"Did you really love her?"

You were standing in a pit of bugs together with Hanako-kun, who was trying to fight them off with his knife, while you were having an internal monologue about your life and why you chose to keep on living.

You had found Aoi, but she had later tricked you and left you and Hanako in a "garbage pit" as she called it. You didn't mind the bugs, they weren't that scary, but they were disgusting to look at nonetheless.

Hanako grabbed your arm and hugged you tightly, before the scenery changed.

The two of you were sitting on the ground in a forest, the moon shining brightly above the two of you.

You groaned, "I hate my life…"

Hanako looked at you and stood up, bringing you with him.

"Y'know, death seems like a good choice right now, I don't mind dying anyway." You began to look around, not seeing Hanako's reaction to your words. He was quiet, not uttering a word. You were about to say something when you turned to look at him, but stopped when two arms wrapped around you, taking you into a warm embrace. You tilted your head to the side, not understanding why the ghost was being so touchy right now.

You slowly brought your hands up and patted his back awkwardly, "Um… you good?"

He didn't answer.

"If it's about the dying thing, then I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, I was being sarcastic," You said and thought, 'Yeah, sarcastic my ass.'

"By the way…" you started and Hanako let go of you, "...do you know where we are?"

"No…"

"Wait," You began to search through your pockets before pulling out a tennis bat. Hanako looked at you in astonishment, how did you manage to pull out a whole tennis bat out of your pocket?!

Smiling, you began to hug the tennis bat, swinging from side to side as animated hearts radiated off of you.

"Oh, Martha, my bestie! Let's go and kick some supernatural ass!"

Then you heard some rustling from a bush not far away from you and Hanako. Looking at the opening of the forest, you saw an old man with big ears, wrinkled forehead and a squared face standing there, holding a lit lantern with a stick.

"Who is this person?" Hanako asked while floating behind you.

"A local?" You asked, "He doesn't look like a supernatural…"

Then you took a step forward, pointing your tennis bat at the old man, "Who are you?"

The old man shivered as he looked at you, a dark aura spreading around your figure as you held the tennis bat in a threatening way, like you would bash his head in if he didn't give you the answer you wanted.

So, what any old person would do in a situation like this, he yelled out, "WRAITHS!!"

His shout echoed throughout the forest and you froze in your position, the hand you held Martha in falling to your side.

Hanako stared at the man who was trembling with fear, tears falling out of his eyes as he cried. "I'm gonna be kiiiilled!"

Your forehead irked and you stepped forward and took a hold of his shirt, "Calm your ass, old man!"

But the old man continued to cry even louder when you spoke.

"What's wrong?" Someone jumped out of a bush, a mask on their face.

Your hold of the old man's shirt loosened and you let out a confused, "Eh?"

"There are wraiths?!" Another one came out from the forest, a mask adoring their face.

You then noticed the weapons in their hands when a third one came from a tree, yelling, "I'll beat it to death."

Now you had fully let go of the old man's shirt, backing up and into Hanako's chest. More masked people came out of the forest, surrounding you and Hanako.

Hanako held up his hands, looking around as the masked people began to mutter things. You didn't bother since you knew you could easily beat them up with Martha, you also didn't bother to listen to the murmurs until someone said:

"Let's burn them."

"Yeah, yeah," someone agreed.

You glanced up at Hanako with an uneasy look on your face. Getting the hint, Hanako spoke up, "I see…" He took out his knife from his chest as you swung Martha in front of you. "Looks like having a discussion might be hard."

"You all." A woman spoke up, the lit moon shining down on her. "What are you doing in my garden?"

A masked man wrestled you to the ground and bowed at the lady, "Sumire-sama."

Another man came and wrapped a rope around you and Hanako, "I have captured tree stump wraiths."

"Wraiths…?" The woman looked down upon you and Hanako. Your heart skipped a beat as the moon lit up her features, your cheeks heating up. Your lips were parted as you stared at the woman with a awestruck expression, you thought that she was truly a breathtaking sight. Her mouth began to move as she continued to speak, but all you could focus on was her blue eyes.

Coming back to reality, you could see the mask people walking away, leaving you, Hanako and 'Sumire-sama' alone.

She turned to face you, "Well… round and dirty, just like a lost raccoon…" she let out a chuckle, and that when you noticed the dagger in her right hand. "How miserable, but adorable…"

'She called me adorable!!!' you gushed inside your head, completely disregarding the fact that she called you dirty, lost and a raccoon.

"You two–" She yanked you and Hanako by the rope that was binding you together– "look so pitiful that I've decided to keep you as pets."

Sumire took you to her place.

"We're here!" She smiled, "This is your home, starting today!"

"You must be thirsty, right?" She asked you and Hanako while holding a tea kettle, giving you a closed-eyed smile. "I'll give you some water right now."

