Strange Birds

•|• Lesson Eight •|•

"YEEARGH!?"

"Aah!" She cried out as she stumbled a few steps forwards, nearly toppling over her friend and the man they ran into. Paper flew into the air, slowly descending all over the floor and the teacher she bumped into as he attempted to collect himself.

She couldn't see much over the uniform clad shoulder pushed into her face, other than fluffy white tufts and a gloved hand. "What are you doing?" His deep voice rang through their ears, confusion lacing his tone. "You- you can't do that. Running in the library is-"

"Sorry, we're in a hurry." Amane rushed dragging the girl back onto her feet and back down towards the bathroom.

"Amane," she huffed as they slowed to a stop in front of the third floor girls bathroom. "Why?"

Mustering a teasing smile of his own he loosened his stance and turned towards her. "Because." His laugh echoed through the nearly empty hall breathlessly as he shrugged his shoulders innocently. "Hana-chan's expecting us, anyway." She stuttered in confusion as he turned his attention towards the door, opening it with a quiet click before entering silently.

Something had definitely bothered him earlier, that much she knew, however what she didn't know was if it was their previous company questioning about Hanako or the boy who looked nearly as identical as the boy himself. Breathing a sigh she, too, pushed open the door entering the bathroom where laughter could already be heard. She'd worry about that later...

"The 5th of the school mysteries?" Aoi turned her attention from the board, gazing over her friend with a sweet smile. "Yes I've heard of it!" She exclaimed, placing the eraser back where it goes beaming at Nene.

Pulling her hands to her chest, said girl smiled hopefully with a twinkle in her eyes. "Really!? S-so what's the rumor about!?"

"Tee-hee-hee," the purple haired lass giggled, pulling her friend into a hug, quietly gushing about how cute she was. "You sure do like these stories!"

"Eh- yeah..."

"Alright then, I'll tell you!"

"School mystery number 5ー

The 4PM bookstacks.

In this school's library...

...There's a special storeroom you can only enter at 4pm.

The room is full of books with people's names.

Each of these books contains a record of that person's life at this school.

What they did here, what they're going to do here.

Past, present and futureー it's all written in the book...!

But...

If you do go to the 4PM bookstacks...

...You have to be careful.

There are three kinds of books in the bookstacksー white, black, and red.

The white ones have records of people who are alive.

The black ones are records of people who have died.