Work Text:
As sunset turns to gloam
And the darkness roams
You shouldn’t miss the last bus home
Or the person who never leaves you to face your demons alone.
“How do you feel about this part?”
Bansai was knocked out of his daydream by the voice of his co-worker. In one moment his head was out of the window, in the sky, wandering off to see the world of many colors, then the next it was captured in a cold iron grasp, slammed back into his monochrome office, back to his boring chair, his tedious desk with piles of paper that could swallow him whole, and his phone, heated up by hours of calls.
“Bansai.”
Tsuu’s voice through the microphone drilled louder into his ears. It was not a nagging yell, more like a worrisome checkup to see if her co-worker was alive and responsive. Bansai tried to answer, but the part of him in charge of speaking was still somewhere among the clouds. He glanced out, quickly, in an attempt to find it and call it back, only to be met with his reflection in the window glass.
Not until then did he realize that the outside was pitch black. It was a small town, people would rather go home to their closed windows than have a vibrant nightlife, and darkness consumed as soon as daylight withdrew. The only lights left were from the street lamps and a convenience store, and even they appeared in the form of scattered, eerie, dimly lit spots, adding a certain rascal aspect to the night’s ebony curtain.
Bansai shivered. He could not help craning his neck up a bit, in the position that two spots of light fell into his eyes in the reflection. One was the ember-colored from a street lamp, the other was the green sign of the convenience store. His reflection looked like a monster, wicked and troubled, with bizarre fireballs for irises, and a twisted grin just blooming at the corner of its mouth.
“Do you hear me or did you pass out? Should I call an ambulance?”
Tsuu, again, shoved him back to reality. He leaned over the desk, shifting his eyes from the window glass, and cleared his throat. He was glad that no one was there to witness his very concerning and questionable behaviors, or to see the wicked things made up by, probably, an unspoken turmoil inside his head.
“No, I daresay. I was zoning out, sorry,” he said, as he could feel, through the disproving breathing on the phone, that Tsuu was about to lose her patience and probably started dialing the hospital number.
“You freaked me out for a second, dude,” she grunted, “are you sure you can continue on this project?”
“I’m sure, I daresay. I’m just a bit tired. A cup of coffee can fix it.”
“That’s what I’m talking about. How much coffee have you had–”
“One.”
“Today?”
Bansai could hear the suspicion in Tsuu’s voice, and even though she was far away and he had no way to see her face, her frown came vividly in his head. Bansai’s demonic reflection in the window earlier made him a bit stirred, but the spook was nothing compared to Tsuu’s anger. His co-worker was nice and gentle, but she had a way to be assertive and make people choose not to mess with her. He did not dare to lie.
“One, in the last hour,” he mumbled, feeling like a child admitting a bad thing to his mother, “as for today, I think it’s about two–” he swallowed, looking at the alarming numbers of mugs on his desk, “–ty one. And a half. I spilled half a cup this afternoon, I daresay.”
“Knew it. You're a coffee disaster. I wonder why I haven't gone there and drag your ass back here, where we can watch out for you?”
“You're welcome to pay a visit. Bring your precious Shinpachi, I daresay. Surprise me," Bansai said as he took a sip from a cup of coffee he just found under his desk. It might have been there for a while, but the taste was decent enough for him not to ponder further into the matter.
“As if I'd ever leave my work here and disappear for a few days to a countryside getaway," Tsuu's sighed, with a hint of a smile in her tone, "no, Bansai, one of us must be in the city, in case everything's on fire. Enjoy your privilege while it lasts.”
“You sound like a boring old woman, Tsuu. Live a bit. What's life if not the surprises that make people do things they never consider doing?”
“Responsibilities, Bansai. Life is being responsible, too.”
“I know I can trust you," Bansai smiled as if his coworker could see him, "and I’m sorry, Tsuu, for making you carry it all.”
"Don't be sorry. Be productive. And healthy. I want you to be healthy."
"I promise I'd stop the coffee thing, as soon as we're done with this project. It’s been depressing, I daresay. And the deadline is tight."
“I know, Bansai,” her voice softened, “but that’s specifically why I need you here with me, sane and sober. Deadlines are falling down on both of us. I need your input for this line, so I can move on with the next one.”
“Sure, what line, then?”
“So you didn’t hear a word I said,” he could imagine Tsuu on the other end, smiling hopelessly while shaking her head, “listen carefully. It was: You shouldn’t miss the last bus home, or the person who never leaves you to face your demons alone. ”
“The last verse was fine, the demon thing,” Bansai hummed, shaking his head slightly to clear his thoughts, “a bit cheesy, I daresay but the idea can pass. What bothers me is the first one.”
“How so?"
“It's unrealistic, I daresay. The last bus home? Pretty sure there are a lot of other ways to go home if you miss the last bus. Train, for example. Uber, expensive, but not impossible. And there’s a thing called owning a vehicle, I daresay.”
