029: Scary Stuff

This happened when he was in university –

This happened when he lived in a boarding house –

"I love this part!" Kyouko Hori-senpai says. "Look at all the blood!" she exclaims, pointing at the television like an excited child who is watching her favourite Saturday morning cartoons. Looking at her, you wouldn't think, they are currently watching an r-rated horror flick.

"Fun fact." Kyouko-senpai continues. "A person can live up to ten seconds after being decapitated. Isn't that cool?"

How is that a fun fact, Hikigaya wonders. Hori-senpai is a strange woman.

"I think it's cool." Isshiki says. "What do you think senpai?"

"Don't call me senpai." Hikigaya mutters.

Isshiki seems to be doing fine.

But the other two occupants sitting in the back of the room aren't looking too good.

"Kawai-senpai?" he asks.

Ritsu Kawai doesn't respond.

Her violet eyes are transfixed on the pages of her book.

She is fidgeting.

She is sweating.

She is feeling scared.

"You know you can go back to your room and read in peace." He offers.

Ritsu Kawai flips a page and shudders from hearing a small jump scare. "I'm fine." She mumbles, hiding her face behind the book, peeking at him over the pages. "I'm the host. It was my idea to invite them."

Yeah, it was her idea. For some reason she wanted to invite Kyouko Hori, the psychopath into the boarding complex for a movie's night, something about overcoming childish fears. Clearly it hasn't worked out. Ritsu Kawai even went with the idea of finding strength in numbers. But still, surviving a horror movie is not something you can do as a team. It's every man or woman for themselves.

Hikigaya scratches the scar on his face.

He watches the ever present smile on Hori-senpai's face. It's no wonder she hides her true self from the others on campus. If she showed everyone her true face, she would scare off all the guys. For some reason it doesn't piss him off. It should have, he hates people who pretend to be someone else, something they are not, wear masks and fake emotions. But he kinda understands now.

He is pretending too. He is pretending he is not a cripple. He doesn't need the cane, but his scarred body and the pain he feels every now and then is a constant reminder that not everything is okay.

He tries to ignore it.

Isshiki and Hori-senpai are doing fine.

Ritsu Kawai-senpai is managing.

But the other guest is having a horrible time.

"Akiyama-san was it?" he asks.

She actually shudders from hearing his voice. Why the hell would she come to watch a horror movie in the first place. Mio Akiyama is about 160 cm tall, has straight, long, black hair and gray blue eyes. She is somewhat busty. And at the moment she has no idea what to do with her hands. At one second she places them over her eyes but then the screams of the victims fill her ears and she freaks out. Then she claps her hands over both her ears, but now she can see the massacre taking place on the television screen. Quite a conundrum, he thinks. Of course, she can leave, but he thinks it would be rude to say that out loud.

He decides to say the next rudest thing imaginable.

"Why are you here Akiyama-san?" Hikigaya asks. "Clearly you are not enjoying the movie." He points at the person sitting the closest to her which happens to be his bookworm landlord, Kawai-senpai. "And the company isn't all that great either."

Ritsu Kawai ignores the insult as a chainsaw hacks another miserable guy into pieces on the screen. Screams fill the room and Mio Akiyama looks at Hachiman Hikigaya, focuses on his scarred face to save herself from the humiliation of running out of this room at full speed. Why is she here, now that she thinks about it, she feels stupid.

"I needed to get out of my comfort zone." Mio Akiyama says. "I thought if I watched a horror movie I will come up with some interesting lyrics for my new song."

Hikigaya raises an eyebrow. The small missing line of hair due to a scar on his eyebrow is now even more prominent. "You are in a band?" He asks. "What's it called?"

Mio Akiyama nods. "Ho-kago Tea Time."

He blinks. "After-School Tea Time?" He takes a breath and releases it slowly. "Why the hell not." He finally says with a small smile.

Mio Akiyama tries to smile too. It's difficult to talk to strangers. "Ritsu-san was asking me to write something with a bit more edge. She thought -"

"Wait. Hold up!" Hikigaya holds up a hand, effectively stopping her. As you would expect he turns to Ritsu Kawai, whose attention is still on the pages of her book "You are in a band! I can't believe it." He bellows.

"Hey! Quiet back there!" Hori-senpai shouts. "We are getting to the best part."

"Don't tell me. Does the couple die next, Hori-senpai?" Isshiki asks with a knowing twinkle in her eyes.

"Shhh!" Hori shushes. "Are you sure you haven't seen this movie before, Isshiki-san? You guessed a lot of things right."

Iroha Isshiki lets out a small giggle but doesn't answer.

Hikigaya ignores the movie viewers and focuses his attention on this new discovery. Who would have thought that Ritsu Kawai, the woman who seems to love only books, was in a band? And that to a band with a really girly name. He can't wait to make fun of her using this piece of information later.

But alas, Mio Akiyama has some unfortunate news. "Um, sorry. But we have a different Ritsu in our band."

Hikigaya turns on her. "Are you sure?" He won't let this chance slip from his grasp. He might have to scare the woman a little bit. Good thing, at moments like these, his scars come handy. Also, he has his rotten dead fish eyes and those dark circles underneath them which make him look like a creature of the night, something out of a horror movie. "I think you are lying." He whispers. "I think you are trying to save your bandmate."

