Chapter 9
"I got you her hair," Akko said. They were both on the way back to their flats, walking on the sidewalk. "Finally the Weird Sucy Manbavaran is appeased."
Sucy held on tightly to the short hair strand Akko handed to her hours ago. She had been holding onto it the whole afternoon with nothing but a huge grin on her face.
"Sucy, tell me honestly, is Diana your idol?" Akko asked.
A blank gaze was Sucy's only answer.
"I've heard of crazy fanatics holding onto the used tissues of their idols but man something is wrong with people like you."
"Call it what you want, Akko." Sucy's grin widened. "I'm having the best day of my life."
"Why do I feel like it's the worst day for everyone else?"
Sucy ignored her best friend's remark.
"Hey, Sucy remember the promise you made Chariot?" Akko said, calling her guardian by her real name when it was just them.
Sucy's eyes widened as a hit of memory came to her. She did agree that if ever Professor Ursula was to leave the city or country that Akko can stay at her place. It was a mutual understanding between then that Akko can't live alone on a flat without permanent damage to the building or to herself.
"That is if you don't mind at all." The corners of her mouth moved upwards in a silly grin.
Sucy couldn't deny her, even if she should. She was planning to kill Diana Cavendish tonight.
"Are you doing, what I think you're doing?"
Loa was right. The concept of having Akko in her flat—with her—and with a plan to kill Diana Cavendish no less—it was mind-boggling. There were so many possibilities she could pursue, but there were so many ways a perfect plan could wrong.
Then again she couldn't just break a promise she made. Maybe she can do it while she's in the bathroom.
"Yes, that should do it." Loa concurred.
"Sure," Sucy said. "Though, I'm not letting you touch my kitchen."
"Aye aye, ma'am!" Akko saluted.
The moment they reached the flat, Akko excused herself. "I'll get some of my stuff and head over to your room."
"Alright," Sucy said. Sometimes it was nice that they lived in the same area. Chariot and Akko were on the ground floor while Sucy's room was on the third floor.
Sucy paused at the top of the steps before deciding she had to commit the murder quickly so she briskly walked to her flat number. She left the front door unlocked in case Akko came in and she was busy. Walking from the foyer to her bedroom, she shook her head, trying to gather her focus.
Glancing over her shoulder to make sure Akko wasn't directly behind her—as that had a habit of happening when both of them were in close proximity—Sucy locked herself in and went over to reach under the bed. She pulled out a box, giving it a slight shake.
She smiled when she heard the familiar contents rattle inside. With her free hand, she reached even further under the bed, her fingers searching for something. Her hand felt a huge sized book that she hid after deeming it was noticeable in her desk. She sighed in relief. Everything was as it should be.
"Have you decided on how to kill her yet?"
Her hands roam above it as if she was choosing which jewelry to choose. "I have. It's no fun to just kill her immediately. I want her to know in her slowly agonizing dying moment that I'm the one who killed her."
"Good, but since the most important person in your life is going to live here with you, must be a long night for the two of us."
"Yes, I know I should be sorry for I'm hiding you for the rest of the week in the deepest part of this flat room, but I'm not."
"You're still mad about that time I overdid my work?"
"I only wanted you to make the Sergeant a lunatic and kill himself! Harming Akko and causing her injuries are never okay!"
"Oh Sucy, if you don't stop caring for her, she will become your weakness. I've seen your ancestors fall apart and die because of love."
"And what would you know about it, Loa?" Sucy demanded. Hackles rising as she felt a sudden surge of defensiveness. "Unlike you, I have a hole to fill in. Akko has one too, and we fit each other perfectly."
"I'm looking out for you, Sucy. No matter what you think. If you want that Eastern girl to stay with you she should have the resolve to stay by your side. She's got a backbone of steel—but with what's about to come in the near future, she needs titanium. People bully her and take advantage of her constantly; you can't always be there for her. If she let what they said and do pierce her skin, there wouldn't be any left on her to speak of."
Sucy looked away from Loa, pretending to stare at the view outside the window while really fighting off the tears threatening at her waterlines. "You don't know a goddamned thing, Loa, so don't presume to tell me my own situation, because if that's what here for then you might as well fuck off, right now!"
She trembled with despairing rage as she spat those last few words, her clenched fists pressing hard into the surface of the table as she continued to stare unseeingly out the window.
"Do you want me to kill Diana Cavendish on my own instead?"
"No, I want to kill her myself." Sucy glared at the doll.
Loa chuckled, a dark brimming allure. "I recommend you to use your favorite one."
"A poisonous mushroom it is," Sucy smirked.
Quickly retrieving the vial of poison that became her necklace for 16 years, Sucy found herself petrified all of a sudden.
