Puppet Skin [OHSHC]

Chapter 15

As promised, Nekozawa came to escort Iiyo back to her station, which was conveniently right next to his. No one really wanted to try out his black scrying mirror, so he had plenty of time in between to go fetch her. He was pleasantly surprised to see that Iiyo was wearing the Black Magic Club robe for the first time, and had let her shoulder-length black hair out of her usual tail, with sections softly framing her face. To get into the spirit of Samhain, she also dusted some orange make-up on the apple of her cheeks, and put on black lipstick along with black eyeliner. It definitely brought a smile to his face seeing her. "Shall we?"

"Yes," Iiyo stated with a wide smile. She still had a slight headache, but it wasn't enough to hinder her concentration, or her good mood. It was an exciting night, but Iiyo was ultimately happy to hear that Kageru decided to go with the surgery and was hopeful that it would go well, but was also sad to think that he might not be around anymore, for the rest of the school year at least anyway. Iiyo was going to make the best of the festival night.

Their class's section was set up with each table lined up forming a half-circle. The people who volunteered to devote their time to divination would sit at one of the tables toward the center of the arc, and everyone else would sell the charms, Solomon Seals, and sigils at the two ends. Naturally, Nekozawa's table was at the very center, Iiyo was to his left with Kageru, and then Sasa, the girl with the mahjong tiles. To the right of Nekozawa was Sayoko as a palm reader, Sakura with dominoes and dice, and then Wazuka with her tarot cards. Behind them all was a stereo to play the mood music, but so far, Iiyo wasn't impressed with it; it was playing creepy music with shrilling violins and the chimes of xylophones, sure, but it didn't have enough attitude or beat. Unfortunately, her disc was deliberately going to be played last.

Of course when she was about to sit down, twenty minutes late, the class president didn't like it and chewed her out. "We don't have time for your mistakes, so either be more careful or don't show up at all," he stated before huffing toward his station selling the clay charms. Even though she had expected it, casting a hex was sounding more and more pleasant by the second to Iiyo, but she couldn't, not on the festival night anyway. It was frustrating times like those that Iiyo wished that she could just have one thing her way.

Almost like magic, she recognized a song coming out of the stereo playing subtly behind all the diviners. Iiyo found it extremely hard to believe that anyone of her classmates, Nekozawa included, would even know who was currently playing, let alone have it on a mix CD. Curiously, she looked behind her towards the stereo, to make sure it wasn't just her mind playing tricks, and it was indeed playing the song she was thinking of.

"This is your CD, right?" Kageru asked with a wide smirk.

Iiyo couldn't help but smirk back, also trying to hold back her guffaws so the class president wouldn't have suspected their trickery. She nodded out her thanks, slowly calming down before her first customer.

As she was reading her playing cards, she realized that she had slightly forgotten some of the card meanings, so she had to guess and cheat a little by reading the person's aura. Nekozawa had advised that if they forgot a meaning, then subtly skip it, distract them, or make their best guess, so for the most part it was fine as long as they weren't guaranteeing a set future or outright lying. In between customers, she reviewed her flashcards so she wouldn't have to guess or cheat as much.

Kageru's sect was as easy as breaking open a fortune cookie, but he made the most of it by explaining to the questioner the different meanings their answer could possibly have. His table wasn't as popular as tarot or palm reading, but lots of people wanted to try out this Book of Fate.