Let's Dance with Ghost Stories, and You Dance on the Stairs Chapter 7
Chapter 7
The Bone Bomb's Up Next!
TLed by: TanoshiKara
Seeing as my aunt heard about it as well, it seems like the 'Scribbling the word ‘Bone’ on the blackboard of multiple classrooms' incident had more of an impact than we expected.
However, the most the rumors in school went up to was that some weirdos went around and did weird things; There was still little interest in the word 'Bone'. Of course, after we carefully considered the result of this strategy, we concluded that it was better to press on with the 'Paranormal Phenomena' without pause.
We had already scribbled on the blackboards. There would be no impact even if we did the same thing twice or thrice. We needed another form of special effect this time
What was the Curse of The Bone like again? Lots of bones go ‘Bawawaaa’. ...That was what we decided on.
Scatter bones around the school? But what bone do we use?
"It’ll obviously be bad if it's a human's and we probably won't be able to get them anyway."
"Or rather, any sort of bone, even if it's not a human's, is hard to get in the first place. No choice but to diligently gather fried chicken bones, I guess."
"...We wouldn't be here if we were blessed with pocket money to buy fried chicken. We'd be playing games at some arcade."
" "No doubtttt, ahahahah!" "
How about scattering papers with bone written on them? That is less impactful than scribbling on the blackboards..., or so we chatted while wandering aimlessly around the shopping district.
There is no doubt that the people who visit to offer money will realize that we were the instigators if we gather at the Tanuki Shrine. ...That was why we had to leave the Tanuki Shrine for a while.
Any bone's fine. Should we go through a fried chicken shop's trash...? But that sure is pathetic......, or so we were brooding over this problem when it was quickly resolved.
That was because there was a plastic bag full of bones inside the trash bin behind a butcher's shop. I did not know whether they were cow or chicken bones, but we could take as much as we wanted for free. Additionally, they were even kind enough to write 'Please take as much as your heart desires'. ......Perhaps people who owned dogs took the bones home as pet food.
Since Tooru's house was close by, we had him bring us some supermarket plastic bags before scooping up a reasonable amount of them.
"......Ugh...disgustingg..."
"Well, but you know, it’d be quite scary if these were lying around the school huh!"
"Don't even know the origin of these bones after all! The girls might just cry if they come in the morning and find these in their shoe locker."
In the end, we went with the plan of splitting these bones, bringing them to school, and planting them at places we each thought were optimal. We, unexpectedly, had never been more into it ever since the lock cracking; It complemented well with the special forces roleplaying. In other words, the setting was that these bones were time bombs and we were to secretly plant them in the enemy base. Of course, we could not afford to be discovered.
We carried out an ambush early in the morning during the previous Blackboard Plan, so we were a little nervous, but we went undetected.
That was why the plan would take place during the day this time. The school would be crawling with enemies on the lookout for suspicious activity. Also, the commissioned officers (teachers) had stepped up their surveillance of the first floor... That was already enough for a situation. At this stage, even the bones we hated to touch became like toys to us; Like silver pellets of a pellet gun.
We were going to sneak them to school, so bones that were too big were not fit for this. Rather than big bones the size of fried chicken bones, bones like a Karaage's1 were desirable. Also, the dirtied bones were filthy as is, so they would no doubt stain our uniforms when we placed them in our pockets. Due to that, we rinsed them at the park's tap and dried them by wrapping tissue paper around them. It could be said that this process was part of the game, no, that this was part of the plan. We made amply sure that there was no one before gathering at the park's watering hole to carefully prepare the bone bombs.
The next day. We each snuck three to four bones, wrapped in tissue paper, to school. The bump of our pockets seemed to stand out like a sore thumb to us, who knew what its contents were, maximizing the thrill we felt from the get-go.
"...I guess smaller bones would have been safer."
"No, that's a no-go fox. They must be huge bombs or they’ll lack the potency! You know, if there were larger bones, I would have tried bringing them by securing them to my legs using masking tape."
"Whoa, what's that, ain't that cooolll!!"
"Everyone, finish planting all the bombs by today! Do not fail! Do not get discovered!"
"The surveillance will get that much more stringent should the bombs get discovered. Be cautious everyone!"
"That said, it’s meaningless to plant them at places where no one would find them... Sure is hard."
"Sure is. Planting them at the most optimal spots without getting discovered... It’s time for each of us to show off our abilities!"
Just like that, we carried out the 'Curse of The Bone' one after another. Everyone was spreading rumors that the culprits were among the students, but with no one able to pinpoint the culprits and understand their creepy motives, only its depiction as a paranormal phenomenon spread like wildfire.
Students came to school in the morning to find several bones in their shoe locker; To find several bones under their classroom desks; To even find several bones stuffed into their bags.
The boys made a fuss, pressing the others about who did it, and some of the girls even started crying. Everyone hated for the 'Bone' to get to them and the 'Bone' was now treated like the joker of Old Maid. Once it was known that a person's desk had the bone, someone would start shouting that it was the 'Curse of The Bone' and everyone would back away as if they were running away from something filthy. It was seen as a keyword for bullying, the student body grew more and more prejudiced against the word 'Bone'. In time, there were even people who secretly passed them on to someone else when the bones got to them, much like the joker of Old Maid.
