by Unknown
“Vain or not she's still your," he paused for a moment as though searching for words. "Special cousin, and things haven't always been easy for Kurumi, so I expect you of all people to show a little more compassion!"
"That still doesn't give her the right to be a complete and utter bitch towards me!"
“Enough! What would father say if he saw you acting like this?”
“It’s not fair!” Yelled Nina. She screwed up her fists, kicked the table, and then stormed out of the library.
Her brother exhaled and turned to Kurumi. “Kurumi-" he said before she cut him off.
“Don’t you dare lecture me,” she said. “What gives you the right to tell me what to do!” She threw the book she was holding on the floor, and then stormed out of the room.
“Kurumi! Kurumi wait!” He yelled and ran after her. “You three clean this up!” He yelled at us from over his shoulder as he dashed out the door.
“Ow," said Souta as he buried his head in his hands. “How come whenever Kurumi and Nina get into a fight, we’re always left to clean up the pieces?”
“Story of my life!” Yelled Taisei from his room down the hall.
I later found Nina sitting on the stairs to the back veranda. She was furiously skimming through a textbook with enough force to rip out the pages. Being the kind guy I am, I sat there and patted her on the back. Everyone was trying to stay out of Nina and Kurumi's feud, but I was attempting to get on the good side of someone since the organization turned against me. Kurumi was kind of scary, so I decided to take Nina's side.
“I don't get it,” she muttered. “Why does everyone always defend her? It’s been like this since we were children. Everyone in the family feels sorry for her because her family is poor and her father died a few years ago, but that's no excuse for her to treat me like crap.”
“It's okay, just let it all out,” I said.
“When we were in middle school she couldn't afford textbooks, so she used to borrow mine and graffiti all the pages. The teachers didn't believe me and accused me of lying.”
“I know,” I said. “Life can be so hard.”
I could sympathize with how Nina felt because Itsuki was also trying to turn everyone against me.
Luckily for me Itsuki’s lack of social skills finally paid off in my favor when everyone refused to take his side. He tried holding a secret meeting with the others in the attic that evening, but whoever installed the sound proofing at headquarters must have done a terrible job because I could hear everything from the library.
“Hey, do you think he can hear us?” Said the muffled voice of Souta from above me.
“No way,” said Taisei. “Itsuki asked for the most secret part of our secret headquarters, and there ain’t no place more secret than here, right Kurumi?”
I felt like banging on the ceiling with a broom, but part of me wanted to know what Itsuki was thinking, so I remained silent and listened.
"Akito's too optimistic," said Itsuki. "Some of you might not have seen it, but I was there. That thing wasn't Daisuke. It wasn't even human. I could fe- I knew deep down that it was an uncontrollable monster that would destroy anything and everything in its path. It's only a matter of time before that thing destroys us as well. We have to act now before it's too late."
"But Aki-" said Souta before Itsuki cut him off.
"Forget Akito and the organization, we can convince them later,” said Itsuki. “It's better to go against Akito now and get into trouble, then to let that thing go unchecked.”
“I don’t know Itsuki,” said Taisei. “I mean the guy spent the last few months living and training with us, we can’t just exorcise him like he’s some raccoon monster or something.”
“Yeah!" Said Souta. "What if he really is a super exorcist?”
“There’s no such thing as a super exorcist!” Snapped Itsuki.
“I agree with Taisei. Daisuke knows plenty of charms, so can’t he just exorcise himself?” Asked Kiyori. Taisei must have shot him a stern look because Kiyori quickly said, “or whatever Taisei wants to do.”
“Okay, let’s have a vote," said Taisei. “All in favour of going against Akito and doing what Itsuki says raise your hand.”
There was a moment of silence and I anxiously waited below them to see if my friends would turn on me, but the silence was interrupted by Itsuki shouting “You’re all a bunch of idiots!”
