by Unknown
“What... the.. hell... are you?” He managed to gasp between breaths.
“I’m the guy who just beat you!” I said proudly before I was surrounded by my fellow house members who ran onto the track to congratulate me.
“Daisuke that was amazing!” Said one of the guys who forced me to run. I was unaware that we were friends.
“And just to think that you were on life support a few weeks ago!” Called a girl from within the crowd.
Keira was also there trying to give me a hi-five, but the crowd of students kept pushing him back, and he was almost knocked over by one guy who insisted on throwing me into the air while the rest of my house chanted my name.
“Green house! Green house! We finally beat the red house!” Chanted all the students around me.
I expected Mana to come rushing out to praise me on my spectacular victory, but I couldn’t see her amongst my smiling classmates. I got the students to put me down, and I gradually pushed my way through a bunch of guys who wanted to shake my hand. I couldn’t wait to brag, and I was certain that she was dying to see me.
I searched the spectators and caught sight of Mana’s short black hair across the field. I confidently strolled over with a grin plastered across my face.
“Hey Mana!” I called out, but she was already preoccupied with talking to someone else. I started jogging towards her, but I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw who she was chatting with.
She was talking to Itsuki.
I froze and stared at them both with my mouth hanging open in shock like a goldfish. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Knowing Mana’s strange Itsuki complex I should have seen it coming.
She didn’t appear as confident around Itsuki as before, but she gently handed him one of her pink towels. Itsuki nodded his head in gratitude before he used it to wipe the sweat from his forehead. I couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but Mana looked far happier being with him than when we were together. It was like my victory meant nothing to her and I didn’t exist.
I felt utterly mortified. I couldn’t believe that I had disobeyed my sister and used my special powers for my own benefit and she was still interested in that stupid guy.
I couldn’t stand watching them for a moment longer. I had to get away.
I pushed away my classmates and homeroom teacher (who was trying to take my picture for the school paper) and stormed off as far away from the field as possible.
* * *
All the students and teachers had to participate in sports day so the school building was silent and empty. I trudged past the school gymnasium and wandered into the courtyard where the fox monster had tried to attack me. There was still a burnt patch on the wall where Itsuki hit the monster with a lightning charm to save me, but luckily for us the school assumed it must have been students trying to burn down the gym. It was a reminder of how our friendship had crumbled to pieces.
It seemed hard to believe how much things had changed. Back then Itsuki had been an awesome friend who'd been willing to defend me from bloodthirsty monsters. But now he’d turned all strange and hostile, and I couldn’t believe that Mana cared more about him than me!
I was clearly the victim of the awful situation! Itsuki may have been popular at school, and had plenty of friends, but couldn’t she see how terrible he was?
I kicked over one of the school pot plants in rage. The clay pot cracked and soil went spilling all over the cement. My anger and frustration couldn’t be explained in words, and I was tormented by images of Mana and Itsuki looking happy together in my mind. They were probably already holding hands and making out behind the grandstand at that very moment.
I inhaled sharply and walked over to my favourite bench, only to have my feelings crushed when I discovered there was a girl already sitting there. She was furiously applying makeup with a small compact mirror without any consideration for me. I huffed and turned to walk away, but then I realised the girl was Kurumi.
She was so busy reapplying her foundation that she didn’t notice my presence. Kurumi normally resembled her cousin Nina without make-up, but heavy eyeliner and dark eye shadow transformed her appearance into a completely different person. I couldn't help but think that she looked more like a punk artist than a seventeen year old high school student.
I didn’t usually ask Kurumi for advice, but she was the only girl I knew who had a boyfriend, so that had to be enough to make her a romance expert. I spent over ten minutes spilling my heart out about Itsuki and Mana as Kurumi calmly sat there and fixed her eye shadow.
“I don’t get it,” I said as I paced back and forth in front of her while furiously waving my arms around in the air. “No matter how hard I try, or how cool I am, all she seems to care about is that guy! I clearly won that race and she didn't even walk over to say hello.”
“All I can say is that you should just give up and find someone else,” said Kurumi. “Mana is obviously too into Itsuki to notice you, and you’re just wasting your time on this one sided relationship.”
“But I’m not interested in anyone else!" I protested. "You’re a girl! Tell me how to make her like me. You managed to do it for Taisei.”
“You can’t just force someone to like you,” she said. “It doesn’t work that way. Besides, you can’t compare yourself to other couples, and that doesn’t mean that Taisei and I will be together forever.”
“But it makes no sense! She doesn’t even talk to him that much anymore, and she keeps avoiding him all the time. How can she like him so much when she doesn’t even want to hang out with him?"
Kurumi sighed and closed her make up mirror. She placed it back in a small make-up bag and began sorting through her other products.
“Don't tell anyone that I told you this," she said while looking around nervously in case anyone was listening. "But Mana's face was badly cut by the fox monster. The hospital did all they could, but they said it will never heal completely. She wants to have more surgery to fix it, but Mana's family might not have enough money.”
“What!” I exclaimed. My mouth opened and closed as I searched for something to say. “But we’re best friends, why didn’t she tell me that?”
