Tokyo: The Player Behind the Scenes

"Brother, do you know that the 'Seven People Club' at school is planning to sneak into the old teaching building at night and have the new recruits find what they hid there during the day, using it as a way to select new members?" Dongshan Du swallowed a mouthful of rice with difficulty, sharing what he considered to be exclusive news.

The Seven People Club is not a legitimate club; it's just a delinquent gang that only recruits high school students. It holds no appeal for respectable people, who would rather avoid it than join.

But for those delinquents who have gone from high school to university, it's a holy land!

Even though Komagome Academy has a fairly good school spirit, it can't avoid all sorts of people, and some with bad grades actually have pretty good grades—can you believe it?

"The old teaching building?" Dongshan asked again, and then everything made sense.

He glanced at his younger brother. Speaking of which, Higashiyama Doku had once hung out with a group of delinquents. Later, Higashiyama Shin taught those who had led his brother astray a lesson, which made Higashiyama Doku realize his mistakes.

Hanging out with this bunch of weaklings is not as good as learning boxing from my brother!

However, many people still think that Higashiyama Doku is a delinquent.

Dongshan was eager to sever ties with his past self, and later helped many people who were bullied by delinquents, fighting in several matches and often sustaining injuries. However, this only reinforced his image as a delinquent.

As the fighting went on, several people were beaten into submission by him, acknowledged him as their leader, and reformed their ways.

So he could be considered a fake delinquent, and incidentally, he was also quite well-informed about the real delinquents.

"None of your friends are going, are they?" Shin Higashiyama asked.

"No, they only accept high school students. My friends are all high school students, and they said they won't accept little kids." Dongshan scoffed twice. "Once I get into high school, I'll overthrow the Seven Families! I'll turn them into the Daily Good Deeds Gang!"

"Hmm, do you know what time they start?"

"Around eight o'clock, their leader, Inoue Yuka, will bring a few people to act as 'referees,' and then give those who want to join a map, requiring them to use the map to find items hidden in the old school building. I heard they are some props discarded from haunted houses, like severed hands and the like. They also set up a lot of scary traps. Haha, I heard that too."

Dongshan began to speak with great enthusiasm.

"So they might have turned the old teaching building into something like a haunted house?" Higashiyama Shin lamented, feeling sorry for those people's recklessness.

If things were done this way, even if the formation didn't exist, even if it was just an ordinary abandoned school building, it wouldn't be surprising if some kind of life-threatening accident happened. Not to mention that he was certain that the old school building was not ordinary and seemed to be hiding some secret.

He suspected that the ominous sign he had witnessed was not the only one.

Hopefully, his school won't steal the headlines tomorrow.

"Hurry up, stop dawdling!"

Earlier.

Inside the old teaching building of Komagome Academy, a group of four high school students carrying black plastic bags walked through the corridor, leaving a series of messy footprints.

"Boss, why is it so cold in here? Look, whew—you can even see the warm breath coming out."

Sato shuddered, feeling as if countless pairs of eyes were watching him from the shadows in the quiet surroundings.

"It's just psychological. I don't feel cold at all; I'm almost sweating from the heat."

Matsuo deliberately rolled up his sleeves and fanned his face with his hand, pretending to be very hot, but if you looked closely, you would find that his arms were covered with goosebumps.

"Don't let the newcomers see you like this, it's too embarrassing for us," Hosokawa said disdainfully to Sato.

Sato blushed and wanted to retort, but Inoue interrupted him before he could finish speaking.

"Alright, let's finish this quickly. Let's start here. According to our original plan, hide the items according to the map's locations. They need to match the map's markings, but not be too easy for them to find. Okay, Matsuo and Sato, you two are a team. Sato is in charge of hiding the items, and Matsuo is in charge of setting up the scary props. Hosokawa and I are a team."

Inoue, as the leader of the Seven People's Club, was the one who planned this newcomer selection event.

The purpose was to let the newcomers know that joining the Seven Families was not easy, and that they needed fearless courage and determination to get in! It was also a way of intimidating them and warning them to be sensible.

The group readily agreed, and then, armed with various tools, they searched for the burial site according to the map.

