Saturday rounds the corner of a white framed house with a deep red maroon garage door and comes face to face with Taylor.
"Don't want to ask what trouble you're in now." the girl says, scrunching her thin brown eyebrows. She was wearing an off-white shirt with a yellow okar, black, grey and white checkered shirt on top, a thin navy zip-up hoodie and a thin brown jacket on top of everything.
"Nothing I can't handle." the tall, pale and lean boy replies cooly.
She looks around. "Your girlfriend's not with you?" it was an innocent question but it irked Saturday to no end.
"For the last time, Kochō is not my girlfriend. And if you continue to address her as so, I'll make sure that you can't stand up the next morning." he snarks back menacingly, it was more vindictive than she had prepared for, and she shuts up.
Taylor grins.
"Your mother's in particularly frustrating form today. Avoid." the pale, slightly dead looking boy advised sharply.
They stood facing a fair distance between each other.
"Yeah, welcome to my world." Taylor sighed defeatedly.
Saturday's obsidian eyes dart to look behind her, then back into her pale green eyes.
"You guys had the Rave'N this weekend right? It was all the buzz at the Weathervane today. Are you going with Kochō?" she asks curiously, her voice was choppy and uneven.
Saturday gave her a scorching, icy look, and the shorter girl knew better than to respond.
The pale, brooding boy sighed. "I must be the only one not obsessed with this stupid dance." he remarks coldly, his eyes lowering a bit, glancing away from Taylor's green ones.
Taylor gave a quarter of a smile before asking, "So, you're not going?" and scrunching up her eyebrows.
Saturday glares straight into her eyes, before glancing slightly away, down at her shirt. "Actually, I was forced to ask someone as an act of self-preservation." he returns with disdain. The mere memory of it made his blood churn with repulsion.
Taylor gives him a very confused look. Self-preservation? For a dance? She thought with bewilderment.
"Sure, that happens, I guess." she mutters. "So if it's not Kochō, then who is it?" her question hangs in the air, waiting to be answered.
There was a pause.
"Xaviera." the young, pale boy replies emotionlessly.
Taylor still had that weird grimace on her face.
"Got it." she looks down, away from his piercing gaze.
"Hope you two have fun." she says defeatedly, walking past him.
"I'm not sure why you're becoming upset." the boy turns to her back and remarks coldly.
"Yeah that's kind of the problem." the green-eyed girl smiled bitterly at his perfectly sculpted face.
Saturday's perfect, black eyebrows were furrowed ever so slightly. He never understood these feelings of emotion- not someone else's and, though it pains him to admit, never once his own.
"I mean, call me crazy, Saturday, but you keep giving me these signals." the girl had furrowed her eyebrows, creating a deep line between her eyes.
"It's not my fault I can't interpret your emotional Morse code." the pale, tall, lean, black haired, obsidian eyed boy retorts coldly.
Taylor looks away. "Then let me spell it out." her voice was choppy and uneven. "Kochō aside, I thought we liked each other," Saturday glared coldly back, brows slightly furrowed. "but then you pull something like this, and I have no idea where I stand." Saturday looks slightly down, away from her confused green eyes. "I mean am I in the "more-than-friend zone" or just a pawn in some game you're playing?" she asks desperately.
Saturday couldn't look into her eyes. The sudden realisation had hit him. That what Taylor felt at this moment was what he had felt for so long when he couldn't make that one specific person look his way.
"I'm just dealing with a lot right now." he admits quietly. He looks back into her green eyes. "I need to prioritise." he says coldly, not betraying any emotion.
There was silence. Taylor only nods slowly.
"Thanks for clearing that up." her voice was raw and hurt. "I guess, give me a call if I ever move up your to-do list." she slowly walks away, with a pained expression on her pale face.
Thing slowly crawls up Saturday's broad back to his shoulder.
The boy's dark obsidian eyes glared daggers at the pale severed hand.
"Not. One. Word." Saturday forced out through gritted teeth.
The large hand slowly slides down his back as the brooding boy's eyes stare forward, at Taylor's departing figure.
☟☟☟
Bees buzz outside the small shed in the clearing surrounded by small trees with green, yellow and orange leaves. There were also some large bushes with small red fruit. The wooden shed sported a large painted bee on the front wall and partially the door. Some parabola shaped straw baskets were stacked on a bench nearby, with a trapezium shaped basket near the front door holding some round wooden instruments.
