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Whenever her classmates gossiped about famous celebrities or handsome male leads on TV, Mafuyu never felt much interest, if at all. In the past, she'd chalked it up as being uncaring - it's not like her mother would allow her to care about anything but her grades. But, recently, she's found herself drawn to people of the same gender. The glances she would sneak at Hinomori-san during practice, the way her line of sight rests a little too long on Kanade's beauty, Mizuki's cheeky grins, or Ena's face, burning with infuriation.
So here she is, on a Nightcord call with the other members of her music group, about to confess her findings - it's strange, her hands are sweating, and there seems to be a surplus of butterflies in her stomach. She bites her tongue, swallowing her hesitation down her throat.
"I... I think I'm gay," Mafuyu says, her heart beating much faster than what she's used to.
"Yeah, no shit," Ena bluntly replies. "Have you ever seen yourself in a mirror?"
"Calm down, Ena," Kanade smiles. "We're proud of you for trusting us - you'll always have a place with us."
Momentary relief crashes over Mafuyu, but what's frightening is that Mizuki hasn't said a single word. In fact, their camera isn't open, their mic's been muted the entire time. It's obviously the antithesis of what they usually are - Mafuyu would've expected them to crack a joke or give a smug smile at this point, but they haven't. She doesn't want to jump to the worst-case scenario just yet, but the evidence that there's some part of Mizuki that's unaccepting or uncomfortable about her confession is still a possibility.
It's like Schrodinger's cat: until the box is opened, there's an equal chance of the cat being alive or dead. Mafuyu doesn't want to know the answer on the off chance that it's negative, but at the same time, there's some part of her that desperately wants to know, to hope that maybe, maybe that her fears are unfounded.
"Amia...?"
It takes a few seconds for them to unmute, the sound effect acting like the slams of a gavel before a verdict.
"Ah, yeah, hey, Mafuyu," Mizuki says, oddly panicky, voice half drowned out by some generic American pop song, "that's cool, but... oh, SHI—"
A screech, a thump, and shaky breaths are what Mafuyu hears before Mizuki speaks again.
"I just hit someone with my car."
"You what?!" Ena screeches, not unlike the prior sound of car tires swerving.
Kanade flinches at the high pitch coming out of her headphones. "Ow..."
"Oops, sorry, K," Ena apologizes sheepishly. "Besides, Amia, I never even knew you had a driver's license."
"Yeah, about that... I don't?"
"Haah? What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well, if I passed the test to get a license, I wouldn't have hit that person in the first place," Mizuki mutters.
"Then why were you driving in the first place?"
"Look, if there was a gold bar on the street, you wouldn't hesitate to pick it up, right?"
"Get to the point," Ena replies, unimpressed.
"Now, uh, replace that gold bar with an unlocked car with the keys still in..."
"Did you fucking commit a carjacking?!"
"Carjacking is such an ugly word, I pref—"
"Amia?" Kanade interjects. "I think you should check up on the person you hit."
"Right, yeah, good idea." Mafuyu hears the sound of a seatbelt unzipping and a door being opened through the low-quality phone microphone.
"Oh my god," Mizuki says, aghast.
"What?"
"Oh my fucking god. I just hit Hanasato Minori."
Mizuki coughs. "So, um, who wants to help me hide a body?"
___
Given the empty white space, the black geometric constructs, and the five girls looking down at the body of another girl, it looks a little like a cult - perhaps one that sacrifices virgin girls to their god. But, no, it's not a cult. It's just the consequences of Mizuki getting behind the wheel.
The girls stare down at the dead body.
"Do you guys think she'll sign my photocards?"
"What do you think , Mizuki?"
"Yeah, yeah, stupid question," Mizuki sighs.
"Why'd you bring her into the SEKAI, anyway?" Ena asks, before narrowing her eyes. "We are not going to throw her here for the rest of time."
Mizuki puts a hand to their heart, huffing out mock betrayal. "I would never! I just think it would look awfully suspicious if we did this in the real world!"
Ena groans.
"Basically, you need to dispose of this body?" Kanade says, her face paling. "Are you sure she won't... haunt us because of it?"
