to watch out for this or not to do that and it was exasperating most of the time. I had no idea why I let him do it, though. It was not like I didn't have enough people breathing down my neck.

"What triggers the attacks?" he asked slowly. "Maybe you could avoid whatever it is then."

I thought back to the red light with a shudder. "If knew then I would certainly avoid it. But if you're afraid of me suddenly collapsing on you, don't be. It doesn't work like that." I realised that the two of them had never actually been there whenever I had an attack. Of course they would over dramatise it. He seemed slightly relieved at this. I ran a hand though my hair and lazily glanced around.

"Hey, Kazu," Kasai sang bringing her swing to a halt by scuffing her shoes on the ground.

He looked over at her. She had a cheeky smile directed my way. I had no idea why this girl liked to tease me so.

"Is Rei going to be home?"

I groaned out loud as both of my friends burst out laughing. Rei was Ariwa's annoying little sister, who might have had a crush on me.

"Please say no," I moaned.

Ariwa laughed harder, "If you hadn't lead her on in the first place then you wouldn't be having all of this trouble."

"I was being nice!"

"A bit too nice, if you ask me," Kasai giggled, "and now she won't leave you alone."

"You know she was drawing you a picture yesterday? It was you two holding hands surrounded by hearts."

Okay, when I said might I meant definitely. "Shut up," I snarled feeling heat rise to my cheeks. I turned away from the laughing pair with a huff. I wondered if a nine-year-old would understand the concept of a restraining order... probably not. But in my defence to this whole crush thing; I had said hi and asked her a few questions. She had been following us around so instead of ignoring her I asked if she wanted to play with us. She had then proceeded to turn several different shades of pink and run off giggling. I had caught her staring at me and smiling several occasions afterwards. I had even received a few emails and letters consisting of sappy love poetry stating how I was her prince charming or some other crap like that. Of course Ariwa and Chou found the entire thing hilarious.

"You two are just jealous that someone likes me," I snapped.

Ariwa raised an eyebrow, "Someone that happens to be my kid sister. If it was someone in our grade, maybe Seito Megumi, then I might be jealous. But not with Rei, definitely not Rei."

"You like Megumi?" Kasai asked her smile faltering faintly.

It was Ariwa's turn to blush. "No, I just think she's hot."

"You do know she's going out with Fujiwa Kenji, right? And he's in grade nine."

"I know, I never said I liked her," Ariwa snapped.

I chuckled. Yeah, he liked her; I had to tell him to wipe the drool from his mouth whenever she entered the classroom. It was too bad that she didn't even know his name; but that may have been due to the fact that she was the definition of a dumb blond,except she wasn't blond.

"Good. She's a slut anyway," Kasai snapped folding her arms across her chest.

Ariwa's jaw dropped, "How do you know? You don't even know her!"

"Don't you see the way she throws herself at guys? If that doesn't spell desperate then I don't know what does."

I coked my head; I hadn't noticed any of that. "I think you just don't like her."

She narrowed her eyes at me. "Sorry, this conversation is too mature for a little twelve-year-old."

I scowled at her. "I'm turning thirteen in three months might I remind you." It wasn't my fault that the conversation had taken a turn into sensitive territory; she didn't need to take it out on me. And it certainly wasn't my fault if she had a secret crush on Ariwa. But then again I wasn't supposed to know this; she was trying to be secretive and was doing a terrible job at it. She was lucky that Ariwa was about as perceptive as a doorpost.

"How sweet, and then I'll soon be fourteen."

"Easy, Chou, he was just giving his opinion," Ariwa came to my defence.

"Well, his opinion was wrong. I don't just don't like her. She is in fact a slut who you should not have a crush on."

I rolled my eyes talk about obvious. "I smell jealousy," I mumbled.

Kasai narrowed her eyes, "What was that?" she snarled.

"Nothing," I said averting my eyes. I pointedly stared at some bushes while Kasai glared me down.

"Why do we even hang out with him?" I heard her ask Ariwa, but my attention had wavered.