Inside the small building, Saturday was sticking something up on the racquet walls. His face was emotionless but cold, he was thinking.
Eugene and Misaki stood a little ways behind him, observing him. The boy had moved his investigative board into the little shed, and as he step back, the two behind him could see all the grotesque and bloody photos. He had likely done this to spare his weak-stomached roommate.
He crossed his arms across his broad chest, and stared at all the evidence on his large, rectangular black board. There were three police photos of three people, two women and one man, the women labelled 1 and 2 respectively while the man was labelled 3. There was also another file labelled 4.
But the board was filled with all sorts of severed and bloody body parts, including two severed bloody hearts, a severed hand, a whole severed foot and severed connected toes, an eyeball, a red lung, four severed fingers, a severed nose, a severed, bloody arm with out its hand, exposed bloody intestines and three photos of a man with various bloody cuts on his face with one being just his severed head. All the photos of body parts had length and width measurements.
The one photo of the monster with red paint and a big black swirl on the page were child's play compared to the body parts.
In the centre was a grey map of Jericho town, with the numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 placed in the place of their respective murders.
Their white beekeeping attire was behind the board, juxtaposing with the black.
Saturday stared at his handiwork.
"Ethan wouldn't let me keep this in our dorm." he confessed coldly, adding, "Even Misaki doesn't faint while she sees these enlightening photos."
"No worries. Mi colmena es su colmena. I assume this is the creature that's been rampaging in the woods." Eugene says timidly, pointing at the grotesque drawing, which actually happened to be the least nausea inducing thing on the board, his thick bushy brows furrowed as he stands on one side of Saturday, with Misaki on the other.
Saturday glared intently at the short boy, Misaki also stares at him, her golden eyes glowing in the dim room. "You've heard about it before?" he asked eagerly, his deep voice cold.
"Rumours. Mr. Fitts banned me from bug-hunting until further notice." revealed the timid boy.
Saturday's glare was sharp, spooky and even slightly kooky.
"Claaaimed a bear was on the loose, which I knew was a lie. Didn't match their hibernation schedules." Eugene went on, earning a nod from Saturday, while the Master maid pair listened with great interest.
Saturday lowered his pale eyelids, thinking.
"Speaking of," he pushes up his thick, black rimmed glasses with a finger as he points and picks up a jar full of honey, "could you give this to Misaki? Put in a good word for me? I hear she's still sans date for the Rave'N."
Misaki blushed slightly. It was a charming move. She didn't have the heart to tell the boy that she was already spoken for.
"Eugene." Saturday's cold voice sliced through the short, tan boy's imaginations.
"I know the chances of her asking me are next to zero, but I don't care." Eugene continued, as Misaki's blush only blossomed.
Saturday glared back at him. But the timid boy for once didn't take his warning.
"I'll keep putting myself out there until Misaki finally..." he widens his black eyes slightly. "sees me."
"And if she never does?" challenges Saturday.
"She will." nods Eugene confidently. "I'm playing the long game. My dads say people will appreciate me when I'm older. I know they're probably just trying to make me feel better, but- "
"Listen, people like me and you, we're different." tries Saturday, making his tone just slightly gentler. He realized it was not his place to expose the truth to the poor desperate boy.
"We're original thinkers," Saturday's dark obsidian eyes dart from Eugene's eyes to the floor, "intrepid outliers in this vast cesspool of adolescence. We don't need these inane rites of passage to validate who we are." he says, his posture immaculate, only moving his lips while his body was frozen. Saturday turns his head back to his board.
"So you're not going to the Rave'N either?" Eugene asks hopefully.
Saturday's eyes dart sideways to look at Eugene. After a short pause he confessed: "Actually, I am. With Xaviera." His eyes move back to his board. Misaki's heart dropped into her stomach, and she blinked multiple times, trying to hold back tears.
Eugene looked devastated, and looked away. "I see."
"It's not like I like Xaviera." Saturday adds immediately, unable to contain himself as he turns his shining obsidian eyes to Misaki's watery golden ones. "I just have ulterior motives."
Misaki looks up into his dark eyes. They were sincere, she realized, and suddenly, a huge lump came into her throat. What have I done?