“Speaking from your position, it’s bold,” Tsuu chuckled, “I thought you're the first one to ever relate to this line. You live in the middle of nowhere. There’s no train, only buses. And you once told me that the buses are pretty old, they still use the same model from ten years ago?”
“No, they have updated. The buses here are pretty much the same as where you are. And also, I have a motor, mind you.”
“Which is in maintenance at the garage after the accident last week? Man, I was freaked out when I heard that you hit a truck. How come are you still alive?”
“Nice memory and very annoying, thank you. My butt still hurts from the fall. Still, the song isn’t just about me, Tsuu, it has to be relatable for our audience. Not all of them are living in the middle of nowhere, depending on the buses to commute, or having their motor locked up for a week, I daresay.”
Bansai rubbed his eyes, his gaze darted to the window. He spotted a bus leaving the bus stop close by, its headlights stood out in the dark.
“I see. I chose 'bus' because it fits the melody.”
“You can do better than that, I know. Try to get yourself out of the vehicle box. Think harder. After all,” Bansai chortled, “you shouldn't be bothered by commuting as much as I am, I daresay.”
He was only half-joking. The town where he lived could pass as a commuting hell for those who did not own a vehicle, or had their vehicle in maintenance for that matter. Even the bus schedules were tight and inconvenient. A bus just left, meaning that Bansai had to wait for an hour for the next one, and roughly two hours for the one after that. Then the last bus came after another hour. If he missed it as well, he would be doomed.
“Bansai.”
“Sorry, I zoned out again,” Bansai groaned and shifted his attention back to the phone, “damn it, I really do need some rest.”
“I said I’d work on the lyrics. Now, there’s one more thing I ask of you.”
“What?”
“Go home. It’s late and you’re worn out. Have some rest. We’ll talk about work again tomorrow.”
Bansai was at the building's exit staircase, alone and running. The elevator just broke, and no one could fix it at this late hour. Beads of sweat trickled down his face and crept to his collar, and his breaths were lost within the panting. His eyes stuck on the steps, carefully not to fall down, but sometimes drifting back to the watch on his wrist and, for once, expecting to see the hands go slower.
As sunset turns to gloam
And the darkness roams
You shouldn’t miss the last bus home
Or the person who never leaves you to face your demons alone.
The words came all of a sudden, clinging to his head. They did not slow his pace, but he shook them off, trying to focus on his steps. It would be stupid if he stumbled now and broke an ankle, unable to run and flushing the last chance of catching a bus home down the toilet. It would be ironic, too, if he failed to catch the last bus home because his mind was occupied by the words about the last bus home.
After the call with Tsuu, Bansai decided to finish some of the paperwork while waiting for the bus, easing the burden for his tomorrow’s workload. One thing led to another, and he could swear that he was caught up deeply. It did not feel that long, but as he looked up again from the piles of paper, he realized that four hours just passed, and it was already half past eleven.
The last bus left fifteen minutes after that. Trains were off the table and cabs would make his bank account, his creditors, his life, Tsuu, and himself cry. The bus was his only means of transportation. If Bansai missed this one, he would have to walk all the way home, and there was something in the chilly gusts of the late-night wind letting him know that it was not a good idea.
It took him longer than an hour on the bus, passing by several rice paddies and the outskirts of a forest, to go home from work. He could not imagine what terrifying experience he may have had if he had to walk the whole way. A long walk was one thing. A long walk in the dark, with only his phone as a companion, through many unlit parts of the town that did not solely belong to the control of humans, was a different level.
So he ran with all he got, paying the sweating no attention, praying for time to stop. He reached the first floor and threw himself out of the gate, passing the night guard’s booth. Bansai saw the face of the guard – it was, surprisingly, not the man he usually met leaving at night – but he did not have enough time to wonder. He only nodded and hoped it would not be too impolite.
It was a bit later than fifteen before midnight, and he still had not reached the bus stop. Bansai kept running on the street, trying his best to quicken the pace. He was holding on to a slim strand of hope.
He had not yet heard any sound of the bus coming or going, which he must have detected even inside the building. He had not seen any bus now. It could only mean the bus had not arrived. Either it was late, or his pathetic praying had worked and time had temporarily stopped, giving him a chance to catch his last hope in time.
Bansai had a strong feeling that favored the latter. Four minutes. Three. Then the bus stop name came into view. He let out a soft laugh, which in turn became a mixture of gasping and chuckling as he stumbled over and fell down on the bench under the stop sign, and, for the first time of tonight, letting himself be bathed in the warm embrace of the street lamps. He threw his head back and listened to his voice echo in the air with a strange amount of satisfaction.
Bansai had never seen anyone so proud of a matter so minor. Anyone passing by would have thought he was a maniac, all sweaty and panting, laughing, and crashing on a bench at a bus stop. He did not bother any judgment, however. He had made it earlier than the due time. He had all the rights and reasons to be proud of himself.
