Kawatori's joke had hit a nerve and I couldn't stay in school. So I hurried down to the shoe lockers, grabbed my shoes and then made a beeline to the front gates.
Now just to be clear, the part about Omoyo dating someone was not what upset me. It was the part about him hiding something from me that bothered me. I mean, we were friends since we were kids.
"Hey, Omoyo!" I heard my name called out and turned around to see the Oota cousins running after me.
I didn't feel like talking with anyone then and thought about just running. But I was too late and they caught up to me before I could even turn my back to them.
"Hey!" Oota said while taking in deep breaths after that breath run. "Are you okay? You looked like you were in a bad mood."
"It's nothing," I replied. "Like I said earlier, I have something to do, so I'm headed home now."
I tried to walk away, but I stopped when a robot voice came out and said, "Is what Kawatori said bothering you? Is it about Mirai hiding things from you?"
I turned around, and the voice from Yuna's phone continued.
"Is it really so wrong to hide secrets from others?" she asked through her phone.
Our eyes met, and then I turned away.
"Well, we were friends for a really long time," I said. "It just kind of hurt that he would keep secrets from me."
"Then what me and my secrets?" Yuna asked. "Does that mean we shouldn't be hiding them?"
She stared at me with a very serious, cold face.
Me, Yuna and Oota all just stood around outside on a sidewalk in complete silence, each unable to say anything. For Yuna, it was because she had already said all she needed to and was waiting for my response. Oota was probably at a loss for words, with his confusion as clear as day on his face. As for me, I just couldn't say anything. Reminded of last night, I realized how much of a hypocrite I sounded earlier. I just had no excuse, so I didn't say a peep.
After a little bit of time, I decided to steel myself and try and break this gathering up with a forceful, "It's getting late, so let's go home." But before those words could leave my lips, I was suddenly overwhelmed by a chill, a really cold and intense chill that brought me to my knees, literally.
These chills left me dizzy and confused, and I could barely hear Oota calling out to me, asking me what was wrong and if I was okay. I didn't know what the chills were at first, but I felt something familiar mixed in with them. That was when I realized that I was detecting the feelings of someone close by.
It was the first time ever that I sensed these feelings before. They were unpleasant and made my skin crawl. I would even go so far as to call them disgusting and evil. Whoever these feelings came from, whoever was close by for me to sense them, they were bad news.
"We need to get out of here," I said softly.
"What was that?" Oota asked.
His voice finally got through and gave me the push I needed to fight off the unpleasant feeling in the air. I shook the dizziness from my head and straightened up.
"S-sorry about that," I croaked. My voice had become gravelly, like I was close to losing it. "I think I might be coming down with something."
When I looked at them, my two juniors, I hesitated to tell them the truth that there was someone evil close by. Partly, I was afraid that Oota might give it away. But mostly, I just didn't want to worry them. Maybe, if we all stay together, the evil presence will go away. Maybe it'll all be fine if I just don't say anything. Those thoughts really ran in my head. I was so scared out of my mind, I wasn't thinking straight and thought up things that people would call me out for being stupid and the like.
There are people on TV that say they get chills when they get just a glimpse of a monstrous person's heart. Well, thanks to my powers, I got way more than just a glimpse. It was like the guy's heart became a pool and I was pushed right into it, and that nearly made me faint. Honestly, people thing Sensory powers are so great, a ticket to the top of the food chain in today's society. But to me, it's an unwanted pain in the neck.
"Well, that's no good," Oota said. "I don't get what's going on, but we should shelve whatever teen drama this is and head home. That okay with you, Yuna?"
Yuna nodded.
I wanted to get away from this street ASAP, but thanks to the downside of my power, it took everything I had to just keep walking by myself. And I walked like a zombie from an old horror movie, slow and unsteady, literally dragging my feet across the pavement which must have shaved away leather from the bottom of my shoes. Yuna stayed at my right while Oota took my left. They were probably worried that I might collapse. I can't say that it wasn't possible.
Together, we turned down a road towards a fork where I usually split from the gang going home. The Ootas usually went right while I went left, but this time we all went left together. We had gotten a long way from the street where I had first sensed that monster. Everything was quiet and peaceful with the birds chirping, a gentle wind blowing, and the normally white and gray streets bathed yellow by the setting sun.
But even with all that, the monster's presence never disappeared from my radar. It was constantly looming behind us with the distance between us seeing almost no change, making the peaceful everyday scenery around us a complete lie.
Although my mind was a jumbled mess, I could tell that the monster was following us. It had set its sights on us as prey it absolutely had to get.
Damn it, I thought. It's totally stalking us, that monster!
Monster was the only way I could describe the person following us. Only a monster would harbor such horrible feelings. And now that I knew that it was following us, I realized what this feeling I sensed was. It was the feeling of bloodlust. Whoever was following us wanted to kill us.
When that thought crossed my mind, I wanted to run. But I could barely even walk the way I was.
"This totally sucks," I muttered. Of all the psychic powers that I could be born with, it had to be the one that would make me a helpless toddler at the first sign of trouble.
"Hey, don't worry," said Oota. "We're almost to your house."
"My house?" I asked. Now that I thought about it, Oota had been to my house before a couple of times. He and the rest of the club sometimes used my house as a meeting spot. Toshiro was the one who first brought the idea up and practically strong-armed the others to follow along.
Yuna typed in her phone and played, "Maybe we should've taken her to the hospital."
"No!" I shouted. Yuna looked at me in surprise, but I didn't really care. "No hospitals. I'm fine. Really. I just need a good night's sleep and I'll be as good as new. Yeah."
If that monster ended up following us to the hospital, it might take interest in someone else. Who knows what would happen after that? I definitely didn't want to find out.
I did think about going to the police, but I realized that wouldn't be enough to deal with that monster. With no evidence of a crime, they would just chase that monster off. It would be like shooing a fly away. After chasing it off once, it would just come back again.
With all that said, however, there was still the Oota cousins to worry about. What was I to do if the monster lurking close by decided to follow them? I could invite them to stay over for dinner and spend the night at my house, but there were problems with that: mainly, I practically lived alone.
My parents, like Toshiro's, used their powers in the world of business to get ahead. Their jobs as top business people had them going around faraway big cities, leaving me by myself at home ninety-percent of the time. I used to have a caretaker look after me, but that stopped the moment I started high school. So even today, there would be no one but me at home.
I'm sure I don't have to spell it out, but a group of teenagers, especially a girl and a boy, hanging out at home alone without any grownups around was a big no-no. Oota, goody two-shoes as he is, would be against that. It'd be no problem to have Yuna stay with me, but that would mean Oota would be going home alone, which would likely turn him into the monster's prey.
In the end, I didn't say anything.
We reached my house, and we bade each other farewell. I stayed outside the door to watch the Oota cousins leave. And once they turned a corner and out of my sight, I quickly went back inside, shut the door and locked it before dropping to the floor.
I laid down, staring at the ceiling. The monster's presence was still around. It had not moved since I had come home, which meant that its sights were squarely on me.
I draped my left arm over my eyes and groaned.
"I'm such an idiot," I said. I should have said something, anything. Maybe going to the police or the hospital wasn't a bad idea after all. If I just screamed my head off and said it was the Piper, the police would have nabbed him, no questions asked. Who knows? Maybe that monster really was the Piper.
And then I swore. I swore and I swore, and I swore. I knew a few words in English that most parents don't want their kids using. One word in particular, I used over and over, and over again.
When I was done, I removed my arm from my eyes and stared at the ceiling again.
And then I said to myself, "I'm going to die tonight."
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