...People will bully me when they know I have the 'Bone', so I should leave them at someone else's desk before someone notices—that kind of reason.
It only stopped at that at first, but, as we had hoped, it slowly came to harbor bad luck. When the 'Bone' ended up at someone's side, the air around them became much like one when misfortune suddenly struck. It seemed like the students, who were about to turn their attention to their entrance exams, had seen this as an omen, treating the 'Bone' like a symbol of misfortune, they bore exceptional hatred towards its sudden appearance.
Before anyone knew, the setting that every 'Bone' stuffed into one's desk equates to a zero-point-one decrease in their deviation score was created.
I don’t know who started that rumor.
There were even others such as one would never be able to get a girlfriend and one would get injured within three days; Many curses were being created one after the other and added to the 'Curse of The Bone' all on their own.
Indeed, the 'Curse of The Bone' that we created had started developing little by little It was at this time that we realized; Realized that middle school, no, the third year of middle school is the easiest year for curses to take root and the easiest environment for them to develop.
We were not interested in studying, so we did not pay it any mind, but......no, we would realize it whether we liked it or not after a few months. From the start, our year already felt a sort of built-up pressure from the entrance examinations, the first huge turning point we faced in our lives. Everyone had felt the acute fear of being separated by the colossal hierarchical society known as Japan.
I wouldn’t want to be in the so-called 'Losing Group', or so everyone thought subconsciously and feared.
Some people studied diligently to be free from that fear; Some avoided studying to run away from the fear.
It was still the start of spring, so everyone's expressions were bright, their faces still able to break into a smile, but......their hearts were most likely filled with fear.
It might be that everyone sought the form of that invisible stagnation from 'Bone', the visible symbol of misfortune; Might be that they were replacing the invisible threat, trying to drive them away, with the visible 'Bone', believing that successfully running away from the 'Bone' meant that they have successfully escaped from the threat.
That was the very definition of what could also be called primordial religion. Superstition, delusion, prejudice, being caught up in omens, the individual's very own rule. It had countless names, but......there was not a single difference between every one of them.
In that sense, there was no doubt that, compared to whichever stage of life, the middle school environment, where people reach puberty and their life's very first checkpoint at the same time, stands out as a nervous breeding ground where it is easy for people to blindly believe in curses.
Well, I was able to analyze this so calmly because I was on the outskirts of this 'Curse'.
To them, this misfortune phenomenon permeating throughout the school was, from our perspective, like them dancing on the palm of our hand...I see, this was more ironic and interesting than I had imagined.
Well then, if it does gradually progress according to plan, I would look forward to the 'Romanticism' part that we had planned initially.
Romanticism, in other words......the offering box. ‘If you were cursed, you must put money into the Tanuki Shrine's offering box’—This sentence was one that no one paid any mind to at first. However, when students see the curse, gradually permeating, and the pressure they feel before the entrance exams, that feels like it would slowly crush them, as signs...They would be drawn to it, seeing it as a means of escape. Entrance exam takers are caught up in superstition from the start: like their obsession with the Academic Success charm. That is why they would probably think that putting money into a shrine's offering box, as the correct way to escape from the curse, has quite the legitimacy to it.
It was around this time that......the first student to throw a ten yen coin into the offering box appeared.
However, the number of people was not as much as we had hoped. It was on the frequency where it was uncertain if there would even be two people per week.
However......the tide was in our favor. It was an event we had never planned for—the Shishibone Mayor Election.
Ahh, the election has started again, so it is gonna get noisy, or so we thought as we saw the wooden signboards, placed all over town during the election.
...However, we did not expect that it would link back to the 'Curse of The Bone'.
When someone gets cursed with the 'Curse of The Bone', many bones will go *bawawaaa*. ......That actually happened.
Election posters were plastered close to one another all around town. Their messages went as follows: 'For Shishibone City's bright future'; 'Shishibone City, Town of Smiles and Longevity'; 'A Shishibone municipal government for the Shishibone people!'.
...The town was overflowing with the word 'Bone', so much so that it was flabbergasting. And, another ironic coincidence met this one. This was the one that was nasty.
How was it nasty? One was sure to know if they lent their ear to that annoying campaign car's announcement: 'This is Takashi Honekawa, Takashi Honekawa. For Shishibone City's bright future! Takashi Honekawa, Takashi Honekawa!', 'Born in Shishibone, raised in Shishibone! This is Shishibone's Honekawa, thank you very much! Please vote for Shishibone's Juuzou Honekawa!'
There were rare cases when the ruling and opposition parties each backed a candidate with the same family name and they clashed with each other in votes. ...My goodness, two individuals, with an uncommon family name like Honekawa, came forward as candidates this time.
The word 'Bone' was plastered all over the election posters around town. Both candidates seemed to have come up with the catchphrase: 'The bone in Shishibone is the bone in Honekawa2'. Anyway, it became an election campaign with 'Bone' at every corner.