Her young Master turned his attention back to his board. "Sketches are the closest thing I have to a lead right now to try and stop this thing." his logical voice spoke coldly.
Eugene and Misaki both turned their eyes to the board.
Eugene leaned closer, as he realized something. "That circle..." he trails off, lost in thought. "I think I know where that is." he looks back at Saturday.
"Show me." the brooding boy immediately orders, turning his full attention to the short tanned boy.
☟☟☟
Lowering Xaviera's sketch of the monster with large swirls on the page, the three come face to face with an ominous stone cave, its black opening mirroring the swirls on the paper.
"It's definitely a match." Saturday comments coldly. His head slightly moves in Eugene's direction, who was standing next to him, as was Misaki- on his other side.
"What were you doing out here?" questions the tall, pale boy.
Eugene's expression was grim. "Collecting specimens." he replied, moving his head closer to Saturday's shoulder. "This place is ground zero for horny gypsy moths." his eyes moved to the cave, then back to look at Saturday. "You think it's in there?" he asks uncertainly.
"It's such a haunted looking place." Misaki says, her voice soft and melodic, and filled with a bit of fear.
Saturday grabs Misaki's hand comfortingly before he realized what he was doing, then shifts his head towards Eugene. "Only one way to find out." was his curt reply.
The three all brush past an intrusive tree branch, spiky and bare, as they stalk to the entrance of the cave, Saturday first, slate in one hand, Misaki's small hand in his other one, followed by his maid, then Eugene walks after them.
The three stop at the entrance, getting an eery and uninviting presence from the dark inside.
"I'm not a huge fan of enclosed spaces. I'm claustrophobic." Eugene says nervously, his voice echoing off the dark walls of the cave.
Saturday turns his head to the short beekeeper as he adjusts his glasses.
"If you hear me screaming bloody murder, there's a good chance I'm enjoying myself. And don't worry about Misaki, I'll protect her." he says in his usual cool and emotionless voice, as it reverberates off the walls. But his words cause Misaki to blush and look away, her small hand still in his.
Saturday turns his head back to the cave and stalks in, pulling Misaki along. Truth be told, she was also intrigued by the mysterious cave, even if she was scared, but her Master was there with her, and that was all that mattered.
The pair duck as the narrow cave walls begin to constrict them. Eugene sighs nervously after them. They walk a little ways down, and Eugene gives another anxious sigh as he follows them in. Despite his fears, he was also curious as to what was inside. And he figured, since the almighty Saturday was there, nothing would happen to him.
As the trio climbed down the ragged stairs, Saturday had his handheld blacklight in his hand, the other still holding onto Misaki, as he shines a way into the cave.
"This is definitely its lair." he deduces, looking at the ragged walls. Eugene had also turned on his warm yellow torchlight, and the two lights, one blue, almost bright white and the other warm gold, shone on piles of long bones on the ground.
"Are those human?" Eugene asks uneasily. Saturday felt Misaki shiver, and his hand instinctively tightened around hers, silently telling her that he was there.
Saturday crouched down, put his small light into his mouth and picks up an animal skull. Misaki crouched down with him. "No, I think it's got a taste for venison." he returns nonchalantly, holding the deer's skull up to his light.
Eugene shines his light through piles of deer bones, then upwards, as the glow feel on two metal handcuffs hanging off the stone wall. It was fit for a human.
"Check this out." he says eerily, as he steps in front of the Master maid pair and further into the ominous cave.
Master and maid step up beside him as Saturday shines his blacklight on the metal chains. Each half of the handcuffs were shining a different colour. Bright blue-white on the left, gold on the right.
There were also various long and thin claw marks on the walls.
Eugene closed his parched mouth, which he didn't even realize had been open as Saturday scanned the area around.
Suddenly, he and Misaki crouched down, his blacklight catching more intrigue.
"Yahtzee." the pale boy states, the light shone on a long, thin, sharp claw wedged into the stone floor.
Eugene bents over. "What is that?" he asks curiously.
"Concrete proof." Saturday smirks, as his deep voice reverberating off the walls as he picks at the tooth, dislodging it and picking it up from the ground where it fell.
He holds it up to his face, turns first to look at Misaki, then at Eugene, who had a huge grin stretched across his tan face, then back at the claw.
☟☟☟