"Please wait like good children." She cut the rope that was around you and Hanako. The ghost boy turned to look at you, but you seemed to be stuck in your place, staring at Sumire with stars in your eyes.

Taking your hand, Hanako sprinted towards the open door, but was quickly stopped by an electric force.

Hanako groaned as he flew back from the sudden force, letting go of your hand in the process. "Is this a barrier?!"

"What bad kids." Sumire walked up to the two fried teenagers. She sat down and began to pet the two of them, "No going outside, I want indoor pets."

'I will never wash my head again!' you thought as stars began to glow in your eyes, completely missing Sumire's whole explanation as to why you wouldn't be able to escape either way.

You snapped out of it when she began to threaten the two of you by saying that they'll peel off your skin and put you in the wedding feast. Let's just say that you were quite horrified as Hanako clinged to you out of fear. You only dead panned at this, 'Sir, you are already dead…'

Sumire crouched down in front of you and Hana, who still had his arms around you. "My name is Sumire, what are your names?"

Hanako was glaring at the girl in front of the two of you, but it quickly turned into one of confusion when you began to speak.

"My name is Y/N!" You happily introduced yourself, and Hanako dead panned. You wiggled out of the ghost boy's grasp and took a hold of Sumire's hands, giving her a bright smile. "Your name is beautiful, Sumire! I recall that it means 'a lovely violet'! Am I correct?"

The girl looked surprised at first, but quickly smiled at your sentence. "Yes, it does! Let's be friends, Y/N!"

She then turned to Hanako, "And we'll call you Gon, since you aren't saying your name…" she muttered at the end of her sentence.

Sumire then said that she'll go and make some tea together with something to eat, leaving you and Hanako alone.

You looked longingly after the raven-haired girl, a small smile on your face. Hanako only huffed and walked towards the open sliding doors, where his hakujoudai were.

"You seem to like her…" the ghost said with a frown, sitting down at the sliding doors. You snapped out of your awestrucked state and made your way beside him.

"It's just… she reminds me of someone." You told him as you looked at the stars above. You had always adored them, the stars. It was just something you liked about them, but you didn't often talk about it to anyone. "Someone that I loved."

Hanako looked to his side, staring at you as you continued to look at the stars. His brows were furrowed and you could almost see the visible heartbreak in his amber eyes.

Someone you loved? Could it be a sibling of some sort? Or maybe a relative? A friend?

A… lover?

Hanako didn't know what kind of love you held for that person, but he hoped that it wasn't romantic.

Hanako himself had fallen deeply, deeply in love with you, but he sucked at expressing those feelings - that's at least what he thought. You had figured out long ago that he had some form of attraction towards you, and it definitely wasn't platonic.

What a surprise! You felt lucky to not be as oblivious as other main characters were to love, not that you knew that you were one to begin with… or did you? Tbh, at this point I don't even know what Y/N knows and doesn't know, I'm just writing this god forsaken story, so they may as well know that they're the main character of a fanfic.

Enough about that - Hanako could help but feel jealous.

"Someone you… loved?" You couldn't see the scowl on his face once he repeated your words, it just left a bad taste on his tongue.

You nodded and turned your attention to the ghost boy, finally seeing the expression he was making. His brows were knitted together, and a small scowl was on his face as he looked down at his hands, which were laying in his lap. "She was actually the person who gave me Betty."

Hearing no response from the boy beside you, you looked up at the stars, "she was the most beautiful girl I've ever laid my eyes upon… that's why I named my bat after her."

"Of course I did!" You chuckled, "she was my childhood best friend after all! But, um, she kind of - like - got herself killed."

You felt something cold lay over your hand, and you saw Hanako intertwining your fingers together with his. You looked at him and gave him a grateful smile, giving his hand a light squeeze.

"She was an offering to some form of cult in our neighborhood. The leader said that she was a work of the Death Omen Aku, and that she had been blessed with his presence. People called it bullshit, saying that they were stupid for wanting to bring back a death god from its rest, and that they probably only wanted to get some blood on their hands. But… What I find weird is that they supposedly had more than twenty members, but only a few of them were found, together with Betty's body. The members had told the investigators that Betty had fought back there attempt on murdering her and taking her body to Aku's Cliff, a cliff that was feared by many. She was fighting for her life while I was sleeping peacefully in my home... S-she was still breathing when the police found her…" your voice cracked, and Hanako rubbed your back in an act of comfort. You closed your eyes and composed yourself before continuing, "The leader was seen as delusional as he explained that a black liquid started to come out of the cliffs walls, yelling about some smoke–" you stopped.

Black liquid, smoke… it all felt extremely familiar to you, like you had heard someone say it before.

'When the building was beginning to collapse, small drops of black liquid began to fall down the cracks, smoke too.' Your mother's words rang in your head and your eyes widened.

Hanako wondered why you stopped mid sentence, "You okay?"

