[01/01] Flicker

Mar 02, 2013 00:33

Flicker
February 2012

Summary
Matsumoto Jun receives a guest one dark evening.

A/N
[23.37, 28 February 2013] Happy Valentine’s Month, everyone! I was trying to edit the horror fic I’m severely stuck on - Shiretoko - and I realized, Gawd, I am so sentimental. For some types of stories, my flowery, over-descriptive, over-dramatic style is effective, but for horror it’s not. (I really like horror stories though.)

I already have the whole story of Shiretoko written out, but I’m stuck over how I’m supposed to edit it. It’s so cheesy! So as a peace offering to dekkawai, who has been asking about the progress of that fic, I offer this short story to you. Please enjoy this!

PS This is an urban legend from where I’m from. It is not an original concept - it is a retelling. ::)

Disclaimer
The mastermind behind this plot derives no material profit from it. While several people, places, and events exist in reality, everything that follows should be digested with a healthy dose of suspicion.

Warning
I cannot write bromance or erotica to save my life.
Strong language.
Words 1,692

Flicker
For Arashi

Matsumoto Jun pulls the door open, a strong gust of wind rushing in as he turns a disapproving face towards his visitor. Sakurai Sho stands on the threshold of Jun’s house, his jacket soaked at the shoulders with rainwater, his hair falling low with droplets dripping from the strands. The rain falls from the gutter behind him in a steady torrent.

“You’re late,” Jun remarks irritably, barely sparing his friend a second glance as he turns on his heel and stalks toward the kitchen. “You should have been here an hour and a half ago. Where the hell were you?”

“I had to drop by a few places. The rain made it difficult to drive,” comes Sho’s faint reply all the way from the front door. In the kitchen, the silver sinks reflect what little moonlight the night affords. Jun rummages through the wooden cabinets, searching for a flashlight with his cigarette lighter in one hand. “Why is it so dark? Your whole street had a blackout?”

He finds the emergency light hidden in the drawer full of unused placemats and cutlery. “I think the storm might have busted one of the transformers. I’m not too sure. I heard something go off earlier - it might have been that.”

“You’re not going to call the electric company?”

“What for? We’ll be leaving in a bit, anyway.”

He returns to the narrow hallway and finds Sho still standing outside. His figure cuts a lonely outline against the gloom of the bleak street Jun lives in, and Jun finds he cannot stay angry. The rainwater flows out through Sho’s sleeves, down his fingers. “Why are you still standing there? Come on in.”

Licking his lips as though hesitating, Sho slowly raises a foot and steps through the doorframe. Jun pulls the door shut behind them, and even with the thunder lashing outside the silence in the house is unbearable. Jun clears his throat. “You might want to get changed. I have some clothes that might fit you.”

Sho turns to him, very slowly, and Jun thinks he can see his friend shaking. “Jun-”

“First door on the left.” He forces the flashlight into Sho’s grip, feels the man’s icy fingers, and almost shivers. “Don’t worry about the floor. I’ll take care of it before we leave. Just let me finish packing.”

Sho gazes at him silently.

“You’ll come up as soon as you’re done, right?” He is somber, the flashlight clutched loosely in his hand. “You promise?”

Jun’s lips quirk. Sho looks so much, too much, like a little boy. “Yeah, sure. All right.”

Sho nods once, briefly, and drags himself away.

Jun hears his friend clambering up the stairs as he scampers into the living room, checking the last of the pre-camping essentials with his lighter. Sleeping bags, picnic basket, anti-mosquito alarm. The campout had been his idea of a birthday party - just him and Sho and the mountains. And maybe if the time and the place and the stars were right he would get to tell him-

Jun blushes even under the cover of darkness. He had been looking forward to this, the whole month.

But now this storm.

The doorbell rings for a second time, and Jun is pulled away from his imaginings. Surprised, he crosses the room in a few quick strides, and looks through the glass of the door to see men standing in the rain outside. Raising his eyebrows, he gingerly opens the door with a peek. “Yes?”

They stare back at him, the rain on their shoulders, their hair.

The others from work are there, shivering on his threshold with their clothes soaked through. Ohno Satoshi, Ninomiya Kazunari and Aiba Masaki ogle him in pretty much the same way Sho had, albeit with less hesitation, their need for warmth evident. “Matsumoto. We need to tell you something.”

Jun bites his lip.

