"What the fuck..."

"No. I can't-"

Ari held his stomach and gagged.

"W-Why is it fixed up like that?!" Asahi asked.

"What sick fuck would do that?"

They stood there, still holding hands, as the gravity of the scene slowly pierced their reality.

"Wait... why haven't the police found it?" Asahi whispered, disturbed.

"Wait, yeah, how do they know there's been a murder?"

"And the paint we found... they haven't even been in the building to check on the scene,"

Then Asahi remembered something. Yesterday was the meeting for the art society's national festival ceremony, so there wasn't going to be any school today.

"Oh, right, so we weren't meant to go to school. That doesn't explain the police situation, though," Ari responded.

"Yeah, I'm not sure either. Should we ask someone? I'm not sure who..."

"Oh, right, let me call Clara,"

Asahi looked confused.

"Erm... who's that?"

"Have you not met any of the second years? She's the president of the art society,"

"Woah, since when did you start talking to popular upperclassmen?"

"Hey, it's nothing like that, we've been friends since childhood,"

"That's lucky."

Amidst their conversation, Asahi caught a glimpse of the corpse again.

"It looks exactly like that painting..."

"What's wrong with you, Asahi?"

"What do you mean?"

"Brother, you look like your having fun looking at it"

That came as a surprise to him. He felt his face and realized he was grinning.

"A-Am I a psychopath?"

"No... probably not..."

"I think it's because something this shocking makes my otherwise boring life interesting, and I'm excited to see how it unfolds."

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"You're weird."

As Ari spoke on the phone with Clara, Asahi looked again at the corpse. It was a man, and the murder must have happened in the last 24 hours given it was still under rigor mortis. By the look of the physique, Asahi concluded it was a teacher, though he didn't recognize who.

"I think he's either a literature teacher or an art teacher because I've not seen any of the teachers in those departments,"

"Yeah, I can confirm that. Clara said it was Dr. Lakem, the head of the English department. He went missing yesterday during the festival preparation, so they've had police around the area to try to find him,"

"Wait... you didn't tell her we found his body, did you?"

"No, no, of course not. We'd be the main suspects, right?"

"No, you shouldn't have called her, because if they track that phone call and find out we were here and didn't tell anyone we found the body, we would be put in jail regardless of whether we did it or not."

"Yeah, true, but I think we got lucky: She's basically half asleep, so if push comes to shove, I can say I did tell her we found him, but she couldn't comprehend what I was saying, and just hung up. Besides, she wouldn't sell me out."

"Hm... Well, we'll cross that bridge when we have to."

They went back from the roof and looked for Dr. Lakem's office, to see if there was any further evidence.

"I-I'm about to open the door, okay?" Asahi asked, nervously.

"G-Go for it."

As the door let light into the room, the hardened blood glistened from every corner. The whole room was dowsed in red.

"Why are we doing this... this is fucking insane..." Ari remarked, fearfully.

Asahi took off his shoes and walked into the room. The furniture looked as though it had been squashed, and the desk's leg was broken. He also noticed that the lock to the room was worn out, with its gold coating withering slowly away.

"Wait, Ari, there's something under the desk, too,"

He put his hand under the desk and slowly pulled out a bloodied saw.

"Oh damn, I've found the murder weapon,"

...

"Er... Asahi... why did you know it was there?"

He realized how suspicious he looked.

"Hey, hey, come on, you don't actually think I killed him, do you?"

Ari pondered it, and then rationalized.

"No, of course you didn't, you're too soft to do that,"

"Ari, look. There's a sewing set in here too... You don't think the killer stitched the body in this room, do you?"

"Alright, so you're telling me I've been going to school with a psycho running around, doing stuff like this?"

"Thrilling, isn't it?"

"No, Asahi, it's terrifying!"

After a while of looking around the room, they heard steps coming toward them.

"Shit, we have to get back home. What do we tell our parents?"

"I know what to do. If we go home immediately, and the police start questioning our family, they'll know we were here."

"So what are we meant to do?"

"Let's go out for today. We'll just go to the cinema or the arcade or something, come back home, and then when our parents find out, they'll think we planned this and just manipulated them into letting us have a day off"

"Yeah, fair enough, we could do that... but man, I'm terrified. We are not watching any horror movies,"

"Aw come on, I'll get us a good one to watch, I promise"

"What the hell, Asahi!"

They both laughed, but they knew it was just a mechanism to prevent the fear from getting a hold of them. They left school, unnoticed and unharmed, and spent the day out in the next city before returning home.

This was my first time having seen a body without a soul. Chilling... is the mildest way to state what I felt. Yet, for some reason, it looked rather liberating. A consience that had escaped its constrictive vessel, maybe?