Let's Dance with Ghost Stories, and You Dance on the Stairs Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Debut of the Curse

TLed by: TanoshiKara

The event is over, thank you for your participation! I hope you enjoyed it.

It seems like a police's work is a grueling one. ...Or perhaps it is an officer's that is the grueling one. Aunt Yuka always returns home late at night. It is customary in my family for my father to welcome her back and have her accompany him for some late-night drinks. And, as usual, I would coop in my room right after my meal. I would then go to sleep while hearing the seemingly merry laughter of my father and my aunt.

However, she immediately went upstairs when she returned home that day. It was clear that my aunt, who would usually take a shower immediately after getting back, seemed to be in a hurry. Realizing the reason immediately, my heart skipped a beat.

"Tomohiro-kun? It is Aunt Yuka. Can I come in?"

"U-Uh sure. Go ahead."

"Sorry for coming in when you're studying! Tomohiro-kun is a student from the Second Shishibone Middle School, correct?"

"...Y-Yeap...That's right...?"

"It seems like there was a report today about a suspicious individual entering the classrooms; You know anything!?"

...I never would have imagined that our prank would get reported to the police.

Were we too mischievous...? 

I did feel a tinge of anxiousness but there was no evidence whatsoever. She has not said that I am the culprit based on the evidence gathered.

Also, didn't I start this because I wanted to experience this sort of thrill...? I got back some of my composure after remembering this.

When I heard the details from Aunt Yuka, I found that it did not seem to be that big of a deal.

There were many scribbles of the word 'Bone' on the blackboards of six classrooms. (Of course, these acts were all done by us.) The school initially thought that it was a student's prank, but the doubt of whether the culprit would go out of their way to commute to school early in the morning made them suspect that it might be an oddball, so they reported this to the police through the Board of Education just in case. So it is not like the police will start an investigation because an incident occurred...or so it seems. There is no doubt that my aunt did a little snooping around in the station regarding this report.

To think talking about the prank I did without me being found out would be this intriguing and funny----I have come to know the taste of the Forbidden Fruit.

......However, there is no guarantee that I will not get found out. I will certainly not get suspected during the time I was in school, but my parents know that this morning was the only morning that I woke up and went out early due to the 'circumstances with my friends'. Realizing that I am in danger of being found out through someone unexpectedly close to me, I finally understood that the situation is one that I could not be overly optimistic about...

"I was sleeping so I didn't notice but...Tomohiro-kun left for school quite early this morning I heard?"

.........She went for the heart of the matter without warning. Although I prepared myself for this, my heart still skipped a beat.

......Don't tell me, don't tell me......I will get found out all of a sudden......!?

I cursed at my own foolishness as if it was all too late. Now that I thought about it, this was only natural, there was ample chance that the police would catch wind of it if we were pulling such a large-scale prank. It should have been possible for me to foresee that my aunt would then hear of it and it would get traced back to me.

However......scribbling on the blackboard is on the level of a prank. Isn't it on the level where a sorry will do? It is not like I will get apprehended..., or so I process in my mind when I begin to feel that this questioning by my aunt is an extension of our game.

Damn...I wonder why I am so cowardly......I won't become an outstanding man...if I am this nervous after playing a prank of this level... There is nothing to be afraid of. On the contrary, I must enjoy this tension......

I breathed out slowly, driving the nervousness out of my lungs. I feel that my heart is now slightly calmer.

"Yes. I had made some plans with a friend from the soccer club who had morning practice. We discussed about borrowing stuff......yeah. ......There is no way I would do something like scribble on the blackboard......"

......It might have been better if I made it simpler...Am I being too obvious by claiming my innocence......?

This period of one to two seconds felt extremely long to me. Just when I was about to cover up a poor lie with another because I could not bear the nervousness, my aunt broke into a radiant smile. If anything, I was shocked as I did not expect this reaction.

"Ahahahah! Sorry, sorry, you have it wrong Tomohiro-kun. I am not saying that Tomohiro-kun might be the culprit, I only asked because you went to school early so I thought that you may have passed the suspicious individual. Aunt Yuka isn't suspicious of Tomohiro-kun~!! Did you think I was? Did you? A-ah, I'm sorryyy!!"

......My aunt is not two-faced so she is probably telling the truth.

As expected, I sure am cowardly, or so I thought.

There is no doubt that I am not suited for carrying out evil deeds.

My inflexibility felt somewhat pathetic when I had this thought. 

What will I do if I cannot see a prank of this scale through?, or so I thought, slightly frustrated.

"Aunt Yuka is an officer after all... It is normal for me to think that...I am being suspected."

"Aah, sorry, sorry! Don't be offended by that okay!" Aunt Yuka said with her hand around my neck, laughing as if she was trying to gloss over it.

My face was pressed against Aunt Yuka's huge chest, causing my heart to race. I wish Aunt Yuka would be slightly more aware that she is a young woman.

"Umm, I'm really sorry! So, how about it Tomohiro-kun? Did you see some suspicious person you have never seen before?"

