Before The Killer's Game Begins (2)

Katsuragi Wu silently pondered Akira Park's sudden earnestness.

"What's wrong?" he asked him.

"Did you say "Black Book"?" Akira questioned with a grave tone.

Nobuhiko studied his face.

Katsuragi looked at the Game's title card, glimpsing the Time on top of it.

3:44 PM.

Killer's Game: Her Black Book of Nightmares.

9 hours, 16 minutes, 59 seconds left.

9 hours, 16 minutes, 58 seconds left.

Ayanami stood up and bent towards Katsuragi's cell phone.

"Yep, that's what the game is called." Katsuragi said and looked at Akira. "It's still Beta, though. And made by this new company called Kirasum Studio. So you might have never heard it before."

"I doubt it." Akira thought reaching for his school bag.

Katsuragi stretched his arms across the table. While he grabbed and crushed the heart of a man creature sneaking from behind with his boy character, Ayanami sat back watching.

"Wu told me to play it and join his solo party after tutorial." Yokohama said. "We wanted to see if we could play on the same server together but somehow I wasn't allowed to play as anyone other than "an akira"."

"Damn, Park's even featured in a video game now!" Hiroko Kusanagi laughed.

Akira unscrewed his water bottle underneath the table with a darkened expression.

"Yeah but the crazy thing is," Katsuragi chuckled. "The Nameless Girl in our Killer's Curses System dispatched us for a mission to annihilate each other!"

Akira gulped his water bottle with a darkened expression.

"It was really scary fighting against Wu but," Yokohama added. "The System's reasoning before that was like, "This is a copy of you from another dimension—"

Katsuragi wheezed. "Our "akira" reminded us so much of Park, too."

"Oh really? Let me see his face!" Kusanagi hollered to Wu.

""There can only be one akira, destroy him or your existence shall not be spared." was what I remember at that time," Yokohama finished.

Akira tapped his lips with a handkerchief, gravely.

Wu made his akira step forward to the phone screen. Akira, Kusanagi, and Ayanami leaned closer to it. The eyes of the akira were covered with a black shade on top of bangs.

"Aw, it's like Uno from Shorter Nightmares." Kusanagi pouted. "I can barely recognize this little guy."

Akira deadpanned at her.

"But that delicate turned up nose, lonesome thin lips, prominent Adam's Apple under a sharp but soft jawline, with casual but neatly organized jet black hair at the top of his small, ivory skinned head accompanied with a lower than average 15 year old male height is very reminiscent of Park Akira." Ayanami said.

Hiroko, Nobuhiko and Wu looked at her in bewilderment.

Akira Park shivered while muttering, "Creepy . . . "

"I—" Ayanami flinched upon realization. "I want to became a mangaka so I at least have to familiarize myself with h-human anatomy!"

Akira only frowned at her.

"Oh really? I've never seen you draw before, Asuka." Kusanagi said.

Akira slowly distanced himself from this statement.

"Asuka usually drew girls in elementary, though." Yokohama said. "Realistic looking ones!"

Akira looked at him.

"W-well I got better, though—Hold on!" Ayanami scavenged through her school bag's folders, papers, and textbooks.

"She gave up drawing me once." Yokohama cried to Katsuragi Wu. "Saying I wasn't good looking enough~"

"Maybe because you're too MASCULINE, my dude." Katsuragi patted his friend's back wiping away a single tear before flexing his face and glasses. "Like me."

"Hey Park looking gorgeously effeminate isn't too bad!" Kusanagi defended.

"Weren't you consistently insulting my height for being short?"

"Can't I complement you after . . . ?"

"Here!" Ayanami anxiously presented a sketchbook, and took out her phone after cautiously swiping to click Gallery. Then began to smile with regret.

Elaborate drawings of Akira handsomely staring off by the classroom window, another drawing of Akira handsomely reading a book at the school library, Akira drinking water—handsomely, Akira smirking at someone too handsomely, Akira deadpanning but handsomely, Akira looking directly at the viewer handsomely, Akira wearing a black sweater, black pants, and shoes at the train station with a similar looking tall man wearing lighter clothes— sided together with pictures from Ayanami's phone almost criminally taken from far and near unseen.

"How is this a girl?" Kusanagi asked.

Akira shivered muttering, "Stalker."

"I'm sorry. I'll be working on my self discipline, Mr. Park." Ayanami bowed crying. "I promise I won't do these ever again . . . after this."

Ayanami rose up her head a bit, Akira noticing her clear eyes.

"I believe in you." Akira said, before coming in to whisper at her, "So please be true to yourself."

Ayanami's eyes brightened looking at Akira smiling at her.

"It's always the norm to fall for appearances . . . Why can't humans typically fall for others regardless of looks?" Akira wondered to himself, erasing the image of his face from pictures, drawings, and mirrors appearing inside his head throughout the years. He averted his vision away from his classmates as he began to imagine a door that said, "Park Kaneda".

"WHAT THE HELL WAS WRONG WITH YOU?!" a man's voice shouted inside.

"If you don't like it then I'm leaving you!" A woman's voice replied.

It wasn't Akira's mother's.

"WHY NOW OF ALL TIMES?!"

"COULD YOU STOP FUCKING YELLING AT ME?!"

"What the hell were you thinking—DID YOU TOUCH HIM, YOU FUCKING BITCH?!!"

"Big Brother...?" Akira flinched holding a handwritten letter that said "Merry Christmas:D!" with a Nyango Starr drawing as he wore a black sweater. "What are they—"

"As if you never even tried!" the woman shouted.

"WHAT THE FUCK!! WHAT THE FUCK!!" Kaneda grunted with hard stomps. "How dare you make that assumption! What the hell is wrong with you!! Since when were you so—!!"

