Hello and welcome to chapter 8 of "I need you now." :D
(This chapter kinda corresponds to the first part of the Young Exorcist Arc)
Title: "Death's waltz"

Psychological fact: Human behavioral studies suggest that a person who loses their cell phone experiences a panic similar to a near-death experience.

Picture: https://twitter.com/kinako880/status/1254657697045045248
By @kinako880 on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kinako880
Or https://pin.it/es01s59

Enjoy!

Warning, this chapter contains violence and a 'strong' language.

***

"Nii-chan!"

The oldest of the Minamoto heard being called out by the familiar high-pitched voice of his younger brother, Kou. This surprised him a bit as his brother wasn't supposed to be out here yet, the place was still infected by these disgusting and dangerous supernaturals and he didn't want them to lay a finger on him, conscious of the danger of them all. However, instead of getting mad and tell him to go back, Teru only turned around and smiled warmly.

As he expected, Kou threw himself at his big brother with energy, eyes shining like stars.
"Nii-chan you're awesome!" The young Kou squeals, excited. Teru's eyes softened at the compliment.
"Kou, you followed me again? I told you to stay in your room, it's not safe here." But it seems like his comment entered by an ear and disappeared by the other, it was that or either that Kou didn't listen as he completely ignored it.

"Nii-chan, I promise I'm going to be just like you one day!" Kou finally released his brother from his tight embrace and had now his hands balled together near his face, showing his determined face.
"K-"
"I'll even be stronger than you! And we will beat all of the supernaturals together!" The little Kou starts running around while shouting a dreamy future as his brother remained silent.

"I'll be looking forward to it, but if you want to be like me then I'm guessing you will also get straight A's at every one of your tests?" Kou's face dropped.
"Nii-chan, can you NOT talk about grades? You just ruined my whole daydream!" Kou pouts and Teru chuckles, petting his hair.
"I'm just joking, I'm sure you will become stronger one day."

***

"Have you ever heard of the alternate clones?"

"It is said that at dawn, on the rooftop of the old building, if the sky is as clear as water, you will be able to make the wish to go to your dream world. Everything you want to have, to happen, it can all occur, all by using the power of your desire. Isn't it incredible? However, I think you are aware that fulfilling such a demand won't come for free."

"If you ever do go to this dream-world, it would be disturbing for your dimension to work without you, because you may not be aware of it, but you are needed to assure the good continuation of the realm, and to fix this issue, a replacement will take your place in the real world. Your replica will look like you, in such a way that no one will notice you've ever been replaced. Sadly, this only applies to the clone's appearance. Your relatives will notice that something is wrong with your clone sooner or later."

"How? You may ask, this is a simple question for us to answer. The clones may look accurate on how you do, but they take some freedom when it comes to your personality or behavior. More precisely, they will act the contrary to how you normally would.

And the only way for you to come back is to use your reality against the fantasy."

***

Kamome Gakuen, New building.
Rooftop, 10 AM.

It was truly a beautiful day, the birds were singing and the sky was as clear as water, cloudless. Even if she was in the new building, it felt like all of the source of Yashiro's stress was far away. Teachers, students, parents, homework, everything felt like they were miles away while in reality, it was just some meters away.

Yashiro looked up to the sky, her bento on her lap, remaining untouched. The peacefulness of the rooftop and the soft wind that sometimes brushes her face softly put her at peace, yet you would think that she would be anxious about students cornering her here, where no one was here to save her. It's not like she was trying to hide the fact she was going there anyway, everyday she was seen to go up here, murmuring to herself, or else that was what people saw.

But she knew she was safe because Hanako was always here with her.

The phantom was silent this time, usually, he would break in a speech about how Yashiro should stop being fooled so easily by human boys, because in his opinion they all looked like walking trash cans, most of the time it always sounds like he was jealous but it was pretty much impossible. Plus, he is already dead, and while dating an adorable ghost may seem tempting, it would be extremely weird and crazy.

Yashiro grimaces from the thought and quickly shook her head. "What the heck are you thinking Nene?" But she quickly relaxes again when she felt Hanako playing with her hair, he had the habit of doing this for some reason. Maybe it was because her hair was soft against his cold hands and he liked to braid hair, he couldn't remember where did he learn to but it was pretty fun to do so. Especially the aftermath where Yashiro starts whining about how unfair it was that he could braid hair better than she could herself.

The memory made him crack a small smile, that went unnoticed by the human who was humming a melody she heard in class. It was peaceful up here.

The keyword: was.

The door that leads to the rooftop was swung open by a familiar blond boy, carrying a giant staff, and his face wrinkled with determination. The door lets out a pretty loud groan because of the impact with the wall and bounced back to its original place, letting the middle schooler know that he swung it with too much force, it almost slammed Kou's face, who didn't expect that and jumped out of the way like a cat seeing a cucumber.

