Ghost Hunt: The Souls Weapon

The New Normal? #3

Takigawa, Ayako, and John

    I walked to my next class, I was cramming notes in between classes for my math test I have in 5 minutes. I somehow forgot that I had a test and as soon as I realized I panicked and tried to study. "Jeez, I'm going to fail!" I started to talk to myself to try to make myself feel better and not think about the stress. "Ladron, I need the keys to my van." Shibuya stares at me expectantly, I almost bumped straight into his chest. Little sad I didn't, anyway, with him here I can totally skip that test and take it another day. "Ah! Hold on, I need to take it out of my bag, give me a sec," I start to look and rummage around my bag until I found the keys to his van, as soon as I found them I started to take them out and hand them to Shibuya, I asked, "How is Lin doing?" Shibuya looked at me, "He can't walk for a while, I have to take more time doing things." He looked annoyed and frustrated while saying this, most likely because he's a man down. "I see, well if you don't mind I could help you out for free for now until Lin gets better." I stare at him with a blank expression waiting for his reply. He began walking down the hall and with his back turned he told me forgetting the keys in my hand, "I'll see you at the old schoolhouse after school then." I smile brightly and start jogging to catch up with him, "I can go now if you want! You still need me to unlock the building for you after all, and while I'm there I could start working." I jingled the keys of the old school house to prove my point. Shibuya, still ahead of me, stopped and turned around slightly, "Don't you have class? Unless..." I felt the judgment from here, I turned my head to the side to avoid eye contact, I was feeling a little ashamed but at the same time wasn't. "Well, yes but as your school guide I have an obligation to help even during school hours, so you don't get in trouble." There was a long silence... "So, you want to be stupid." Feeling awkward simply standing in the middle of the hallway I start walking to get ahead of him. "NO! I simply need more time to educate myself on the topic of math before my test." I told him in a 'matter of fact' voice, I had a frown on my face as I spoke. "I am only allowing you to join me because you have the keys to the schoolhouse and because you offered to give me an extra pair of hands." I frowned even more at his statement, how could he be so rude to the person that gave him so much information, like a crap ton of information with a tour of the school building. Like, hello? Where is MY 'thank you Victoria for giving me a tour and information.' You know what, I'm not gonna give him anything anymore. "I see, well I guess I can't give you super classified information about everything going on in Japan that will never make it out to the public, or give you information that hasn't yet been published early. Haa, what will I do with all this information?" This is what caught Shibuya's attention, I could feel him burning a hole into my skull. I of course start to get nervous as it feels like he's going to try and kill me. "If only someone apologized for being so rude to me." I turned and gave Shibuya a look, he stared back unwavering and unwilling to apologize. "Oh no it seems like I can't open the schoolhouse for you Shibuya, it looks like the principal wants to talk to me." I turned the opposite way of the schoolhouse and started walking, not turning to even look at Shibuya. I did have a reason to talk to the principal, I had to report what happened this morning and who caused the accident. I also had to talk to him about my volunteer work I'm going to do with Shibuya. I was walking quickly, trying to get as far as I could from Shibuya as I can tell he was frustrated with me. I was walking so fast that I made it to the principal's office in 5 minutes. I compose myself before knocking on the door. "Excuse me! I need to talk to you sir." I waited for a bit before I heard mumbling in the room, I could faintly hear the principal talking. "Yes, I would appreciate it if you come quickly." Who was the principal talking to? "Sir! I need to talk to you!" I know it's rude to interrupt him but I need an excuse to not go back to math class. "Yes, come in." With that I opened the door, I looked around to see if anyone was there but no one was. I assume he was on the phone. "Sir, sorry for interrupting but I need to talk to you about the investigators you called in and what happened this morning." The principal started to look at me more seriously, "What happened?" I look back at him with the same intensity, " this morning a student ignored the ban of not going to the old schoolhouse and caused an accident which resulted in an investigator going to the hospital. Because of this