But Bansai could not devour being a maniac for long. Almost a second later, a bus showed up. Its front light pierced through the darkness, pale and cold, chasing away the warm luminance from the lamp over his head and adding up to the crispy grasp of the night. He could not help but shiver, feeling an unnamed fear running down his back, riddling through his spine, then creeping straight upward to his head.
The bus stopped, and its door opened with a strange sound. It was a swish, like the sudden presence of a deep sigh that disappeared right afterward. Bansai blinked. The bus was an old model, the same design as those of ten years ago. He thought the city hall had thoroughly upgraded the local transportation, but apparently, he was wrong.
Bansai swallowed. A lump just came to his throat, right as he saw the headlight, and refused to leave him since then. He felt a tingle at the back of his head, urgent and wary, like a warning scream lurking among his scattered thoughts. He could not make out what it told him, however. The words were blurred and overlapped with the idea that if he missed this bus he would have to walk a long way in the dark.
So he swallowed again, ignoring the stubborn lump that insisted to stay, trying to shrug off the strange feeling that crawled all over his body, paying the scream in his head no heed. He had to leap inside the open doors and onto the bus, or else the driver would think that he was a homeless person who just happened to be there, having nowhere to go and definitely did not want to get on his vehicle. He had to take it, at any cost.
And he did. Bansai slid through the open door a split second before it closed. The warm street light over his head was replaced completely by the cold white lamp, and the chilly night air was straight away overwritten by the atmosphere inside the bus – damp, stuffed, and oddly reeking of human stench although the seats were far from being filled.
The bus was not empty like Bansai had expected, which was unnatural for an ordinary late-night bus. It was a small town, after all, there was not much to do after work and people liked to go home early to their closed windows. Only the unfortunate had to take the late-night bus, and Bansai refused to believe there were that many unfortunate souls around him.
But it was not something he could control. As the bus started to leave, Bansai fished the Nimocard from his pocket and pressed it where he knew the card reader was. He needed not to look and was surprised to hear no beeping sound.
He glanced down and realized that there was nothing but the rail. The bus was such an old model it did not even have a slot for a card reader. He turned to the other side and saw that the ticket distributor was not there, either.
He knew about the buses so old they did not have machines hooked to them for ticketing, but he never expected to actually be on one of them in his lifetime. He looked around, trying to see if the interior arrangement of the bus was just different from the ones he usually took, but he found nothing that could possibly work as a ticket machine, let alone a card reader.
Instead, he was struck with a bizarre shivering cold as his eyes came to contact with the passengers. It was peculiar for a bus so crowded and damp to feel that cold, and yet he could sense the iciness shooting through his body. None of the passengers paid him any attention, but Bansai felt something tickle at his back. A look. A gaze. A fixated stare. Somebody was eyeing him, closely and adhesively.
Bansai turned around, and as a force of instinct, his eyes rampaged through the bus, trying to find that person. In a split second, he thought he had got them. A dash of purple filled his sight, leading it to a seat next to the window, closer to the driver, where a man in purple sat in silence. But as Bansai looked again, the man’s gaze had shifted, no longer on him but somewhere outside the window.
That made Basai realize that all of the passengers were looking out of the window. Either they were trying to avoid his gaze or something fascinating was taking place. They did not even look at each other, or talk. They were just there, sitting in silence, strengthening the cold atmosphere and stirring up the discomfort clinging to Bansai's back.
He gave up with the ticket machine and marched to a seat in front of the man in purple. It was uncomfortable, but he was living in an old small town for a period long enough to know what inconvenience he may have to face. Buses are old and regularly broken. Machines did not work most of the time. Trucks with wood logs appeared from out of nowhere. Garages took weeks to repair a motorcycle.
And sometimes the people were just blatantly weird.
As Bansai settled himself, he looked at the back of the driver, a few seats in front of him. He would ask about the payment method when he got down at his stop. He had cash with him so it would not be a problem. What bothered him was the attitudes of everyone on the bus, but it could be solved by the simple art of giving no fuck and minding his business.
Bansai did not know how long he had been sleeping. He got an alarm on his phone to wake him up before his stop, but he was up before the alarm went off. He could feel a shiver running down his spine, goosebumps from out of nowhere growing all over his body, and an urgent call barging from a dark corner of his mind.
He tried to peer out of the window to see where he was, but it was too dark outside to make out the scenery. His guess would be on the forest part, because he thought he had seen some darker shadows that resembled those cast by the trees, blending well into the night’s drape, silently watching the bus passing by.
It was not easy to tell things apart. Although the bus was old, the windows were cleaned thoroughly. It would be easy to see through it in daylight, but the darkness of the night just turned the window into a big mirror. Bansai's view was blocked by his reflection, letting him see only by the guess of his mind, not the grasp of his eyes.
Then some branches and twigs came into view, from the trees that were so close to the road they hit the bus window. Bansai felt his heart quiver. He knew the road like the palm of his hand, and although it appeared different looking from the bus window, without the light from his motor, he recognized the part where the trees almost hit the motor riders on the faces. It was not that far from home.
