Time Flies By // TBHK Role Swap AU

Chapter 13: Ghosts make Great Babysitters

"How could you brush this off so normally?!" Kou called out.

"What? Its supernatural work, nothing is surprising once you reach a certain age. You would know wouldnt you No.7?"

"Ive only been dead FOR 20 YEARS GIMME A BREAK!" Yashiro stomped.

"Whyre we wasting time? Why dont we go catch this person?!" Amane mentioned, crossing his arms.

"Shes full of energy, may as well allow her to have some fun before we stop her. In that time we can make a strategic plan."

They all sat down on some wooden stools, quietly thinking to themselves.

"Is there anything that we could trap her with? What does she like?" Amane asked, glancing at Akane.

"Typical kid stuff I guess? I just know she likes candy." Akane shrugged his shoulders, Yashiro immediately dug into her pockets, pulling out a ton of halloween candy.

"Would this do?" Yashiro asked, "I have more if needed."

"Where did you get so much candy from???" Kou's eye widened, it was a lot of candy for just one pocket.

"A ghost has her ways." Yashiro shrugged, handing the pile to Akane.

"Woahh... Very mysterious. This should work though." Akane stood up. "Im assuming you dont want this havoc happening in your garden."

"Wow! Who could of guessed?" Yashiro played along with the sarcasm, trying to keep a straight face.

"Theres an abandoned classroom in the middle school building, we can go set up there!" Kou pointed out, all three looked at him.

"Good to know, lead the way then." Akane offered as they marched back into the high school to go to the other building. The 'students' were all attempting to speak, playing around, or doodling on the floor with markers or whatever they could get their hands on, they couldn't have been younger than four. But they just kept running past, especially with how loud their incomprehensible speech was.

Once they reached the middle school building, it was completely empty, assuming that they ran away or were victims already. They went to the 3rd floor and entered the empty classroom. There was broken shelves and a couple desks on their sides but thats it, it was so empty it even echoed. Akane started to place a trail of candy from the cracked door and into a corner where they could entrap her.

"Since theres at least two students she could get in here, theres no doubt she'll make her way up here eventually." Akane mentioned. "One of you will end up as bait."

"Oh great, Im so excited." Amane unenthusiastically cheered.

They waited a couple minutes, munching on some of the leftover candy from Yashiro's pockets.

Some shuffling and footsteps were heard from outside the door, they could barely see how fast the small person sped by.

"Ooo! Candy!" The girl was almost instantly at the candy pile, stuffing her small pockets. She had dark hair into pigtails and a clock attached to her jacket half the size of her body.

"Mirai! Get over here!" Akane started scolding, Kou and Yashiro got their stuff out.

"Come catch Mirai!" Mirai stuck her tongue out as Akane failed to catch her, Kou started backing him up and started trying to catch her as well.

Yashiro was mainly focused on keeping an eye on Amane, who was trying to find an item on the broken shelves to help out. Yashiro grabbed Kou's shoulder.

"Look, dont let Amane get touched. Kids dont take being hurt well, and with the amount of damage Amane has, oh lordy we would be screwed." Yashiro let go of Kou's shoulder after he nodded in understanding.

The small apparition kept bouncing around, Kou and Akane failing to catch Mirai. In a split second, Mirai got completely out of their reach and appeared behind Amane.

"Mirai think he'll be next!" Mirai cheered, patting Amane on the back. Yashiro instantly looked back, and in a blink, the 4'11 middle schooler turned into a five year old. As dire as the situation was, baby Amane was adorable. His clothes shrunk with him but they were still a tad oversized. Yashiro bent down to pick him up, his bright orange eyes were already watering and the bandages he had on were gone, showing all his half-healed injuries. She could tell he was strongly trying to hold back.

Kou has finally caught the hyper-active Mirai in his hands afterwards due to her sugar rush ending.

"Is Amane alright??" Kou quickly gave Mirai over to Akane and ran over asking.

"Yeah he should be fine, how long does it take for it to wear off?!" Yashiro asked Akane.

"When Kako fixes the time, which shouldn't be too long." He had Mirai keep her hands to her side.

Yashiro wasn't a huge fan of kids but she knew how they worked, and she didn't mind having to watch one. If it wasn't a bullied child or even Amane she woulda just had him sit down and mind his own business, but it just felt wrong to, instinctively that is. Besides, it was hard to resist his face. Yashiro sat down with Amane next to her and gave the child some candy to eat to keep him occupied. Honestly, it melted her dead heart.

Kou sat down next to them. "For the amount of scrapes on him he's a calm kid." He grabbed Amane's free arm to get a look at it. Amane looked up at him with a hand in his mouth.

"I mean, just because he's a kid doesn't mean he's any different. For all we know he could be having his usual thoughts and just not able to say it." Yashiro suggested, she wasn't sure in her answer, but she genuinely did wonder what Amane's thoughts were if he did.

Kako showed up then, his face was covered but generally he was a tall person, much taller than Akane anyways. He took over with keeping Mirai at bay by taking her from Amane.

"This is Kako, you can say he's our leader, he will be forwarding the time." Akane spoke, the two of them looked over as Amane played with the bottom of Yashiro's hair.

"Clock keeper, please fix our school's time to how it was before." Yashiro asked, more demanded if anything, while making him let go of her hair.

"Will do."

Thats all they could remember before the time was fixed, and they all woke up in the empty classroom afterwards. Amane was back to normal, and Kou and Yashiro were still the same.

"So everything is fixed?" Amane asked, rewrapping himself.

"Yep!" Yashiro answered as they started walking back.

"Ah thats good, what about the rest of classes though-?" Amane asked.

"The school has no memory or footage of it since its back in time. You should probably get back to class just in case." Yashiro suggested, both of the boys dashed for it.

"Where do I recognize Akane from?.." Yashiro thought for a moment, sitting on a stair as she kept trying to think. "Where.."