A/N: Thank you to D199net for your reviews, and I agree with you in that the Corpse Party FanFiction activity have decreased, and a lot of the stories have been discontinued. I will definitely finish this story, and I write everyday, trying to finish a chapter as soon as possible, despite the heat in California (seriously, it's hot enough to cook an egg on the roads outside). Anyways, thank you D199net for your support, and enjoy this chapter!
Yoshiki's Apartment - Yoshiki's PoV
"*Yawn* 6:57… damn, already an hour before the memorial. I guess we should get up to go to the memorial. Ayumi?"
"...Yeah?" Ayumi groggily responds.
"We should get up for the memorial, it's already 7."
"Oh, okay."
"I'll be cooking breakfast, you can use the restroom to wash up and get ready for the memorial first."
"Alright, thanks."
"Don't mention it."
Ayumi went to the bathroom to get ready for the memorial. I chose to make a quick breakfast, which was toast with bacon and eggs as I didn't have too much time today. After I finished cooking, I put the food on plates, and sat on the diner table, and I started to eat. Shortly after, Ayumi came out, and joined me for breakfast. I quickly finished mine, and stated:
"Eat up, Ayumi, today will be a long day. I'll go get ready to go to the memorial now."
"Alright, thanks for the breakfast Yoshiki."
"It wasn't that great, but no problem."
"No, it tastes really good… do you remember that day?"
"Hmm?"
"Remember, in homeroom, we all cooked, and I messed up, and you fixed up the food?"
"Oh, yeah, I remember you said that your food smelled better than mine."
"In reality, your food was really good, I guess… my pride didn't allow me to accept it…"
"Ehh, it wasn't that good, plus, not everyone is good at cooking, so it isn't anything to sweat over, Ayumi."
"Thanks, Yoshiki, you always know how to cheer me up." Ayumi giggles.
"Heh, yeah, anyways, let's get ready to go to the memorial."
"Yeah, we should."
After breakfast, we both got our clothes that we bought yesterday for the memorial, and we got changed. I was in a black dressing shirt and dressing pants, and got out long black socks to put on before putting on my dark brown dressing shoes. Ayumi wore a black dress that went down to slightly above her ankles, and wore a black heel with about a couple inches above the ground. The time was around 7:34, and we decided to head out a little early.
"Shall we go, Ayumi? Not to mention, you look… pretty in the dress, not that you aren't pretty in other outfits as well…"
"Thanks, Yoshiki, you look really handsome also." Ayumi chuckles, as I always get nervous when I'm saying something like that. I should seriously work on that.
We exited my apartments, and we started to walk towards Kisaragi Academy. We both took the path we always used to take, as my apartment is pretty near Ayumi's house, so we passed it while walking to the school. Ayumi stopped, and looked at the house for a little bit, but soon joined me on our walk to the school. Soon, we arrived, and there were already people in clothing suited for funerals walking in. We walked into the gym, and sat near the middle: Ayumi at the edge of the aisle and me right next to Ayumi. We sat in silence until we heard a familiar voice:
"Yoshiki!"
"Ahh, Satoshi, Nakashima, Yuka-chan, you guys are here also?"
"Of course, we lost… our friends here also… why are you guys here? Did you guys… lose friends from what happened?"
"Uh… Yeah, you can say that." I looked over to Ayumi, who looked sad. "Ayumi, it will be fine, everyone remembers them now, even if our existences were erased, I'd say it was a fair trade, 4 for 2, right? I surely don't regret staying behind with you to get the memories of our friends back. Plus, we can have our other friends remember us as early as this weekend."
"*sniff* Yeah, thanks, Yoshiki… and, I'm sorry, for making you go through this much for me."
"Shh… Ayumi, everything will be okay." I calmed Ayumi down, and looked over to Satoshi, who was helping Naomi through her troubles, which I could understand, she lost her best friend to that place, and even worse, she killed her due to the darkening.
