A/N: Early update!
17 / Okoba and the Saga Mystery
Okoba can't remember how he got home that night. The only thing he remembers is calling for a cab, opening his door and going to sleep. And in his dreams, he sees her, One and the rest of Franchouchou.
There's a knife on One's chest. There's no blood but she's smiling. Her rosy cheeks are as red as her hair, and when she looks at him she's smiling...and then, her skin begins to rot. A crack appears in the middle of her face as she asks Okoba if he's alright. Then, he sees Three. Her skin is burnt, her hair sparkling with electricity. There's Two, covered in flames, riding a motorbike, screaming and laughing as she crashes into the void. He can see Four. She's falling apart with every step she takes. Six's heart beats out of her chest comically every time a flatline hits. Zero and Five stand side by side. They notice him, impassive, skin slowly bloating, turning a putrid blue before they explode. Everything goes dark...then he hears the music and later, wakes up.
His heart is beating so hard it physically hurts, he has goosebumps.
The clock reads one o'clock in the morning but Okoba doesn't dare close his eyes again. He's afraid he'll see the dead parade once more.
A day later, in the office, his coworkers comment that he looks terrible. Okoba assures them that he just didn't sleep well.
(he wonders if he'll ever sleep again)
He tries to forget about Franchouchou and the dead, tries to forget what he saw in that parking lot.
There's talk in the office about some monster bear, and Okoba is glad for that distraction. Some are saying that it's a bear with a rare skin disease while others whisper that it probably belonged to some rich guy who let it go when he could no longer take care of it. A few murmur that the bear might be sick and that's why it's so violent. The authorities and animal control seemed to be going in circles but Okoba knows that animals find ways to disappear, and if that bear is smart, it probably is avoiding humans as it goes about its day. Still, the reports are numerous. Some are saying it's a sick bear, others are saying it's a monster bear.
These stories keep his mind off of Franchouchou but a week later, he dreams of the dead again.
He dreams of Sakura, Saki, Ai, Junko, Yugiri and Lily. In his dreams, in his nightmares, he sees Sakura. Her face is split in half, there's blood all over her school uniform and she's dragging her feet. One of her arms is twisted and broken. Ai is next. She's burnt to a crisp, lightning flashes in the distance and he can see her bones, illuminated under all that burnt flesh. Junko, there's only pieces that seemed to drop from the sky. Saki, like Two, is on fire. She wears a long jacket as she walks. Okoba hears the sounds of bikes starting. Lily's chest has a hole where the heart should be. Okoba finds it, beating, in his hand. He drops it in disgust. And then, he sees a skeleton. It's wearing a beautiful kimono, and it's long hair is tied into a bun in the shape of a heart. It grins at Okoba as it picks up the heart. Zero appears in the dream as well. She walks side by side with Sakura, trying to stitch the girl's head back together with skeletal hands. Then, for some reason, the bear's here too, it's screaming at his face, inching closer and closer and opening its jaw...taking a bite...and...
That's when Okoba wakes up. He's sweating, his heart beats a mile per second. He's afraid of going back to sleep, afraid of seeing the dead parade in his head again.
He can't sleep.
Okoba takes a cold shower, trying to get the images out of his head.
/…..
The next day, Okoba is at his desk, there's a notebook in front of him and a pounding on his head. Sitting neatly in a row, are the pictures of the members of Franchouchou and below them, the pictures of the dead, well, except for Zero. That picture he puts aside.
There's a list on the notebook. He went back to the death metal blog and searched everything he could about Franchouchou or whatever they were called before all over again. It mentioned their first concert, the banging heads, the jumping girls. They acted so differently then, so uncontrolled, so...dangerous, even.
That concert was cut short for, as the blog quotes, "the girls got too into the metal, man".
The second performance was calmer and rather odd. It started with Two and One playing magic tricks with Zero's head. "It was an epic performance!" the blog reads. "They delivered such a cool rap battle...too bad they dropped that zombie schtick a few concerts later…"
Okoba reads the same words over and over again.
Zombie, zombie.
The word kept repeating over and over inside his head.
Zombie, zombie...breaking apart, the rumors of monsters in Karatsu, the strange girl that appeared that night almost two years back.
It makes sense…
The Franchouchou girls don't have the faces of the dead.
They are the dead.
But that's impossible.
Okoba knows for a fact that the dead can't come back to life. Zombies are thing of fiction.
And yet, as he stares at that photo from that calendar, he can't help but notice the accuracy of death; there's One with a scar in the middle of her head, Three covered in bandages like a mummy, Four looks stitched together, Six's heart is out of her chest a few sizes too big. There's a scar on Two's cheek, and he can see the bandages on her arms and legs. She's got less bandages than Three, but it's obvious what they hide. Five has a scar around her neck and Zero has bandages around her head, on her neck.
It's such a simple thing, this photo and yet, it makes Okoba's skin crawl.
He's connecting dots, noticing things he wouldn't have noticed before.
He recalls a particular incident in one of their singing events, when that tall, muscular man appeared. Okoba knew he had seen that man somewhere before but he couldn't really figure it out until he remembered what had happened. The man had touched Six and he had been sent flying into a stereo by Two.
Okoba recognized the man now. He rarely showed up in camera but Okoba now had a name.
It was Takeo Go, Lily Hoshikawa's father.
(had he noticed it, too?)
Okoba slams his head on the desk, crashing against ink and paper. He stays like that for what feels like hours before raising his head slowly. There's a red mark already forming on his forehead. He hit himself too hard.
Letting out a deep breath, Okoba stares at his notebook, noticing that the writing makes no sense anymore. He stays there, staring, pen in hand, unsure of what to do. Eventually, he raises the pen and makes x's all over the place. No, no, no.
He's already writing the word 'zombie' right in the middle.
He stops and stares at the word, a hand massaging his chin, eyes glancing at the pictures.
Those girls were...dead...they were dead, and they were zombies. Zombies, zombies, zombies.
(it felt like a dream)
And it could explain so much, really.
But, who had been responsible for all of this? Was it that manager of theirs? Had he played God and brought the dead back to life on a whim? Had it been the girls themselves, too happy with life that they came back from the dead?
If this thing was true, if this crazy idea was true then...why?
Why would the biker Nikaido, courtesan Yugiri, actress Hoshikawa, dead Minamoto and even the unknown Zero, all want to become idols? Konno and Mizuno made sense. They had loved their work, had loved to be part of the spotlight...but these others…? It simply didn't make sense.
What was the angle here? What was Okoba missing?
Why zombies? Why idols?
(why the dead?)
Something was obviously going on but what, Okoba wasn't sure.
There was only two things that worried him about all of this; one, if their families knew and two, if they, the zombies, had some ulterior motive for coming back to life.
Okoba knew he couldn't discuss his findings with those girls. It would be foolish, perhaps even dangerous, to inform the group that he knew their secret...or at least, a part of it. He figured he couldn't tell the man either. More safety concerns, more worries.
Maybe he should try those girls' families. Maybe, when all was set and done, they could send him to the crazy house.
At least, looking for those girls relatives will keep his mind off the dark thoughts that were already forming...the thoughts of a zombie invasion slowly consuming Saga and later, Japan and the rest of the world.