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A Shocking Story to Hear in the Dark
It was the day of the school trip to the Tooya Meat Packing Plant.
The students of St. Chronica’s Academy were milling around like noisy cattle and Mikazuki Yozora had taken the opportunity to duck away from the crowd to enjoy her new book in a quiet corner.
“Yozora, you shouldn’t wander off,” the warm voice of Hasegawa Kodaka called. “There’s a lot of dangerous equipment in this place. You could get hurt really badly if you’re not careful.”
Yozora scoffed. “You’d have to be pretty stupid to get hurt here. All the dangers are clearly marked.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Kodaka agreed as he sat down next to her. “But still… I worry about you.”
Yozora blushed slightly. “I appreciate that, but I can take care of myself.”
“Well, isn’t this nice and cozy?” Kashiwazaki Sena’s voice shrilly rang out. “Are we having an unscheduled Club meeting?”
“Do you mind, Sena?” Kodaka asked. “Yozora and I are just enjoying each other’s company. It has nothing to do with you.”
“Everything has to do with me!” Sena whined. “I am Goddess and your lives should focus on me!”
“Look, Meat, you don’t need to be bothering us now that you’re finally in your ideal social setting,” Yozora said, gesturing to the stank-smelling disassembly line. “There’s got to be some hunk of disgusting lard around here that can speak to you on your own level.”
Tears in her eyes, biting down on her rage, Sena turned on her heels to run away…
…only to be skewered by a low-hanging meathook!
“Oh, no!” Kodaka screamed. “We’ll surely be blamed for this!”
Kusunoki Yukimura and Shigumi Rika emerged from behind them. “No need to worry. We saw everything that happened,” Rika said.
“It isn’t right for your lives to be ruined by such a person,” Yukimura said with a devoted bow.
Rika nodded. “We’ll take care of everything.”
And so they set to work on their ghoulish task, using all the tools of the Meat Packing Plant.
However, they didn’t realize by turning the Rich Girl into meat, they were also turning her into her purest form. And the Meat Nightmare had only truly begun…
“HOLD IT!!!”
Yozora’s eyebrow twitched with frustration. “Why are you interrupting just when my story is getting to the best part, Meat?”
“Because you’re using it as an excuse to torture my character again!” Sena screamed. “You do this every time!”
“She’s also getting shamelessly close to stealing from the disturbingly erotic Horror manga of Junji Ito,” Rika pointed out.
Kodaka wasn’t going to point out how upsetting it was that Rika found Body Horror “erotic,” focusing instead on Yozora and Sena. “It WAS over the line, Yozora,” he said as he flicked on the light. “I was kind of hoping we could do ONE activity that didn’t end up in a fight.”
The Neighbors Club was taking advantage of the longer nights by meeting after dark to tell scary stories. It had been Sena’s idea, something she thought seemed like something real friends would do. Yukimura had proposed doing so by light of bonfire, but after their experience with fireworks, Yozora had vetoed the location in favor of the usual room in the chapel.
Yukimura had gone first with a typical (though still enjoyable) story of a faithful samurai saving his master from a yokai that had replaced his mistress, while Sena had told a story about a lonely girl that fell prey to a locker room full of malicious spirits… and then it was Yozora’s turn.
“You just had to turn me into the victim! First you write about nobody liking me, than you kill me off! You can’t tell me that’s not personal!” Sena shouted.
“It’s a horror story, someone has to die first,” Yozora said, trying to gain Sena’s confidence again. “Besides, you were going to end up coming back for revenge! It’s an empowering role!”
“That’s even worse!” Sena replied. “You were going to turn me into some kind of horrible Meat Monster that terrifies the town until you and Kodaka kill me again!”
“You don’t know that’s how the story was going to go, I just started,” Yozora argued.
“Can you honestly tell me that’s not what you had planned?” Sena demanded.