"H-Haha, come on, ghosts aren't real," Ena says. Her nervous laughter doesn't seem to help, surprisingly.
"Okay, that's enough ghost talk," Mizuki interrupts, unsubtly hinting at the dead body. "Who here is good at hiding bodies?"
Three pairs of eyes land upon Mafuyu. "Why are you looking at me," Mafuyu says. "Says," not "asks," because she already knows the reasoning: Mizuki forced them to play a game where they had to vote on who fit a specific category the most a while back, and she won "Most likely to get away with murder" (Ena won "punches children for fun," she tied with Kanade for "fashion war criminal" and Mizuki won "most likely to snort cocaine if it was mango flavoured").
"Wink, wink," Mizuki says, instead of actually winking.
Mafuyu wants to beat her head against the wall.
___
"I never knew you owned a body bag," Kanade says.
"I convinced my mother that it would be useful for getting into medical school."
"I... see."
Sliding on her gloves, Mafuyu takes out a cloth, wiping down Minori's clothes and skin, smearing any fingerprints to make them unidentifiable. Pulling a knife from her bag, she lines it up with the left knee, and—
"Mafuyu, what the fuck are you doing?" Ena exclaims, utterly horrified.
"Disposing of the body?"
"With a knife?"
Mafuyu stares at Ena like how one would look at a child having a tantrum, or how one would tell off a dog that they cannot have the delectable chocolate bar in their owner's hand.
"Dismembering the body allows you to get rid of individual body parts, making the entire process much easier."
"Dismembering?" Kanade repeats, her face paling, slowly blending in with her hair.
"Yes, chopping and separating the joints into smaller parts like the legs, the arms, the torso, and the head, for example." With each passing word, Kanade's face turns greener and greener.
"K, are you alright?"
Kanade promptly falls to her knees and vomits. It's only the action of vomiting, as nothing comes out of her mouth except for a weak wheeze.
"Oh, I must have forgotten to eat again..." she coughs, nearly choking on her spit.
"I think we shouldn't go with this route," Mizuki changes the topic. "Plus, getting blood everywhere would be pretty annoying to clean up."
Acquiescing, Mafuyu puts the knife away and slides the body bag over. "Then, the next option would be to dispose of the dead body intact, then."
The rest of Nightcord hesitantly walks up, grabbing the body bag.
"We won't get cursed by her vengeful spirit, will we?" Kanade mumbles.
"It's fine, Kanade," Mizuki says, "ghosts aren't real." On the surface, their words are meant to soothe Kanade, but there's a little bit of doubt laced in their mutterings as if they didn't completely believe what they said.
Opening the body bag, Mafuyu carefully slides the dead body in, head first. It's when the dead body is halfway in the bag when her hand gently takes hold of its wrist. Wait, there's still a pul—
"H-Huh? Where am I?!" The alive body jolts up, ramrod straight, hands uselessly trying to pry the bag off.
A thump. Mizuki shrieks. Ena shrieks. The alive body shrieks.
"It's a g-ghost!" Mizuki screams. "It's taking revenge on us for desecrating its body!"
"D-Do something about it! Get it away!" Ena yells, jumping behind Mizuki, hands grabbing their shoulders tightly.
"Okay, okay!" Mizuki's hands scramble in their pocket, unsheathing a weapon - their phone. Taking it, they exorcise (beat) the alive body on its head repeatedly. "B-Begone, foul beast! Go back to whence you came!"
"What-ow! I'm-ow! Not a beast-ow! I don't-ow! even know-ow! where I am-OW!"
The alive body falls back to the ground. Mizuki gives a few more swings onto the head, just in case. Ena then lightly kicks the body to be certain that it's stopped moving.
Mizuki's breaths slow down, recovering the hyperventilation they had from screeching their vocal cords off.
"By the way," Mafuyu says, after the other two girls calm down, "she was never dead."
"What."
"When I was putting her into the bag, I felt a faint pulse before she woke up," Mafuyu looks back down towards the unmoving body bag. "Though, considering your violent assault, I think she's dead now."
"Oh my fucking god, Mizuki, you're a murderer. You're going to get arrested and sent to jail!"
