The Demons of Tokyo

Chapter 5

All throughout the next day, Takeshi's words kept echoing in my mind. What had he meant when he said that he wanted to be useful again? Did he feel useless all the time or was it only because of what happened with Rin?

I hoped it was only the latter because he seemed like a fairly nice kid. He didn't deserve to feel useless.

I tried to push the question to the back of my mind, since I was probably over thinking it too much.

Instead, my mind wandered off and I began to think about how Rin had seemed so... what was the word? Cold? Annoyed?

By the look on his face, he seemed to hate me or dislike me very much at the least. Had I annoyed him somehow? Or was he just in a bad mood that day?

It made me wonder what him and Takeshi were usually like when they weren't angry. For all I knew, they could actually be really nice.

"So the police have released a picture of that guy who was killed," said Daichi, a boy in my class. Michiko and I were sitting with a group of our friends and they seemed totally engrossed in the whole alleyway murder.

I was less fascinated by everything and I was more worried that things like this would happen to me again. Or somebody else. My stomach was still healing and it was covered in bruises.

"Show me!" Arisu, another friend, cried. Daichi showed her the picture that he had on the phone and she raised an eyebrow. "He looks more like the killer than a victim. Look at those tattoos!"

"I know," Daichi said, showing Michiko the picture. "Why would you even mess with a big scary guy like him?"

Suddenly Michiko's eyes went big and round and she looked at me with her mouth wide open in shock.

"Shizuko!" she cried, taking the phone of Daichi and shoving the picture in my face. "It's that guy! The one from the other day!"

It was then that I remembered that only the police, Toshiaki, Rin and I that knew who the victim was. For everybody else, it was a mystery.

"Is it?" I asked, trying to sound surprised. My stomach churned at the image of the man, his red eyes sending shivers up my spine.

That man had tried to kill me.

I jumped when somebody tapped me on the shoulder from behind, nearly falling off the desk I was sitting on. Michiko laughed at my reaction and so did Daichi and Arisu.

I turned around, looking at the person who had tapped me on the shoulder and I smiled as I saw who it was.

Takeshi looked back at me with his sad grey eyes and fidgeted nervously with the sleeve of his black hoodie.

I instantly realised that the reason he had looked so familiar when I had seen him yesterday was because I had seen him around school before.

"Hi," I said, smiling slightly. He didn't look as upset as yesterday but something still appeared to be bothering him; he was nervously picking at a thread on his hoodie. "Is everything alright?"

He nodded and looked at Michiko and the others briefly. Was he nervous to be around them? Did he find them intimidating because they were older than him?

"What is it?" I asked quietly as I stood up. I began to make my way towards the door, thinking that perhaps standing in the hall would be better if he needed to tell me something without other people hearing.

"Um... Toshiaki wanted me to ask you something," Takeshi told me. "He said it's important."

I raised my eyebrow at him and peeked back through the door way to make sure Michiko and the others weren't listening. They weren't and seemed to be in shock over the whole alley way murder thing again.