We all sat there for about 10 more minutes, waiting for all that was coming to come, and soon, the memorial started. We all stood up as the principal, vice principal, the secretaries, and all the school staff walked up to the stage and sat down. First, the principal walked up to the microphone, and started to talk:
"Hello everyone, and thank you for coming to the Kisaragi High memorial for those who have passed due to the passed events. To start off, let's give those that passed a minute of silence." As the principal said this, he closed his eyes, and put his head down, as well as the rest of the staff, and those that came to visit. After a minute, he started again:
"Thank you. Now, I will start off by introducing our staff. I am Ishikawa, the principal of the school, the vice principal is Mr. Kinoshita…" the principal started by introducing all the staff, starting from the vice principal and ending with the teachers. After they all introduced themselves, they started the memorial service:
"Now, we will start our memorial service. We have lost students of our very academy, we lost students of our very academy, and many were injured. My fellow students, staff, family members, we have gone through a hard time." The principal starts, and pauses while people start sniffing. We notice many familiar people, parents of our passed friends: Seiko's father as well as the three siblings, Mayu's parents, and Morishige's parents. They were all crying, and supporting each other.
"We understand that it may be hard to move on with what that happened, but eventually, we all will have to move on. But, for today, we will mourn for those that passed, and dedicate two full days to make their passing more pleasant. We will have many events today after today's service, and tomorrow, we will start with another service, and do more events, and then, do a final service to help those move on." the principal plans out.
"First, before the events, we will hold our service. May you all rise, and lower your heads, while I name all those who have passed in these events." the principal states, to which everyone obeys.
The principal starts to name people that we don't know, until in the middle of the list: "Seiko Shinohara, Sakutaro Morishige, Mayu Suzumoto, Yui Shishido, Hinoe Shinozaki, Kuon Niwa,..." and the principal continues the list until he finishes the list of those related to Kisaragi Academy. "Now, before the events, let's give another moment of silence for those that passed, and you may name those that were close to you that passed."
"Mayu-onee-chan…" Yuka says…
"Seiko…" Nakashima says…
"Yui-sensei, Kuon-sensei…" Satoshi says…
"Morishige…" I say…
"Hinoe…" Ayumi says…
We all said our friend's names, and to my surprise, the other three didn't say anything of us knowing these people, but I decided not to say anything. After a minute, the principal once again spoke:
"Thank you, now we will do the events that we have decided to do to keep the memories of those that passed. There will be 'stations' where you can go and pick up supplies to keep your memories of them. You may write about them, draw them, or make things for them, and at the evening, around 10, we will fly lanterns with their names to help them pass along. Tomorrow, we will have other events. Once again, thank you, and enjoy the rest of the events." The principal walks off after finishing the last word. We all got up, and started to walk back outside, when we heard another voice:
"Yuka-chi!"
"Satsuki-chan! You're here, too!"
"Of course I am!" Satsuki states, munching on potato chips. "Yuka-chi, who are those two talking to you your brother?"
"Oh, that's Yoshiki-nii-chan and Ayumi-onee-chan. Yoshiki-nii-chan works with big brother at his work, and Ayumi-onee-chan is Yoshiki-nii-chan's girlfriend."
"Oh, they look cute together, hehe. They do seem familiar, though."
"Right? Me too, but I don't know, say, Satsuki-chan, did a memory pop up of them when I said their names?"
"Huh…? No, why?"
"Oh… just asking…"
"Yuka-chi, let's go draw!"
"Satsuki-chan! Wait up!" Yuka wailed as Satsuki dragged Yuka away.
"Hey, Satoshi, that girl named Satsuki is dragging Yuka-chan away, just so you know."
"Huh? Oh, it's fine, that's Yuka's best friend. So, what do you guys want to go do first?"
"Well… how about we do… that first?" Everyone looked over to where I was pointing to.
"Really, Satoshi? Drawing, out of everything that's possible?" I groaned.
"Come on, it will be fun, Kishinuma-kun! I'm not that good as well…" Nakashima says, trying to persuade me.
"...Fine, let's go." I say, giving in.
We all go to the stand with paper, drawing pencils, erasers, and other material used for drawing, and we all picked up supplies, and was deciding where to sit down, in which many suggestions came about:
"How about our usual seat in the cafeteria?" Nakashima suggests.
