Rotten Runaway

Part One : The body.

I was standing in one of the long and empty hallways of my school, waiting for my friend, Kazuke. While I ate a cheap chocolate bar, that I grabbed from home, so I didn't starve to death completely. My eyes caught multiple students passing by in a rush, but I thought nothing of it, it was an early Wednesday's morning anyway. While my eyes were focused on the cold tile floor and my mouth was slowly chewing the chocolate, my mind was daydreaming about getting home early. When suddenly a deep voice from the side of me interrupted my thoughts.
"Mayumi!" The voice almost screamed, yet it was an exciting tone, which indeed I did miss. Hearing my name and the annoying loud yet the soothing and nice voice, made me smile and giggle a bit. I turned my body around and let my eyes meet my friend, Kazuke, who was much taller than me, so I had to look up at the boy.
"Kazuke." I hummed while looking up at the taller male in front of me, while the big and sweet smile on my face that developed didn't wanna leave at all. "You're late. Again." I said, passing the almost finished chocolate bar to the boy, as i gently poked his chest with my finger.
"I know, I know. At least I ate breakfast unlike someone here." Kazuke said while grinning as he devoured my chocolate which was my breakfast. I shook my head in disbelief of the silly words that came out of his mouth and slid my hands into my cardigan pockets that I was wearing on top of my school's uniform,
"Haha, very funny." I said in a very sarcastic tone and shook my head once again, in disbelief how much one person could annoy me in matter of two minutes. Leaning against the wall, I noticed some girls gossiping about something not that far away from me and Kazuke, making me raise my eyebrow and huff in disbelief,
"Hm. They're probably talking about you, Kazuke." I said with a very noticeable jealous tone in my voice as I looked down and kicked some dust particle, that was there on the ground. Even if Kazuke was my friend, I would be lying if I said that I wasn't jealous when other girl's talked about him. It indeed made me mad. Very mad. Well, if I'm being hundred precent honest, maybe I liked Kazuke more than a friend, but he didn't have to know that. No one did. While having argument and discussion with myself in my head, a chuckle interrupted it, making me look at Kazuke who was the owner of the chuckle. The frown on my face slowly turning into a smile when I noticed he had chocolate smeared on his cheek, "Actually. It's not about me today, Yumi. There are rumours that one of the class C students were brutally murdered in the basement where they keep their garden supplies." Kazuke said and put the chocolate paper in his pocket, since there were no trash cans nearby, while he stared down at me.
"You have chocolate on your cheek, Kaz." I said and giggled at how funny he looked with it smeared on his cheek, before the reality hit and my brain finally comprehended what Kazuke said, the smile from my face disappearing very quick as I almost jumped back standing straight. "What!?" I asked since only word I could remember was — murder.
"You heard me. There was an alleged murder in the basement. No one knows who did it, rumours say it was Mrs. Miyazaki.. But I doubt." Kazuke said while wiping the smeared chocolate off of his face and staring down at my shocked face. I was utterly in shock.
"Murder? And the suspect is the very weird literature teacher? And no police? Just rumours? We must be living in a movie or some kind of fantasy anime." I thought to myself while my mouth was slightly opened from shock and I was looking up at Kazuke. I shook my head and stood back up straight,
"Let's go." I said and grabbed his hand in mine and hurried down the hallway.
"Go where? To the murder scene?" He asked in a very confused tone before continuing, "Are you crazy? What if there's an actual murder scene?" He asked and I just shrugged my shoulders and glanced back at him while keeping my fast speed,
"And what if there is? We will never know unless we go and check it out for ourselves, huh." I stated and continued my rapid pace. We stopped at the basement door and I looked around before Kazuke's voice spoke again,
"Are you sure you want to do this?" He asked and I just nodded my head, taking the material of my cardigan in my hand and opening the basement door with that, so I didn't leave any fingerprints just in case. We slowly walked down to the basement, and I raised my eyebrow since the light there was on, and the basement was lit very brightly and wasn't scary at all. I looked back at Kazuke and grabbed his hand, even if I was adventurous I was a big scaredy cat. But who wouldn't be scared in a situation like this? I heard Kazuke's mocking chuckle again, while he held onto my hand as well. When we went down, I looked around and shrugged, slowly letting go of boy's hand,
"There's nothing." I whispered, waiting for an answer from Kazuke, I looked up at him, "Are you okay?" I asked, before looking the direction where he was looking. My eyes widened from shock and my whole body jumped, my hand that was slowly letting go of Kazuke's, grabbed his hand as tight as it could. My heart was racing so fast, I didn't believe what I saw in front of my eyes. It truly was a dead student's body, just laying in front of our eyes. The poor girl's head was cracked open and her stomach was cut open and her insides were all over the floor. "We should go." Kazuke said and turned away, pulling me away from the scene while my eyes were still focused on the girl's body, my face was stuck in complete disbelief. I could almost feel the tears coming, but I turned around and followed Kazuke back to the staircase. We started to go up, before a voice from behind startled both of us,
"Mayumi and Kazuke, what were you both doing here?" The voice asked, my stomach dropping for the second time since it was Mrs. Miyazaki's voice. My eyes slowly glanced up at Kazuke who was frozen just much as I was, knowing the boy wasn't going to say anything, I turned around and gave Mrs. Miyazaki a sweet smile as I bowed to her,
"The gardener asked us to bring him watering pot from down here. We were outside and he asked us so nicely I couldn't say no." I lied. I lied so much, if they look at security cameras it will be over for me and Kazuke. They will for sure then know that we saw something we shouldn't have seen. Mrs. Miyazaki just nodded and looked around, she took the nearest water pot and walked closer to us, passing it to me.
"It's not safe for you kids to come down here." She spoke as I took the watering pot and bowed to her once again.
"We know, Mrs. Miyazaki. This will be the last time, we promise." I spoke and with that me and Kazuke exited the basement. Sigh of relief yet disbelief escaped my lips as i held on tightly on the watering pot and looked down at the floor while we walked down the hallway. Kazuke hadn't said a word which was very unusual to his everyday self. I glanced up at him and gently poked his side with my elbow,
"I'll go put the water pot outside. You should head to your class, it started already." I said and watched the boy hurry away to another hall as I walked outside of the school's building, my mission now being to find the gardener and put the water pot somewhat close to him.