Takemura Itsuki

“That day, we really played and laughed a lot. I guess we played for like three to four hours as he tried to noob-ly  win the game and I gave him tips, and then he did the exact opposite to just get killed in the game to put up some comedy, but ended up killing the other person instead, and all that stuff we did back then. It’s even hard to imagine how my life must have been if Haruto wasn’t with me all this time, clinging up on me and refusing to give up fighting everyone and everything.”

***

Isekai’d

Written by Dhruv Pabreja

***

The little boy figure of me was running in the night on top of the grass on the plain field hurriedly with my eyes set on the wide well in stood in front of me, my eyes tensed and my forehead sweating. “Ichika! Ichika!” I shouted desperately as I ran. On the top of the well, a figure of a small girl—around my age—started to form up. She had long hairs which covered her eyes and her innocent dark blue clothes were torn, dirty, and horrific. I raised my right hand at her. “Don’t, Ichika!”

Her horrific creepy dark head moved up and she looked at me with her sharp and straight eyes. “Wasn’t it your fault?”

“AAAAAH!” I opened my eyes. I was breathing heavily. As I panted with my chest moving up and down, I turned my eyes below towards my body. I was lying on the ground on the left side of my body with my back tilted inwards towards my legs and my hands tightly held inside my thighs. On my right thigh, which was upon my left thigh, lay the head of Haruto, who too was sleeping with his back and face on my body and his legs spread out towards the television. I moved my head frontwards and looked at the television, where the game still showed a pink background in front of that same dark strong woman with a gun on her shoulder. “Man, it’s still running.” I tightly closed my half-asleep eyes and moved my elbows up and pushed downwards through my hand to move my back up. I then kept my weight on my left straight arm, with my back mid-air, and pushed his shoulder with my right arm. “Goddammit, pal,” I said in my half-sleepy voice. “Get the heck off me.” I shook his shoulder again. Then, I frowned a little with my half-closed eyes, and pushed his body away from my back. I moved my body up and got off him. I looked at him still sleeping a few centimeters away from my feet, and then stood up on the ground. I scratched my messy hair and looked outside the window, which was just in front of me. The sun had set, and there was a little women gossip going on in the road in front of my house. Then, I turned my head left at the television, and then twisted my neck behind me to look at the door. I turned back, and walked out of the room. As I stepped out, Haruto also moved his back up and sat up on the floor, stretching up his arms in the air. He then loosened his arms down and turned his head backward at me. I stood on the doorframe with my weight on the left side of the frame as I drank water from a plastic bottle. “What time is it?”

I moved my bottle down, gulped up, and said, “Around seven.”

At this, his eyes opened wide. He then frowned at me. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, one of my cousin brothers wants us to meet him by seven-thirty,” He said casually as he stood up on his foot. He then looked at me and said, “Let’s go.”

“But why does he wanna meet me?” I asked.

He shrugged as he turned his head downwards and looked at the console. “We needa be by the haunted house before seven-thirty. I don’t wanna be late.”

“Haunted house?” I asked.

“They want us to see something.”

“Damn, man, we used to do this shit when we were, like, eight.”

He walked towards me and stood in front of me. “They really are eight.”

“Wha—?!”

He chuckled with his messy hairs and his half-closed eyes and sleepy mouth. Then, he started walking beside me to the outside of the room. “Let’s get going then, pal.”

***

We both were walking up the steep street covered with lightened houses and streetlights. We both had our eyes up on the right side of the street above us as we walked in our uniforms. “Who knows what these guys are up to,” Haruto commented as he looked at the torn-off ruined dark house which was all black.

“I guess it caught fire, right?” I asked as I looked at it.

“Yeah, and all the family members died.”

“And from that’s where the story of the ‘haunted house’ rose up, right?” I asked as I looked at him.

He nodded as he continued glaring at the house. “Yeah.” I turned my head front again and looked at the approaching house again. A few footsteps of deep suspense and mystery were kept as the patter rose all over the neighbor and not even a single person was outside. “Those guys should not be up there,” Haruto suddenly commented.

I then turned my head at him. “Wait, don’t you dare say that you believe in ghosts.”

“I don’t, pal,” He seriously replied as he turned his eyeballs at me. “But this place still seems scary and off.”

“Only in the nighttime, if you ask me,” I casually replied and turned my head frontwards. “Anyways, let’s see what those kids want us to see. I just hope that it ain’t scary.”

Haruto smiled. “They must be luring us into their trap, you know?”

I turned left at him. “If that’s the case, then Imma give a good slap to all of your brothers and their friends, and no one’s stopping me.”

With both a smile and a frown now on his face, he replied, “They’re just kids, Itsuki.”

“BUT. I. AM. AFRAID. OF. GHOST.” I said on his face. “And I’m the best gamer of the village too, so no one’s playing me, or Imma play them. End of convo.”