red strings | mitsuba sousuke

chapter one

        The bi-coloured girl sprinted through the hallway, eager to get to her destination.  The hallway of the school building was fairly bare of students, making it easier for her to manoeuvre around.  Upfront in her vision, she spotted the third-floor girl's bathroom.  Lightly pushing through the door, inside the nearly vacant bathroom on the windowsill sat the perverted 7th mystery, Hanako-san of the Bathroom, she had come to know.

"Hanako-kun, Hanako-kun!", huffing from her quick jog, she leaned against the bathroom wall near the supernatural figure for support.  "I overheard two students mention something about a 'Hidden Mystery!'  I thought you might know more about it, so I rushed here to see if you knew anything!"

Redirecting his attention away from the scenery outside of the window and to the schoolgirl, the supernatural responded,  "Eh? The 'Hidden Mystery'?"  Upon asking, he scratched the back of his head nervously.

Whilst nodding, the bi-coloured girl replied with a hopeful look,  "Yeah! So, do you?"  Yashiro's reply had caused the old ghost to look away, slightly sweating and fidgeting.  Met with uncanny silence, the girl questioned to herself what was wrong with the ghost. Thinking to herself, she quickly came up with a conclusion, albeit a laughable one at that. 

Narrowing her eyes at the boy, the daikon-legged student spoke of her odd theory.

"Hanako-kun, don't tell... you're secretly scared of them aren't you!", with an accusatory look, she pointed her index finger at the ghost who had now been taken aback by Yashiro's bold claim.

Caught off-guard by the girls' accusation, Hanako's face flushed a bright red as he sputtered out a rather rapid response of denial. "W-wah, no! That's not it!"  Holding up his hands in defence, he had become visibly anxious even further, if that was possible. The scene at play leading the girl to doubt his words even more.  

Yashiro quirked her left eyebrow up as if she were verbally saying, 'well, what is it?'

Reluctantly, the supernatural gave in to the girl with a sigh. Carefully wiping off the sweat that had been welling up in the palms of his hands, he explained to her, "Well you see, I actually don't know much about them either. Hehe..."  Hanako's laugh awkwardly trailed off into an awkward silence.  Yashiro deadpanned at what the ghost had said, hoping for something more helpful.  Unfortunately, Hanako was anything and everything but helpful. 

Shaking her head, she ignored her suspicions that she had gathered from her companion's previous replies and continued to further interrogate the living death out of the poor ghost, "Do you know how to find them?  If you don't know them, then who does?"

Pondering on what the girl had asked, Hanako thought to himself.  While he himself personally did not know much about the 'hidden mystery', he had overheard a few students talking about them. Though brief, the encounter was enough for him to gather a faint idea at the time. If only he could remember the exact information that the students had exchanged between each other.  

Impatiently, the bi-coloured girl tapped her feet on the ground and stared at him expectantly with curious eyes and ears, waiting for his long-awaited response.  Suddenly, the faint memory of the accidental conversation came up just as Yashiro was about to say something. He grinned at the girl before he began to tell her about what he had overheard that day.

"Hey, have you heard about the hidden school mystery?"

"No, I don't think so. I thought there were only 7?"

"I heard a rumour that a few years ago, there was a new mystery that had shown up.  Even so, a few have only just started to acknowledge them.  Apparently, they're known as the 'Bearer of the Strings'. It's said that they can see the red string of fate!"

"Really?  Oh, it would be so romantic to find your soulmate!  Tell me, how do you summon them?"

"It's said that to summon them, you must first give them an offering of their liking.  If they accept the offering, they will help you find your soulmate but in exchange, you must give up something of equal value."

"Well? What would that something be?"

"Hm, it was never really specified, so I don't know.  The rumour also never specified where exactly to find them."

"Aw, it's probably just a hoax!  I got my hopes up for no reason as well..."

After explaining the circumstances to Yashiro, yet another moment of silence filled the bathroom.  Using her intellect to the best ability, the female student wondered to herself, even with this new information, how would we find them?   Tapping her finger to her skull she thought long and hard once more before sighing. She was just about ready to deem the case utterly hopeless and retreat. Maybe Ao-chan could help me?

Before she could think any further into her current dilemma, her thoughts were abruptly interrupted by two relatively tall, male figures bursting into the girls' bathroom in a rather loud and obnoxious fashion.  As quick as the two came in, the taller one of the pair ran up to the silver-and-teal-haired girl.

"Yashiro-senpai!"