［ house of cards. ］

[ liquid adrenaline and thrill ]

❧

Newspaper article in hand, Oka left the living room and walked towards the storage room the house had at the near end. The things inside were usually from the elders like Jirou, Yuusei or Hirotaka, and occasionally Naruse, but since Naruse was obsessed with cleanliness, the storage room would constantly be cleaned, so that it would be spotless. Although, that didn't stop the boxes and packages from piling all the way to half the height of the room, so it still looked a bit messy despite all of Naruse's attempts. Oka always wondered what things do the elders store away.

Must be some secretive stuff, Oka thought as he opened the door leading to the room.

As his fingers searched for the light source and his eyes navigating around the room, he caught sight of the bookrack right smack in front of him, and he walked towards it. The rack had sections, all of them nearly full, in which Jirou had categorized the articles into years and placed them in. Oka had always thought that this odd habit of his elder was a bit amusing.

As he scanned through the labels, he found the year he was looking for.

2015

If I'm not mistaken...

Oka took out all the newspapers from that rack, and proceeded to look through them. He particularly paid attention to the month they were published on, since it was a key to what his memory lane took him on. After minutes of flipping through dusty piles of articles, and a few times where he'd sneeze due to the dust that would come out everytime he flipped through the pages, he found the right article, and his eyes flew straight to the headline that made up the front page.

"TERROR ON THE WHEELS:
Family left speechless after father gets into awry motorcycle death"

SEP 09 - Retired accountant Okiishi Tatsuhiko, 47, was found dead amidst motorcycle wheels in an afternoon shopping gone wrong. The incident occured during rush hour, and despite attempts to rescue the victim, he passed away instantly.

Wife of Tatsuhiko, Miura Ebi, 46, had described that her husband and her son had been crossing the road when the motorcycle came speeding by. She said that his husband did not manage to avoid the incoming vehicle, and had suffered a horrible outcome.

The victim's son, Okiishi Yuusei, 19, had no opinion regarding the incident, but he didn't want to converse about the topic, still expressing shock. He mentioned his near-death situation and how he still isn't able to cope with it. The devastated teen quoted, "Now that father's gone... who will take care of us?" The scene left many shocked, and sadly Tatsuhiko passed on the scene due to the ambulance being unable to arrive on time.

Sitting sprawled on the ground, Oka had a lot of things going around his head. He continued glancing down, but the article had ended and he was left with an advertisement about Taylor Swift's upcoming 1989 World Tour. He was just left staring at the end of the article, mouth slightly agape.

A scenery had been conjured up in his head after reading all those details.

He was now standing amidst a swarm of people, all crowded in one end of a busy zebra crossing. The crowd seemed to have formed an arc around something, as if a deadly disease was spreading like wildfire amongst them. Oka could hear the endless honkings of cars and other vehicles next to him, as well as the shrieks and gasps emitting from the members of the crowd. He was standing at the beginning of the crossing, eyes affixed to the tragedy happening right in front of him, like a spectator of a theatre tragedy play.