"What about our classroom, 2-9?" Ayumi then suggests.
"How about the rooftop?" I suggest.
"Yeah, the rooftop's pretty nice, want to go there?" Satoshi supports my suggestion. "I'm sure you two will like it."
"Alright, let's go."
We all go inside the school building, and we all walked up the stairs to the rooftop. When we reach the top, we open the door, and we walk through, but Satoshi stops at the door, with a blank expression on his face. Naomi walks up to him and asks what happened, and then, Satoshi told me and Ayumi to go ahead, and that he'll join shortly. I shrug, and sit down, while Satoshi and Nakashima goes to talk elsewhere.
Satoshi's House - Satoshi's PoV
"Satoshi, let's go! We'll be late!" Naomi says, trying to get me to go faster.
"Naomi, wait up, it's not that easy to tie this tie, it just won't tie properly." I sigh, trying to tie my tie as fast as possible, but it always comes out lopsided, or not even tied properly. I give it one more go, and it was finally looking decent. "Alright, I'm done, Yuka, are you ready?"
"Yeah! Let's go big brother!"
"Alright, let's go, Yuka, Naomi."
"Finally." Naomi says as we are leaving my house. We walk to the gym, and it was 7:44 by the time we entered. We were going to take a seat, when I saw a familiar face. "Yoshiki!"
"Ahh, Satoshi, Nakashima, Yuka-chan, you guys are here also?" he greets us.
"Of course, we lost… our friends… why are you guys here? Did you guys… lose friends from what happened?" I respond, and ask them.
"Uh… Yeah, you can say that." He responds, and then turns to Shinozaki and whispers something to her. I was going to say something when Naomi starts to tear up, and I turn to Naomi. "Naomi, don't cry, they all remember our friends now… I know you miss them, I miss them, too. But… we should move on, for them, right?"
"*sniff* *cough* Yeah, Satoshi, we should… thanks."
"No problem, the service should start soon, you alright?"
"Yeah, thanks." Naomi thanks me, and we all sit there for about 10 more minutes, until the principal steps up and starts the service. He starts by thanking us, and asking us to stand up and give those who lost their lives a moment of silence, to which we all comply. We sit back down, and introduces everyone on the staff, and proceeds to the memorial service as well as the timetable for today and tomorrow. He then proceeds to calling out those that passed, and the list is thankfully not too long. He continues down the list, and near the middle, we hear our teachers and friends' names. He soon finishes, and asks us for another moment of silence, and to silently say the names that were close to us. Yuka says Suzumoto, Naomi says Shinohara, I say Yui and Kuon-sensei, Yoshiki says Morishige, and Shinozaki says Hinoe.
How do they know our friends? Why are our only memories of them only small fragments? Why-
My thoughts were cut off by the principal announcing the end of the service, and the start of the activities. The time was 10:04, so Yoshiki and I had about 4 and a half hours to go to work. We were deciding which activity to do, when I suggested drawing first. Yoshiki groaned, but Naomi convinced him to do so, which he soon agreed to. While walking to the stand, Satsuki-chan dragged away Yuka, which Yoshiki told me of. We soon decided to go to the roof out of the suggestions, so we were walking up to the roof. Once we entered, a memory popped in my head, making me stop.
"Satoshi, what's wrong?" Naomi asks me.
"Ah, can I talk to you for a second?"
"Sure…?"
"Ok. Yoshiki, I need to talk to Naomi for a second, wait for us, yeah?" I tell him, to which he just shrugs to. We walk into the staircase, and I tell Naomi why I stopped:
"Another memory popped up."
"Really? What is it?"
-Satoshi's Memory-
"Hey Satoshi? You brought lunch today, right? Let's eat on the roof."
"Oh, sure, seems like a nice day for that. Let's go!" And with that, we both went to the roof. When we entered, the clear sky surprised me:
"Wow, the sky is clear as can be. Not a single cloud."
"Love that autumn sun!"
"How about here?" I ask near the edge of the roof. "...I gotta say, though, my lunch box sure feels light…"
"..."