Mio Akiyama actually tears up and now he feels guilty. "R-R-Ritsu Tainaka is in our band." She hiccups. "She is the drummer."

He hears the flipping of a page and an almost inaudible chuckle. Ritsu Kawai definitely looks a bit happy. Perhaps she is reading something funny. No, it's definitely his stupid misunderstanding which made her laugh. Shame on you Kawai-senpai, he thinks. He almost made a girl cry and you are laughing at it.

"Okay. I believe you. Please don't cry." Hikigaya mumbles uncomfortably. He is not used to crying woman and he doesn't know how to deal with it. Mio Akiyama isn't crying. But she has tears in the corner of her eyes and she is sniffling in a really cute manner.

He tries to make her laugh by making a fun observation. "Now that I think about it Kawai-senpai wouldn't play the drums in a band. That's too much work."

"I wouldn't be in a band in the first place." Ritsu Kawai adds helpfully.

He ignores it and powers on. He thinks he can make things better by making jokes about his bookworm-senpai, because clearly this was one way to establish a repertoire. Making jokes at other people's expense. And it's not like, Ritsu Kawai cared. So, he continued. "I will tell you this, if she was in a band, I bet she would play the bass. You know, because it's the poor man's guitar and anyone can play it. I mean it has just four-strings. I think it is aimed towards band members who are lazy and not particularly interested in music."

Mio Akiyama stayed quiet.

Then: "It's pretty much like a viola." He adds.

And Mio Akiyama burst into tears, sobbing uncontrollably.

Hachiman Hikigaya has no idea what he has done wrong. He has no idea how to take care of this girl. He tries to comfort her with food. "Do you want a slice of this strawberry shortcake?" he says, holding up a plate.

Mio Akiyama sniffles and hiccups and stares at the slice of confectionary on the plate. She notices something odd about it and points it out. "Where's the strawberry?"

"I ate it!" Isshiki chirrups from the front.

And Mio Akiyama cries even harder.

Later he would find out from Hori-senpai that Mio Akiyama is a bassist for her band.

Ah,

That makes sense.

His rotten luck never fails to amaze him.

He made a cute girl cry several times.

Ritsu Kawai threatened to double his rent.

Hori-senpai punched him for ruining their movie experience.

Isshiki thanked him for letting her eat his slice of the cake; he doesn't remember asking her to eat food from his plate in the first place. Annoying brat.

He went to bed with an empty stomach.

He thought about Mio Akiyama.

Poor girl.

She really liked strawberries, huh.

He made a mental note not to make fun of bassist in the future.

But four strings, really?

"You know with a band like After-School Tea Time, you should probably stick to wholesome songs and leave the edgier stuff up to the experts. I mean can you imagine singing a cover to one of Slipknots songs."

And he definitely shouldn't have said that.

A/N: Trying my hand on some cute, fluffy stuff for the time being.

And I figured out what Kakashi, L, John Wick and Levi are gonna talk about - Their messed up love life. For example, wait, I can't give an example. It will be spoil the fun. But here's an omake to create some hype.

Omake

"Killed anyone interesting John?" Kakashi asks.

He's drunk.

The others are drunk too.

"Are you asking him to confess to murder?" Levi Ackerman asks. "We have a detective right here!"

He points at L, who waves him off.

"I only care about Kira." L solemnly says.

"You know this is the reason, people think you have a thing for Light." Levi snaps.

"So you agree, he is Kira." L chirrups happily.

"Dude, everyone knows Light is Kira." Kakashi states, "But we are getting off topic. I think I asked John here, if he killed someone interesting lately."

John Wick silently drinks his vodka.

After he empties the glass, he says one word.

"I killed Elsa."

All three of his drinking buddies reacted as you would expect.

"You killed a queen!" L yelped.

"I thought she was a princess." Levi wondered.

But Kakashi asked the million dollar question. "How did this happen?"

John Wick let out a sigh and ordered another glass of vodka. "It's Yui Yuigahama's fault. She wanted to cheer me up. So, she went to The Mouse and asked if she could borrow one of his princess's services for the day."

"The Mouse is a menace." L said. "He has his own separate universe."

"Even Konoha isn't crazy enough to mess with The Mouse." Kakashi stated.

Levi tsked. "Sounds like this Mouse guy treats his princesses like whores."

John Wick looked solemn. "Anyway Elsa started singing. And," A dark looked crossed his eyes. "I didn't like it."

"Damn, you killed someone because they couldn't carry a tune." Kakashi whistled. "That's messed up."

John Wick shrugged. "Let it go, man."

L guffawed. "You are sick."

Levi Ackerman didn't get it.

And Then The Mouse Showed up…

And just like that, everything changed.

At that terrible moment, in their hearts, they knew.

They fucked up.

You don't mess with The Mouse.

You just don't.

A/N 2: Anyway, it's just an omake. This won't really be the chapter. Like I said, L, Kakashi, John Wick and Levi will be talking about their love life. If you have some ideas on who should be their ex girlfriends or people they love or family or other stuff, let me know in the review.

And who should be in a future chapter : Ritsu Kawai, Tsunade or Iroha Isshiki

If you have any fun ideas for these characters or other characters let me know in the reviews and I will try to write them.

Hope everyone enjoyed reading this chapter.

Leave lots and lots of reviews, follow and fave.

Won't betray your dreams.