“You didn’t grow up with us so I guess you might not have realised it, but it’s no secret that Mana has liked Itsuki for as long as I can remember. She’s probably afraid that he won’t like her anymore once he sees her scar, so I think she’s been avoiding him until her face gets better. After that she plans to admit her feelings or something. Even I don’t know what’s going on in her head.”
"No way," I muttered. I wanted to protest, but I had to admit that part of me had always known that Mana liked Itsuki and that things were going to be this way.
“I’m sorry Daisuke,” said Kurumi as she took one look at my disappointed face. “I know it might be hard, but I think it’s time that you gave up on Mana. There are hundreds of girls at this school, so I'm sure it won't be difficult for you to find a better girlfriend.”
Chapter 9
After much internal debate I decided to take Kurumi’s advice seriously. If I was going to give up on Mana, than what better way to forget her than to pursue another girl immediately. Nina was my first choice. I had been considering her as a backup girlfriend all year, and now that Taisei was dating Kurumi it was the perfect opportunity for me to swoop in and sweep her off her feet. Unfortunately Nina was taller than me so I decided to borrow Taisei’s metal pole in an attempt to make me look cooler. I also shoved tones of charms into my pockets to give myself a more serious exorcist look.
I dashed around headquarters looking for Nina until I found her flipping through an old textbook in the library.
“Nina,” I said in the doorway while holding Taisei’s pole casually over my shoulders. Nina seemed to have a thing for Taisei, so I figured impersonating him would be the fastest way to make her like me too.
“Would you consider going out with me?” I asked.
Nina looked up from her textbook and stared at me
for a moment before closing the book. “Sure, why not,” she said. “I think that it would be good for the both of us.”
“Really?” I said with joy. “Are you serious?”
“Of course,” she said. “I’ve been putting a lot of thought into what everyone has been saying, and I’ve decided that I probably do need to change and improve, and-"
"That's great!" I said. "You have no idea how long I've been looking forward to this! How about we meet outside the shrine at seven?"
"Tonight?" Asked a startled Nina. "I have to finish an essay by tomorrow, but I suppose I might be able to get it done now."
"Great it's settled then! See you later," I said before spinning on my heals and rushing out of the room. After months of unsuccessfully chasing Mana I couldn’t believe how easy it was to score a date with Nina. Sure she may have been two years older than me and was going to graduate first, but I was certain that we could somehow make it work.
I had so much to prepare and hardly any time to do it. I needed to rush home, change, and research the best date locations in town. Nina seemed blissfully unaware, but I was certain that she was going to be in for the best date of her life.
* * *
I thought a romantic stroll through the woods would be a great first date, but I began to suspect that there may have been a misunderstanding when Nina brought her exorcist gear along.
The blue glow of a locater charm illuminated her face in the darkness as we slowly crept through the forest near headquarters. Akito and the exorcists must have saved a lot of money on torch batteries ever since I became a super exorcist.
“There should be some Obake around here,” muttered Nina. She warily stared into the darkness like a monster could jump out at any moment. It was killing my attempts at small talk.
“So Nina,” I said to get the romantic conversation flowing. “Here we are alone together. This might sound like a strange question, but if you hypothetically ever got married, where would you want to go for the honeymoon?”
“Shh,” Nina hushed. “We’ll lose the element of surprise.”
I crossed my arms and fumed. I couldn’t explain why, but I had a strange feeling that Nina may have mistaken my date invitation as an invite to go on patrol instead. I ran through our whole conversation from that afternoon in my head a hundred times, but I had no idea how she could have possibly misunderstood me. I should have known that something was up when she refused to let me leave Taisei’s metal pole at home, but I thought she just wanted me to look cool and dangerous.
Any normal guy would have lost confidence and given up at that moment, but guess what?
I'm an optimist!
I spotted the glow of fireflies in the distance and I saw a great romantic location just waiting to be used to seduce the girl of my dreams.
“Hey, Nina over here!” I yelled as I ran towards the lights.
“Hey Daisuke wait!” Nina cried. “You can’t just run off like that!”
“Ha, ha,” I merrily laughed as I frolicked through the forest towards the glow. There was no way that any girl could resist the romantic appeal of fireflies, and even Nina yelling “get back!” couldn’t ruin my mood.
I reached a clearing and I looked up expecting to see a bunch of tiny bugs, but instead I was faced with the strangest fireflies I’d seen in my life. They were the size of soccer balls and looked more like wasps with glowing butts. I stood there watching in awe as they flew around the field and created their own spectacular light show. It was amazing. I wanted to take a closer look, but luckily I didn’t have to because one was already flying straight towards me.
“Get down!” Yelled Nina as she tackled me to the ground.
I barely had time to put my hands out to catch myself and I hit the grass with a loud thud. Nina landed on top of me and I could feel her body pressed up against mine. I knew that she was older than me and probably more experienced, but I hadn’t expected things to move so fast.
“Hey Nina," I mumbled.
"Stay down," she hissed. Her voice sounded panicky, and I looked up just in time to see a giant bug with an inch long glowing stinger fly over our heads.
