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It had been Ibuki's idea. The girl had no fear, they assumed, because she'd invited everyone over to Hajime's dorm to watch what was known as one of the scariest horror movies of all time.
The thing was, Hajime had no idea about Ibuki's plans until the very day it was happening, when he went to greet everyone in the main building.
"Wait, so all of you are apparently coming over to my dorm? I never said that could happen!"
"Ibuki said that you would be fine with it." Peko pointed to the girl with the multicolored dyed hair.
"Ibuki," Hajime growled out as she sank lower into her seat at her desk, sweating a little bit. Okay, maybe Ibuki was a little scared of something, and that was Hajime when he's in a bad mood.
She squeaked a little. "I-Ibuki just figured that you would...want some company tonight, so she invited all of your good friends! I only had good intentions." Sitting up again in her chair, she waited in silent dread for Hajime to respond.
Instead of lashing out at her, because he wasn't a complete jerk like that, he simply grunted. "Go ahead, and while you're at it, why don't you just buy the place?"
"Yay! I knew you'd understand!" She gleefully ran through the door. "Ibuki's going to rent our movie!"
Hajime felt his eye twitch as she left. A girl like that could really drive someone insane. He silently prayed for her future partner.
An even more stressful ordeal was the process of letting everyone into his dorm. It seemed that pretty much everyone had brought over blankets and pillows, and to top it all off, they were all wearing pajamas. "So," he sighed. "I guess that movie night has also turned into sleepover night. Fun." He made jazz hands unenthusiastically. "Are boys and girls even allowed to have sleepovers with each other?"
"If it's a large group, I don't think they care, but if it's one-on-one, then yes, they'll have a problem with it."
Chiaki entered the room rubbing her eyes and yawning. "I just hope it's a short movie... I'm sleepy."
"Well you won't be sleepy soon, because this movie is jammed full of edge-of-your-seat horrors that will keep you up at night!" Ibuki appeared suddenly in the doorway. "Also, Ibuki has popcorn and soda!"
Everyone sat down on the couch while Hajime fiddled with the TV, trying to get it onto the setting where DVDs could be played.
Mikan was whimpering as Chiaki stroked the nurse's hand. "It's okay Mikan, the movie hasn't started yet...I think."
Hajime groaned. "No, you're right, it hasn't because I have the worst TV in the world."
"I...think that's a huge over exaggeration," Mahiru smiled tensely. "Aren't you a little scared Chiaki?"
"Nope. I've played the scariest games in the world. Can't even recall the last time I've screamed."
"Whatever this video made by mortals contains, it will be nothing compared to the fiery pits of Hell that I have witnessed myself!" Gundham seemed to be bragging for the sake of impressing Sonia, who as everyone knew, had seen more horror movies than anyone could count. She'd even said that this one was a favorite of her's.
Teruteru winked suggestively around the room. "If anyone gets scared, I'm willing to hold hands."
"Ew! As if, you pervert!" Hiyoko shrieked.
The DVD finally played as Hajime let out a triumphant cry of victory, joining everyone on the couch. The movie came on, eery music accompanying the title.
"Tsk, seems pretty lame so far," Fuyuhiko scoffed.
"We're not even ten seconds in!"
"Whatever. Stuff like this just doesn't scare me."
Sonia and Hiyoko watched the screen with captive eyes, Hiyoko laughing whenever someone got killed. "That's my new favorite part," she'd say through giggles.
It was at a really intense scene where it seemed like something was going to jump out at any second, that Hajime looked over and noticed something. Nagito was huddled into the corner of the couch, his knees tucked into his body and his eyes just barely peeking over them to view what was happening onscreen. Hajime scooted over to sit next to him.
"Nagito... Are you afraid of horror movies?"
He received a slight nod in reply. "Wow, I guess...I just never saw you as the type to not like them."
He lamented on this. "Not only do they terrify me, but the endings usually aren't even worth it. Endings are supposed to be hopeful, but in horror movies everyone ends up dying. What despair..."
His small criticism of horror movie endings was cut off as the main villain, a man wearing a creepy mask decorated in blood, stabbed a character through the neck out of nowhere. Nagito jumped and found himself pressed awkwardly against Hajime, both of their faces dusting pink.
Souda, who'd been holding popcorn when the jumpscare happened, ended up flinging it from his hands and screaming like a girl. Well, it looks like Hajime was going to have to spend his free time cleaning up popcorn from his carpet.
