1:
Blood spurted out of the index finger sending a shutter through Yosuke Hanamura's body. A wood splinter wasn't a particularly painful thing to remove but their removal did have a tendency to burst blood, the sight of which Yosuke wasn't particularly fond of, a sad reminder of one's mortality and for Yosuke a painful reminder of someone he'd lost. Yosuke stopped for a moment, took a couple of deep breaths to regain composure, and dropped the splinter on the floor of the Junes. After Wiping his hand on his jeans, he sighed and diligently returned to reorganizing a messy store shelf, making sure not to catch his finger on the wooden base again. Typically young Hanamura at this time of night would've been sleeping (or at least pretending to as he texted naughty jokes to his friends). However, the prior day had not been typical. The June's brand of department stores was one of Japan's most widespread, steadily growing into a massive conglomerate ever since its establishment in the mid-1980s. You'd be hard-pressed to find a single Japanese person who couldn't hum the store's catchy commercial jingle.
"Everydays great at your Junes"
It had practically buried itself in Yosuke's head as his father was the manager of the company's Inaba branch, a small town in the Yamanashi prefecture, just outside of Okina City. Hanamura senior had moved the family to Inaba while Yosuke was in High School, it took him a while to fit into such a different environment but slowly, he found people he cared for and felt a strong need to protect. The Hanamura's side of the company was typically barely glanced at by the company's big wigs, however, an incident at a Junes in Kobe involving the selling of rancid meat brought an onslaught of heavy criticism upon the company making national headlines, something had to be done. its CEO, Sho Kiyoshi, or rather his assistant, wrote and published a press release stating that he'd be personally visiting every Junes to "bring the true spirit of the Japanese man into each and every Junes worker". Yosuke would soon find out what this truly meant as he stood and watched Sho cruelly grill each of the store's workers over the most minor of faults.
"There needs to be a correct amount of space in between each of these chip bags, the current amount is unacceptable"
"Come on teens back in my day would've made sure that every corner of this store was sparkling clean"
"Do any of you understand the true spirit of Japan!" he said as he messed up a store shelf.
Sho was particularly upset over a few small specks of red and blue hair barely visible, shoved in a corner next to a shelf of cheap Sake. Yosuke had his rows with Junes workers in the past, especially the cause of Hair, the unofficial store mascot, and seemingly unaging oddity named Teddie. But he still cared enough about all of them to feel a slow brewing anger at Sho building up inside of him. It was beating on him, he couldn't stand here and watch this happen, he had to at least try and protect them. His rage burst out like an exploding sun.
"WHY DON'T YOU JUST SHUT THE HELL UP AND FIND SOME SPONSORS TO BITCH TO INSTEAD YOU ASSHOLE! EVERYONE HERE'S TRYING WAY HARDER THAN YOU EVER HAVE!"
Sho Kiyoshi stood with a gapping at Yosuke, his mouth gapped for so long that a small bit of drool managed to seep out of it. At any other moment Yosuke would've laughed at such a ridiculous sight, however, the fearful looks from the workers and the slow dreadful feeling of realization, kept the light out of his face. He'd just sworn and angrily yelled at the manager of the entire company, he may have gotten everyone including his father fired. Sho Kiyoshi shut his mouth, quickly mopping up the drool with his hand as he quickly made his way past the group and toward the back of the store. Yosuke leaned back against a refrigeration unit and slumped to the ground, head down. He could feel the piercing stares of the people he was trying to help, he felt guilty, one stupid mistake he'd be remembered for, a 20-year-old fucking up his future with a single sentence. Yosuke felt a soft gentle hand rest on his shoulder,
"Thanks for standing up for us".
The voice trembled with fear but there was a calming softness to it, Yosuke looked up and saw Mia Yamamura's gentle smiling face. She was a newer worker, a third-year High Schooler who'd joined to help her family out with financial difficulties, her Dad was no longer able to work and her Mom had recently been suspended from her work after an accident made her unable to walk, Yosuke couldn't help but admire that. He smiled back, he felt that Mia gave off a certain vibe of calmness, which really helped Yosuke on more stressful days, he found her a peaceful presence.
"Thanks"
Yosuke gently grabbed her hand and lifted himself off the floor. Just in time for his Dad to arrive and silently usher him over to a different area of the store, Yosuke felt the eyes of the workers burning through the back of his head. His Father was clearly upset but there was a certain understanding on his face, he had heard how Sho had spoken previously.
"He said what happened, didn't look happy, said he'd talk tomorrow about it"
He softly put his hands on his son's shoulders.
"For now you and the workers just clean up the mess he made of the store"
"No Dad"
His father starts to get a little bit impatient,
"Oh come on",
"No I mean, this is my fault and, I don't wanna keep them here for something they had nothing to do with, I'll do it by myself, they don't deserve this.
Yosuke manages to squeeze out a slight smile and his father takes his arms off of him,
"Ok".
His father walked past Yosuke and towards the workers.
Yosuke was used to Junes having lots of activity happening and so he'd be lying if the dark empty Junes didn't creep him out just a little bit. After finishing sorting the chips he made his way to the electronic section, Sho had made an especially angry point about how the TV cables weren't sorted correctly While repairing the mess he noticed a light coming from the now empty TV aisle. He panicked and quickly ran over to it,
"Can you see her?"
"Yes"
"Is she pretty?"
"Very pretty"
Yosuke felt slightly silly,
"Of course, it's, just a movie, nothing else"
Yosuke let out another nervous bit of laughter and decided he might as well see what was on for a moment before switching it off, as it appeared to be an old English language movie, with Japanese subtitles of course.
"I should say, she looks... she has a little of the coloring of Klara"
"Klara, Miss Novak of the shop?"
"UHuHuUHuHuhUHuh"
Yosuke ignored the strange moan, assuming it was part of the movie.
"Now, Kralik, you must admit Klara is a very good-looking girl"
"HhHhHhhHHHh!"
It wasn't, he was sure of it, it was coming from his left, right inside of an ajar door that led to a stairwell and the store's back exit, freaked out a bit, he cautiously moves towards. He pushes the door further open, he sees, Mia, laying back against the wall. Yosuke smiled once again at his silly fear and made his way toward her.
"Mia?",
He spoke brightly,
"Dad said you could all leav…"
Yosuke cupped both of his hands over his mouth the moment he saw the large bloody gashes violently cut into Mia's body. She began to hyperventilate and a look of terrible fear crept into her eyes. Yosuke couched down and grabbed her hand to try and comfort her, she seemed so damn frightened, in such horrible pain, he had to do something, anything.
"Hey, it's ok, it's just me"
he forces a smile,
"I'm gonna get help, it's gonna be alright"
her eyes gazed past him towards a dark spot below the staircase, a detail Yosuke failed to notice as he did his best to comfort her.
"I'm going to call someone, you're gonna be ok".
Yosuke tried his best to hold back any raw emotions from his voice, he didn't wanna make her worse, but the sight of the wounds was slowly getting to him, how could someone do something this horrible? He let go of her hand and went just outside of the room to make a call to the emergency line, doing his best to keep himself composed. Mia remained fixed on that darkened area under the stairwell, her breathing quickened but the pain was too great, she couldn't move, as the shadows slowly morphed into an angular face of death, brandishing a crimson sword. Yosuke fell to his knees and tightly grabbed her now crimson hand. She was dead, he couldn't stop himself from crying.