Hi guys! This is the first fanfiction I've written, so some feedback would be gladly appreciated. I hope this is going to be to your liking!
N: (starts at ch. 219)
It was at an ungodly hour, about 2 o'clock in the morning, that Tadano had woken up. He opened his eyes gently, accompanied by a twinge of discomfort radiating from his mind—a little headache.
The silence flooded the uneventful, gloomy and dark bedroom. The full moon beamed intensely, its glowing light piercing through the window and the curtain, providing the room with a tinge of dimness.
"Ughhh…" he lazily groaned and slowly closed his eyes to hopefully go back to sleep, all the while being oblivious to the small headache he felt.
"It's nothing…" he thought without any concern.
He shifted his position slightly to face the other side to get comfortable. But as soon as he did that, the pain cruised through his mind; the headache suddenly grew excruciating.
Tadano decided to wait it out for a minute hoping the feeling would wear out.
…
"I can't stand this, it's been about three minutes. I gotta get some water so it can probably go away…" he thought.
Tadano rose to sit up and scrub his eyes for a moment to get rid of the mucus when he was greeted by a small ringing noise piercing his eardrums, followed by another abrupt, but this time, an even more terrible headache.
The tight feeling of blazing agony and the shrilling noise grew that he couldn't stand it anymore. Tadano stood up from his bed, shifting back and forth wondering how he could desist the pain.
A sudden loud thud came to his surprise.
"W-What in the world was that?" he stopped to question, now on high alert.
It was followed by an unexpected voice—"Hello?!"
The voice echoed uncannily. What made it stranger is that the voice belonged to his younger sister, who looked to be sleeping on the top bed.
"So Hitomi is awake, is she-"
The pain continued to hammer his mind, accompanied by the spontaneous thuds. He felt his mind being twisted at this point, instinctively bolting to the bathroom to eagerly let the sparkles out. He moaned and groaned hoarsely, like a zombie catching breaths. Hitomi, on the other hand, was undisturbed by the loud barfing and continued to dream.
"Nhmmmm…" a faint hum came from the bedroom.
"H-Hitomi?!" Tadano replied loudly from the bathroom, followed by mere silence.
After the sparkling finally desisted, he caught a couple of breaths—the headache didn't stop, though. After he did his business, he now had to clean off the mess he made and flush the toilet.
What was odd was Hitomi wasn't the type of person to talk in her sleep, at least not loudly, thinking about the fact that he heard speak while he was in the bathroom.
The sensations grew increasingly abysmal when Tadano stood up. His peripheral weakened and the ringing sound continued to echo within. On the brink of insanity, he was close to screaming, but he coped with it for the sake of anyone asleep.
Dozens of voices traveled through his ears, enough to make it feel like a hallucination. The unexplainable thudding growing—he felt like he was in a horror movie when he heard a violent knock on the door. Covering his own ears, he sure was now on the brink of going nuts.
Hyperventilating, Tadano frantically planned to run to his bed, planning to lie down for comfort and cover himself up with the hopes of it all going to a halt.
He tried to run although with sloppy effort. He felt the world slowly fade into black; the noise of unpleasant ringing and knocking being sucked out of his ears. Everything was dying down; he also started to die down.
Just halfway while making it to his bed, he fell forward with his head bouncing off the mattress followed by his body falling clumsily to the right side on the tatami mat.
Tadano's eyes fluttered open—the early rays of sun met his eyes.
"Ughhh…. Wait, did I just fall out of the bed while I was asleep?"
It was 5:45am, and Tadano woke up on the floor laying on his right side with his left arm lazily hanging on the bed while he faced the underside of his bed.
"Strange, what had happened before? Was I unaware when I fell off? Or did something happen at that time?" he questioned.
Tadano remembered the headache. Still having it, this time milder—only the noise had worn out. Piecing two and two together, he came to the surprising conclusion of what occurred.
"Man, that headache almost killed me there. I could've kicked the bucket. And the ringing noises." he thought about the surreal experience. "I think I vomited too. Also the knocks on the door, were they real? God, that felt creepy."
Tadano felt the life sucked out of him after the experience he had to bear. He slightly tilted to face the ceiling when he felt his wet shirt coated with cold, chilly sweat, most of it making up his backside—tired he was indeed. Palm on his face, he wondered….
"Gahh… the culture festival is today. I really want to go but nature got the best of me. As the class president, I still have to go. I can't let anybody down."
He summoned a bit of his courage to get up and march to the bathroom to brush and take a shower.
"Fuaaah… this sweat is killing me."
Tadano tugged on his soaked shirt and tossed it on the ground, he did the same with his shorts, now clad with merely his black boxers. Feeling worn out, that feeling of not wanting to go got through his mind, but he knew he still had to. He looked himself in the mirror at his own exhausted, baggy eyes and his pale face, not knowing what to think anymore, and he felt that the headache had completely gone away. Albeit he did spontaneously keep sweating for some reason.
"Good morning, Onii-ch–PFFFTT-"
Hitomi gandered at the appalling, unseemly sight of her brother. Her expression looked like that of Enel from One Piece.
"HEY! What's with the getup?! Can you at least close the door when you want to do this?"
"Oh. Sorry about that…" Tadano coldly responded, smothered with a ghost-blank visage.
"Huh, so that's your costume for your school's culture festival. I see, an undead man only clad with his boxers. Bwahahaha! No joke, your classmates really know how to bump up the boundaries with art!"
"I-I-It's not like that!" Tadano stammered with his reply.
Hitomi slipped out of the bathroom doorway, until she took another good, piercing look of what looked peculiar—he seemed to be unusually sweaty this morning.
"Uhmm, did you go out for an early run or something?" she replied with an inquisitive, one-eyebrow-raised impression.
"No… why?"
"Something's completely wrong and fishy here."
"Uhh, nothing's wrong and fi-"
Hitomi grabbed his shoulder and stared suspiciously at him.
"You…"
"Huh?" said Tadano.
"YOU DID IT, DIDN'T YOU?!"
"D-did WHAT?!"
"You know very well what I mean when I say you were DOING IT that night!" her doubtful face closed in near his with an attempt to get an answer.
"Where did that come from?! I never did it with someone yester-"
"How much you're sweating tells me otherwise. Don't worry though, I won't tell Mom or Dad… ya stud." she teased, prodding his shoulder and giggling lightly.
"Geez, I'll never know how or where you come up with such conclusions."
"I mean, come on bro! Anyone could assume the same. Look at you with only boxers and all that sweat; you almost can't deny it."
"Alright alright, scram." Tadano gently forced her off, shutting the door.
"Should I tell her she was talking in her sleep? Nah, that might add suspicion that I was awake and 'doing it'."
"See you later, Hito-chan! Take care!" Jeanne called out.
"Yeah, love you too, mom." Tadano responded.
…
"It's quiet outdoors today, as usual," he thought.
The dull, cold and tender wind shrouded the neighborhood, crowded with scattered clouds proudly hanging high in the prefecture's sky, smearing the sun off the image a little. The horizon had a tinge of warm yellow mixed with busy clouds with the silent air filling up the area—the clicking of his shoes as he walked being the loudest thing he first heard outdoors so far. Glancing outside the uneventful atmosphere, he let out a sigh.
"Ahhh, what in the world was that…?"