The movie finally seemed to be reaching its climax, with a huge plot twist where one of the main characters had been on the side of the villain the entire time. Honestly, they were setting up for that one, and Hajime saw it coming, but others apparently didn't, as numerous gasps were heard from around the room. Why did he have such naïve classmates?
Everything came to an end with the protagonist narrowly escaping a miserable death and making her way out of the mansion her and her friends had been trapped in, but with some implications that she hadn't really managed to kill the villain, and that he was still alive and still after her.
As the credits rolled, Hajime glanced around the room to see the state everyone was in. Mikan had probably fainted halfway through and had therefore missed the worst parts. Chiaki had also missed the climax, having had fallen asleep on top of her girlfriend. A bunch of the girls started clapping, Ibuki being the loudest out of all of them. Nagito did a commemorative job of keeping his fear hidden, slightly shaking as he smiled up at Hajime. "Ah, that ending was full of despair."
Out of all of them, the one worst off was Souda. He looked absolutely paralyzed with fear. Unfortunately for him, this was noticed very quickly by Hiyoko, who would not hesitate to begin her teasing. "Did that scare you, Souda?" She grinned devilishly.
Embarrassed, his face turned dark pink. "Oh yeah, so what if it did? I bet you were scared too!"
"Of course not! I'd watch it again if asked!"
He hopped up from where he was sitting. "You know what? I'm not gonna take this! You guys can enjoy the sleepover without me!" His face remained flushed as he stormed out the door, leaving everyone in stunned silence.
That was unexpected. Usually, if Hiyoko started teasing Souda, he would try his best to brush it off and move on, but tonight things just hadn't happened like that. Fuyuhiko rolled his eyes and made his way to the door. "He's such a drama queen. I'll go take care of this," he said.
He found Souda pacing in the hallway, looking contemplative, before spotting his friend and immediately beginning to rant to him. "Ugh! I'm so tired of everyone treating me like I'm some sort of coward! Maybe if I could get them to be scared of something they'd understand."
"Why don't you try to scare them then? It'll prove you're not the biggest wuss that ever went to this school."
Souda's eyes flew open in a rare flash of genius. He grinned as he spoke. "Yeah! I should scare them back. And you're going to help me!"
Fuyuhiko appeared indifferent to the idea of actually helping. He let out a sigh of hesitance, before accepting that this was pretty much the only way to get Souda's confidence back. "Fine. I'll help you. Now, here's what we're going to do." He whispered the plan to Souda.
It was about ten minutes later that a loud pounding was heard from the door to Hajime's dorm. Chiaki and Mikan were awake at this point, and staring at the door with the others. Whoever was on the other side was really in a panic.
Hiyoko looked extremely irritated because she was closest to the door, of course being expected to answer it. Sighing, she hopped up from her seat, twisting the door handle as Fuyuhiko ran in, pure fear spelled across his face.
He was covered in blood. "Someone shot Souda!"
A few people around the room fainted in sheer shock of the situation they had found themselves in. Fuyuhiko was now standing in front of them, claiming that Souda had been killed. Hajime had to admit, even though they did enjoy poking fun at him every so often, Souda was a great guy, and certainly didn't deserve to be murdered.
"What?!" Hajime ran over to the absolutely shocked-looking Fuyuhiko, an expression to match his. "Who did?!"
The droplets of hot pink cascaded from Fuyuhiko's body. "I don't know! I couldn't see their face!"
"Oh god." Hajime felt like he was going to throw up. Equal looks of disgust and horror were matched around the room. "I need to go out there and see if he's okay!" He started for the door, but found his arm grabbed by Fuyuhiko.
"No way! I'm not going to let any of you go out there! What if you get shot as well?!" He took in a deep and shaky breath. "Besides...I...don't think Souda is going to be okay... He was shot through the back of his head..."
Akane growled. "So what do we do?! Nothing?!"
"I think that that's all we can do until it's safe," Chiaki tried to calm her down, seeing that she was on edge of doing something irrational.
"Damn!" She punched the wall nearby.
Hajime noticed Hiyoko, who was now over in the corner of the room, her face buried in her hands. "Hiyoko...?" He approached her.
When she looked up at him, her eyes were filled with tears. "It's all my fault!" She cried. "Sure, Souda may have been a coward, but if I hadn't made him leave, he'd still be alive!" Hajime was shocked. So maybe Hiyoko did feel remorse for her actions.
Any noise in the room suddenly stopped as everyone looked up in surprise. The lights had begun flickering crazily, at a speed that hurt everyone's eyes. After about half a minute of this, everything went black.