As he reached up to touch the window, Bansai felt a surge of chill running from the tips of his fingers, swirling under his skin, making his bones squirm. He could tell it was not because of the cold from the glass surface – the glass did not feel that cold, and it was early autumn. He did not know where the chill came from, and something inside of him told him that he should not ponder further upon the matter.
It was a bit annoying, admittedly, now he could no longer sleep and still had to spend quite some time on the bus, fiddling with the probable turmoil inside his head. If his guessing was correct, then he had around half an hour before his stop. It was not long, and yet it was enough to get himself bothered, now that the discomfort had grown stronger by the minutes.
Bansai tried to play with his phone, but the service was nonexistent. He tried to open a website, turning it off and on again, like a desperate attempt to force it to unrealistically work on no connection so that he could have something to divert himself from his troubled imagination. But reality persisted and his phone refused to be of use, and Bansai soon returned to sitting alone, irritated, facing nothing but his unsettling mind.
It was not hard to explain the poor service, as he was in the middle of nowhere, but he could feel his guts tremble. He had been here before, on the same route, more than hundreds of times, some days under a bad storm, but the service had never been that bad. He knew it was nonsense, but he could not help leaning to the idea lurking in his mind suggesting that it was the bus that had something to do with the connection, as much as the bus that made the window feel icy.
Not that he could do anything. As he still had around half an hour in his hand with no other source of entertainment, Bansai leaned back and started darting his eyes around the bus, observing the people who shared the unfortunate trip with him. His initial purpose was to check if any of them was on any device, and see if he could move close to their position for a better service, but he soon bid adieu to the hope.
All of them were sitting straight, heads up, eyes outside of the window, probably too occupied by the scenery to look at their phones. He knew what zoning out looked like. Their bodies might be here, but their thoughts were somewhere outside, lurking through the shadows of the trees, hiding in the dark. He himself was lost in those journeys sometimes, so he guessed it was not something worth questioning.
No. What should be worth questioning was why everyone was doing it, at the same time, on the same bus. And now as Bansai was fully awake and alerted, no longer consumed by the stupid pride over his race against the bus, he started to realize that the passengers had not changed at all from the position he first saw them as he stepped inside the bus.
It was not something he could be one hundred percent sure about. It could be a trick of his mind, but his mind was telling him that it was too freaked out to set up a trick. It could be a hallucination, but Bansai knew he was sober and well. It could be a result of the twenty-one-and-a-half cups of coffee earlier, but there were days when his coffee consumption was much worse and no such thing happened.
It was, and he knew he was right to make the guess, the bus. There was something wrong with the bus. Something wicked and vile, something that made his instinct shiver and his bone squirm, something that crept up his back and stirred up his mind at the first sight of it, something that caused everyone on the bus, except for him, to freeze in their position while their thoughts were lost and wandering outside, probably never returned.
The last thoughts formed a noose around his throat, causing the lump that he had forgotten earlier to be reminded, more obvious and irritating than ever. Bansai felt nauseous all of a sudden. His eyes ran back to the watch, hoping for time to stop freezing and start going by, preferably faster. Much to his dismay, it did not move.
He opened his phone again and started looking at everything on it. From the unloading websites, to the boring work notes he took and never thought he would see again, from the one stupid game that did not require an internet connection or service, to the many worthless photos of the most random bullshit he had stumbled on the street. He needed some distraction. He needed something to focus on.
He needed to keep himself from zoning out, for he feared that it, too, would end up like theirs, wandering and lost somewhere outside in the dark, never again reuniting with the body. The logical part of him said that it was a ridiculous idea, but every other part of his head was screaming the opposite. And Bansai’s mind was too precious for him to risk not listening to the majority of it.
Still, Bansai found himself glancing up, occasionally, from the corners of his eyes, for no slower than a few split seconds, at the passengers, praying for the slightest hints of movement. There was none. The bus had been running for a long while, and yet none of them had moved. They were there, idly and silently, like statues with terrifyingly correct details, shaking slightly with every shudder of the bus.
Something inside of Bansai snapped at the word “statue.” He mindlessly compared them with statues without even seeing how accurate the comparison turned out. Not until now did he finally realize what had been bothering him the most. He was not sure why he did not see it, or, precisely, did not listen to his instinct and notice it earlier. It had always been there and he missed it like an idiot.
You shouldn’t miss the last bus home, and you shouldn't forget to check if anyone blinks. Tsuu should really rewrite the lyrics like this. It might not rhyme, but it was realistic, and it could make very useful advice for their audience.
Bansai looked up from his phone and prayed as he panned his gaze around the bus. He had been an atheist for his whole life, and tonight he had been praying enough to be disqualified. Not that it mattered. He prayed for him to be wrong, for everything was just an illusion. He prayed that he could blame the coffee for all this horror experience. He prayed to get out of this nightmare, preferably, in one piece.
Praying did not work, as always. He stopped praying as his hope died out, little by little. Nobody on the bus blinked, no matter how hard he looked. Everyone remained in their position with their eyes open wide, their eyelids frozen, and their gazes sucked into the darkness, astray in the chilly night outside, for probably longer than eternity.