"No. Not at all."

"......Hmmmmmm. I seeee."

"I do think that a school is not a place that strangers can enter easily...Isn't it a prank by someone in school...?"

"Well, it is natural to think like that. .........That means, as I suspected, the culprit is an insider huh..."

Her face stiffened. A stern expression, totally different from the aunt that fooled around earlier. ......There is no doubt that this is Aunt Yuka's true nature, no...Officer Miyajima's true self.

Aunt Yuka muttered to herself as she crossed her arms and circled around my room.

"Then, the culprit is probably...someone who is a lot closer to Tomohiro-kun's age than mine..."

"T......That is what it comes down to I guess"

"'Bone, Bone, Bone, Bone'......Do you know what this means?"

"Eh? W-What are you talking about..."

"Well, I said it earlier right? The word 'Bone' was scribbled on the blackboard of six classrooms. There are kids going through puberty that vent their frustration on the school. It is not rare for them to break the glass on school grounds or vandalize school property. However, words like 'Stupid' or 'Idiot'1, when written in Katakana, have fewer strokes and should have been easier to write. Even so, the culprit favored 'Bone' and wrote it; A word with many strokes, and is hard to write. I do think that they wrote 'Bone' because it had some sort of meaning. ......Tomohiro-kun, I do not know anything because I am an adult but don't you know something? Something like a slang that only kids know or some trend...Anime or Manga...I feel that the answer lies there though."

".........Erm............Who knows............"

"I thought so. ...I wonder what it means. But, 'Bone, Bone, Bone' is also creepy. It would be nice if it does not hint at something bad though."

"...Doesn't it have no meaning? I think that it is just an eccentric prank and it does not have any special meaning."

"That is not the case. There is a meaning. For sure."

An almost immediate reply. ...While it was intriguing how she was so perceptive even though she did not see the scene first-hand, it was also creepy.

"......W...Why do you say that?"

"When you line up the affected classrooms on the school map, you will discover that the affected classrooms are quite a distance from one another. In other words, the chances are high that several culprits split the work and did the act. Dispersing on campus, they confirmed that there was nobody before scribbling in each of the classrooms closest to them. I didn't see so I don't know, but I think the scribble's penmanship in each classroom is probably different."

"Well, that is true......writing the word Bone is quite hard after all. There was probably insufficient time for a single culprit to do it in six classrooms... But how do you know from this that there is a meaning to the word 'Bone'?"

"Multiple culprits writing the set word 'Bone' means that they had a shared motive for why they had to write 'Bone'. In other words, these are not mere scribbles, but an agreement that they had to write 'Bone'. This means that, in other words, 'Bone' meant something to them. I don't know what sort of motive they had for them to attempt to appeal by using the word 'Bone' though. ............Is it an appeal that they are a biker gang or a band of thieves? There are those biker gangs that leave their name as marks around town right? Is it like this I wonder? Bone Bone Gang or something. Guess I should ask the juvenile division..."

"....................."

............I thought that my aunt was not as skilled but she is quite impressive. The scale was quite huge to be called silly, but it falls into the category of a prank nevertheless, so it was impressive that she was able to analyze it to this degree from a mere report, without even looking at the scene...

Is this what an officer is like?

I honestly respect my aunt. ...Of course, behind that respect is also fear of that creepy perceptiveness of hers.

At the same time, I also think that it is ironic. After all, the culprit is right in front of her and she is revealing her deductions to that very culprit. There is nothing more ironic and thrilling than this. ...A feeling that even culprits in detective fiction cannot experience.

Of course, I do think that it would be troublesome if I were to get found out. But it ends there. It is impossible for professional officers like Aunt Yuka to start an investigation. The police only investigate incidents. They are too busy to bother with a prank that happened at a school.

That is why it is meaningless for my aunt to show off her deduction skills in my room. Indeed. When I think about it calmly, there is no reason for me to be afraid of my aunt's deduction skills. The more I ponder over this, the more of my composure I regain and the more leeway I gain to enjoy this situation.

That is why......this is a prank. Not a crime. My aunt is only teasing me...

"...Ah......That's right Aunt Yuka. ...Ah, but...I guess it is not related......"

"Hm? What is it, Tomohiro-kun? Tell me if something caught your attention"

"Well...I'm sorry if it's totally unrelated. ...I'm also not sure if I heard this from someone...It's probably a baseless rumor but... Do you know the 'Curse of The Bone'...?"

"Eh, what? What is...the Curse of The Bone?"

It is what we decided on but...it really is a dumb name.

My aunt now has a dubious expression on her face due to the dumb ring it had, even so, it is definitely not an expression that suggests that she is not interested in the details............

1 - These are バカ (ba|ka) and アホ (a|ho) respectively. These have way fewer strokes than Bone, which is 骨 (ho|ne).

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Feel free to comment/pm me if you find any mistakes. Thank you very much for reading, I hope you enjoyed the chapter. You can go to the next chapter through the link at the top, but be wary, one is a treat, but the other is a trick!!