Gantz: The beginning

Secret for a secret.

Yui raised her eyebrow and leaned in. "Hi, have you been avoiding me? I haven't seen you since this morning."

Yoko tried her best to remain passive but was sure her eyes gave her away, and her hands gripped the seat unseen. Oh no, I made her angry, she knows! "Sorry, I just, it's been a busy day."

Yui chuckled, and something was chilling about her laugh. "I'm teasing silly, I just wanted to make sure we were still on for Friday?"

Yoko forced a smile; it seemed she was doing that a lot lately. "Sure we are." So you can poison me, or maybe you wanna kill me in my sleep too. "I don't have college tomorrow, but I'll see you Friday."

Yui stepped away from the car with a broad smile, even creepier than her laugh. "Right, and we have our part-time job too, plenty of catch-up time." Yui jumped in excitement, "See ya Friday!"

Yoko waved at her and then sighed in relief when her friend walked away. "Yui, what have you done...."

.........................................

Nishi walked into a convenience store; he was low on money, but he wasn't going to steal; he would not stoop that low. He browsed the reduced section in the chillers and noticed two other people in the store, but he paid them no attention. As Nishi picked up a sandwich, someone bumped into him, which he felt was on purpose because there was enough space on the aisle, and he dropped the sandwich. Nishi frowned before bending down to pick it up, and just as he was about to give a snarky retort, his eyes grew wide when he saw the one responsible and only had enough voice to breathe out the name, "Matari." When Nishi stood up, the other boy had at least two inches on him.

"Well, look who it is!" Nishi glared when Matari shoved him lightly. "Haven't seen you in school recently, too good for education now, smartass?"

Nishi clenched his hand around the sandwich; why couldn't someone like this dick get sent to Gantz? "Out of my way, Matari." Nishi tried to keep calm; he couldn't start a fight here.

"Ooooh, you didn't just say that," Matari moved close to Nishi's face with a grin, but Nishi showed no signs of backing down. "You just wait until we get you at school." Matari grinned. "Again."

"Whatever," Nishi muttered before pushing past and saw the second person was another middle school student; it was Fuji, so he walked down another aisle to avoid more interactions with them.

Matari nudged his friend when he returned, "Hey, check this out."

Nishi overheard them talking and stayed within earshot out of curiosity.

"Whoa! Where'd you get that?"

"My dad's private collection."

"Is it real?"

"Of course it is but keep your voice down."

"What are we gonna do with it?"

"I dunno, there's a round of bullets in it, so let's go shoot some birds or something."

Nishi grimaced; terrific, he just had to walk into the same store as them.

"Sweet man." Matari picked up some chips and shoved them in his jacket, and Fuji gasped, "That's stealing,"

"So, who cares, I feel invincible right now."

Nishi sighed and quickly made his way to the cashier; the quicker he got out of here, the better. He placed his items on the countertop, but the store clerk looked up in time to see the other students put something else in their pockets and shouted, "I saw that!" Nishi glanced up and knew the clerk was moving his hand to push the emergency button that was always hidden under the register; he thought it was unnecessary for petty theft until he remembered they had a gun. The cashier left the counter to address the other students. "Hand them over! And whatever else you took."