𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐌𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐄 | 𝐲𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞 ! 𝐤𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐨 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 |

20: hide

Your eyes pried themselves open, out of the clutches of a drugged-up sleep. Your head was resting on the floor of the shed, granules of dirt digging into your cheek.

Groggily, an intense headache pounding behind your eyes, body feeling like it had been run over by a train multiple times, you lifted yourself up from the dirty floor into a sitting position.

Taking in your surroundings, the memories of what had happened mere hours ago flashing back into your mind, you immediately wished you'd never woken up.

Kuroo stood in the corner of the shed, leaning up against the wall with his arms folded, that stupid, lazy, infuriating smirk ever present on his face. "You're awake."

"What time is it..." you mumbled.

"3 am."

You glanced over to the chair in the middle of the shed that held the slumped, lifeless body, dried blood pooled all around it, staining the ground. Your stomach churned, a sinking sickness coursing through your veins like a weight heavier than lead. This can't be real.

"Get up," Kuroo ordered you, stifling a yawn. "We have to get rid of this thing before it starts to stink."

You rose to your feet shakily. This can't be real. It's just a bad dream. Just a bad dream, y/n. You'll wake up soon.

Grabbing the skin of your forearm in between your thumb and index finger, you pinched it viciously, digging your nails in. It hurt like a bitch. The blooming bruises on your wrist, the numb-ish pain in your jaw... everything indicated that this was all too real.

"Did we— did that all really happen?" you whispered hollowly.

Kuroo's brow creased in irritation. "Of course it did," he snapped impatiently. "Now get a move on."

You raised a hand to your face and felt dried blood caked on your cheek. You scratched it gently and felt it wriggle its way under your fingernails. This is really happening. I killed someone.

Your hand flew to your clothing, patting the white dress over. Where's my phone. I need to call someone.

I want to call my Mom.

The childish urge hit you unexpectedly. Mom would know exactly what to do in this situation. She'd stroke my hair and make me warm honey tea and fix everything up.

A pang of pain stabbed through you as you realised you couldn't go cry to your mother about this and get her to sort it all out for you like when you were a child. You were all alone in this one.

Well, not entirely alone. You glowered at the bastard who dragged you into this entire mess.

He stood by the body of Naoka, contemplating it. "It's still pouring outside. If we get rid of it now, the rain will wash away our DNA."

Why is he so fucking calm about this? You stood up wearily as Kuroo untied Naoka's pale wrists from the chair.

"Hold her ankles," he ordered you.

It was an out of body experience, almost. But you really had no choice other than to obey. You reached down for her cold legs and wrapped your grip around her ankles.

"Lift them up."

You did so silently, not quite comprehending the surreal fact that you were literally handling a dead body. Kuroo took hold of her other end by cupping his hands under her armpits. You wanted to gag when you saw the meat cleaver still sticking out of her chest at an abstruse angle, encrusted in blood so dark that it appeared purple, as the two of you carried her out of the shed. She's still in her school uniform, you realised. Did Kuroo drag her here on Friday after school? Did he make her wait, tied up and scared, until he brought me here? It was the earliest hours of Sunday morning now. Surely, people would start looking for her soon.

Her arms dangled down lifelessly, one of them being a mess of ravaged flesh, nearly unidentifiable as a human limb. The lower part of her feet and legs had turned purple and bloated from livor mortis, where the blood settled from the gravity. A trail of foam mixed with tendrils of blood leaked out the corner of her petite lips. Her eyes stared upwards, empty and unseeing, the once beautiful crystalline blue irises turned a fogged up, dull-grey. She looked nothing like the girl who had bullied you for petty reasons.

As much as you hated her for her actions, you wished that she didn't have to end up as she was this very moment, being carried through a deciduous forest by two teenage killers in the pouring rain. Death was a curse you would never wish upon anyone ever again.

Kuroo's brow was dripping — from the rain or perspiration, you couldn't tell. Your own hair was plastered to your scalp, your dress clung to your skin.

"There's a river just up here," he said.

Sure enough, you could hear the placid swishes of water over rocks not far away.

Kuroo and you lowered the body down on the river bank. Kuroo wandered over to the water's edge, where pebbles and stones in various sizes sat minding their own business. Kuroo beckoned you over and the two of you crouched down. He picked up a grey stone nearly the size of his own head. "We can use these to weigh the body down so it won't float to the surface."

"...won't she sink by herself?"

"No, the body will bloat in a few days and that will make it really buoyant," he explained.

"Oh."

He gathered up several similar rocks and instructed you to do the same. "Tuck the stones into its clothes wherever you can."

You shoved the rocks down Naoka's blood-soaked shirt, into her bra, her underwear, and even filled her shoes and socks with smaller pebbles that Kuroo brought you. Rain continued to splatter all around, but it seemed to be easing up, which urged you to hurry along.

You finished the task and turned to Kuroo for approval. He nodded. "Just roll it down the river bank."

Your stomach squirmed as you gave her cold body a shove and watched it slide down the slope of the water's edge, the mossy grass surrounding it and slipperiness from the rain making it easy for her to tumble into the water. An expression of horror mingled with fascination adorned your face as you watched her sink through the depths, the murky water swallowing her up as if it had been waiting for her all this time. Within just seconds, there was no trace of her, save for a few bubbles that danced across the surface.