"Hey, Matsuo, do you know the history of this school building?"

Sato and Matsuo chatted as they worked, and their conversation drifted to the past of the school building.

"Not interested. It's just rebuilding after a fire, right? Bullshit, students died in the fire. Classes would have been suspended long ago." Matsuo showed his disdain for the rumors.

Sato curled his lip, speaking in a sarcastic tone like a eunuch: "Oh dear, Matsuo, you're not afraid to listen, are you? Afraid to go to the toilet at night?"

"Heh, go ahead and say it. I'd even crawl in to see Sadako's bra size if she came. I'm just afraid you'll piss yourself from being scared."

A hint of unease flashed across Matsuo's face, but his words remained disdainful. He was the kind of guy who, even if thrown into a fire, would only have a mouth left to say "it's not hot."

"Haha, then I'll tell you. I heard it happened decades ago."

"No, to be precise, it was in 1949 (Showa 39). There was a senior student who was the librarian here. At that time, the library was on the first floor of this teaching building, and the student dormitories were still on campus, providing accommodation for a small number of students in need."

Chapter 9: Teacher Coke

so.

For several years, or perhaps more than a decade, the library was open at night until 10 p.m., also serving as a study room.

The reason that senior student was able to become the administrator was naturally because she also lived in the student dormitory, which made it convenient for her to lock the door every day.

One night, around midnight, she couldn't fall asleep because of the summer heat and the chirping of cicadas, so she went to the balcony to cool off. To her surprise, she found that the lights in the library of the teaching building in the distance were still on.

In the pitch black, the light from the library was so conspicuous that she couldn't help but notice it.

She was startled because she clearly remembered that she was the last person to leave the library at 10 o'clock, and that she had turned off the lights and locked the door. Why were the lights still on now?

She guessed that someone might have been sitting in the shadow of the bookshelf when she left, and hadn't heard her close the door, so they were locked inside.

With this in mind, she hurriedly left the student dormitory, grabbed her keys and flashlight, and headed towards the teaching building.

But when she got closer...

But all they found was pitch black.

The lights in the library were not on.

Could it be that she saw it wrong?

When she shone her flashlight through the window, she was surprised to see what looked like a dark shadow flash past. Even with the flashlight shining on it, she could only make out that it was roughly a dark-faced human figure.

She was terrified and didn't dare open the door for a moment, fearing that it wasn't her classmate inside, but a thief.

So she ran to the guardhouse, intending to ask the guards for help to go and take a look.

The guard room was empty, but she saw the schedule and knew it was patrol time, so she waited anxiously in place.

Ten minutes later, she finally saw the middle-aged security guard slowly returning with a large flashlight.

After hearing her words, the guard shook his head in disbelief, because he had just passed by the library during his patrol and had not found any suspicious people.

But to reassure the students, he eventually picked up his equipment and followed the female student to the library.

On the way, the guards asked for more details, and after listening to the female student's detailed description, they fell into an eerie silence.

After a long pause, she asked in a trembling voice: Could it be Teacher Jiao Tan?

The female student immediately said it was impossible; it was just a legend.

But the guard shook his head and stopped at the library door: "No. I saw it with my own eyes. In fact, this school building had been the site of two major fires: one during the war when it was the original school building, and the other shortly after the war when it was a newly built wooden school building."

The first fire did not cause any casualties, but the second one, I heard, involved a teacher and a student who mysteriously disappeared after the fire, and their bodies have never been found.

Many people say that the missing student was abducted by a perverted teacher who intended to assault him, but accidentally started a fire in the classroom that couldn't be extinguished. Both of them perished in the fire, their bodies completely burned to ashes.

The legend of Teacher Jiao Tan started around that time. At first, I thought it was an urban legend, but my senior told me not to take it as just a rumor. Later, I saw it with my own eyes.

That day, in the dark corridor, I saw the teachers' office, which should have been closed, but a light was on late at night, and I could faintly hear the sound of grading papers coming from inside. But as I approached, suddenly…

The lights went out.

The sound disappeared completely, and a strong, acrid smell seeped from the half-open, dark door crack.