Bansai had to press a hand over his chest to keep himself from jumping up and sprinting to the door, barging at it to open. The forest outside was dark and the winds could be chilling, or howling like a monster roar for that matter, but the terror could not compete with the tension inside the bus, now that his realization was devouring him whole. He had to find a way to get out before all of this happened to him.
That was when he felt a hand on his shoulder. A strong jerk by an iron grasp, almost inhumane, almost out-of-this-world.
“Don't turn around.”
Bansai could swear that his heart would have jumped out of his body through his throat, had it not been for a lump that was there first. He almost jerked up as the other man’s voice reached his ears, but a strong grip kept him nailed to his place. As Bansai tried to glance backward, at whatever demon/monster/spirit/ghost/horrible human that was straining him, he was welcomed by a worried look.
“Don't turn around. They'll know. Slowly lean back and whisper, if you have to talk.”
It was the man in purple earlier, the one sitting right behind him. Bansai stole a glimpse of him through the reflection in the window glass.
The man did not look like a normal person, as in he would not blend in with everyone in a crowd. But he seemed like a human, with dark hair decorated with a dash of purple. One of his eyes was missing, covered by a bandage, a bold choice that matched perfectly with the yukata hanging around his slim body.
A very attractive human, Bansai thought, had he not met him for the first time in a terrifying bus.
The man looked up and caught Bansai’s stare. He put a finger on his lips and mouthed the word calm down, and gently patted his shoulder again. An act of showing assurance. His touch felt a bit cold, but not freezing. It was how a human’s hand should feel on an early autumn night.
“Are you seeing it too?” The man whispered, “don’t speak too loud. I don’t think they can hear us, but we’d better be careful.”
“It…being?” Bansai leaned back and mumbled to him.
“They don’t blink.”
Bansai cursed, but at the same time, he felt like a thousand weights were lifted from his heart. There was at least someone on this bus whose soul was not lost to the darkness outside. Someone who, hopefully, would not let him face all of this atrocity alone.
“Yes,” he nodded, feeling his mouth going dry, “I see it too. What happened?”
“I’m not totally sure, but I have a theory.”
“A theory?”
“Do you know the story about the bus of demons?”
Bansai almost choked on his own tongue. He knew that the word “demons” would sooner or later be there, but he was not expecting someone to speak it out that bluntly, with that much ease, among everyone and everything that, according to them, could very much be a demon.
The look on the man’s face sank as if he could see Bansai’s complication of feeling flashing through the reflection and mistook it for disbelief. Before Bansai could justify himself further, he felt something slide over his shoulder and land, without a sound, on the seat next to him. A piece of paper. As Bansai reached over and picked it up, he realized that it was a name card.
“I think you’d trust me more if you know who I am,” the man gently said. His voice was deep and warm, a bit husky, a bit fragile. If it was a different situation, Bansai would say that it was merely music to his ears. Now it sounded like a heavenly harmony of salvation.
Bansai did not say anything as he brought the card closer to read its content. Although the man’s hand felt cold, there was still a little warmth lingering on the paper, like a slim but firm proof that he was a human, alive and kind, offering Bansai a companion in the dire time of desperation. It was a sign that perhaps Bansai could trust him, even for a bit, to get out of this nightmarish situation.
His eyes ran through the letters, hastily but carefully. A name came into his mind.
Prof. Takasugi Shinsuke
Society and culture study, K. University.
“Shinsuke,” Bansai said, unsure why it was the part of the name card that he felt most urged to blurt out, when it was supposed to be the one underneath, “culture study?”
“That's my name and my field. On sabbatical, you can drop the prof. thing, just Shinsuke is fine. I study folklore and urban legends. Scary stuff, demons, things like that. That is to say…I'm familiar with those stories.”
“So what’s with the bus of demons? Is it one of the things you study?”
“Precisely. It used to be in my dissertation.”
Bansai felt like there was a colony of ants running inside his head, each carrying a piece of information that he never had enough time to process properly. Their tiny legs kept creeping all over him, stirring up his instinct and messing with his ability to think logically, to decide, to understand, and to fully control the situation.
The last time he had things under his control was before he stepped on the bus. From then on, everything kept going out of his hands, mostly downhill and underneath a series of unexplainable outrage horrors. And now there was a professor sitting behind him, whose face he had only seen through a reflection in the window glass of a haunted bus, telling him that they were stuck on the subject of his thesis.
“What's about it, I daresay?” Bansai felt his lips moving. His head was empty, his brain was a useless chunk of mush, and his logical conscience had gone numb. The best thing he could do was ask. It was not a bad move, however, considering the one he asked seemed to know everything about what was happening.
“It's an urban legend about the bus of hell that specifically comes for the people who have near-death experiences but don't die.”
“Near-death experiences?” Bansai repeated the man’s words, “what do you mean by that?”
“It’s exactly what it sounds like: you got involved in a situation where you would have died but you didn't.”