“Well, I…”
Kodaka pinched the bridge of his nose. He usually tried to stay of the conflict between Yozora and Sena… and pretty much just about any other conflict. Partially because he just hated dealing with such, mostly because keeping his head down was his only somewhat effective defense against being singled out as a troublemaker, but… lately his promise to Sena’s father to protect her bullying had been weighing on him. “Guys, could we please…” he started to say… but he was barely heard over the shouting.
“Why do you always have to go after me!?” Sena cried out.
“Look, I just needed a monster that destroyed everything it touches, and you were the logical choice!” Yozora screamed.
Suddenly, there was silence. No one, not even Yozora herself knew how to react.
Until, slightly shaking but otherwise showing a detached coldness that made it far more striking than when the frequent times in the past when she ran off sobbing; Sena slowly got up, and, fully aware of all the eyes on her, walked out of the room.
“That really was too much this time, Yozora,” Kodaka said coldly. Then he went after Sena.
Yozora turned to Rika and Yukimura. “Did you guys think I went too far?”
“Keep in mind you DID describe Rika as ‘ghoulish,’” Rika reminded her.
Yukimura nodded. “I am not saying I would not dismember a body for Big Brother, but I certainly wouldn’t suggest it first. Unless it was a head taken in battle.”
Yozora exhaled. “You’re right, I got a little carried away. Sorry.”
———
Kodaka found Sena exactly where he thought he would, sitting in the Chapel in the same pew she had been when she’d revealed their betrothal to him. He took the same seat he had then, sitting just across the aisle from her. It was lit mostly by votives, obscured by shadows nearly all the way to the altar.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she said, clearly annoyed. “I’m just pissed off that I gave her another opening to attack me! I thought telling scary stories would fun… and that’s the one thing she’s good at… but of course she used it as another opportunity to torture me. Turning me into meat!
Of course that’s all she sees me as!”
There was something in Sena’s tone… not just anger, but disappointment. He thought back on all the times Sena had put her trust in Yozora: giving her phone number to her, trusting her to apply suntan lotion on her back, letting her style her hair… it always ended with some cruel joke, but Sena kept opening herself up despite claiming she hated Yozora.
“Ugh… ‘meat!’” she sighed, looking down at her chest. “It’s not like I asked to be this busty or anything! I just grew boobs before any of the other girls and they just kept growing! And the bigger they got, the more the other girls hated me!”
Kodaka smiled knowingly. “I know exactly how you feel.”
“Huh?” Sena replied, looking at him like he was crazy.
Kodaka blushed. “I mean, having a part of you that makes you stand out.” He patted his blondish hair.
“Oh, yeah…” Sena said, relaxing slightly. “Hey, do you ever wonder how it would have been if you went with your dad to America? Like, do you think you would fit in better there?”
Kodaka thought about it for a moment. “Maybe… but probably I’d just stand out for different reasons.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” Sena agreed. “I think it would be the same thing for me if I was traveling with my mom instead of here with my dad and Stella.”
For a moment they settled into a contemplative silence.
“Can I ask you a question?” Kodaka asked.
“Sure,” Sena replied, distractedly.
“Do you have feelings for Yozora?”
Sena’s face contorted with rage briefly… before she exploded. “WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE SAYING, YOU PERV!?”
Kodaka raised his hands in a placating gesture. “It wouldn’t be pervy at all. It wouldn’t even be out of place in the Club… With Yukimura and Rika, I feel like we’re pretty welcoming to people of different orientations. It’s just… you seem really interested in girls when you’re playing your games… and you’re always so willing to believe Yozora, even after she’s hurt you so many times. I just thought maybe…”
“Kodaka…” Sena said, blushing slightly. He had made her feel so accepted, she felt like she had to be honest with him.
“Do you remember when you told me that your first priority was making friends?” she asked, shyly drawing circles on the pew with her finger. “I guess I’m kind of the same when it comes to girls… I am attracted to them more than boys, but… having a girl FRIEND is more important to me than having a GIRLFRIEND. Girls have just been denied to me for so long...” She shrugged.
