"Neko-chan?" There is a moment of silence amongst all the noise surrounding them as no one speaks a word.

"Okay, I'll be there as soon as possible." Fumiya quickly hangs up, sliding the phone back in the pocket of his yukata- more like in the sleeves -and turns to natsuki.

"I'm so sorry, suki. I have to be at home right now, neko-chan needs to be taken to the hospital soon." He says in a hurried manner.

"But, what happened?" Haruki asks.

"It's okay, you can go. Take care on your way home." Natsuki says, understanding the emergency.

"I'll explain later." Fumiya throws a glance at haruki and then he almost makes a run towards the exit.

Jimin sighs. "What do we do now? Are you going alone, natsuki-chan?" He still asks.

"What? How can she go alone? The penalty has to be given to both of them since they both lost, right?" Haruki argues.

"But, fumiya apparently has some urgent matters to tend to." Jimin fully turns to him, looking eye to eye.

"Still, isn't it dangerous at night? Come on!" He tries to be rational.

"Hey, hey! I'm not afraid. I can go alone." Natsuki stops them from arguing further.

"Um, natsuki, do you want me to come with you? Haru-kun is right, it's not safe to go alone." Taehyung asks, making them all silent.

"No need, yukio. I'll be fine by myself." She stands firm on her ground.

"Think again... summer is the favourite time of the year for ghosts to roam around, you know that." Jimin adds fuel to the fire, trying to scare her.

"Shut it, aki." Haruki snaps, not understanding why jimin is saying all that.

"Well, I'm just stating facts." Jimin shrugs, eyeing natsuki who kind of looks a little scared now.

But, is she going to back down? No!

"Aki-kun, you've been so cocky today. Watch me! I'll go by myself." Her jaw tightens, rage filling inside.

"But, natsuki-" Taehyung starts again but natsuki stops him by showing the palm of her hand, much dramatically than she intended. He stops, not wanting to push her to do something she doesn't want to.

"I'll be fine, don't worry. Take the fish-" She hands him the bag of goldfish. "-fetch the egg plushie from uncle and wait for me at the intersection. You know, where we change the streets when going to school? Around the corner of the bridge, okay? I'll be there soon." Before taehyung has time to say anything, natsuki is already out of his sight.

With all the people walking around, he loses sight of natsuki soon. He looks at jimin, dumbfounded. Jimin just shrugs while Haruki sighs beside him.

•~•~•

"Um, I think I'll regret it." Natsuki stops at the foot of the dimly lit road. The faint noises of people and lights are far behind her, it all is just like a mere echo in her head now.

"But, there's nothing you can do anymore. Natsuki, let's just get it over with!" She cheers herself up, taking a deep breath, clutching a part of her yukata and makes her way into the street.

Once this street ends, it will lead her to a path that is barely considerable as a road. It's like an animal trail. Not many people come this way; not at night at least.

That's why it is marked as a scary path to take at night. If only natsuki wasn't so stubborn and stupidly driven by her intrusive thoughts, she would have saved herself from getting into this mess.

She gulps through her dry throat as the noise fades more and more with each step she takes. The silence is like, running to swallow her alive. She is never really afraid of ghosts or such, but again, this is her first time doing a test of courage at night alone. Anyone would be frightened.

She takes out her phone, turning on the flashlight as the street ends. She enters the bushy area with no houses around, only small trees and bushes of thorny plants lay in front of her. The flashlight illuminates the path in front of her, some insects fly from left to right making her flinch unknowingly.

Her feet slowly move forward, eyes straight on the road, not wanting to look around and find something frightening which can make her more nervous than she already is.

She must have walked quite a bit when the dry bushes around her seem to have rustled. Her heart thumped inside her chest loudly and she could feel herself getting anxious, unbeknownst as to what is lurking behind the dark leaves and branches.

She shines the light on the bushes, looking left and right but there was nothing. It's back to how it was before. She decides to shrug it off and starts walking again.

"Natsuki-" She feels a presence behind her as a hand stops right on her shoulder.

"Ahhh!!" She screams, almost flinging her phone at whoever that was behind her in a frenzy.

"Holy shit! It's me- yukio." Taehyung almost loses his balance as he steps back to save himself from the sudden attack. He gets scared because of her scream too.

"Yukio? Why are you here?" She catches her breath, putting a hand on her heart.

"I was... worried that you'd be scared." He says in between his shortened breaths.

"Me? I wasn't scared a tiny bit..." Natsuki scoffs, straightening out the wrinkles on her yukata.

"Oh my god!! There's a dead spider on your shoulder!!" Taehyung yells, not so loud but enough to scare her and make her jump on her spot.

"Where? What?!" She jumps, letting herself fall on taehyung for safety who catches her in time. He breaks out in a fit of laughter.

"I thought you were not scared a tiny bit?" He says after he stops laughing as natsuki stands properly, distancing herself from him, embarrassed.

"Yukio!" She whines, groaning out of frustration and embarrassment.

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry, I won't play around like that. Let's get out of here quickly." He finally stops laughing completely, now just smiling at her.