Akito and the organization may have thought that I was some sort of monster, but most of my friends seemed to be on my side. Kurumi and Kiyori didn’t look convinced that I was a super exorcist, but both of them were close to Taisei so they followed his lead.
After the meeting Itsuki spent most of his time at school and didn’t come home until dark. Eventually Akito became frustrated and forced him to remain at headquarters to help with the repairs, but our relationship didn’t improve.
Every time Itsuki and I made eye contact he would either ignore me or duck into a nearby room. I eventually mustered up enough courage to peek through his bedroom door, only to find Itsuki furiously writing out lightning charms like there was no tomorrow. I thought his behaviour was a little excessive, but I told myself to be patient and wait for the whole thing to blow over. I was sure that once Akito and my sister discovered Grampa’s super exorcist stash, Itsuki would definitely come back begging to be my friend again.
As much as I hated to acknowledge it, I had considered the possibility that I could be an Obake.
For half a minute.
Itsuki had some supernatural exorcist ability to detect Obake, but my super exorcist powers were probably just sending his sensors off. There was no way that I could possibly be an Obake. Shinta and his minions were just jealous that I was obviously way more awesome than them. They just didn’t want to admit that my grandfather was a genius, and they were trying to dispose of me by faking that I was a monster.
But I wasn’t going to take it.
I was going to fight back!
I was going to let my sister handle everything while I shouted words of encouragement from behind her!
Chapter 5
With no school to go to, most of my time was spent repairing headquarters. It was all because Akito was too stingy to hire anyone. He said that we couldn’t risk bringing in outsiders in case they discovered the library, our weapons, the illegal shotgun, and his gunpowder stock in the basement. Akito said he had enough ammunition to blow up my school, but I think he just didn’t want to part with his money.
The building had taken quite a blow from the fox monster attack, so we had to rebuild the living room, kitchen, bathroom, and study. Kiyori tried to argue that because I helped destroy it, I should repair it all, but Akito insisted that the physical labour was all part of our training.
“The organization used to hire more outsiders,” said Souta as he happily nailed the floor next to me. “But then they arrested my uncle on suspicion of imprisoning young people and running a cult. He spent ten years in prison.”
“I don’t see why we have to make all the repairs,” said Taisei as he threw down his hammer and began rubbing his throbbing wrist. "We’re supposed to be monster hunters, not repairmen!”
“Doing repairs is all part of being a self-sufficient exorcist,” said Akito as he walked past carrying a pile of new tiles for the bathroom.
“Cleaning the toilet is all part of being a self sufficient exorcist,” said Taisei while impersonating Akito’s stern voice.
“Maybe we’d get everything done faster if Kurumi actually did something instead of just reading a magazine!” Protested Itsuki from the next room as he angrily painted the wall.
“Colour coordination is very important,” said Kurumi as she began circling furniture in a department store magazine. “We’ve already suffered enough, and the last thing we need is having to stare at ugly furniture."
"It would be better than having to stare at your hair in the bathroom sink!” Replied Itsuki.
“Stop your moaning Itsuki!” Yelled Taisei.
“Somebody’s whipped!” Retorted Itsuki.
“Is it just me,” muttered Taisei to Nina. “Or has Itsuki been hard to tolerate recently?”
“I guess he still hasn’t gotten over, you know what,” she said while secretly trying to indicate towards me, but I knew what she was doing. Itsuki had given up trying to convince the others that I was evil since they voted against him. He then spent most of his time sulking instead. He’d quickly turned into the king of witty comebacks, and he had a smart remark for everything the others said to him.
“Is there anything else that you need help with Akito?" Asked Nina’s brother as he merrily brought in the new wooden beams for the roof.
“I suppose you could help me with these tiles,” groaned Akito as he picked up a stack and handed them to the younger exorcist.
“Yes sir!” Said Nina’s brother with a smile so bright that it threatened to blind me.