"Amane…" a chill ran down Hanako's spine as you said his name with such ease. He liked when you said it, but he also wondered what it would sound like if you–

"I think I might have a curse following me." You snapped him out of his thoughts, looking into his eyes. You were actually being serious for once, but he couldn't see it.

"What kind of curse?" Hanako asked with a smirk, leaning closer towards your serious face.

"The kind that could kill." You turned your face away from him. "I'm pretty sure this Aku-man-curse-death-god-omen-thingy is after me."

Hanako blinked, he didn't actually think that something was after you, he just thought that you were joking.

"So I might die." You added with a lopsided grin.

"You might what now?!"

*

After an exhausting amount of work, you saw Hanko sitting in front of the open sliding doors, where the two of you previously discussed that you might actually die. At this point you couldn't even joke about wanting to die without feeling like Hanako would give you a scolding, what a mood-killer…

You sat down and he began to explain a bunch of stuff, like where you were currently, why you shouldn't drink the tea on the tray you were holding, quickly swatting it down on the ground, and that he would get the two of you out of here.

"Y'know, I don't really mind it here, " you said, "Sumire is really nice and–"

"You only think like that because she reminds you of Betty."

You opened your mouth to say something, but quickly shut it and gave him a small pout. You couldn't even qrque on that fact, because he was right. "True."

Hanko then continued to explain how you would escape, "the yorishiro is on something the seven mysteries value, something that it holds dear the most, right? I wonder what no. 6 values the most."

"Hey," you heard a voice from behind before the person sat down beside you, "what are you talking about?"

You looked beside you and you almost got a heart attack when you saw Sumire sitting there, a bright smile on her face. Hanko only sneered at the girl beside you as he stood in front of the two of you.

"It's got nothing to do with you." He looked off to the opposite side of you and Sumire, hand in his pocket. Oh how he wished he could just take out his knife and–

Sumire 'oh'ed, "Gon is being rebellious."

"More like a prick."

"Hey! You're supposed to be on my side!"

Sumire only smiled before taking you by your shoulders and guiding you away from 'Gon'. "I'll just have to ask Y/N then! Let's go!"

Sumire took your hand instead and began to drag you after her.

"EH! WAIT!" Hanako yelled as he took your hand. "I'm coming to." He gave Sumire a stern glare.

"Nope!" And his forehead got blasted with electricity, that was coming from her bracelet.

"You're being perverted," Sumire smiled, "saying you want to come with us while we take a bath."

"A bath??" You asked, clearly confused at the girl who was now pushing you gently.

"Or, Gon, could it be that you want to see Y/N naked?"

"N-NO…!" The ghost boy yelled out, face flushed with embarrassment as he held his forehead.

Sumire shut the door after the two of you and Hanako quickly scrambled to go after you, "Wait a min–" Then he freezes as Sumire's words rang out in his mind, "Want to see Y/N naked?"

Then an image of you changing with a towel around you came up as the ghost stood there, frozen, "Hanako-kun, you pervert! I hate you!"

He was shaking as he kneeled down before the door that you and Sumire just entered, before he collapsed onto the floor, defeated. "Damn it…"

Back with you and Sumire…

"Hey, Y/N." Sumire started as she turned around from the towels she was preparing. "Perhaps… Gon is your lover?"

You began to violently cough, a big blush flushing to your cheeks and coating your whole face red. "Wh–" you coughed– "what?! No! I mean– I don't dislike him, but–"

"You're not very honest." Said Sumire as she took your hands in hers.

'She kinda reminds me of Aoi, too… nope she definitely reminds me of Aoi,' you thought, 'and what does she mean I'm not very honest?!'

"You don't need to hide it." She let go of your hands. "In this world, being attracted to an aberration is a taboo but." She turned around and began to put some of the towels away. "If you fall in love despite that, you can't do anything about it. Just like me."

"Just like… you?"

'Who the fuck dared to steal your heart?! That was supposed to be me!'

"Yes, the fiance I'm in love with isnt human, but an immortal demon. He's a strangely serious, but cute, being that has been with me since I was little."

'I bet he's hot too, nothing I could compete with… damn you, demon!'

"Well… before I met him he used to kill people when he got bored of his immortality." She spoke about him with such admiration, such care… she was truly in love with him. "Also, he is very shy. He used to wear masks of animal bones over his head.. he hid his face so much so one time I got angry and his mask!" She continued to gush about him. Then she crouched down and began to shuffle through things, "let me show you. It should be here…"

"Ahh, there it is." She picked something up and held it to the side of her face. It was the bone of an animal, just like she described it. "See! It's this."

'The same as no. 6… then that must mean Sumire's husband is–' you thought and took out your tennis bat.

"Sumire… what are you?" You asked cautiously, holding Martha in front of you.

That when you saw it, on her neck,

What a bummer

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