Natsuki humms, walking beside him as the path in front of them is illuminated by the flashlights of their phones. Their footsteps resonate and the silent noise of nature at night envelops their ears. The road starts to go up in an angle, indicating that they're climbing up the small mountain.

She didn't realise but when he made fun of her, laughed his heart out, her fear disappeared. More like, knowing someone is with her, the worries dissipated just like that. He really does know how to make someone feel better.

"You know, there's an urban legend about the cliff we're about to pass by." Natsuki speaks in a small voice, maintaining the peaceful environment.

"What is it?" Taehyung, of course, is curious about it.

"If we stand at the edge of the cliff and yell out our wish, it will be resonated back by the spirits living in the cliff and the wish will come true, but, if the voice doesn't resonate back to us, that means the spirit will not be fulfilling our wish and we might get haunted by them." Natsuki finishes, glancing at taehyung to see his reaction.

"Really? Should we try?" He asks, using the same quiet voice.

"But, it's summertime, we should be careful not to come across or engage with any spirits." Natsuki almost whispers as they keep walking at a normal pace.

"Do you really believe in those?" He chuckles.

"If you were born in Japan, you would do too." She shrugs.

"Ah, by the way, why was Fumiya-kun in such a hurry?" The thought suddenly crosses his mind.

"Oh, that... neko-chan is his cat's name. She was ill so probably they had to take her to the hospital." She says as he nods. They keep walking in silence after that.

"We're almost there." She informs. Taehyung looks ahead and surely, he can see the path curving to the left and on the right side, a vast cliff spreads out wide in the open space.

It looks so strangely interesting to his eyes; on his left side, trees and darkness with insects residing in the nature. On his right side, wide open sky and the same darkness but the stars shine bright as they reside around the hazy clouds.

"It doesn't look scary to me though..." He mutters, looking at the sky as they walk closer to the cliff side. The cliff edge is safely guarded by the handrails and bars.

"Now that we are here together, it is less scary." Natsuki runs up to the handrails, smiling as her eyes travel far ahead in front of her. She is suddenly not afraid of ghosts, or anything that can jump out of the bushes right now.

You never know what's lurking in the darkness!

"That's right." Taehyung catches up to her, standing beside her, looking at the same sky, same stars.

"Let's try making a wish." He suddenly turns to her.

"Are you serious?" She asks sceptically.

"Watch me!" He says, eyes sharp for a second before he looks away from her and prepares his lungs to shout.

"I wish for neko-chan to be alright soon... please." He yells at the top of his lungs, surprising natsuki. She didn't expect him to wish for neko-chan's health.

He smiles as his voice travels away, colliding with the walls of neighbour mountain, tumbling back to their eardrums in the form of an undying echo. The resonating voice, exactly like his but more spreaded, more blurry.

I wish for neko-chan to be alright soon...

The small pause gets repeated too.

Please...

And then, it echoes again and again as the voice feels further away from them each time it resonates, as if it's slowly inching closer to the god; telling that their wish will be granted soon.

Natsuki laughs when the word 'please' always stays behind than the string of other words.

"What?" Taehyung can't help but let out a chuckle too, looking at her carelessly laughing face.

"It sounds so funny. And your voice is deep, it's ironic." She continues to laugh as taehyung laughs with her.

He rests both of his hands on the handrail, looking up at the sky as his chest vibrates with laughter, shaking off the last remains of fear.

Eventually, their laughter dies down and they just stare at the sky full of little stars. Natsuki's head is always turning for taehyung; for a little glimpse of the twinkle of his left eye.

She giggles, not being able to hold it in.

"What happened again?" Taehyung looks at her with a smile.

"Your eyes." Her lips never curve back down. Taehyung tilts his head, wondering what she is talking about.

"Do you even know... how your eyes seem to twinkle as if they're holding countless galaxies inside them everytime you're happy and smiling, looking at something beautiful!" Her words flow out of her heart, she has no time to hold them back.

While on the other side, taehyung's big smile slowly transforms into a small yet warm one. His brain finally processing natsuki's words.

Why does his heart seem to have changed the rhythm of his heartbeats?

He can't think of a response or reply to her words.

Pursing his lips, he looks away, facing the sky again. Natsuki looks down at her feet, still smiling.

"Seems like I got carried away and spoke without any filter." She feels like she said something wrong.

"Uh huh!" He looks at her, shaking his head in denial. "It's alright. It just got me by surprise." He still smiles the same and that gives her a little relief.

"Because, I've never received a poetic compliment." He teases her, trying to ease up the awkward mood.

"It wasn't.... hey! Don't lie, I'm sure you get compliments all the time." Success! She's back to being the natsuki he knows.

"Well, maybe. I mean, you can't go without getting compliments when you look like this." He wiggles one of his eyebrows, acting proud as he points at his face.

"Knock it off!" Natsuki laughs, rolling her eyes as she starts to walk back to the main road, heading down the mountain now. They leave the handrails behind.

"You're just jealous because I'm good looking. Hey!" Taehyung runs after her.

Eventually, silence once again surrounds the cliff edge as they walk further away, bickering on their way back.

■□■□
Oh, sweet love~

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