“Why are you all here? What’s wrong?” Jun instantly steps aside to let the three of them in, mouth slack at the mess his normally presentable friends had become. “What do you think you’re doing wandering outside during a storm?”

“We need to tell you something.” Aiba shivers uncontrollably, his tall figure hunched under his leather jacket. “It’s Sakurai. Something happened to the car he was driving. It got into an accident on the way here. Highway 32.”

“Sorry?” Jun leans against the nearest wall. “What?”

“Crashed into a fish delivery truck on the highway,” Ninomiya explains, rubbing his hands together in an attempt to generate heat. “No survivors. The police are still there, even with the rain-”

“That’s stupid!” Jun hisses. “Sho can’t have been in an accident - he’s upstairs!”

He meets Ohno’s quiet, compassionate eyes and even with the improbability, he fears. Jun’s throat abruptly runs dry. “I promised him I’d come up.”

Jun pauses as he listens to the sounds of the upper floor. It is quiet, and there is not even the scraping of a single chair, the shuffle of a restless foot. He feels like laughing. “This is the lamest birthday shit-joke I’ve ever received, guys. Thanks for the enthusiasm, but-”

His eyes fall on the three men sharing the hallway with him. They are all staring at him with unnerving patience, perhaps even pity, and Jun feels himself frown in anger. His fists clench at his sides, nails digging into his palms. “I’ll prove to you that he isn’t dead.”

Jun takes the steps two at a time, and skips on the final landing. Behind him, determined footsteps follow, the strange parade of four men marching into the door leading to Jun’s room. Exhaling, Jun forces the heavy wood aside.

In the middle of the small bedroom, Jun finds his best friend standing lazily above the dark carpet, still dripping and staring as though he had been waiting very long. Both his hands hang limp at his sides; the dead flashlight is aimed at the floor. Surprised, Jun stops in his tracks and backs into the wall. The concrete is hard against his shoulder blade.

The sight of Sho sinks in, and Jun feels his anger returning. He raises his cigarette lighter higher. “Sakurai. The idiots from the office are here. You know what they told me? They told me you got into an accident and died.”

He extends the light in his hand forward, as though daring anyone to come close. “Did you get them to play along with your little joke? It’s not funny Sakurai - don’t you fuckin’ do this to me ever again!”

But the man merely stares at him from the middle of the small bedroom, his dark, round eyes bright even in the flicker of a single lighter. Against the flame, his face is empty, damp, and pale. “You came back for me.”

Jun shivers at the sound of Sho’s voice. It is hoarse, and raw, and undeniably Sho. Behind Jun, by the doorway, stand three soaked men with rainwater dripping from their bodies and onto the wooden floor. “Don’t you dare play with me, Sakurai. I don’t need this sort of shit from you - you’re going to fucking give me a heart attack!”

“I thought it might make you happy if the whole team went out together on your birthday. I went to each of their houses, and we came to yours last.” Sho’s lips form an exhausted smile. “Wasn’t that what you wanted?”

Breathless, Jun slowly turns to the three by the doorway. He meets Ohno’s quiet, compassionate eyes.

“We came to pick you up.”

The flame of the lighter dies. Outside, the sky flashes with a sudden burst of lightning, a subsequent roll of thunder roaring over the trees in the darkened street.

The dead flashlight drops and rolls across the carpet until it hits a wooden post of the bed. Under the bright glow of the moon, the room is small, soaked, and empty. The rain continues to tap on the windowpanes.

On top of the thick, dark carpet, a single lighter rests.

A/N
I’m not sure it was conveyed here properly, but the original urban legend goes something like this:

“One night, your best friend knocks at your door, and begs for you to let him in.
You allow him to rest in your bedroom, because he seems dazed, but then the phone from far away rings.
You move as though to answer the phone, but your best friend stops you.
He looks into your eyes and begs you to promise that you will come back, come back to him.
You laugh and think nothing of it. You walk away, into a different room, and answer the phone.
The person on the other line is your best friend’s mother.
She tells you your friend had been on the way to your house to surprise you, but he had gotten into an accident.
He died just now, just about a few minutes ago.
You do not tell her he is sitting upstairs in your bedroom. You put the phone down.
Now the question: Will you return, or will you run away?”

Either way, thank you very much for reading! [01.39, 01 March 2013]

length: one-shot, genre: horror, lead: matsumoto

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