It takes barely a second before tears start streaming down Mizuki's face, staining their makeup and dripping down their chin. Unadulterated wails of anguish fill the Empty SEKAI. "I don't want to go to jail, E-Ena! I'm too young and too pretty and too cute and too busy saving for the event I want to tier on in 2 weeks to eat gruel and wear u-ugly bright orange prison clothing for the rest of my life!"
"...That's your main concern?"
"H-Hmph," Mizuki sniffs, "not like I'd expect you to u-understand."
"Why, you—"
Mizuki continues to sob, partially on purpose, as they bury their face into Ena's shoulder. Given the height difference between the two, they have to awkwardly bend their legs to do so.
Ena sighs, pulling Mizuki into a hug and patting their back. "There, there. This is all your fault and you honestly kind of deserve it, but I'll be sure to visit you in prison often." Mizuki cries harder.
Tearing her eyes away from the spectacle, Mafuyu turns her attention to the dead body halfway in the body bag. Time to finish the job.
Mafuyu continues shoving the dead body into the bag.
There's a feeling of déjà vu when she grabs the dead body's wrist, and feels a weak pulse, yet again.
Addendum: Mafuyu continues shoving the alive, but unconscious body into the bag.
Feeling a gaze on her, Mafuyu looks up, only to be met with Mizuki's eyes. In the few minutes since she last saw them, they somehow managed to look into even more of a wreck. The pout on their face - one she's seen too much - makes it obvious that they're fishing for words of comfort.
If this was the "good girl" persona of hers, Mafuyu would probably say something like: "Don't worry, she's not dead," but fueled by a mélange of annoyance, spite, and what's probably pettiness, she instead says: "I'm not giving you an alibi when the police knock on your door."
Mizuki's face falls, becoming even more downcast, and they let out an uncharacteristic whimper. For some reason, the sight makes a little part of her chest feel warm.
Zipping up the body bag, making sure there's enough of a gap for the alive, but unconscious body to get enough air, Mafuyu pulls up Composing the Future on her phone. Given the current state of the body, it's unreasonable to deliver it to its home - not like she knows where it lives in the first place. She could ask Hinomori-san, but that would only add needless suspicion, and she doubts she would get a response at this time of the day.
...There's no need to think so much about it; she can always blame Mizuki.
She's about to pause Composing the Future when she sees Mizuki, eyes drowned in a sea of tears, trip over Kanade's fainted body (oh, so that's where she was). She almost laughs.
___
Mafuyu joins voice chat a few minutes before 1 AM, only to be met with the only other person in the call singing along to some sort of idol song while crying. It sounds terrible. "Yuki," Mizuki sulks, "finally, you're her—" She deafens the call.
Amia - 12:49 AM
wait
wait
@Yuki undeafen pls
@Yuki @Yuki @Yuki
:'(
How annoying. Exhaling deeply, she undeafens.
"Yuki," Mizuki says, disappointment clear in their voice, "Did you see the new announcement?"
"Why would I?" she responds. She doesn't know what Mizuki's talking about, but she doesn't care.
"Ugh, MMJ just said Minori wouldn't be on streams for the time being because of an injury. Life is horrible , Yuki. Horrible, I tell you!" they bemoan.
"You have my condolences, Amia," Mafuyu says, as sweetly as she possibly can. "Apparently, a teacher found her in front of Miyamasuzaka Girls' Academy, with bruising to her ribs and a concussion due to blunt force trauma attacks on the head. The police initially thought that she was mugged, but since none of her belongings were taken, their hypothesis was suspecting a zealous fan tried to kidnap her."
"A-Aha, I wonder who could've done that..."
Oddly enough, Mafuyu can't help but feel her lips twist upwards in response to Mizuki's denial, not unlike when Mizuki tripped yesterday or sobbed when informed of their prison sentence. It's a strange sensation, but it's not unpleasant. This must be what happiness feels like - a gentle heat that spreads throughout your body caused by the pain of others.
Even if Mizuki might be loud and irritating all the time, if they can help her experience more happiness, then...
"Amia," Mafuyu says, the anticipation of a smile resting on her face, "can you hit more people with your car?"