Standing not too far away from us was a boy about our age. Well, Ariwa's and Kasai's Age as they had so kindly pointed out earlier. He was staring at us with a wistful expression on his face. Maybe he wanted to join us or something. But when he saw me looking over at him he shot me a glance full of so much hate that I actually felt something shoot through my chest. Well, someone was an angry little kid. And they said I was grumpy? The kid then stuck his tongue out at me and disappeared into the bushes. What a little prick. I hope he caught hypothermia running around in shorts during autumn. He had been dressed as though it was a warm summer day. The idiot, I didn't even know him, what right did he have to send me such a dirty look?

"And he's zoning out on us..." Ariwa sighed.

I turned back to them, "Did you guys not see that? He just shot me the nastiest of nasty looks ever! I don't even know him!"

Ariwa raised an eyebrow. "Who shot you a dirty look? There's no one else here, Hyōka."

"He was right there by the bushes!"

"There was never anyone there," Kasai dismissed me with a wave of her arm. "Anyway, let's go. It's almost lunch time and I'm getting hungry."

As we stood up I couldn't help but glance back at the bushes where the boy had been. They would have had to be blind to not have seen him. I saw him peeking out from in between two branches before he disappeared again. I frowned, no one else here my foot.

"Hyōka, come on let's go. You're acting weird."

I tore my eyes away from the bushes and followed the other two. A soft rustle of leaves and a snapped twig told me that I was not the only one to do so.

On the way to Ariwa's house I kept on seeing glimpses of the boy. He was tailing us and not even trying to be discrete about it. I tried to ignore him but it was really strange to have someone blatantly following me around like this and sending me dirty looks like I was the bane of his existence. Neither Kasai nor Ariwa noticed him so I took it to mean that he was some sort of ghost. That would explain why I was the only one able to see him.

"Hyōka geez, do you have a twitch or something? You keep on looking over your shoulder. It's getting annoying," Kasai sighed.

"Oh , sorry," I muttered looking back at the ghost again.

"Okay what's wrong with you? You never apologise to me," she folded her arms across her chest.

"Nothing."

She raised an eyebrow. Fortunately we had reached Ariwa's house so she stopped the questioning. Unfortunately, the reason she stopped was because once Ariwa had opened the door and Rei was there waving shyly at me. Kasai was laughing too much to continue to bug me. I felt my eyebrow start to twitch. Ariwa held back a snicker.

"A word out of either of you and you both are dead," I growled.

"Hey, Hyōka, I didn't know that you were coming over today," she folded her arms across her chest and glared at her brother. "Kazu never tells me anything."

Ariwa rolled his eyes. "And for good reason. Leave us alone don't you have your own friends to play with?"

She stuck her tongue out at her brother. At times like this I was glad that I didn't have any younger siblings. Mikami and Teito, however, had drawn the short end of the stick.

"Well, I know, Hyōka-chan wants me around."

I resisted the urge to slap my forehead as Kasai was now laughing her head off. Ariwa looked annoyed.

"No he doesn't now get lost, Rei." He growled.

"I think he can speak for himself," she turned to me expectantly and even batted her eyelashes. "You don't want me gone, do you?"

I sighed, "Actually, Rei, we have this huge project to work on and we can't afford to be distracted. I think it's going to be pretty boring for you to watch, it's on the life of Pythagoras, the person who basically invented maths so..." I trailed off hoping that she would get bored.

"So you mean it's like a combination of maths and history?"

"... Yeah."

"Oh, well see you later then," she blew me a kiss and flounced out of our way. "Okā-san Kazu brought his friends home to do a project!"

"That wasn't nice, Hyōka, lying to a girl like that," Kasai teased.

"Shut up. I think you're enjoying this way too much," I snarled.

"Tch, you should hear her when you're not around. It's Hyōka this and Hyōka that and Hyōka's so amazing. It's ridiculous," Ariwa sighed leading us to his bedroom.

