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Ding-dong.
A shrill, muffled voice calls for me…
Ding-dong ding-dong.
But I’m not ready to hear it yet…
Ding-dong-ding-dong-ding-dong-ding-dong-ding-dong-ding-dong.
Today was sooo long…I was hoping I could have a little more alone time to myself before hopping into bed, but fate has different plans.
“Tsubaaasa! Tsubasa! Kawana! Let me in!”
I finish washing my face, and decide against tying my hair back up with my favorite black ribbon, then go to greet ‘fate’ herself to see what those plans are.
I open the door, and…
Darumi isn’t there. I look around outside the door of my prefab cabin, scanning the roof for that unbelievably noisy girl, but…she’s nowhere in sight. And nowhere to be heard, either. How…? Her voice was so close…
I could just close the door, and enjoy a little more time to myself, but…what if she really needed something? It’s getting late; she might be in trouble, so…I’ll bite…I take a few steps outside, and down the steps, onto the school’s rooftop. She really is gone…
Just when I think I may as well go check by the stairs, I hear a loud clunk pound against metal behind me. I whip my head around and see Darumi standing on the metal balcony just outside my door. Did she hop down from my roof!?
“H-Hey, Darumi!” My hand flies to my mouth after I spit out that shock; the jolt of nerves made me feel a little nauseous.
“Gotcha!” She slings a little wink at me, dressed up with a cheeky smile, then quickly runs into my room, slamming the door behind her.
Ugh…this girl. It isn’t that I don’t like her, I just…can’t ever tell what she’s thinking, or feeling. I just can’t relate to her, I guess, and it makes me a little nervous dealing with her. But she’s not a bad person…I think. This is probably just another practical joke. I walk back to my room to see what she’s doing in there…probably raiding my drawers or messing with my toolbox.
But the door is locked…
“Darumi?” I call out, “Why’s my door locked?”
“Because I locked it!”
“Yeah, I know that.” I roll my eyes, and trust she can hear the gesture through my voice. “Can you unlock it?”
“Hmmm, sorry. But it’s getting late, and I think I wanna ‘hit the hay’! Sirei just told me to, anyway! Kyohoho!”
“Seriously!? Are you trying to make me sleep outside or something!?”
“Whaaat? Don’t be silly, Darumi, you can go back to your room. This is mine, because I’m Tsubasa.”
I lean my head against the door, as if feeling a cold surface on my forehead can chill the headache growing every second.
“By the way,” she continued, “Your hair looked really sexy down like that, Tsubasa. I’m a sucker for blonde bombshells.”
Ignoring that… “I thought you were Tsubasa.”
“Nah. Kidding. I just wanted to steal your room for tonight. You got Darumi’d!”
Great…well, I guess it’s not that big of a deal. We all have the same rooms, basically, and I already did my skincare and got ready for bed. I could sleep in the rec room, but Darumi’s room will basically be the same as mine at this point. I walk along the roof, taking in the gentle night breeze and find the cabin labeled ‘Darumi’.
I yawn, and stretch my arms high above my head, ready to jump right into bed, but…
When I open the door and try to turn on the lights, my will to sleep is quickly zapped out of me. None of the lights seem to work except for a dimming, fluorescent bar light just over her mirror. The mirror is scratched and somehow fogged up; but I nearly trip over a tipped-over garbage can by the door as I try to approach it. Ew…Darumi, really…?
I gently lift the can, and put the lid back on; I’m lucky nothing had spilled out, or I might’ve thrown up. Unfortunately, my stomach gets tested again pretty quickly. The glass door to her bathroom is partially shattered, with a huge, splintering spiderweb of cracks obscuring my view of the inside. It’s…creepy. It looks like there was a fight here, or something…what little I can see of the bathroom is mold, creeping along the tiles where the walls meet the floors.
It doesn’t stop, though. Her table has a hammer and some kind of long blade just sitting out on it, and her couch has an oversized butcher’s knife stabbed into it; stuffing is pouring out of an old wound on the backrest, too. Did I misjudge Darumi? Is she…worse off than I thought? The floor is littered with glass shards and junk, and even the chair by her desk is upturned. And are those…bloodstains on the wall? No, just some other stain.