The guard recounted the horrific scene he claimed to have witnessed with lingering fear. The surrounding air seemed to grow colder. Even the cicadas were too frightened to sing, falling silent.

The female student was somewhat frightened by his words, but in the end, her sense of responsibility prevailed, and she insisted on seeing what was inside.

Seeing that he couldn't persuade her, the guard could only sigh, make all the necessary preparations, and follow behind her.

Hello, is anyone here? We won't hurt you. If you just wandered in by mistake, we hope you can leave after we open the door. We won't stop you.

The female student opened the door and called out.

The library was deathly silent; there was no response.

She carefully opened the door with the key, poked half her body into the dark library, and reached out to feel for the pull cord switch next to her, only to find that no matter how she pulled it down, the light did not turn on.

Even the flashlight that had been providing illumination suddenly disappeared.

She turned around in surprise, only to find that the guards were nowhere to be seen. She didn't even know when she had walked into the library. The only light source was the stubborn moonlight that shone through the window.

She frantically tried to turn on her flashlight, but at that moment, a hand suddenly pressed down on her shoulder.

Her movements froze, her breathing became erratic and almost collapsing, and her eyes welled with tears of fear. She turned her head shakily—and saw a person, charred black and with indistinct features, wearing a teacher's badge, who opened his blackened skin to reveal a red smile, and said in a hoarse voice:

I warned you.

"And now, in the library built right behind us, in the same location, legend has it that someone later saw that Mr. Charcoal and even came up with a rule: never open the door at night, and never turn your back to him."

Suddenly, Sato's hand landed on Matsuo's shoulder.

"Waaaaah—hum hum hum"

Matsuo almost learned to breakdance on his own, but the sharp edge of a table shattered his dream, slicing across his arm and causing him to let out a muffled groan.

"Hahaha!" Sato, who had successfully pulled off the prank, clutched his stomach and burst into laughter. Now he wasn't the most timid one anymore!

Matsuo covered his arm, frowned, and bared his teeth fiercely at Sato.

"Uh, why are you bleeding?" Sato only then noticed that Matsuo's uniform was covered in red blood.

"It's all your fault! Ouch. That hurts. I need to go to the clinic. Ouch. Tell the boss for me that everything here is up to you, you bastard."

Matsuo clutched his wound, grimaced, and hurried away.

"Hey! It's not that serious, is it?"

As Matsuo left, the blood he left in the library seeped out quickly, dripping down the path before mysteriously and slowly disappearing.

No one noticed.

Sato slapped himself; he had really gotten himself into trouble this time.

He hunched his shoulders, rubbed his hands to ward off the chill, and with a pained expression, quickly finished setting things up, finally sprinkling blood on the props.

【Walk】

Sato felt a chill run down his spine, and suddenly turned around, looking left and right.

Who is speaking?

Hurry up and leave, or else...

Sato's eyes widened, and just as he was about to collapse to the ground, he suddenly saw the small tape recorder that Matsuo had just set up on the table. He immediately felt alive again and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Thank goodness, I was almost scared by the little things I set up."

However, he had indeed finished setting things up, but he felt a chill in the air and knew he couldn't stay any longer, so he quickly ran to the rendezvous point.

But he didn't notice.

The small tape recorder wasn't even turned on.

Dusk was falling in the west.

A black figure silently appeared in the dilapidated corridor, leaned against the window, glanced at the three delinquents gathered downstairs, and a red smile appeared on his dark face.

Inoue looked up as if sensing something, but the old teaching building was still dilapidated and empty.

"Boss, what's up there?" Hosokawa glanced around a few times.

"It's nothing, just my imagination." Inoue shook his head. "Come on, it's my treat. We'll come back and wait for the newlyweds after we finish eating."

"Oh! Long live the boss!"

"Let's have a rice bowl, I really want a curry pork chop rice bowl."

As the group of delinquents walked away side by side, the setting sun slowly sank below the horizon.

Chapter 10: More Bad Than Good

Night, 8 PM.

The campus was completely dark.

Although Komagome Gakuin still has student dormitories, the accommodation fee is over two million yen a year, and it is built off-campus in the style of an apartment.