For the rest of the afternoon we just laid about talking about everything from school to the new movie that was coming out next week. Everything was going well until I rolled over on Ariwa's bed and came face to face with a picture hanging up on his wall. It was of him and another boy. They were standing in front of a pool laughing. It must have been taken a long time ago because they were both wearing floaties. I assumed it must have been him with his best friend before he moved away but it was his friend's face that got me. He was the same ghost-boy that had been following me around this afternoon. That meant...

I turned to Ariwa and pointed to the picture. "Who's that?" I had been in his room before but he must have hung up the picture recently because I had never seen it before.

"My old friend, the one I told you that moved away," he had gotten stiff all of a sudden. He was twisting the blankets in his hands and chewing his bottom lip. If his friend had just moved away he wouldn't have been acting this tense, right?

"Where did he move to?" Kasai joined in now studying the picture.

"... Kyoto."

"He's lying," all three of us turned to see Rei standing in the doorway. "Hiroshi died at the beginning of summer. His house collapsed on him and his family. And it doesn't look like you're doing any project here."

Both Kasai and I were silent. Ariwa stood up his fists clenched. "Nobody asked you!" he yelled heading over to the door. "You're always butting into my business, now just get out!"

"But-"

He slammed the door in her face then turned back to us breathing heavily. "She's so annoying," he spat.

"Kazu..." Kasai stood up."

He opened the door and slipped out. "I'll be back, have to use the bathroom."

Kasai turned to me. "Can you believe that? Imagine how he must have felt. I would feel terrible if someone told me that you or Kazu died just like that."

I sighed, "People die all the time. The world's not going to stop because of it."

She frowned. "Don't be such a butt-head."

"But it's true. Look I'll offer him my support or whatever, but don't expect me to treat him like he's made of glass. If he went out of his way to lie about his friend's death then he obviously doesn't want to talk about it," I glanced at the clock on the wall. "Anyway I better get going. It's five thirty and if I'm late Mikami will have me under house arrest. Tell Ariwa that I'll see him on Monday."

She shook her head. "Whatever, Hyōka. Just to let you know, you can't always run away when things don't go smoothly."

"What are you talking about?"

"Kazu is going through something hard and you just up and leave."

"If he wanted help then he would have said so. He tried to hide it so I'm not going to confront him about it. I'll see you on Monday."

I made it out of the house without anymore incidents. So his best friend had died and was following him around. This seemed like a haunting no matter which way I looked at it. Ariwa was lucky that he couldn't see ghosts. I wasn't unfamiliar with death Teito was a cop and Mikami was a doctor; I had heard horror stories from both of their jobs. Not to mention we hadn't lived in a great area back in Tokyo. It was expected that this small town had its fair share of tragedy. Ariwa was taking it hard, though. It must have been tough for him, but it was obvious that he was pulling through. I would have stayed with him if my curfew had allowed it. But now I knew to not bring up the topic of his previous friend.

I had made it to the end of the street when trouble decided to jump out at me. It figures, I could never have one peaceful day. Mikami was right. However for the sake of arguing I was not the one that caused it, it just happened to find me. Like right now for example. The friend-ghost, I think his name was Hiroshi or something I forgot, was standing right in front of me and glaring at me like he wished I was deader than Attila the Hun.

"So you're my replacement," he snarled.

"What?" It was only then that I got a good look at him. The chain that was attached to his chest was breaking and there was almost three quarters of a hole on his chest visible underneath. I did not know what that meant, but it couldn't have been a good thing.

His snarl grew and I instinctively took up a defensive stance. This boy looked like he was just about ready to crack.

"He promised that he would never think of anyone the same way! We had a special bond; he said so himself! No one could have ever replaced me! No one knows him like I do! We spent way too much time for him to kick me to the side like this and replace me with someone like YOU!" the boy's eyes were turning red and he was scratching at the hole on his chest.

Something definitely wasn't right here he was beginning to feel like a monster. The feeling was weak at first, but it grew by the second. Eventually it was overwhelming like the pressure itself was forcing me to the ground and clogging up my lungs. I swallowed hard and held my hands up in fists ready for him to come flying at me.