Hugo on the other hand was the exact opposite of Nina’s brother. He was just pretending to do work, but he’d been sanding the same piece of wood for the past three hours so he wasn’t fooling me. Kiyori had also attempted to copy Hugo and spent the last hour pretending to varnish the veranda, until Akito caught him playing games on his phone.
Nina’s brother had been pretty hostile towards Akito when his boss was around, but with Shinta gone Akito was obviously the next best authority figure to suck up to. It was like Akito had gained his own personal slave. It was great at first because the rest of us didn’t have to work as hard, but the power soon went to his head and he expected the rest of us to be suck ups as well. Normally whenever Akito ordered us to do anything, and we refused to move, he would give up after ten minutes, but now he was relentless.
“Taisei,” Akito ordered. “Go to the hardware store and pick up another box of nails.”
“What! But I just went,” complained Taisei. “You’ve made me go three times already! Why can’t someone else do it?”
“Arashi,” said Akito while looking at Nina’s brother. “Make Taisei go to the store and buy another box!”
Nina’s brother nodded and looked at Taisei sternly.
“Taisei, what would your mother say if she saw you ignoring a direct order from your superior.”
“Fine! Fine! I’ll go,” said Taisei as he kicked his hammer and got up to leave.
Kiyori was assigned to put the floorboards in place in the living room. He quietly crept closer to Nina who was handing me nails.
“You need to do something about your brother Nina,” he hissed. “Now Akito expects the rest of us to act like that.”
“Don’t you think I’ve already tried,” Nina hissed back while looking over her shoulder to make sure he couldn’t hear us. “He’s insufferable. Just because we’re siblings doesn’t mean that he’s going to listen to me.”
“You can’t fool me,” said Kiyori. “I’ve seen the two of you being nice to each other. That’s not natural. Just look at Souta and me, we’re related and we fight all the time, right Souta?” He said before he picked up a screw and casually tossed it at Souta’s back.
“Ouch, that hurt,” moaned Souta.
“Do something!” Kiyori hissed to Nina.
“I’ll try, I’ll try,” said Nina. “But both my parents already tried and failed before me.”
If things weren’t bad enough, Kiyori thought it was funny to start calling me Monster Dai. Talk about not reading the atmosphere. He even made up his own song to go along with it. I could hear him humming it under his breath when he went back to nailing the floor. The lyrics went something like this
It was a cold dark night
It was exorcising time
But then out came Monster Dai
He was a terrifying sight
That monster Dai
The girls were terrified
That monster Dai
He ate up Souta in one bite
I was thinking about whether or not I should stand up for myself, when Kurumi walked over and promptly wacked Kiyori over the head with her rolled up furniture magazine.
“I don't think this is something to joke about,” she said.
“Geez,” muttered Kiyori as he rubbed the back of his head. “Why so serious?”
“Thanks Kurumi,” I said. I expected her to smile or act nice like the time she attempted to save me from the fox monster, but instead she went straight back to her magazine. She spent the next hour circling the house like she was imagining the new layout, and I wished we could swap jobs.
The biggest surprise since finding out that I was a super exorcist, was finding out that Taisei and Kurumi had been dating for weeks. I had no idea. They’d been going home together on Taisei’s scooter for a while, and they did spend a lot of time together alone in Kurumi’s room, but I thought they were just good friends.
I was happy that Taisei got himself a girlfriend, but it was a little mortifying to see the usually stoic Kurumi hand feeding Taisei with a spoon at break time.
Taisei had also switched from taking photos of Obake to taking photos of himself and Kurumi. His famous monster picture wall was now scattered with pictures of him and Kurumi making lovey dovey poses, and I scanned the photos only to be confronted with a picture of the two of them kissing.
Everyone else thought it was gross, and even Akito went out of his way to avoid them. I think it just reminded him of how much of an old boring guy who couldn’t get a date he was.