"What's wrong?"
"Will Akko hate me if she learned I killed Cavendish?"
"I highly doubt that."
Sucy loathed the fact that she hesitated so she retrieved a needle and an injection she stole from the academy's reserves in her pocket and stared at poison vial her mother left her.
She loaded the injection, and her jaw dropped when she realized the vial instantly refilled itself with magic.
"All vials are cursed to never be empty," Loa explained. "It was your great great grandmother who cast the spell."
Cavendish is well aware that she loved mushrooms. Every student and the teachers in the school know about the mushroom-eyed freak whose contact lens fell that one time.
The poison Sucy chose was from a death cap mushroom—a plain looking fungus species which contains deadly amatoxin and highly potent neurotoxins. Ingesting just one mushroom, even if it were slow-acting, is typically lethal and difficult to reverse.
Sucy stared at the strand of hair Akko got from Diana. It was sickeningly blonde like the full mop of hair on top of her head. She tied the hair around the doll's neck. At times like this, Loa is quiet. Only speaking when she's spoken to.
Sucy's heart thudded unevenly against her rib-cage as sweat trickled down her face. Sucy injected Loa exactly where the stomach should be.
"She'll be dead tonight." Sucy cackled.
"Congratulations on ridding your enemy once more, Sucy."
Sucy suddenly felt exhausted. Her stinging eyes flicked back and forth between the doll and the poison. She hunched forward and nearly quivering with stress.
A familiar voice sounded from the hallway. "Sucy?"
She quickly shoved Loa, and the book inside the huge box then hid it at the back of her dressing room where Akko will unlikely look. Sucy turned around and went to gather Akko as one thought kept repeating itself in her mind.
"I'll use your bathroom, okay?" Akko echoed.
"Okay!" Sucy shouted back before whispering to the doll hidden inside her closet. "Loa, I'm still upset with you, so don't think all is forgiven."
"After tonight, that might change."
Sucy walked out of her room to the kitchen and went over to the fridge. Her jaw dropped at the incredible amount of food in it.
"Oh!" Akko said from the bathroom, in a brink of remembrance. "While you were huddled in your room I managed to bring the rest of our food to your fridge."
"That answers this." Sucy deadpanned.
Hearing the water running in the sink as Akko washed her face; Sucy grabbed some ingredients and set them on the countertop. Beyond that, Sucy did everything without having to think about it. Sucy had done this cooking dinner several times in her life, but only when she's got the spare time.
After about 20 minutes of listening to Akko's movement inside the bathroom, and the cooking of food, Akko came downstairs with laundry in her hands.
"I'm going to put these in the washing machine," Akko said, poking her head over the pile of clothing. "I've got yours too."
Sucy flinched.
"What's wrong?" Akko asked from behind.
"N-Nothing," Sucy stuttered. When she said that, Sucy turned back to the food, refusing for Akko to see her face reddening. She couldn't believe she was getting so nervous.
It was just Akko for mushroom's sake!
Maybe the murder she committed tonight was greater reason to be nervous.
Yes that could be it
"Oh, thanks."
This felt too ordinary to be true. Sucy hadn't been able to feel like this for a while, and the thought of experiencing living with a roommate wasn't because of it. Sucy blushed for was the fact that Akko must have looked at her underwear and bras and pretty much everything.
This feeling of being domestic with the one she loved the most was slowly becoming her kingdom come.
Sucy sighed, from happiness.
"Here, it's done."
Akko came over to her and looked from over Sucy's shoulder at the two plates with a curry meal.
"Oh my! Chariot taught you how to cook curry?"
"Yeah but you're in for a little surprise."
"I'll take it!" Akko pecked Sucy on the cheek and grabbed her plate while brushing her arm with Sucy's side.
And for the second time that day, time became painfully slow as Sucy's brain attempted to coerce its body into action. It was a simple task. Sit next to Akko and eat dinner with her. Then sleep on the same bed.
Normally, nothing happened at this point, other than a feeling of elation and euphoria overcoming her; however, tonight proved to be different.
Wanting to stay, and needing to go. Isn't that how life went?
Diana sat on a small bench outside the main doors to the building where the service was about to start. She was wearing a black dress, nothing too fancy but smart enough for the occasion at hand. She had delayed entering with the other attendants as she wanted to clear her head.
So much has happened in the last few days it all seems so surreal, Diana looked down at the dirt beneath her feet as she begun to play the week's events back in her mind. The past few hours all came in a blur that she suddenly found herself in such a state.
Sucy and Akko are inseparable, Diana mused. It was a predetermined event that Diana was able to talk to Akko alone without the company of Miss Manbavaran that one time. It was a strained effort for her to befriend the two of them without becoming an unwanted third wheel.