"I know, I'll get rid of you then he'll come back to me! He'll realise that he could never replace me with anybody! Then I'll have him all to myself!"

Here he comes I warned myself, but then suddenly the chain broke and I was knocked off my feet by some invisible force. The same force kept me face down on the ground for a good three minutes. When I was able to look up I felt my heart stop in my chest. Where the boy had been was now a huge monster. It was taller than any of the houses in the area and looked like a furless gorilla. It stared at me with red eyes and let loose a deafening roar. I covered my ears, wincing. This was the closest I had ever been to a monster and I didn't like it one bit. How the hell was I supposed to get myself out of this one?

Kasai's words came back to me. I would feel terrible if someone told me that either you or Kazu died just like that. I shook my head; I was not going to die here, I still had things I wanted to do. Maybe if I stayed still long enough it would get bored and leave me alone. I lay on the ground not daring to move a muscle. It worked for a total of three seconds. The hollow bent down low and scooped me up none too gently in its massive hand. I yelled out as much in shock as in pain. Its death grip prevented me from breathing and I was sure that it had managed to break my wrist in the process. My left arm was sandwiched in a painfully awkward position between my back and its fingers.

So much for not dying here. With that thought I lost it. I kicked and screamed as loud and hard as I could. I bit at the monster's hand and tried to wiggle free. It glanced at me before squeezing tighter. I chocked on my own yell and ended it abruptly with a cough. I wheezed and gasped trying to get air into my lungs. I felt tears well up in my eyes and the lack of oxygen was beginning to make me feel dizzy. So this was how I was going to die; as food for some over grown primate. It straightened to its full height and held me at eye level.

As I saw the distance between me and the ground increase I began to panic. I did not care if I was doing myself more harm than good by struggling my hardest in its grip. Every movement I made had my lungs screaming in agony. I was screaming my head off no longer scared that it was going to eat me, but scared that I was so high off the ground. My chest was seizing up and it was not because of the rib-breaking grip around me. My head was spinning and I kept on seeing the ground come rushing up to meet me. The houses rushed past me on the way down and I closed my eyes expecting to feel sickening pain all over my body. I was probably bawling like a baby right then; I felt tears running down my face and I was screaming myself hoarse. I knew I was probably having a panic attack too. My heart was beating so fast that I felt like it was going to explode and I had lost all feeling in my hands and feet. I felt the monster's hand tightening around me and violent tremors wracked my body. Oh god, I was really going to die. Tears were clogging up my throat; I didn't want to die not yet anyway, I was only twelve I had my whole life ahead of me! I felt the hollow lift me up higher probably bringing me towards its mouth; my eyes were closed so I couldn't tell. I screamed louder; I was going to die, I was going to die, I was going to die! I. Was. Going. To. die.

Then all of a sudden I heard the monster give out a frightening roar and the hand around me disappeared leaving me to plummet to the ground. I think I wet myself when I opened my eyes and realised that I really was falling this time. The ground was getting closer by the second and all I was able to do was scream and fail my arms and legs. I shut my eyes waiting for the impact but it never came. Instead I felt strong arms wrap around my shoulders and pull me into a tight embrace. Once the arms wrapped around me I was calmed; I felt the familiar feeling of safety and the panic fled away. It was like that time when I had to stay overnight at the Kurosaki clinic. My mind cleared due to the warm, comforting pressure and I was left gasping for air in the arms of a very irate, red-head doctor.

"Damnit, Toushi... Hyōka, can't I take my eyes off you for one minute?!"

Instead of celebrating over the fact that Kurosaki had just admitted that he had been following me and finding out that he was far from the ordinary doctor I fainted.


Hyoka can never seem to have a peaceful day huh? But then we wouldn't have a story if he did right?

So like most people have been waiting for the Shinigami are in the next chapter... I think

Reviews are welcome^^

-Mymomomo