Unlike everyone else, they didn’t bother me at all. I just hoped that Mana and I could be that cute one day. Mana was still recovering from her injuries in the hospital, so I thought the best thing to do as her potential boyfriend would be to go over there and shower her with flowers. The only problem was that I didn’t know where she was staying, so I went and asked Taisei for the address during lunch time.
“I don’t know how to say this nicely, so I’m just going to say it,” said Taisei. He took a deep breath. “Mana doesn’t want to see you.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but I was so shocked that I couldn’t make a sound for at least a minute.
“What! Why!” I finally cried in horror.
“She was asking about you and everything,” said Taisei. “But then Itsuki went to visit and he somehow convinced her that you’re a man eating monster. She freaks out every time we mention your name now.”
“I’m not a man eating monster!” I protested. “I’m a super exorcist! A super exorcist I tell you!”
“I know, don’t worry,” he said as he patted me on the back. “I’ll have a talk with her.”
It was a huge shock to find out that my future girlfriend didn’t want to see my face anymore. I had a lot of faith in Taisei, but I was still worried that he wouldn’t be able to convince her to change her mind. What if she never talked to me again? What if she became like Itsuki and spent all her free time plotting my demise?
I had spent months imagining our glorious future together. I had it all planned out in my head. We would begin dating through high school and then marry after graduation. It would be a grand ceremony on the beach with an all you can eat buffet and all my friends since kindergarten would be there. Itsuki would also be invited. But he would cry during the ceremony before finally admitting that I was a far better match for Mana than he could ever be. We would then become an awesome exorcist couple and travel the continent together, before finally settling down and having dozens of small children who would also be super exorcists. I thought I wasn’t asking for much, but now my dream had been shattered into a thousand tiny pieces.
I felt like my life was over, and I could do nothing but lie lifelessly in my room for hours until Sis forced me to go to headquarters.
My sister said that I had gotten carried away too soon, and that I should have asked her out before even considering a future together, but what did Sis know. Just because her ex-boyfriend left her over ten years ago didn’t make her a relationship expert. She just didn’t understand the special bond that Mana and I had.
>
From that moment on, Taisei and Kurumi’s relationship no longer seemed cute, and I realised why everyone was avoiding the two of them. Seeing them happily together just reminded me about how dismal my girlfriend prospects were.
“You’re so cute,” said Taisei in the garden while Kurumi sat on his lap. They were supposed to be replanting Akito's pot plants, but that was quickly forgotten as soon as Akito left to restock the paint.
“No, you’re so cute sugar plum,” said Kurumi in a high pitched childlike voice which didn’t suit her at all.
“No, you’re so cute sugar plum,” mocked Kiyori as he walked past.
“You're just jealous that you don't have a girlfriend!” Taisei yelled back.
I attempted to call Taisei Sugarplum for all the times he called me Dai-chan, but Taisei retaliated and threw his math textbook at my head. It hit my forehead and blood began pouring out for at least two minutes. Taisei quickly realised his mistake and attempted to clean me up with some bandages before Akito found out.
“Ah shit, sorry bro,” said Taisei while he tried to stop the bleeding with a towel in the kitchen. “I didn't expect it to actually hit you, you know I was aiming for the wall right? I just wanted to give you a shock.”
“My life is flashing before my eyes,” I said. “I'm standing under the slide on my first day of elementary school, I’m eating cake at my sister's wedding, I'm standing outside waiting for the fo-”
“You’re not going to die!” Taisei interrupted as he frantically patted the blood away. “I think.”
“Killed by Algebra! That's what they'll write on my tombstone!”
“Shhh,” hushed Taisei. “Why are you always so melodramatic when it comes to death? Aren’t you supposed to be some sort of all powerful exorcist or something?”
“An all powerful super exorcist who was defeated by a textbook!” I cried dramatically.
“Look! The bleeding's stopped,” said Taisei. He whipped out a large band-aid and stuck it to my forehead. "If anyone asks, say that you fell asleep while meditating on the rock and bumped your head.”