The loud noise made Yashiro jumped, her shoulders stiffened with alert. Hanako didn't twitch nor felt surprised but instead groaned internally, annoyed that the kid once again ruined their moments alone. He finally got his assistant to relax and then that boy just decides to shatter all of his progress and make her tenses up again. To top of it all, Yashiro never wants him to hug her when he's here, probably because of embarrassment, and it displeases him because he's as affection craving as a pet.

To prevent from Yashiro being uncomfortable, Hanako unwillingly inches away from the human, letting her unfinished braided hair fall against her back. He started to float as Kou eventually recovered from the deep injury made to his pride and started walking towards them, staff menacingly getting closer to Hanako. The circles at the end of his staff let out soft sounds of bells after the staff suddenly went to a stop near Hanako's face.

With a blank smile sticks up to his face, Hanako looked down at him with menacing red eyes as Kou supports his gaze with one filled with disgust and hatred. The look on his face, that look full of repulsion, he knew it way too well and it brings up unwanted memories to flood back up. He may have been upset, but he didn't show anything of it, he was truly a comedian it seems. Also, this kid was starting to remind him of someone that he didn't want to remember, maybe if he could just k—

"Hanako-kun! Kou-kun! Stop this!" Hanako blinked in surprise as he was torn away from his trail of dark thoughts and he turned to look at Yashiro with his glowing amber eyes. She was standing between both of them with her arms outstretched with a scolding expression just like how she did when she first stopped them from fighting or rather, stopped Kou from attacking the poor Hanako who was down.

"What are you two doing?! You cannot start attacking each other the second you see yourselves!" She makes sure to glare at them both and the second oldest from the Minamoto Family frowned, a somehow worried expression on his face.
"But Senpai! He was going to attack-" Yashiro shot him a glare, that immediately shuts him up.

"Would you quit assuming things before you know the whole situation? Hanako-kun wasn't attacking me, he was just playing with my hair that's all." Yashiro closed her eyes after saying this and let her arms fall limp to her side when she made sure the two boys wouldn't start fighting again, she lets out a sigh and looked at the middle schooler with an empathetic face.

"Look Minamoto-kun, I appreciate that you're trying to look out for me but I can assure you that Hanako-kun isn't a bad supernatural and that he wouldn't lay a hand on me." Kou had a doubtful look on his face and stared at Hanako briefly before his attention went back to the high schooler.
"Senpai, there's no such thing as a good supernatural, you can't trust him! And none of us know what's going on inside his head, he is probably manipulating you right now by acting innocent!"
"He's not!"

Hanako bit his lip, not liking the way he was talking about him like he wasn't here and even if they were arguing about him they seem to completely forget his existence and he disliked that even more. He felt selfish for constantly asking for attention but he couldn't help it, if they weren't paying attention to him he had the feeling he wouldn't see them again like they were always under the threat of something or someone and he wanted to spend the most time possible happy.

He was about to space out when he heard the door leading to the exit open, he looked above Kou's and Nene's heads who were still arguing, and 'warnings' immediately filled his eyes and he already had a hand on his knife just in case.

In the shadow of the building, the silhouette of a tall and slim boy could be made out. On the top of the silhouette's head, we could catch sight of spiky blond hair that disappeared to the neck, similar to Minamoto but a bit longer and spikier. In the dark, wrinkled blue eyes could be seen glowing with the sparkle of hatred and murderous intentions. The male was wearing the standard high school division uniform but with a long-sleeved cream-colored blouse with folded black sleeves, however, a particular cloth picked Hanako's interest.

It was a red armband attached to the person's left arm with 'Student Council' written in white on it. If Hanako had any sort of doubt on the identity of this individual it disappeared immediately, after all the only blond-haired part of the Student Council was none other than the Don Juan or also nicknamed 'simp target' by Hanako, Minamoto Teru who is Kou's older brother.

His eyes were fixated on Hanako and he looked at him with a murderous aura, similar to a wolf watching his prey. Hanako couldn't help but feel in danger and he then moved further away from him in instinct, which in his opinion was pretty stupid. After all, he was the leader of the seven mysteries, the most powerful supernaturals in the school and now he was afraid of some random exorcists? Pathetic. He was snapped out of his thoughts when he saw movement coming from him, he was now walking up towards the duo who was still arguing with a smile on his face and eyes filled with kindness, similar to the mask he wore in front of other people.

It seems like he wasn't the only comedian in this school huh?

"Hello, what are you two arguing about?" The sound of his voice made both the high schooler and the middle schooler flinch but when they finally registered who interrupted their arguments, both of their facial expressions lit up.
"Nii-chan!" Kou exclaimed, his eyes glowing with stars and admiration. "What are you doing here?" His excited expression didn't match at all with his precedent one, guess this is also one of this skyscraper's powers.
The younger one then rushed to his side, actively talking about something Hanako didn't bother listening to.

His attention turned to Yashiro, her eyes were also filled with stars, but that warm look of adoration in her eyes irritated Hanako the most. Was she serious about her crush on this guy? Out of everyone, she had to fall in love with the player?
Flowery sweetness filled her nose as she watched him, her thoughts hummed and whispered in her ear, unable to stop the messy bickering of admiration to whistle around, and she couldn't ignore the butterflies covering her whole heart either, all of these sweet yet addictive feelings were related to him and she found herself unable to look away from Minamoto's fading figure.