I…don’t know if I can sleep in a room like this. This is like a serial killer’s room, or maybe more like a serial killer’s victim’s room. For a moment, I worry that Darumi’s going to come back and stab me with one of the five knives I count lying around the room; did I lock the door?
But I instantly feel bad for thinking that way…I know Darumi’s not a bad person, really. Has she been living in this mess of a room this whole time? Why won’t she clean up a little, or ask me to help repair these rusty pipes, or anything? Does she feel so isolated that she can’t ask for that, or…? I sit on her bed, and begin to lose myself in my mind, thinking about what I can do to make this room more comfortable for her.
Crrrk.
But my thoughts veer off the road, interrupted once more.
Tap tap.
Light footsteps creep closer…Instinctively, I grab my left hand, and both fly to my chest to still my heart. But…I know it’s not a psycho-murderer, and I’m not the victim. With only a little apprehension left, I turn to see Darumi slinking near me.
I expected her to be tiptoeing, or skulking, trying to scare me again. But her gait was normal, and her expression seemed…calm.
“Darumi…”
“Yeah, I actually expected you to just come running out of my room right away, so…”
“Your room, it’s-”
“Totally cool, right!? Straight out of a gory serial killer’s flick!”
My eyes meet hers; it’s dark, but I could see her dilated pupils waver as she talked.
“Why didn’t you say anything? I…One of us could have helped,” I spoke, barely catching myself. In truth, I guess I didn’t really know Darumi; would I have really wanted to do all the cleaning for her…? I don’t know, but right now…
“Say something? Why would I say something?” She brings a finger to her cheek and scratches lightly on the white foundation she refused to remove before bed. Her eyeline and mascara’s still there, too; she would’ve ruined my pillows…
“I mean, because…you’ve been sleeping in this room this whole time?”
“Well, yeah. It’s Darumi’s room. I’m Darumi. Are you still hung up on that joke?”
Her demeanor’s shifted. She’s a lot more calm than earlier; is it because her joke didn’t pan out how she thought, or…? On second thought, she was sorta prone to these switches in moods, anyway.
“No, I just…” I close my eyes, and look away from her, “I feel bad.”
“Haaanh? Why would you feel bad for me? I mean…”
I open my eyes in time to see her stretching her arms out before her, interlocking her fingers and staring at her chipped nails…
“I kinda like it,” she continued. Now, for sure, I can see a bit of a different expression in her eyes than the one typical to her ups and downs. Even in this dim light, it was clear this was a side to her I was seeing for the first time.
“You like it? It’s a complete pigsty, and it’s-”
“Are you really that surprised? Kyokkyokkyo! I live for blood and guts and gratuitously horny butcherings! It’s the perfect room for me.”
“You can’t be serious about that, though…I mean, there’s mold in the bathroom. I thought you were sick because you don’t eat well, but it’s probably from that…”
I can’t help but let out a sigh. Maybe it’s a touch too judgmental; I catch her tensing up a bit in response.
“I like it because it reminds me of home.”
“Home…?” She lived in a place like this? And then why would she like it?
She turns away, and starts untying her half-updo. “Stupid, right? I hated my home. I don’t even think I’d want to go back there if we do make it out of this alive.”
That’s something that hadn’t even occurred to me…This whole time at Last Defense Academy, I’ve been fighting to go home…to see my family again; grandpa, mom, dad…my friends…I mean, it was my whole life before these past few weeks. Why wouldn’t I feel this way?
“Which, by the way,” her tone picked back up, as if she was about to crack a joke, “I’m still thinking I won’t! Even the revive-o-matic can’t save us once the Killing Game starts, kyohoho~!”
But her joke doesn’t distract my brain from what she’d said before. Does she really not want to go back to the TRC? Is she serious about wanting to throw her life away like this, too?
“Darumi-”
“Well, you can go back to your room, now. I mean, don’t want you catching something from the needles under my covers!”
