Suzuki Tadashi

PAT. PAT. PAT. CRANKKKKK. The door opened mysteriously, making that eerie noise as it opened. I popped my face out from the other side of the door. “H-Hello…?” I said, a little nervously. The place was dark. The lower part of the crescent moon was hidden inside the dark clouds in the dark sky, which was empty of the stars of the night. I gulped in, a drop of sweat running down my neck. My forehead too was full of sweat because of the heat of the night. My eyes were confident, but with a little pinch of fear in them. “I-Is anyone here?” I announced inside. I looked at the lines of doors on my left with a little square cut out on top of the doors. From the cut square of the third one, I noticed a tail of a horse suddenly whipped on the ground as it slept. I then turned my head to the front, looking at the end of the stable. I then turned my head to a little left, and noticed a mountain of hay on the left corner of the wide corridor of the stable. From the other side of the stable, I looked at the right arm of a man being stretched. The man then kept his visible right hand on the ground, moved his body to the right, turned his head backward, and looked at me. With his narrowed uninterested eyes directly looking into my nervous ones, he asked, “Why the hell are you here at this time of the night, dumbass?!”

“S-Sir, I-I need a place to stay for the n-nig—”

“What?!” He shouted irritably. “I didn’t hear ya!”

“S-Sir, I-I…” I closed my fists tightly, and then raised my voice a little. “I-I need a place to spend the night!” I bowed down. “Can you please let me stay with you for the night? I can pay and I can work too!”

The man with a black messy beard, mustache, and hair looked into my eyes, and then turned his head down, pushed up on the ground, stood up, and walked towards me. With his uninterested narrowed eyes fixed on my bowed figure, he walked and stood right in front of me, his hands on his waist. “Then get me food tomorrow morning. Got it? And then clean the shit of the horses. The more time you’re ready to work for me, the more nights you can spend here. How’s that?”

I moved my grinning head up. “Thank you, sir!”

“Now, lemme sleep right now.” He then turned his head backward, walked back to the mountain of hay, and crouched on the right of the hay, bending his body downward and then slowly lying on the hay. “This is not really a good bed, but you can lie on any other mount of hay. There’s a lot more in the stable,” He announced from the other side of the hay.

I smiled.

“Good that everything’s going right until now.”

***

Takemura Itsuki

“Here,” I said, extending the piece of paper in my right hand.

The old hand of the other guy got hold of the paper and moved it towards him. He turned his head down and looked at the paper. “Takemura Itsuki, huh?” He said as he read the paper. I nodded my head a little.

Kurayami suddenly patted my back. “Is this alright, sir?” He asked him.

“Yeah,” The receptionist replied as he turned his eyes at us. “Twenty seventh, alright?”

“Alright,” Kurayami replied with a smile, pushed my back towards the right as he turned, and the two of us started to leave. He pushed open the door, and we two stepped out, and the door closed behind us. Kurayami, on the dark street, turned to the right. “So, how was the experience?” He asked with a smile as he started to walk.

“Normal,” I replied.

***

“Katsuki, where is the hero?” A feminine figure asked Katsuki. Her eyes were streamlined and serious. She had her arms crossed in front of her chest. “I’m gonna take the matter into my own hands.”

Katsuki’s eyes were narrowed, with a little bit of anger, as he looked at the woman just her age of twenty. “Even I don’t know, Akira.”

“You should have known.”

***

“Yeah… I should have…” Katsuki thought as he walked through the lighted wide corridor of the castle. The white marble all around him was lighted with the orange fire on the lanterns hanging on top of the corridor. As he aggressively walked with his narrowed eyes, he thought, “Fuck that girl! Trying to look down on me!”

“I’m gonna get the hero soon and make him lick my shoes, just as I said.”

***

Takemura Itsuki

“Twenty seventh,” I thought as we entered inside from the backside of the restaurant. Kurayami turned right on the corridor while I turned left. I quickly walked through the corridor, turned right at the last door of the corridor, pushed it open, and walked inside. The door closed behind my back. I turned to the left and looked at the single bed in the corner of the small room. With my footsteps echoing all around, I stepped towards the bed. PAT. PAT. PAT. PAT. I turned back. My butts fell on the bed. I turned my head up, looking at the lantern hanging in the middle of the room, giving faint orange light to the dark brown wooden ceiling and walls. With my hands resting in the middle of my thighs, I turned my face down and looked at my fingers, loosely crossing each other. “I’m gonna be at the competition soon,” I thought. “It’s the best time I gain some more power and become the best warrior in the whole city. Even if I fail, I’m gonna meet the best one in the city and learn a shit or two from him. I gotta make it up this time. I gotta be the best of the best. I gotta defeat everyone at the field.” I opened the fingers wide and looked at my loosely opened palm. “Can I do it?”