I am going to start helping the investigators out after school hours and sometimes during school hours." The principal looked down at his desk, his face was unreadable and he didn't speak for a while. "You can't always help during school hours, when you do want to help out during school hours please visit me and I will check your schedule and tell you if you can. For the incident this morning, please tell the student to come to my office after their class." I nodded my head and turned around to walk out, "Please don't skip class next time." I stopped moving and started to sweat, I heard him laugh and I ran out of his office. It was almost the end of class and almost the end of the day so I started to walk towards the front desk of the school, "Excuse me, do you know what class Taniyama Mai is in?" She looked at me suspiciously, "The principal wants to talk to her." I gave her a small smile, she then proceeded to tell me where her classroom was. Thankfully it was close by so I didn't have to walk as much, when I finally made it to her class I could see that an argument was taking place. "You're putting me at risk here!" A girl with braided pigtails yelled at another group of girls, including Taniyama Mai. "And you think that's our fault?" Taniyama yelled at the other girl, Taniyama had a scowl and was glaring at the pigtail girl. I stood back as I didn't want to involve myself into the catfight but I ended up dozing off, well that was until Shibuya came looking for Taniyama and scared the life out of me, "You there, tell me is there something in the old school house?" Shibuya snapped at the pigtail girl harshly, he was clearly annoyed from earlier or maybe it was the fact that the group of girls were yelling at each other. "If you are spiritually sensitive, then do you sense anything about the old school house?" He was only looking at the pigtail girl waiting for an answer, then the group of girls the pigtail girl was arguing with started to squeal. "AH! it's Shibuya-Senpai!" The group of girls were hugging each other with hearts in their eyes.
"Are you the one who put these girls up to tell ghost stories?" The pigtail girl started to scowl at Shibuya. "Will you please answer my question?" Shibuya started to taunt the pigtail girl, he was not in a good mood at all. "If you can really sense spirits, that is."
The girl looked offended or maybe scared? I can't tell at all but it's impressive that she's not cracking that much under the pressure Shibuya is giving her. "I can sense them! There are a lot of spirits of those who died in the war gathered in the old school house!" The pigtailed girl is now starting to show more cracks. But I didn't care enough so I ignored the conversation and walked next to Shibuya, then I felt him move so I walked out of his way. At this point no one has acknowledged me, "Taniyama," Shibuya sounded annoyed, "Might I have a moment?" Shibuya told Taniyama in a 'You can't say no' voice she made a weird noise and started to follow Shibuya, "Ladron you're coming too." I start to sweat a little, "Uh, okay." I made a stupid face while I said this, I tend to do stupid things when I get nervous. I started to follow them into an empty hallway, Taniyama was slightly behind Shibuya and I was right next to him. Taniyama started to talk to us when we stopped walking, "Um, how is that man from this morning?" Taniyama was clearly nervous and she asked the question in a frightened tone. "Yes, about him. He's sprained his left leg." Shibuya told her in a slightly annoyed tone, "He won't be able to walk for a while." He added in to make Taniyama feel even worse, what an asshole.
"I-I'm terribly s-sorry..." Stuttered Taniyama, she looked sorry and was slightly shaking. I ignored the conversation once again and when they stopped talking I asked Shibuya a question, "Uh, Shibuya why am I here?" He looked over at me like I asked a stupid question, "You need to unlock the schoolhouse." I frowned at him, "I guess I can unlock the school building for you. Haa, if only someone apologized for being so rude to me earlier." I gave him a pointed look with a raised eyebrow, he continued to stare at me like I was stupid. He clearly isn't going to apologize to me, which made me upset. Then I remembered that the other girl was there and that she needed to go to the principal's office. "Shibuya, I actually can't open the schoolhouse. I have to get the student that caused the accident this morning to the principal's office." I gave him a fake smile and looked over to Taniyama who looked like she was going to shit herself. "Taniyama, I need you to come with me." Now she looked like she was going to cry, now realizing that she was going to get in trouble. She slowly started to walk closer to me, I looked over at Shibuya who now has a scowl on his face.