Bansai rubbed his eyes. He had a particular occasion in mind, but he was not sure if it fit with what the man – now Shinsuke – was talking about.
“It's believed that if you’ve been there, you were exposed to the demons in hell for a while,” Shinsuke continued, slowly and calmly, as if he was explaining simple math for a two-grader, “enough for them to learn your name, not enough to claim. They'll come to get what snatched away from them. The bus is their transportation, bringing them from hell to you. Once you step on the bus, your fate is sealed.”
Shinsuke lowered his voice at the end of his saying, and Bansai thought he could see a strand of sorrow in his reflection. He was not sure if it was self-doubt, regret, disappointment, terror, or a complex formed by a dash of each. He was not sure how much truth there was in the man's story, but he could feel that his emotions – whatever they were – were genuine.
“The bus is only visible to the ones that the demons are after, and last month I almost died,” Shinsuke cleared his throat and continued, “I went for a scuba-diving lesson and there was something wrong with my equipment. I almost drowned but they saved me in time. From then on, I guess I've been their target.”
“I was driving on a foggy night,” Bansai frowned, recalling his memory, “on my motorcycle. There was a truck with wood logs taking a sudden turn without signaling. I hit its back and the logs fell on me. Nothing was broken, except for my motor, I daresay. My friends said I was lucky because the truck was only half-loaded. Does that count as a near-death experience?”
“As I said, only those who can see the bus can get on it. It doesn't matter if we consider it near death. What matters is how they see,” Shinsuke's eye drew to the passengers, “they see you, and they see me. Now they want to have us both.”
“It’s an urban legend. I mean,” Bansai paused, trying to find the right words, “I know you know it, I daresay, but do you just know it and jump right to the conclusion? Do you just…like believe in demons?”
“I didn’t really believe in them,” Shinsuke shook his head, “my study shows that urban legends and folklore are more or less a reflection of an area's demographic pattern, culture, customs, and collective mindsets, but,” he flickered his head around the bus, as if he knew Bansai was following his gesture, “if it weren’t demons, then…how do you explain all of this?”
Bansai was about to say something when he noticed a spine-chilling detail that he had not known how many times he had missed. Shinsuke’s reflection faltered as the bus passed a few branches and twigs that hit the window. At first, Bansai paid it no attention, but then a churn in his guts told him to think about it again.
There was only one part of the road where vehicles encountered the trees standing too close, and he had seen them only earlier. There was no way they were passing it again.
“I don’t suppose you can,” Shinsuke’s voice mingled with his thoughts.
“I don’t suppose I can, either,” Bansai replied. He could hear terror growing in his voice.
“I, of all people, should have seen the signs,” Shinsuke continued, did not seem to notice Bansai's change of mood, “the bus is an old model with no ticket slot, and it arrived earlier than the designated time. I thought that was normal because this is a rural area. I’ve been here for only a few days.”
“It wasn’t your fault. This town is fucked up.”
Bansai closed his eyes and let out some comforting words. They were directed to Shinsuke, but a part of them was to put down the storm on the verge of breaking out inside of him. It turned out to be a curse within a sigh, but it was better than nothing.
What Shinsuke said was exactly what he thought, and if he, as someone living here long enough to pass as local, could not tell if the old-modeled bus was an odd thing or just a normal dysfunction of this old town, it was impossible for any outsider to know any better.
“Still. I should have seen the signs,” Shinsuke said.
Feeling the shakiness and disappointment return in the man's voice, Bansai reached his hand backward, to where he knew the man's hand stayed on his shoulder. Shinsuke was not his responsibility, but the man was his only source of hope. He could not risk letting his mood decrease get in the way and sabotage his only chance to escape.
"You can't probably tell, I daresay," Bansai whispered.
His hand found Shinsuke's. Their skin touched for a moment, and just as Bansai was worrying that Shinsuke might withdraw at his bold move, the man approached closer, swirling his fingers around Bansai's wrist, grabbing him tightly, lending him warmth and comfort.
A seed of relief was planted inside Bansai's heart. It was not enough to chase away the chilling terror they were plunged into, but at least now he knew that he no longer had to face this alone. Shinsuke might not let him face it alone, and he would not let Shinsuke face it alone.
You shouldn’t miss the last bus home
Or the person who never leaves you to face your demons alone.
“So, what do you want to do now?” Bansai asked, chasing away the lyrics that suddenly came to his head. He kept his hand in place, however. He did not want to break their comforting touch, and he was glad that Shinsuke did not want it, either.
“When I realized that nobody blinked, I put two and two together, and I tried to find a way out. I have a plan, but I can’t do it alone. I pretended to stay put and be one of them, hoping for a chance to escape before they recognized me. I was about to lose hope when I saw you. You hopped on the bus and you looked like you had no clue, so I think you are a human. I just have to be very sure, that's why I waited until a few minutes earlier to reach out to you.”
Bansai hummed and nodded. His grab tightened, showing Shinsuke that he shared the man's determination.