Hanako craned his neck away from the sight as he flares his nose and frowns slightly, he never felt that kind of feeling before, maybe it was because he never felt any real love before either, or because he didn't want to feel it. Emotions are very complicated to deal with and he knew that better than everyone else.

But he couldn't that he was experiencing the feeling of jealousy for the first time now, he felt ashamed about it too. Why would Yashiro even like him in the first place? He was a ghost, after all, he didn't have any future, and dating or just having romantic feelings for a human was forbidden, pretty sure God will not forgive that sin this time.

***

After classes ended, Yashiro was once again forced to go clean Hanako's bathroom, she was pretty used to it by now but she would rather die than admit that she secretly liked spending time with him and avoiding going home. Don't get her wrong, she liked her pets and wouldn't want them to starve and she wouldn't trade the comfort of her bed for anything but she was quite happy to stay away from her parents as long as possible.

Every time she would enter, Hanako would greet her by tackling her into a hug and make a sarcastic remark on her moody behavior, he also had the habit to always tease her about everything and nothing at the same time, as long as he didn't mention anything about her body, especially the ankles and she was quite thankful for that. But today was strange.

First of all, when she arrived dramatically whining, Hanako didn't make any comments and didn't even make an effort to approach her which made Yashiro raise a brow. He also seemed more distant, keeping his mouth shut and just looking outside the window with a pretty much lost look, which wasn't his happy-go-lucky personality she was used to.

After a few minutes of awkward silence, only disturb by the sound of Yashiro sweeping the floor, the high school girl finally decided to confront the ghost on what was bothering him since it was clear that he wasn't doing well right now. She put the sweep aside on the wall, took out her gloves, and threw them on a sink before making her way towards the supernatural.

The mirage barely had any reactions when she starts walking towards him, he only wore a bored face and merely look up to look at her in the eyes.

"Hanako-kun." A strange mix of a groan and a sigh signaled her that he was listening. "What's wrong with you today? You're acting strangely." Yashiro waited patiently for him to respond, the only way she was going to get an answer from him was to wait for him too, she learned that when hanging out with him. If you push him to answer he's just going to isolate himself more and if you were unlucky, be mad at you for the rest of the day.

"This is none of your business, Yashiro Nene," Hanako growled with an uncharacteristic snarl. The high schooler backed away, taken by surprise by the sudden venom in his tone. This was the very first time that she saw him looking this mad and annoyed, even when he was about to punch someone he would make an effort to try and stay composed but this? This was way out of character.

"D...Did something happened?" She inquires worryingly. Whatever transpired must be very serious, considering his reaction to her concern.

"Do I have to repeat myself? I said it's none of your damn business. Now stop bothering me and continue to do your thing." He hissed through gritted teeth, his glare once again turning back to the sight out in the window. Yashiro felt stabbed, after everything they've been through together, she considered him her friend and immediately assumed that the feeling was mutual, maybe she shouldn't have jumped to conclusions like that.

But even if he didn't consider a friend and barely acknowledges her existence, she was still insisting for him to speak up. He had helped her in her bad moments, it was about time that she does the same, after all, that's the very least she could do to thank him.

However, she didn't expect him to suddenly go from irritated and distant to furious and violent. In a blink, he threw himself at her and wrapped his hands tightly against her throat, squeezing it slightly. Yashiro yelped and clawed her hands on his arm, trying to get away from his grasp in vain. Their bodies fell on the cold ground with a loud thunk, Yashiro's head throbbed in pain at the impact and her hair covered the ground like she was inside a pool of hair.

"You mortals are so easily destroyed. Whatever is it physically or mentally. One little accident would cause your entire existence to fade away, like wood-burning to ashes, one little disagreement with a loved one would completely shatter the vision you have for yourself and the rest of the world. You are all so fucking weak that it is disgusting and not even fun to mess around with." He growled under his breath, his death grip firming more as each second pass.

Yashiro could feel tears threatening to spill, her mouth opening and grabbing any air she could and her attempts to push him away were even more frantic and frequent, the fear and the need of survival desperately fighting back against the threat that was the 14 aged ghost.

"W-What are you--" She sharply inhaled, her vision-obscuring and her throat aching. "Talking about?" His glare hardened and as he was about to speak again, a flash of red blinded her vision and Hanako's grip loosened in shock.

Yashiro's face and clothes were stained in a thick crimson liquid, or more precisely the blood leaking from the knife planted in Hanako's chest, so deeply that it impaled him, the other end of the blade poking out of his flesh. A raw scream escaped Yashiro's pharynx at the gruesome sight.

***

I apologize for the gigantic wait, studies have to come before anything else.
So hope that you enjoy this chapter, I had a lot of fun writing it even though I had a lot of struggles to do so.

See you in the next chapter.