“As for boys,” she continued, “I’m not too interested in having most of them as a friend or a boyfriend, but… the person I most want to be with is a boy. Does that make sense?”
“I guess so.” Kodaka felt a slight sting… mixed with a faint hope. “And Yozora?”
Sena blushed and looked down. “I don’t know… I guess in a weird way Yozora is closer to me than any other girl I’ve ever known. She’s so invested in hating me, it’s almost intimate. I guess I keep hoping that she’ll come around to liking me… Or maybe I just want a female friend so badly I’m willing to believe her every time. But I have enough sense to know she wouldn’t be the most supportive girlfriend.”
Kodaka thought about it. It was more than a little sad, but… it made sense.
After a moment, Sena straightened herself out and fixed a braver expression on her face.
“Okay, I was honest with you, you have to be honest with me,” Sena insisted. “None of your ‘pretending not to hear.’”
“I’m not sure what you…” he started to say, only to be silenced by Sena’s serious scowl. “Okay, sure.”
Sena fidgeted nervously for a moment. “What about you?”
“Me?” Kodaka asked.
Sena toyed with the hem of her sweater, not able to meet his eyes. “You asked me how I felt about someone and I told you. You now owe me the same thing.”
Kodaka was taken aback. “You want to know how I feel about Yozora?”
Sena scowled and shook her head, still not facing him. “No, I don’t really care about that. I wondered for a while if I should be jealous, but… I’m not. I feel like I’m special to you in a way the other girls in the Club aren’t… but when I try to talk to you about it, you act all stupid.”
“I don’t know what you mean…” Kodaka started to say again… only to face another glare. “I’m sorry, I guess I do that.”
Kodaka scratched the back of his head.
“I guess I’ve been trying to put the Club first,” he admitted. “It was just easier to pretend I didn’t know about anyone’s feelings if it might put the group at risk. Even my own.”
“I can understand that,” Sena nodded. “I’m really proud of what we’ve done, too. And I need the Club as much as anyone, but… Haven’t you ever thought about being with me?”
Kodaka took a breath. “It’s hard for me to think about… Not because it’s you, but... When no one even LIKES you, relationships seem like too much to even hope for…”
He said it almost like a joke, but she reacted with more sensitivity. “Kodaka…”
He could tell she was shaking slightly, like she had at the water park when he taught her to swim. He wondered how much of her bluster was a defense mechanism, like small animal that puffed itself up to appear larger.
“I guess I do feel the same way,” he admitted. “No, I should say, I know that you’re the one I want to be with. I’m not ready to think about ‘betrothal’ yet, but…. I don’t want to be the one that makes the group fall apart.”
She smiled a little sadly. “You need to have a little more faith in the group. Things are going to change no matter what, but… If we’re really all friends, we’ll all still be together.”
“Sena… do you think we could try?”
Even staring right at her, he barely noticed the tiny nod she gave, too disbelieving that she had finally found real acceptance.
Kodaka rose up and gestured for Sena to follow. She was a little scared, but rose up to meet him. She snuggled close to him and brought her nose close to his. She slightly open her mouth and brought it to his.
———
From the shadows, Yozora watched them.
All the blood in her body was pouring through the sucking wound in her heart, but it just kept coming, an endless fount.
Part of her knew it would end this way and had done everything she could to avoid it… But it seemed that any time she tried to tear Sena down, it just brought them closer together.
The nearest hints of tears stinging her eyes, she turned to run away…
…And almost crashed directly into Rika.
Yozora tried to recover her facade, but Rika just looked at her with kind, sad eyes.
“Don’t worry,” she whispered. “Rika will take care of you.”
Yozora let herself be wrapped into a hug, silently sobbing into the younger girl’s lab coat.
Rika rubbed her back and gently leading her out towards the light of day.
“Rika has you,” the smaller girl assured her. “After all, we’re friends.”
Yozora laughed through her tears and her breaking heart. A friend was what she’d been looking for, after all.
END