"What'd you bring today, Yoshiki?"
"I had some time, so I fried up a little something."
"Man, your kitchen skills are really impressive! I'm guessing I've just got last night's leftovers."
"Sounds like first world problems, if you ask me!"
"You think so?" I say as I open up my lunch box, in which is money for bread. "Mom…!"
Kuon-sensei then walks up, asking if we are eating lunch up here, and soon asks what my favorite food to eat is, which I reply pork cutlet on rice. I ask Yoshiki, "What's she up to?"
"Haha. She's probably just messing with you."
"*Sigh* Guess I'll go buy bread at the cafeteria or something."
"Okay. But you should probably hurry it up. I mean, lunch has already started, so I doubt they have a whole lot left at this point."
"Oh, crap, you're right! Okay, wait right here, I'll be right back!" And I run to the door leading to the staircase to go to the cafeteria.
-End of Satoshi's Memory-
"Wow, that happened?"
"Yeah, I guess it did according to my memory."
"Hmm, it sounds like you two were close friends. Anyways, let's go join them."
"Yeah." We walked back out and joined the other two in drawing our friends. I chose to draw both our teachers. After a couple hours of drawing, near noon, I finished my drawing. I noticed the other three finished as well, so I decided to break the silence:
"Hey, you guys done?"
"Yeah." They all say, answering my question.
"Want to share what we drew?"
"Sure, you go first, Satoshi. You proposed the idea, so, we'll give you the honors of starting." Yoshiki tells me.
"Huh…? Oh, okay...here's mine, I drew Yui and Kuon-sensei." I say showing them my drawing.
"Wow, Satoshi, good job. I drew Seiko, how does she look?" Naomi compliments my drawing and proceeds to show us her drawing.
"Not bad, what did you draw, Yoshiki?"
"Hmm? Oh, I drew Morishige and Suzumoto. Here." Yoshiki holds up his drawing.
"Pretty good, Yoshiki. Shinozaki, what about you?"
"Here, this is my drawing."
"This is really good Ayumi, you ought to be an illustrator or an artist or something one of these days."
"Thanks… You know who this is, right?"
"Of course I do Ayumi, it's Hinoe." Yoshiki responds to Shinozaki's question. As I was about to join in on the conversation, the intercom came on and said:
"Thank you to everyone that stayed with us after the service. We have free lunch being served at the cafeteria, so please make your way there for lunch. Thank you."
"Well, let's go get lunch, and we can do something after." Naomi suggests.
"Yeah, but Naomi, Yoshiki and I have to leave for work around 2:45."
"We probably have to go after lunch. Nakashima, you'll stay here with Ayumi, right?"
"Of course, Kishinuma, Shinozaki, that's fine with you, right?"
"Mhm, that's fine."
"Great, thanks, Nakashima. Now, let's go get lunch!" Yoshiki exclaims as leaving to the cafeteria.
"Yeah!" We all say as we all leave the rooftop to go to get lunch at the cafeteria. Once we went to the cafeteria, we all grabbed our food, and walked to the table we all sat during lunch. For the next hour, we were just chatting, and before we knew it, it was time where Yoshiki and I had to head out to work.
"Well, it's been fun talking with you guys, but Satoshi and I should get going to work. See you later, Nakashima, Ayumi."
"Yeah, we'll make it back around 9:15. Be safe, you guys. See you."
"Bye." They both respond, and we walk out the cafeteria, out the school, and went down to work. We arrived at work pretty early, so we met with the two guys working the morning shifts.
"Hey Kato, Ito."
"Oh, hey Kishinuma, Mochida. You two are early today." Ito welcomes us back.
"Nice suits you two, were you guys at the Kisaragi Memorial?" Kato asks.
"Yeah, we came from there. Are you guys going there after your shift?" I ask.
"Of course. Hey, are you two going to go back after your shift?"
"Yeah, of course we are." Yoshiki replies.
"Well, want to meet up there after you guys come back?"
"Oh, sure. We can introduce you to our girlfriends."
"Haha, both of you have girlfriends? Lucky you. Anyways, you guys should get changed, your shift's about to start."