“Now there are two of us. I propose a plan.”
Bansai quickly looked at his watch. It said he had half an hour left until his stop. He rubbed his eyes, then glanced at the phone. The same number came into view like a punch in his face. The talk with Shinsuke did not feel that long, but he could swear that at least ten minutes should have passed. It was as if like the clocks were all possessed and forced to stop.
It did not make him jump, startled, or even blink. Bansai could see it coming, as he noticed the repeat of the trees earlier. He was uneasily prepared for it, the petrifying realization that his destination might never come.
“Wait, Shinsuke. What happens if I get off the bus?” He asked. He needed to confirm it with stark evidence. He could be wrong, and he did not like it when there was a way out and he missed it because he was wrong, “my stop will be the next, and I'll be out soon, in half an hour,” he said warily, peering into Shinsuke's reflection. He could feel Shinsuke’s hand squirm uneasily against his.
“You won’t,” Shinsuke said, his whisper sounding like a huff, “they'll freeze the time so that your stop will never come. I saw you look at your watch. Is it frozen yet?”
“I guess? It’s been like this for…ever. Is there any possibility that my watch is just…broken?”
He knew it was a stupid question. He also knew that it was never too stupid to hang onto hope.
“Do you think it's broken? Do you think such a coincidence can happen?” Shinsuke chuckled bitterly, “I appreciate your optimism, but as long as you're on the bus, you can never reach your destination. Now as you said, I'm afraid we have very little time left. If they made the time stop, they must have decided when to attack. Do you trust me to execute my plan?”
Bansai was about to ask what it included when his eyes caught some movements in the reflection. It was not from Shinsuke, who was cautiously prancing his body toward him to speak, but from other passengers. It was the first move he had seen from any of them, and it made all the nerves in his body swirl.
A man from the back of the seat had left his position, his eyes wide open, staring blankly to the side, his head kept facing the window, while his body moved down the lane without looking. Another woman followed his steps, slowly and boldly, her head hanging to the side of her neck, keeping her eyes on the dark curtain outside as her feet led her onward.
One by one, the passengers stood from where they were, forming a crowd, and slowly marched over them. Bansai could hear the creaking sounds of bones as they moved, from their seats, along the lane, toward their targets. The demons were limping ahead like piles of flesh and bone, with their head tilting to the side and their eyes clouded with desolation, never once leaving the darkness outside the window.
It was the unhurried approach that added up to the tension, building the fear to the point Bansai thought his head may blast. As he was about to give in to the cries to give up echoing from a dark corner of his mind, a hand grabbed his elbow. He opened his eyes to see who it was, and a comforting ocean of purple glided into his vision. A name whirled at the tip of his tongue.
“Shinsuke.”
“Come on! They’re starting to attack,” Shinsuke shouted, tugging on his arm, “move!”
Bansai tried to follow what he said, but his legs felt like mush. He turned around and fell over, then a demon managed to grab his shoulder. Its touch was warmer than he thought, resembling very much that of a human. But Shinsuke was quicker, and before Bansai was overwhelmed by the pile of limping flesh and bones, Shinsuke grabbed his sleeves. The man snatched him away right on time, putting him back to stand.
This provided Bansai the strength to fight his inner fear. As soon as he could feel his legs again, Bansai started sprinting ahead, with Shinsuke close by his side. His hand stayed inside Shinsuke’s grip, their fingers entangled, their warmth mingled, and Bansai imagined if he listened more carefully, he could feel their breaths blend into one. They were together. They were not alone.
The person who never leaves you to face your demons alone.
Bansai would never think he would take this line seriously and literally, but what was life if not surprises that made people do the things they never considered doing?
“To the door, next to the driver!” Shinsuke shouted, his voice looming over the creaking of the bones. There was no need to be cautious or silent now
“What are we gonna do?” Bansai shouted back. He could feel blood running down his head, boiling his fear away. Now that Shinsuke needed him, he had to stay strong.
“Do you trust me?” Shinsuke asked hastily.
“What do you mean?”
“Do you really, truly trust me?” Shinsuke asked again. His hand had left the grip, all of a sudden, leaving Bansai’s hand hanging in the air. The man leaned over, pressed against Bansai’s chest and cupped his face gently, keeping his eyes from the increasing horror around them, making him focus on his face, his gaze, looking him in the eye. Shinsuke's green iris stuck to Bansai, begging and urgent, wary and alluring.
"Do you trust me?"
“I do,” Bansai replied. He had to say it. Shinsuke's eye gave him no choice. “But what–”
He could not finish his question. As they approached the front door, the bus driver stood up. It was taller than most of the demons, its posture emerged over them, shielding away the cold light. It was almost as if the bus driver had invited the night outside in, wrapping the whole bus in a pitch-black curtain, unleashing atrocity and letting the feast of darkness begin.