"Um, guys, is it just me or does this seem a little ominous?" Hajime felt someone take his hand in the dark.
No one dared to move or even say anything after that, with the fear that if they did, something horrible could possibly snatch them away. This was positively not a good atmosphere after watching that movie.
You could here a pin drop with how silent the room was. People were even trying to stifle their breathing.
It was a few minutes later that the lights came back on, but what awaited them was even worse than the sudden darkness.
Written on the wall in pure, bright pink was a terrifying message.
You will pay...
Hajime squeezed the person's hand even tighter seeing the message, before looking over to see that it was Nagito. They both blushed furiously, but realized this probably wasn't the time for a moment from a Shoujo manga.
"You fools!" They all heard Gundham cry. "Do you mortals realize what you've done?!"
They all looked at him, the shock of what they were seeing still with them.
"You've awakened the angry spirit of Souda Kazuichi! Now he has come back from the grave to haunt us!"
"So what you're telling all of us...is that this is some sort of supernatural occurrence?" Byakuya questioned.
"Correct!"
"How much more ignorant and illogical could you get? Everyone knows there is no such thing as ghosts," He glowered at Gundham.
It looked as if an intense debate was about to start between the two, when a sudden and equally intense pounding came from the walls.
"Eek!" Mikan fell backwards, but was caught by Akane, who happens to have very good reflexes.
The mood of the entire room had gone from unnerving to petrifying in a matter of seconds. Many were whimpering and clinging to other people, especially Hiyoko, who was practically bawling her eyes out as she held Mahiru.
"I agree with Gundham! There's no way this is a normal occurrence!" Sonia exclaimed.
Yeah, it sure wasn't, and that thought only amplified as the door flew in.
Souda had stumbled into the room, droplets of blood coming from his body. It looked like a hole was going through his head. Everyone screamed like they had never screamed before. The screams got louder as Souda made moves toward them, but would soon be cut off in surprise.
Souda ended tripping and falling face first onto the ground. "Ow! Son of a bitch!" Everyone blinked at him down on the ground as he looked up at all of them and laughed nervously, attempting to get up. "Uh, I mean," He cleared his throat. "I've come to take my revenge on you all!" He talked in a spooky voice.
A few giggles were heard from around the room, which then turned into full on laughter.
"WHHHHAAAAATTTT?!" Nekomaru cried. "So it was all a joke?!"
"That's not funny!" Mahiru pouted, probably because she was one of the most frightened. "We thought you had really died!"
"And Fuyuhiko," Peko gasped. "You were in on this?"
He gave a hearty laugh. "Hell yeah! Look, it's nothing against you all, just wanted to see you guys a little scared. So I decided to help Souda with his little plan."
"What was the plan?"
Souda sighed, getting off of the ground. "I was just fed up with being treated like a coward around you guys. I wanted to return the favor I guess. So I decided that Fuyuhiko and I would fake a haunting, with me as the ghost. I got some pink paint from where I do my mechanic work, and Fuyuhiko said he would splash himself with it so it looks like bloodstains. I painted what looked like a hole on my head, also put blood spatters on my body, and gave some extra pink paint to Fuyuhiko for that message on the wall. We were ready to fake it."
"But...your acting was so real," Sonia gawked at Fuyuhiko.
"Guys, I'm a yakuza; a criminal. I kind of need to be good at acting."
Hiyoko approached Souda. "Um, look, it's not like I'm not going to make fun of you anymore, I totally will! But...I'm sorry okay. I didn't know how much that would affect you. Hey, and the thing is, you're our friend, coward or not."
"Wow Hiyoko, that was really sweet," Mahiru beamed.
Choruses of "aww" came from around the room.
"God, you're all going to make me puke! I'm still gonna tease him!"
With the "danger" over. Everyone in the room checked on their friends and made sure they were okay. Hajime went over to Nagito, who saw him coming.
"You're going to ask why I held your hand during the blackout, right?" Hajime nodded. He did want answers about that because he's probably one of the more oblivious people in the room. "Well, the thing is Hajime...I like you...a lot. Like, more than a friend."
Hajime was a little surprised. "Oh," was all he said.
"So, what do you think...?"
After the initial shock of the question, he smiled, taking Nagito's hands. "I feel the same way. Do you...maybe want to go get coffee with me sometime?"
Nagito looked happier than Hajime had seen him in a long time. "I'd like that!"
"Wait, I just realized something," Hajime turned away from Nagito to face everyone else. "What about the goddamn paint on my wall?!"
And that was how Souda ended up having to repaint Hajime's entire room.