“WHAT IS THAT!” I screamed. It was a very manly scream and I’m certain that I didn’t sound like a girl at all.
“Wasp Obake,” hissed Nina. “This place was completely infested last year. Akito tried to exterminate them all, but some must have survived!”
Unfortunately my (manly) scream had alerted the monsters to our presence, and several of the glowing wasps suddenly came speeding towards us.
"Shit!" Nina swore as she jumped to her feet. She readied her bow (Nina looked so cool when she was about to kill something) and took a shot, but her arrow missed by an inch and hit a tree instead. I had forgotten that despite being kind and having lovely skin, Nina was not the best back-up in a fight.
Luckily for me, waving Taisei’s pole in the air turned out to be a great way to fend them off for a moment or two, before they reformed and attacked again.
“If only Taisei was here!” Yelled Nina. She threw her arrows to the side and used her bow to beat them out of the air.
“Taisei?!” I exclaimed. I had gone to all the trouble of asking her out and all she could talk about was Taisei. It was just like Itsuki and Mana all over again. Taisei was one of my best friends, but I was annoyed that half the girls in our group were in love with him. Sure Taisei was bigger, stronger, older, and cooler looking than me, but I couldn’t understand why Nina was so hung-up over him.
“I don’t get it,” I said as I dodged to avoid a wasp. “Why do you like Taisei so much anyway?”
“Because he’s,” said Nina hesitantly. “Taisei and I used to hang out all the time when we were little, so I’ve liked him since then. He’s my best friend, or should I say used to be my best friend,” she muttered.
“But isn’t he going out with Kurumi now?” I asked.
“You think I haven’t noticed!” Yelled Nina as she beat one of the wasps with enough force to make it explode. “Everything was going great until that bitch decided that she liked him too. She’s always trying to take what’s mine. She probably wouldn’t even have noticed him if I didn’t say that I liked him first!” She continued to aggressively attack the wasps until almost all of them were gone.
I stood there and stared at Nina in shock as she beat the wasps like there was no tomorrow. She reminded me of my sister when she was angry. Sis and Nina were distantly related, so there must have been some sort of crazy angry gene running in their family.
Nina paused for breath and wiped the sweat from her forehead with her sleeve. "You should know, don't you like Mana?" She asked.
"Well," I didn't want to remember, but my head was bombarded with images of Mana staring up at Itsuki like he was the best thing since sliced bread. "I don't think it's going to work out.” I muttered. “I tried, but I don't think she's really that into me.”
"That's not a good way to think,” said Nina. “You shouldn't just give up like that. If you like her then you should stick to how you feel and never give up, no matter what. That’s what I do.”
“Yeah, but,” I said. I wasn’t sure if that was a good way to live and it conflicted with what Sis and Kurumi had already told me. I didn’t want to spend years trying to make Mana like me only to watch her and Itsuki go merrily skipping off into the sunset together. I couldn’t help thinking about how different Nina and Kurumi were from each other. Kurumi was always dark, angry, and pessimistic, while Nina was clearly the bright light and saviour of my misery.
“What if there was someone else out there who was even better than Taisei?” I said. “Maybe the perfect guy for you has been here all along. He may already be someone you know. Someone very close to you.” I inched a little closer to Nina so that she would get my hint.
“I doubt it,” said Nina. “I don’t know anyone like that.”
Her comment left me so shocked that I was almost hit by a wasp in the face.
“You should fo
rget about Taisei,” I said as I knocked down the last remaining wasp monster. It fell to the ground with a buzz and twitched its little legs. I was too nervous to face Nina, so I turned around and swung Taisei’s pole over my shoulder in an attempt to look cool and mysterious.
“Why don’t you go out with me instead?” I asked while trying to put on my best macho voice, but I sounded a lot quieter than I imagined. “I know that the age thing might be an issue, and your brother might not approve because my family doesn’t have any cool connections, but I think with your great personality and my super amazing exorcist powers, we could be the greatest exorcist couple the world has ever seen. What do you say?”
It took a lot of courage to say that confession, so I was a little hurt when I didn’t hear any response from Nina. I turned to see that she hadn't heard anything I said, and she was already on the other side of the clearing making her way home. I stared at her in shock with my mouth open in horror until she finally stopped to wait for me.
“Are you coming?” Nina called out.
I sighed and kicked the last wasp just to confirm that it was as dead as my love life. I thought that Mana was difficult, but Nina seemed even further out of my reach.
Chapter 10
“Despite spending over three weeks in isolation for Ebola, local high school student Daisuke Matsumoto, has made a miraculous recovery and gone on to come first in the local high school three hundred meter sprint. He also broke the record set by ex-Olympic gold medalist Charles Thomas in 1961. Daisuke always sleeps in class and sits out during P.E, so I didn’t even know that he could run, said one student. He ran fast, almost too fast, said another. Daisuke is a great example of what you can achieve by just having a go, said his homeroom teacher. I hope his effort will motivate other students to participate more. WHAT THE HELL IS THIS CRAP!” Screamed my sister as she threw the newspaper down on the table in front of me.