Happily Ever After

Note: I made a mistake; Ryoma’s cat’s name was Karupin instead of kanabi.


Day Two - Part Two: The Story Behind The House

“Ryoma, where did you go?” asked Momoshiro as he patted Ryoma’s head a couple of times.

“Nowhere.” Ryoma sat down beside Momoshiro or at least he tried to. He felt a tight grip on his wrist. He looked up at Tezuka questioningly.

“I don’t think that’s a good place to sit.”

“Why?”

“Because I think that’s not a good place to sit.” Though sounded monotone, Tezuka’s voice was slightly higher, and several degrees lower than usual.

“That’s why I asked why.” Ryoma didn’t notice the change of his voice. When he found out something was deadly wrong, it was too late, the atmosphere around them tensed and became rather suffocating. Ryoma felt the grip on his hand tightened and was painful. He grimaced.

Everything went quiet, even the people around them who were chit-chatting, drinking, fooling around stopped and stared at Tezuka and Ryoma.

“Ouch!” cried Harumi suddenly. She bent over, clutching her stomach.

“What happened?” asked Haruka worriedly.

“Ee mee me; I need to go back inside for a while.” She got up, still clutching her stomach.

“I’ll go with you,” said Haruka, standing up.

“No need, she’ll be fine.” Haruya caught her sister’s hand to stop her from going.

“But.”

“She’ll be fine.” Haruya insisted, winking.

“Okay, be back quick.” Haruka got the hint and sat back down. She then patted the chair next to her. “Harumi’s inside, Ryoma, why don’t you sit down here first. Haruya, pull another chair over for Kunimitsu, thank you.”

Tezuka let go of Ryoma and almost immediately, the tension around them dissolved.

“Let’s continue; what we were talking about. Mayu?” Haruskedsked as she shot a brief glance at Ryoma. She frowned when she saw the effect of Tezuka’s tight grip visible on Ryoma’s wrist.

“Hey, Haruka, did you hear what I asked?” The girl whose name was Mayu pouted at her distraction.

“Sorry, pardon me, could you repeat?”

“I asked why your parents bought this house.”

“Probably because of its low price, excluding all the renovations, decorations and so on, this lot was bought at an unbelievable low pric
M
Mayu’s expression darkened, “Do you know the story behind this house?”

Suddenly, a gust of cold air blew past them, increasing the eeriness of the atmosphere. The sudden darkening sky wasn’t helping either.

“This place was haunted,” Another girl whose name was Ai, started in a low voice. “This place was left vacant for such a long time before your parents bought it, because a ghost oced ied it.”

“My mother said this place was pretty rundown at first.” Haruka stated calmly.

“Do you know the story?” Ai asked again. She was practically howling.

“Tell me, tell me!” cried Haruya excitedly.

“It was said that about forty years ago, this place was owned by a wealthy family. One day, the mistress of the house lost her ring and insisted a particular maid stole it. The maid denied and said that she was accused. The mistress ordered people to beat her up and practically forced her to admit. After the maid admitted that she had stolen the ring. She was thrown into the storeroom as punishment.”

Ai stopped suddenly.

“Don’t be such a cliff-hanger!” Somebody complained.

“The second day, the maid was found dead due to serious internal injuries.”

Everybody became quiet.

“That’s not the end,” Ai informed, “Since then, in the middle of the night people can hear the frantic cry of the ghost which was the maid searching for the ring. Which sounded: the ring, the ring, I must find the ring, I am accused.” Ai ended with a howl.

“So, anything like this happen to you all?” asked Inui as he took out his notebook.

“Well, actually this was firsfirst day we are here in this house,” said Haruya.

Ai sighed and patted her shoulder. “Bless you.”

“That’s absurd, no proof stating that what you said is real,” snorted Harumi.

Nobody noticed the paling face of Ryoma or the clutching of his hands together. Nobody seemed to know that he disliked horror stories and anything regarding to the spiritual realm.

~During the night~

~Bathroom~

Ryoma sank into the tub and sighed contentedly. He raised his hand to brush away a strand of hair from his eyes and noticed the red marks on his right wrist. He felt afraid all of a sudden, he didn’t know what provoked Tezuka to hurt him. Though it wasn’t serious, he could still feel the pain linger around his wrist, at least mentally it did.

Even after he confronted Tezuka and had Tezuka said that he didn’t dislike him, he still wasn’t really convinced. And after that incident just now, he found Tezuka strangely moody, his suspicion grew.

His suspicion of Tezuka disliking him.

He felt a piercing pain in his heart. He placed his hand on the left side of his chest and stayed in the tub with that position, feeling an unknown depression.

“Ryoma, Ryoma are you okay?” Haruka knocked on the door. “It’s been nearly an hour, are you okay?”

“Oh, I’m fine, sorry,” said Ryoma as he got up quickly, and took a towel which was hanging on the wall to dry his body.

“Do you want any supper?” asked Haruka.

“No thanks,” replied Ryoma.

~Living Room~

“I hate that Ai Tomosaka, how could she!”