I jolt up from the bed, but not for the reason she suggested. I take three steps over to her, and grab her hand with both of mine, cupping it firmly. Of course, she turns to look at me, and I see another face I’ve never seen before: a well-and-truly shocked Darumi. Was this too forceful? Should I not have touched her? I’m not sure what came over me, and I’m not sure why I won’t let go…
But she doesn’t say a word. Her eyes wiggle left, down, and around, trying to avoid mine. Even so, she stands still, refusing to move away. I move one hand up to her forearm, over her sleeve, trying to steady her. Her muscles are stiff, and she’s uncharacteristically on edge.
“Darumi…S-Sorry, I just-”
“You feel bad for me.” Her drawn on smile seems even more fake now, especially as the day’s taken its toll on her practiced handiwork. “Don’t.”
“But…” I withdraw my hands, and take a step back. She was right, I was feeling a little…pity, wasn’t I? But I wasn’t sure how I should feel.
“This side of living wasn’t meant for you to see. And besides, I’m okay, see?” She smiles brightly, pulling up the corners of her lips teasingly with her pointer fingers. “Darumi’s just fine!”
She seems to really be trying to shake me off, get me to leave. But for some reason, there’s a low rumble in my chest; I feel like a stalled car that can’t go forward or back.
“If you don’t go, I’m gunna have to show you my cool knife-juggling skills. By which I mean, my non-existent skills! Kyohoho~!”
I take a deep breath, and reach for her hand again, but stop myself before I can. I don’t want to leave her alone right now…I don’t have a reason, and yet…
“Hey, Darumi…” I feel a wave of nausea hit midsentence, but I shift into fifth gear and drive forward without a destination in mind. “Have you ever had a sleepover before?”
“Hanyaaa? I’ve slept over a bunch of surfaces, like the floor, grass, mud-”
“I mean, like, with a girl! Like, at a friend’s place!” I feel my cheeks getting a little red as I yell that out. This really is such a stupid thing to say in a tense situation…
“Nope. I mean, not like…what you’re talking about. Well, I slept in Mistress Hiruko’s room a few times, on the floor.”
Darumi’s face was hard to read, and she was staring at her hands again. I can’t help myself; I grab one, softer this time, and lead her over to her bed, and sit on it, then pat the spot beside me. Surprisingly, she joins in.
“Then tonight, you’ll have your first real slumber party then! We can stay up and chat about whatever you want…even, um-”
“Even eroge?” She huffed out of her nose and made a silly grin, switching her face up on a dime. I couldn’t tell if she was really happy, but…
“Okay, even…that. Or we could just, you know…”
“Can we cuddle? Heheheh…”
Honestly…that might be better for my stomach than spending all night hearing about Darumi’s interests. But…either way, I want to commit to this.
“Okay, sure.”
“...Why?”
“I…don’t know. But it sounds fun, doesn’t it?”
“Sleeping together with a sexy girl~” she half-moans, tilting her head back. Even in the dim lighting, I can see a little drool dripping from her mouth; is she doing that on purpose, too!?
I shake my head, and pull back the covers. Good news! No needles. But the second I try to get under them…
Darumi tackles me, knocking me onto my back.
“H-Hey…!”
She rubs her face into my neck, nuzzling me like a cat, and leans her whole body onto mine. Her body is…light, and fragile. I feel like if I wrapped my arms around her waist too tightly, it would snap her in two like a chocolate bunny. She really does eat nothing but candy…I feel worried, but at least she seems happier, now. I wrap my arms around her anyway, and pull her chilly body even closer abreast mine. She wiggles her hips a little bit and gets comfier, like she’s ready to settle in on top of me, just like that.
“Chewwwbaaausaaa! This is how girls are supposed to act with each other, right!? With lots of skinship! Kyokkyokkyo!”
“N-Not really…” But for some reason, I don’t want to push her off. A warm, gooey feeling is spreading over my body; I feel like I’m becoming molten candy….but more importantly, I just…
This fragile, troubled girl, who feels like she could vanish at any moment…
Tonight, my only thought is about how I don’t want to let her go.