"Alright, thanks, Kato. See you two later." Yoshiki tells them.
"See you later, have fun at work." Ito tells us as they leave.
"Well, let's get started." Yoshiki states.
6 hours later
"Man, that was a long day's work!"
"Yeah, it was. Let's get all this cleaned up and go back to the memorial, Satoshi. Can't keep our friends waiting."
"Yup."
After cleaning up for 5 minutes, the shop looked clean, so we locked everything up, and left to the school again. We arrived at school at 9:17, and we started to look around for our friends. We were going to go inside when we heard:
"Hey, Kishinuma, Satoshi!"
"Kato, Ito, hey guys!" Yoshiki greeted them.
"Finish cleaning and locking up the store?" Kato asks.
"Yup, we were going to go find our girlfriends, want to come along?" I reply and invite them to join our search.
"Yeah, sure. Where should we look first?" Ito accepts and questions how we are going to search for the girls.
"Well, let's search the roof first, because that was where we were first." I suggest.
"Yeah, sure. Lead the way." Kato states.
We all walked up to the roof, and when we entered, we saw no one up there. We then went to classroom 2-9, thinking they were there, which they weren't. We checked the cafeteria next, which we were also unsuccessful in finding them. After searching around outside, we finally found them as well as Yuka and Satsuki-chan at a bench.
"Ayumi, Nakashima, Yuka-chan, Satsuki-chan!" Yoshiki calls out.
"Hey guys, you're back!" Naomi responds, and asks, "Who are those two following you guys?"
"Oh, they work the morning shift at the job we work at. The taller guy is Kato, and the shorter guy is Ito. Kato, Ito, this is Ayumi Shinozaki my girlfriend, and the one who asked who you are is Naomi Nakashima, Mochida's girlfriend. The one with short hair is Yuka, Mochida's younger sister, and the one with potato chips is Satsuki, Yuka's best friend." Yoshiki introduces everyone to each other.
"Nice to meet you guys."
"Nice to meet you two, too."
As we were all chatting away, the time passed, and soon, it was time for the last event. The intercom once again came on and announced:
"It is now time for today's final event. Please head to the gym to get as many lanterns as you wish, and once you finish decorating, you may set it to fly anytime, anywhere you want. Thank you for coming today, and tomorrow, the service will start at 8:00 like today. See you all tomorrow, and have a nice evening."
"Well, let's go get our lanterns, and how about we send it off at the roof?" Yoshiki suggests.
"Sounds good, let's go." I agree.
We all walked to the gym as a group, and on the way, we met Yuka and Satsuki-chan, so we all went to the gym together. We then got the amount of lanterns we all desired: I got two, Naomi got 1, Shinozaki got 3, Yoshiki got 2, Kato got 1, Ito got 1, Yuka got 1, and Satsuki got 1. We then went to the roof, and we all wrote the names, and sent off the lanterns. Afterwards, I asked the group:
"Who did you guys write on the lanterns? I wrote Yui and Kuon-sensei."
"I wrote Seiko." Naomi responds.
"I wrote Mayu-chan, Yui-sensei, and Hinoe." Shinozaki follows.
"For mine, I wrote Yui-sensei and Morishige." Yoshiki says soon after.
"I put Takahashi on mine; he passed when the strange pillar thing sprouted from the ground." Kato replies.
"I put Yoshida for mine, she died due to a fire that was caused by the strange pillar." Ito responds.
"I put all of big brother's friends on the same paper!" Yuka states.
"I didn't put anyone, I just did it because Yuka-chi did…" Satsuki-chan states as well.
"Well, it's getting late, let's go home guys, we have another day tomorrow." Yoshiki says tiredly.
"Yeah, see you guys later." I respond.
"Bye guys." Kato and Ito says as leaving.
"Well, see you tomorrow." The girls reply.
A/N: So sorry for the late update, I have been busy because school's starting soon. I'm going into my senior year, so I may not update as frequently, but I will continue writing for my most favorite game/anime/manga series, and I will NEVER make any of my stories "discontinued". Thank you for reading this chapter, and sorry once again for the late update.