But Bansai did not have time to dwell on his fear. Right as the bus driver charged ahead, Shinsuke shoved him into its arms. A longing look lingered in his eyes, begging Bansai to acknowledge that it was not what he wanted. Bansai did not need the look, however. He already knew. Shinsuke had asked him to trust him, so he would trust him, even if it seemed like the craziest decision.
It was the person that did not let him face the demons alone, after all. It was also the person that would not leave him behind, in the embrace of danger, alone.
The bus driver bounced ahead to grab Bansai, leaving the whole area around its seat unattended. Before his view was blocked completely by the demon's broad shoulders, Bansai saw a splash of purple strut over at the moderator board right next to the steering wheel.
A loud slam was flung into the chaos of creaking bones. Then came a swishing sound, which resembled the presence of a deep sigh that was there for a second and then disappeared without a trace. To Bansai, it was no longer a sigh. It was a breath of salvation, a gasp of life.
He felt something tugging at his shirt, then a hand grabbed his wrist tightly, refusing to let go even when the demons piled over him. He knew it was his turn to act, and help Shinsuke break him free. The man was trying to yank Bansai out with all his force. Bansai bolted up, using his head to attack the bus driver, struggling with everything in his ability to get out of its arms.
He did not know what made the bus driver, or the other demons, let him go, but he could feel the grip around his body loosen. He kept kicking and punching with his other arm, throwing strikes at whatever came into his sight.
As soon as the way ahead of him was clear, Shinsuke pulled him free. A splash of fresh air hit Bansai's face, letting him know that they were almost out. And then he saw Shinsuke at the door, still gripping onto his hand.
There was a smile on the corner of the man's lips. It was a mixture of many emotions, fear, worry, and agitation. He was sure that Shinsuke's smile also contained relief as Bansai grabbed him and jumped out of the bus, and excitement as both of them rolled on the road, landing on the grass on the side.
Bansai did not know how he could stand up. He would have been severely wounded, jumping out of a moving bus like that. Perhaps it was the breath of life, perhaps it was the adrenaline out of another near-death experience, perhaps it was the satisfaction of seeing that he had, again, glided through Death's scythe and fooled around and, again, slipped beyond its reach, right at the moment it decided to strike.
“Bansai.”
A voice called out for him. Bansai turned around, and everything he had guessed before about the magic that got him up turned out wrong. It was not any breath of life, excitement, or foolish games with Death's grip. It was a man with a dash of purple in his hair, a man whom he just met but had decided to trust with all his heart, a man that snatched him from terror and the demons more than once. A man who pulled him back to life more than once.
“Shinsuke,” he smiled, and rushed toward Shinsuke, helping him up. Their hands met again, and the warmth transferred from Shinsuke to him ran toward his heart. Something inside of Bansai just bloomed at the touch, making him reach down to Shinsuke and do something that he thought only happened in cheesy, cheap movies.
A kiss on the lips.
The logical part just woke up in Bansai told him that the kiss came to him almost naturally, under the effect of his adrenaline and his high on the excitement of screwing Death in the face. The other parts of Bansai told him to fuck the logic and enjoy the kiss. It was the person who would not leave him behind to face demons alone, it was someone that he should not miss.
As his kiss was, surprisingly, returned, deeply and more passionately, Bansai let go of his logical voice and let himself be engulfed in a warm hug, a sweet taste, and an alluring chain of ecstasy he never knew a person was capable of. The kiss with Shinsuke felt amazing and bizarre, almost too good to be true, almost out-of-this-world.
Out of this world.
The logical conscience of Bansai came back all of a sudden, barging loudly inside his head. He did not want to look into it, his lips and body were too much captured by Shinsuke, but a part of him was knocked back to reality, harshly and vigorously, forcing his head to think.
There was something that did not add up.
“Shinsuke,” Bansai called, like a force of habit. The man was reaching down to Bansai's neck and showering it with kisses, each burned harder than the others.
“Bansai,” Shinsuke murmured. His name sounded like music coming from the man's mouth, dancing on his lips, blending elegantly with his majestic kisses.
“But how do you know my name?”
Silence. Then a chill ran down Bansai's spine. Fear returned and splash him in the face with a bucket full of savage realization. Shinsuke's arms were around him, and the man's mouth was against his neck, locking him in a position that he could not move.
“How do you know my name? I haven't told you my name."
“You don't have to, Bansai,” he could hear a hint of a smirk, which broke into a slightly wicked giggle, then a demonic laugh, and eventually a terrorizing growl, “from the moment I saw you in hell, I know your name.”
Terror crept in, but this time, with a stunning dash of despair. This time, Bansai no longer had any strand of hope.
“And I also don't want to share,” a wicked smile formed against his collarbone, where, a second ago, was a kiss, “they're too greedy, and you're too delicious.”
The darkness consumed. Blood filled the air. Terror was the only thing there.
“Now that we are alone, I'm glad to have you for my own.”
As sunset turns to gloam
And the darkness roams
You shouldn’t miss the last bus home
Or the person who never leaves you to face your demons alone.
But be careful, for things can go wrong.
The demons come in many shapes and forms.
- fin-