Short Stories

Playing Field. Pt 1

Word count - 940

"You really want to know if I killed her? Like I said, you have to ask him." Chikao remained emotionless, waiting in the chair for the meeting time to run out.

"What do you mean if you killed her?! We know it was you, what we don't know is why!" Hotaru lost control and lunged forward, banging his arms against the glass looking through. A tear rolled down his face as he was upset and frustrated with Chikao.

"Hotaru calm down, if the police see you freaking out in here we'll be kicked out!" Fuyuko stepped in and he turned his attention to her, releasing his hands from the glass.

"Why did you do it, Chikao? Why?" He asked again.

"If, if I did I couldn't tell you that. Only he knows why our sister was killed. Only he knows.." Chikao repeated.

"He.. who the hell is he, Chikao?" After the incident when Hanako was killed, the police caught and arrested Chikao for the murder, but when questioned or asked about what happened, the only thing Chikao would ever say was..

"Only he knows."
The police came back into the room and escorted Chikao back into the cell. "We have to take him back now, but I hope you found what you were looking for when you came in today." One of the officers spoke.

Hotaru nodded and Fuyuko grabbed his arm and started towards the exit. "It was a total waste of time, we couldn't get anything out of him." Hotaru was once again on the verge of tears as they left the building.

They walked a little ways down the road to a park near by and took a seat on the bench. Fuyuko gently grabbed onto Hotaru's hands and smiled at him while sitting down.

"Hey, I know it must be difficult for you, going to see your little brother today. But Hanako was my best friend, so I'll be with you through this to the end, okay? We'll solve this mystery, and we're going to find out what really happened that night."

Hotaru wiped the tears forming underneath his eyes and nodded. "Yeah okay, let's do this."

.......................
The next day

Hotaru and Fuyuko were walking through Estfor village, on their way to Hotaru's old house where his sister was killed.

"Hotaru, how long will you be away?"

Hotaru looked surprisingly at the guy ahead of him. Did- did he just teleport somehow? "Oh- Enmei!" He bowed his head in respect.

"Kid, you play an important role in the clan, you need to come home, you're supposed to be the next commander you know."

The pressure of his words hit Hotaru like a stone. "I know that, but first I have to figure out what happened to Hanak-"

Enmei cut him off. "We already know what happened to Hanako, your little brother murdered her the night before Halloween. That was almost two months ago, Hotaru. A lot has changed since then. There's no hope of bringing her back, so you have to let her go."

He almost fell into believing it, but deep down, he knew there was something else to it.
Only he knows..
"Fuyuko and I are going back to my old house, I want to investigate it."
I need to know why Chikao was saying that, what were we missing here?

Enmei blinked and looked down at Hotaru with a sigh. "Just be careful, Hotaru. You're like a son to me, I don't want to lose you too."

Hotoru looked down to the side. "Yeah. I'll be back by Christmas Eve, I promise."

Without another word, he continued walking in the direction he was headed. Fuyuko followed worriedly behind, but kept quiet until they arrived.

"Looks like they're really trying to keep us out, huh Hotaru?" The building was broken down and destroyed after that night. It was surrounded by caution tape and do not enter warnings.

"Yeah well, they're not keeping me out." He climbed over them into the yard and busted the door open. Fuyuko followed him concerned and not too thrilled about going inside.

When Hotaru got a good look around the house, he froze in shock of what he saw. "Hotaru it's getting dark we should probably hurry and get out of here soo-" she came up behind him and fearfully gasped when she realized what he was looking at.

There was blood, and a lot of it to. Fuyuko ran ahead of him while he continued to stand frozen. "Hotaru look!" He snapped out of it and came over to her. She was pointing towards the wall behind the staircase. There were five claw marks scratched into the wood, followed by trickled down blood. Now that he took another look around the place, those claw marks were everywhere inside.

"A human couldn't have done this.." he whispered as he looked over and met eyes with Fuyuko.

"Could it have been a blade?" She asked him quietly.

"I guess that's a possibility, but what kind of person would make 5 cuts through a wall after killing someone?"

She nodded. "You have a point but.. then what could've done this?" 

He turned back to the giant looking claw marks on the wall, and put on a thinking face. "I don't know but, I think it's safe to say..
that Chikao wasn't the killer that night."

......................

If you enjoyed this story, please leave a vote and comment if you'd like a continuation of this! If you comment about it, I'll make it into a separate story and it will be continued, otherwise it'll just stay here as a short story.
Thank you!