The students attending school were bombarded with 'Bone' from their commute to school to their trip back; The campaign cars on the road chanted 'Bone' even during class.
That was the very definition of the 'Curse of The Bone'. Being surrounded by bones as they went *bawawaaaa*, the curse's materialization.
I heard that the 'Curse of The Bone' had seen a spread most grave in the girls' circle and it seemed like girls showing high-strung reactions to the word 'Bone' were appearing one after another. At first, certain boys even acted tough, declaring that the 'Curse of The Bone' was lame. However, such students, had, without fail, received targeted attacks of the 'Bone', as if they were divine punishment, and were forced to take back their condescending words against 'The Bone'.
At that point, we could do nothing but laugh. The curse we created had completely acclimatized to the school; It had now left our hands and felt like an independent organism.
It was around this time that the talk about how offering money would dispel the curse became quite effective; There were serious debates, here and there, in several classes, about the amount to offer in order to dispel the curse.
We snickered in our hearts while acting dead serious on the surface.
It is better to offer as much yen as possible, it would, instead, be rude to 'The Bone' if it was too little, or so we directed the conversation in our favor...
"This is Snake... It's alright, no one's coming!"
"This is Fox; No problem at the back as well! Go, go, go!"
"Thanks a lot...right? ...Three-nine-three...... OK, it's open...!"
I opened the lock and pulled the drawer out. As I pulled it out, I could already feel that the sensation was different from the first time.
*clink*, the pleasant sound of metal.
"Ohhh...... They're inside......!!"
"Enough with that, hurry up and gather them all! We're gonna count them elsewhere"
"R-Right!"
Plopping ourselves down, we spread the contents of the offering box out on the concrete floor of a deserted bicycle parking area behind a rundown apartment. The coins' many colors
"Erm......just how much is there... Looks like there's quite a bit right!"
"Ohhhh...all five hundred yen coins...Amazingg..."
"Seriously...Everyone sure is rich..."
We did not know at this time but it seems like a rule—five hundred yen must be offered as the minimum—was already made.
To middle schoolers, five hundred yen is quite a huge offering. It is not the kind of offering they would make just because fried chicken bones had been stuffed into their indoor shoes. Indeed, these were not just offerings for the 'Curse'. ...I think that prayers for academic success were also included among them. Feeling the oppressiveness exerted upon them every day by an invisible wall known as the entrance exams, there was no doubt that they wanted to pray to a familiar entity. It was with such myriad feelings that they offered five hundred yen.
When I thought about it like this, although this was a prank, I did think that we did a good deed by creating an entity for the students, who were troubled by the pressure they face every day, to pray to. By throwing in five hundred yen, they were able to get the slightest respite from the pressure of entrance exams. If we did not create the 'Curse of The Bone', they would not have the slightest sense of ease even if they were to grip a five hundred yen coin tightly......or so I thought, but I could not word it well, so I did not tell Hiroyuki and Tooru.
Rather than such difficult matters, the more important issues to us right now are the total value of the coins in front of us and how much our share will be.
After totaling them up, the total amount is over five thousand yen.
How much is my share after we divide it by three...? It will at least be more than a thousand yen. My monthly allowance is a thousand yen. So it surpasses my monthly income, a huge sum of money.
A little prank to kill time brought unexpected returns! We got excited. After all, when we were drawing up this plan, we did have fun talking about how it would be nice if we made quite a profit, but every one of us thought that we would only make tens of yen of profit in the end.
Contrary to that, we made this much money when it was just the start! Furthermore, we can have high expectations for the earnings from this going forward.
There is no mistaking that the 'Curse of The Bone' has a tight-knit relationship with various factors of pressure, such as the entrance exams, so it is most likely that the closer the entrance exams season is, the stronger the awareness of the 'Curse' will be.
How much we can earn in the end is still unknown...!
"...Amazing......You know, I didn't think it'd go this well..."
"Me too...this is amazing! This is so sick...!"
"What should we do? Should we continue the 'Curse of The Bone'...?"
"...Aren't we already on the right track."
"Agreed. After all, the curse will spread on its own even without us going out of our way to do something."
"Well, don't we just need to keep it low from now on? I think we don't need to wake up first thing in the morning to do something."
"I know right, we sure were sleepy then! Ahahahahahahaha!"
"Shall we split it for now!"
"Let's get our drinks from the vending machine and have a toast!"
" "Oh yeah!" "
Heading to a vending machine of a nearby liquor store, we were overjoyed by the resounding success of our curse as we partook in our non-alcoholic, high-grade sake of victory.
Ahh, we pulled one prank after the other to get drunk off this very can huh, or so the truly exceptional flavor of the drink made me think.
1 - It is common for Karaages to be boneless, but some come with bones that are usually the size of a chicken drumlet bone
2 - 骨 (ho|ne), Japanese for bone becomes (bo|ne) in 鹿骨 (shi|shi|bo|ne) and is read as is in 骨川 (ho|ne|ka|wa)
--------
Feel free to comment/pm me if you find any mistakes. Thank you very much for reading, I hope you enjoyed the chapter. It's Black Friday, so have fun shopping everyone!
Comments
Post a Comment