"That's it, I'M LEAVING!"

A woman opened the door in front of Akira, she looked like to him what conventional society might deem enticing. But Akira only showed worried confusion watching the two as he shrank under the woman's presence.

The woman pointed to Kaneda seething, "NOW SHUT YOUR UGLY MOUTH, YOU GOOD FOR NOTHING HALFIE. WE'RE THROUGH!"

Kaneda's eyes widened looking at Akira by the door. The woman noticed him, too.

Kaneda lunged forward and pushed her away from his little brother, he tossed a red phone as he pinned the woman against the floor.

She screamed and groaned struggling under Kaneda, "GET OFF OF ME, YOU BEYTRAYING BROCON BITCH—!"

"Akira, call the police! Right now!" Kaneda pressed.

"But she's your girlfrie—"

"Please!!" Kaneda's horrified face made Akira step back with widened eyes.

Akira typed in the number, and soon gave it to his brother.

Kaneda finished the call and Akira received the phone.

The woman slowly giggled.

"Hey~" she cooed in a high pitched voice.

Kaneda glared at her. Akira stood still.

"Since it's over for me, can I see your cute little brother's—"

Kaneda pushed her jaw upward, with his other hand pressing opposite her head.

"Ignore her and call Mom, too, Akira." Kaneda said.

Akira nodded.

"Park?" a different voice.

The woman struggled to turn her head towards Akira. She laughed to herself, eyes growing crazy at the thought of Akira Park's young face and frail body if she could have gotten closer to him sooner than this. Kaneda's jaw shivered, reminiscing of how innocently this girl had smiled at him before. "Wanna be friends?" was what she once said. When they were just two middle school children.

"Hey Park . . . ?" another voice.

Akira watched all of this, seeing his elder brother holding back puddling tears.

The police came by to arrest the woman.

Afterwards, Kaneda went straight to his room. The door left open. Akira stood there. He heard the sound of muffled screaming followed by low whimpers escaping Kaneda's lips.

"Big brother?" Akira placed the plain red phone and Christmas card with the Nyango Starr drawing on his brother's desk. He hugged his brother's back, Kaneda clutched his brother's hand.

Stepping outside. The entrance door opening.

"AKI!! KANEDA!!" Yuu Park, their mother stormed up the stairs and barged into the room with her suit and hair a mess. She leaped and squeezed her sons crying.

"Let's . . . try having a merry Christmas." Akira said.

Yuu nodded with a single tear. "I'll order Fried Chicken."

"Park." Katsuragi Wu said.

Akira stared.

"What's up with you?" Kusanagi Hiroko added.

Akira stared at her and Wu, noticing Wu's glasses and Hiroko's innocent face.

"Nothing." Akira smiled at them. "I just thought how average you two are individually. And I just like how you both still appreciate each other regardless."

"I don't know if I should be offended or take that as a complement." Wu said. "But thank you."

Hiroko only smiled at him and Ayanami. "Did you two get an anime flashback or something?"

Ayanami giggled. Akira said nothing.

"What time is it?" Akira asked.

Then he looked at his watch realizing.

"Why ask us when you already have the answer all along?" Hiroko laughed.

The others joined in as Akira awkwardly tried concentrating on the clock hands and numbers.

4:00 PM.

"Speaking of Time," Yokohama turned to Wu. "What's the count down in Killers Game for, again?"

Akira perked up listening.

"I don't know myself." Wu shrugged while beating up a boy enemy trying to kiss him with a dark aura.

"But it's now "8 hours, 59 minutes, 53 seconds left."" Wu said. "Because it's 4 PM, technically it's already passed 16 hours throughout the day. 16 plus 8 equals 24 which means they're counting to midnight."

Hiroko gasped in amazement. "Your cool factor has just went up for me, Mr. Wu."

Wu proudly smirked to himself.

"All he did was Addition." Akira deadpanned.

Yokohama hushed, "Let him have this."

"But wait." Akira thought.

Ayanami saw him gripping an empty water bottle.

"If this Game that coincidentally reminds me of the Black Book is counting to midnight, it would be May 10 by then." Akira sucked in the water bottle, then hid it back realizing. "My birthday. Two days after I read "Something's going to happen in a couple of days. Be prepared, Akira Park.""

"Do you think we should be heading home by now?" Akira asked.

Ayanami stood straighter as the others looked at him.

"Only around two hours left and it's sun down." Akira said.

"Oh, yeah!" Wu wrapped his arm around Hiroko's shoulder, "We have to go on a date before we separate ways!"

"That's sweet." Akira said. "But what about Yokohama Nobuhiko?"

Yokohama looked at him.

"And Ayanami?" Hiroko added. "You do know the three of them ride toge—"

"I am aware they take the same train." Akira said. "Ayanami Asuka and I just have to talk about something for a brief moment prior."

"I promise it won't take long." Ayanami bowed to him, her face smiling sure of it.

"Nobuhi-kun over here can just have the date with us while we wait for Asuka." Wu beamed.

Yokohama stuttered in confusion.

"Do you mean it as a three-way or have him as a third wheel." Hiroko asked Wu.

He replied, "Once Asuka comes I mean it as an orgy."

Hiroko and Wu wheezed and guffawed amongst themselves, hitting each other for "cheating", while Ayanami and Yokohama visually tried to un-hear what just happened.

"What the fuck kind of children are you?" Akira irked a frown.

"Middle schoolers~!" Hiroko and Wu held each other with peace signs and dumb smiles at Akira.

"I—I thought he just saw me as a childhood friend." Yokohama muttered to Ayanami.

"I think they're just immature enough to take innuendos seriously." she replied.

"Anyway, we should get going." Akira said.

Ayanami and Akira gazed at each other.