After Ryoma got dressed and came out from his room, he heard Haruya screaming in the living room. When he entered the living room, he saw Haruya standing in the middle, her right fist swinging in the air and she was clutching a piece of paper in her left hand.

“Calm down,” cooed Haruka while reading a book. “You know her style, she likes to terrorize people and that’s her one and only hobby.”

“But, but, need she go through such difficulty to inform us the truth and scare the wits out of us? I have to call her back!” With this, she stormed out of the living room.

“What is it?” asked Ryoma as he sat down on one couch.

“Oh, Ryoma, well, it’s about this house,” said Haruka.

“What about it?” he had a bad feeling.

“Well, you see, just now, I wonder you remember her or not, that girl who told us the ghost story just now.”

Ryoma nodded.

“She just sent Haruya an e-mail, which was a cutting from a newspaper, sometime after the Second World War. It was an article about a girl had a lover who went to the war but never came back; nobody knew whether he had died or not. Then, the girl’s father tried to force her to marry another man. The night before the marriage, she hanged herself. And before she hanged herself, she cut her wrists, both of them. So, the next morning when they found her, she was dripping blood, wearing a red kimono.”

“Red kimono? Died in this house?” Ryoma’s voice choked. He remembered the woman he saw this morning outside the gate.

“Yes, are you okay, did that story frighten you?” asked Haruka worriedly. “Don’t worry about it, even if somebody died in this house, doesn’t mean that this place is haunted.”

Ryoma shook his head; his face paled and voice slightly trembling, “I think I’ll go to bed.” He got up immediately and didn’t even stop to pat Karupin who came to nuzzle its master’s leg.

~In the middle of that night~

Ryoma didn’t fall asleep after he returned to his room; instead, he spent his time, covered from top to toe with his blanket, imagining all sort of monsters and ghosts. If Ryoma had any weakness, that would be ghosts and imaginary monsters.

Suddenly, he felt thirsty, he spent fifteen minutes to debate with himself whether he would or would not go out into the dark for a cup of water. He would, he decided, for the thirst was becoming unbearable.

He got up and went for the door; he opened a small gap and peeped outside. He saw only darkness. He took a deep breath and walked out of the room and down the corridor. Suddenly, he heard some strange noise coming from the end which was the second floor’s living room. He took several tentative steps forward and the noise heard became clearer. It was murmurs.

He stepped into the living room and the murmurs of a woman became coherent, “Where is it, where is it, I must find it.”

His eyes searched frantically around the dark living room. Suddenly, he saw something moving from the corner of his eye. He moved to his left slowly and saw somebody crouched on the floor with long hair covering her face.

“Where is it, where?”

Ryoma did the only thing he could think of: Scream loudly, louder and the loudest he can at that moment.

He bolted to the direction of his room but he bumped into something hard which stopped him. That thing felt like a pillar. Ryoma threw his arms around the pillar and whimpered with his eyes close.

“Echizen, calm down.” Ryoma heard Tezuka’s voice. He opened his eyes and looked up into Tezuka’s blank face. The light was on now. He realised that Tezuka was the pillar he was hugging.

“What happened?” asked Harumi yawning. She just arrived.

Ryoma looked backwards and saw that the three sisters were standing behind him.

“Are you okay?” asked Haruka. “What happened?”

“I, I, saw, I saw somebody.” Ryoma trembled and tightened his arms around Tezuka, burying his face into Tezuka’s chest. Tezuka stroked his hair comfortingly.

“Sorry,” Haruya raised her hand apologetically. “It’s my fault; I lost my earring just now, so I decided to find it instead of waiting till morning. Sorry.”

“Can’t you on the light?” Harumi slumped onto a couch and asked sleepily.

“I said I’m sorry.” Haruya grumbled.

Ryoma blushed, he felt so embarrassed. He would dig a hole and bury himself in it immediately if he could. “Sorry for waking all of you. I thought the murmurs were, were, sorry!” He let go of his clutch around Tezuka.

Haruya who saw this, had a mischievous streak in her eyes which she kept invisible from them. She pressed her lips together in a worried fashion and said, “That’s scary, I thought I heard something just now, I thought it was just my imagination but since you heard them too, that’s so terrible.”

Immediately, Ryoma threw his arms around Tezuka again.

“Ouch, what was that for?” Haruka nudged Haruya hard with her elbow.

“Okay, let’s go back to bed now,” announced Haruka firmly.

“But I haven’t found my earring!”

“Now,” Haruka emphasized. “And Ryoma, not to worry about this house being haunted because Ai made a mistake, true, there was a woman who hanged herself but the location was five houses away from this. I confirmed it through the internet personally since I felt that it concerns you a lot. Goodnight.”

Haruka tugged Haruya along with a strong clasp. She made an attempt to kneel down on the floor to find her earring.

“My earring!” She wailed as she was being pulled.

“Night.” Harumi yawned again as she followed her sisters, leaving her brothers alone.

Ryoma let go of Tezuka, a blush tinted his cheeks.

“Let’s get you back to bed,” Tezuka said.

Ryoma nodded.

WARNING! WARNING! There will be some ACTIONS in the next chapter!