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“Honami, do you want more popcorn?”
“Sure, thanks Shiho. Could you get some for Saki and Ichika too? They should be back soon now.”
“Sure, be right back.”
Currently, the four members of Leo/need are having a movie night in the Hinomori residence. Saki and Ichika had left to quickly go to the nearby store to get drinks. The movie, a halloween action movie with mild horror elements was currently paused. The movie itself was pretty corny and had a bunch of cliches in it. Seriously though, if you hear a random scream in an abandoned location, why the hell would you go towards the scream? The characters were just asking to die. Even if this was Shiho’s opinion though, the other three seemed decently intrigued so she supposed it was worth it.
Shiho entered the Hinomori kitchen which was coated in darkness. She knew her way around the house by heart already so she neglected to turn on the lights. She would later come to regret this.
The bassist reached the large metal bowl on the counter filled halfway with popcorn. She picked up a nearby utensil and began to refill the bowl.
“Nee mou kuraku narisou dakara~”
An airy singing voice reached the gray haired girl’s ears as she was refilling the bowl. It sounded soothing but also managed to seem in tune to the Halloween season.
Wait, what?
Shiho quickly turned towards where the sound was coming from. Unfortunately for her, the room was completely dark so Shiho couldn’t see across the house. The light switch was across the room, closer to the singing but there was no way in hell Shiho would be like those dumb horror movie protagonists who go towards the weird sounds.
“Kitto mou kiri ga koku naru kara minna atsumara kana?~”
There it was again. That oddly soothing yet still festive sounding voice.
Shiho knew from hearing their voices so often that it couldn’t possibly be one of the Leo/need members. She ruled out the possibility that it was her sister because Shizuku had said she was going to meet up with her idol group for the night. According to Shizuku and Minori, they were doing a Halloween stream that Shiho would admittedly be watching if she wasn’t having Leo/need over that night. With all the reasonable options out of the picture what was left was to solve the mystery.
The bassist felt a small chill up her spine. Could it possibly be a paranormal being of some kind? A ghost? A spirit of an undead songstress who was out for revenge and ended up in the wrong house- No, it couldn’t be, the movie was giving her dumb ideas. Shiho shook her head. She was being silly, someone probably left music playing from a device. An image of a certain teal haired girl popped up in Shiho’s mind.
The voice grew slightly louder as the chorus began.
“Datte Happy Halloween
Itazura shichau zo ding-dong-dang~”
Shiho sighed. She really was about to head right for where the song was coming from. All it would take was just turning off some music from Shizuku’s music player, assuming her suspicions of the source were correct. She set down the bowl and started to walk over to the sound.
“Acchi mo kocchi mo trick or treat,
Kyandii wa kurenai no?~”
It was definitely-
“Datte Happy Halloween,
Itaike na rantan panpunkin~”
-Not anything-
“Tsukareta jakku mo odoru yo asa made~”
-dangerous or paranormal.
“Datte Happy Halloween~”
Shiho continued walking closer to the singing and peeked into Shizuku’s room. The song seemed to have stopped suddenly. “Huh? That’s weird, I could have sworn it was coming from here…” Shiho took a deep breath and cautiously entered the room. On the table was Shizuku’s music player but it was turned off. Shiho started to feel even more weary and she looked around the room once more. “Why did the song just stop suddenly…?”
Unbeknownst to her, someone was coming up behind her. The gray haired girl suddenly heard footsteps in the doorway and spun around just as someone reached out towards her.
“Ah-!”
“Woah!”
Shiho let out a shocked gasp but upon hearing the returned exclamation of surprise she instantly frowned.
“Shizuku?!” Shiho’s older sister was standing in front of her even though she was supposed to be somewhere else. “What are you doing here…?” Shiho’s heart was still thumping but she internally screamed at herself to not show how startled she was to Shizuku
“Shii! I thought it was you up here, did you need something from my room?~” Shizuku evaded the question and shot back one of her own instead.
Shiho sighed. “No, I just thought I heard singing…”
“You liked my singing, Shii?!” Shizuku’s eyes lit up at the comment.
Shiho’s eyes widened. “Y-you were singing…?” Well, the mystery was solved. Not before scaring the bassist half to death.
Shizuku nodded eagerly. “Yep~ On our steam today we were going to surprise our fans by singing a Halloween song for the occasion. I’m so glad you liked it!”
“I never said… Wait, aren’t you supposed to be with the others in your group? Why are you here at all?”
Shizuku looked slightly guilty all of the sudden. “Ah, well… I left my phone here and got sort of lost and just ended up back at our house.” Shiho let out a heavy sigh.
“Come on, your stream is supposed to start before too long, let’s go.” She gestured towards the door to the room.
Shizuku’s eyes widened and then sparkled. “Shii! Does that mean…?” She looked so hopeful in that moment that Shiho couldn’t just crush her hopes.
“Yes… I’ll walk with you to the place, let’s go. It’s Momoi’s house right?”
Shizuku enthusiastically nodded. “I’m so glad you’re walking with me, Shii! We should hurry so that you can come back to Saki, Ichika and Honami then~” Shiho silently nodded as the two walked out of the room. “Oh! We have those cute matching bunny onesies from a few years ago, maybe we could match for the rest of the holiday…”
“No.”