When she queried the duo to come with her to the Kinsleys', to observe how the Filipino would react at her victims' funeral. Diana noted that Miss Manbavaran spoke about this murder with great emotion yet at the same time; she does so in a very detached manner.
Even did she attended the funeral, Diana didn't dare look at the man's coffin or his grave as he was lowered down to the ground.
Diana's thought process hadn't finished when she heard the sound of approaching footsteps, lifting her gaze from the ground as she looked towards the approaching person. A soft smile crept across her face as she recognized them.
Andrew was clad in a simple black suit with a white shirt and black tie while Frank was wearing almost the same attire as save for his tie was white like his shirt and both boys had a white rose in the breast pocket of their jackets. Hannah and Barbara both exchanged hairstyles and were clad in black and white dresses, with heels and white roses clipped over their hearts.
Andrew's dark hair bounced softly as he approached before taking a seat next to Diana. "Enjoying the fresh air are we?" he asked, sitting forward a little.
Frank was unsure how to approach her so he merely followed stood beside Hannah and Barbara, as they watched them. Frank's facial expression was particularly furrowed as if there was something bothering him in any prospect.
Diana gave a soft nod before returning her gaze down. "I just needed to clear my head, it's been a long week." she sighed after she spoke, keeping her gaze towards the ground.
Through the corner of her eye, she saw Andrew nod in agreement towards her before looking forward. "You should stop, you know before you get hurt in the relentless pursuit."
"What pursuit?" Frank asked, innocently.
"I have a feeling they are talking in riddles, as they always do." Barbara failed to whisper to her peers as Diana and Andrew pretty much heard her.
"Yes," Hannah added. "Is it just me, or this two are—"
Frank somehow decided to cut her off right there. He began to hold onto his stomach as if the uncomfortable butterflies had gotten worse. Diana had not known her rejection would cause him such pain.
"Andrew, we came here so we can invite her in for some tea, right? It's cold out here."
"Right," Andrew said. He then looked towards Diana once more in a firm reminder. "We are here to pay respects, not here to investigate the cops."
"I hear you." Diana slowly stood with her companions following her steps towards the building.
Frank bumped into Andrew on the way in, causing Hannah and Barbara to giggle.
"You alright, mate?" Andrew asked him.
Frank laughed awkwardly, rubbing his forehead to ward off the embarrassment. "I might be just hungry."
"Good thing wakes are like a dinner party," Barbara bantered, "but in a somber mood."
Once they stepped foot inside the hall, Diana nearly broke her promise with Andrew. The funeral was brimming with questions and pieces of a puzzle that Diana needed fixing.
To start with, Diana sensed that even Sergeant Kinsley's peers were all not quite sure how to feel about the funeral. Sergeant Kinsley wasn't the best of a friend and he wasn't a good cop either. But it was mandatory for the Police Service to honor a member's death.
The account of what he did to a minor girl from a prestigious academy and the fact that he murdered a lawyer was also a sensitive topic. It wasn't mentioned in the eulogy but Diana knew it was burning in the back of everyone's mind. He was a divorced man and the only relatives left for him were uncaring cousins.
For the others, it really was somewhat off-putting, as if the world still venerated murderous cops. At the same time, however, they all had to admit that the late Sergeant was losing his mind for the injustice death of his only son. And the wake in honor for him was so that his spirit would settle down.
Diana probably would have appreciated everyone's attire as well. At that moment it was hard not to smile at things like Frank tugging uncomfortably at his tie during and Andrew nudging him in a failed attempt to get him to stop. Hannah and Barbara even promised to accompany Diana so that she wouldn't feel alone in a place full of men and they were there keeping their gossips to a minimum, never leaving her side.
It was these little things that made it all bearable, and Diana was all grateful for that. They had to be because the service itself was a strange mismatch between right and wrong. Really, it was impressive that they'd managed to have a funeral at all.
An hour later, when she could stall no longer and her stomach was protesting by means of aching pangs of hunger, Diana passed through the doorway into the hall and fixed her eyes on the table. A little bit of tea and sweets won't hurt. Diana poured herself a small cup of mint tea when she noticed it wasn't scalding hot anymore. She then knocked it back in one go, rather than reheating the pot, and then grabbed a blueberry scone and an apple.
The moment she munched on her scone, an overwhelming ache in her stomach emerged.
A/N
Any theories on what will happen next?
I'm thinking if I should still participate in the Dianakkoweek 2018 when I haven't even started yet and I already have a lot of things on my plate. Perhaps just two or three entries out of seven would suffice. Guess what I'm trying to say is that next chapter would be on July 23. Peace yo xD