Corpse Party

Do I Want To Move On?

Chapter 1 – The Guilt Of Forgetting

An entire year had passed. I missed them. So much. I'd had to live with that horrible memory for an entire year now. The emotional pain was excruciating. I knew I wasn't the only one in pain. None of the others were acting like they used to.

The first three months after we had escaped from that horrible place, the most injured out of the bunch, being me and Ms. Yui, were walking around with bandages around our arms, or what we had left of our arms. Ms. Yui's injury was of course not as grave as mine, but she still had to get used to draw on the chalkboard with her left arm.

As for my own arm, Seiko's dad had asked me if I wanted a prosthetic one for quite a while now. The thought scared me to be honest. To have a piece of plastic strapped to your body, to have a piece of a fake body strapped to your real one… I kept wondering if my real arm was still somewhere in Heavenly Host, just lying on the floor or, rotting amongst the corpses of the many, many victims that had lost everything and more in there.

I felt like not only a part of my body, but a part of my soul, my part of my consciousness had died along with my arm in that terrifying place. And not only had I lost my true self in there, but even the best half of me was now dead, possibly still hanging from the noose in that old run down bathroom stall. I was of course thinking of Seiko, the better half of me, the one person I knew I was able to trust with my life.

There didn't go a single day ever since that horrible incident that I didn't think about her. I was so mentally scarred that there didn't go a single night without me having horrible nightmares about her, about that damned school. About the ghosts and the horrors that had terrorized us for hours on end an entire year ago, the latest being the distorted image of Seiko, with a crooked neck and a sadistic smile, desperately chasing me around in the accursed halls of Heavenly Host, to kill me with her giant bloodsoaked hammer.

I didn't pay much attention in school, because I was too occupied by worrying about my friends and my mental state to really care about the adequate amount of insignificant information that the teachers at my high school tried to stuff down my throat.

Ms. Yui's classes was the only classes I really tried to pay attention to. Not only because we had been through so much together, but because I wanted to learn as much about the English language as I possibly could. I needed to learn as many languages as possible, for one particular reason.

Ever since I was discharged from the hospital after fleeing from that school, I had researched as much as I could on any kind of magic form that I could find. Black magic, holy magic. Just magic at all. I was a Shinozaki, so magic ran in my family's veins. And I simply had to find a spell or a phrase that could help me.

I was getting desperate. I wanted to see Seiko and the others again so bad, I was even willing to risk my own life to the hands of black magic to get to see her again. I was looking for a distinct spell or phrase that could help me return a lonely soul from the grasp of the dead's world, and I was getting desperate, as I had been searching every day for an entire year without getting anywhere.

I had told Satoshi and the others who were involved a year ago about it, and not surprising, they were strongly against it. Though I wasn't going to let that stop me. No one was going to keep me from trying to revive Seiko. Not even my friends.

I was currently sitting by my desk, in the middle of class. By the blackboard our teacher was droning on and on about how quadratic equations was very important to remember, since it would be part of the test late this year. Of course it is dumbass, or you wouldn't teach us this stuff, which even then I thought it would be utterly useless to teach someone like me, who didn't give two shits about math to begin with.

Instead of listening to the teacher's droning, I looked down at my notebook with an irritated grunt, crossing over all the possible spells I had tried to use to revive Seiko. Most of them were fake of course, but I couldn't risk glossing over something which later would turn out to actually work.

I was beginning to panic. To think that it was never possible to revive someone from the dead. Of all the things that black magic could do for you, and it couldn't help me with that one problem I had!? I was getting frustrated, and had often found myself throwing my notes for class, or black magic, around in my room at the Shinohara's in anger.

As I was crossing over the last sentence on my list violently in irritated and angry irritation, The teacher suddenly made an announcement.

"Alright class, so now that I'm SURE you're paying attention," he sent an unpleasant glare my way. Asshole. He doesn't know what I've been through "I have an announcement to make"

He looked over to the door of the classroom, which I hadn't noticed had opened, as he gestured to someone outside to come in.

"Come on in, Sakurai-san"

I furrowed my brow quietly as my curiosity peaked, when the person outside stepped inside the classroom. I widened my eyes quietly as I saw the person.

She was absolutely stunning. I felt my heart speed up a hundred times faster as I laid eyes upon her. Long blonde hair that almost reached her hips put up into a ponytail on each sides of her head with blue ribbons, which swayed slightly as she walked. She was tall and slender, her curves seductive as she walked forward. She had a confident smile on her bright pink lips as she stood beside the teacher's podium, and looked over the class with dark blue ocean eyes.

Her hair looked so silky and beautiful, and I found myself completely stunned as I watched the girl look over the class with an adorable smile, and her beauty shined as she greeted us.

"I'm Ichiko Sakurai" She said as she waved quietly and bend her hip outwards in an adorable pose "Nice to meet you all"

I felt shivers run down my spine, and as soon as I had laid my eyes on her I had forgotten all about the spells in my notes. I soon snapped out of my daze though as the teacher continued where Ichiko left off.

"So, we have a new transfer student in our class today" He said with a small smile "Ichiko here is highly praised by her teachers in her old school, so make sure to make her feel welcome, okay?"

The class students responded with a collective "Understood" before they returned back to the rest of the lecture at hand. Myself though, were only occupied with the new girl in class. I was almost ashamed of myself of thinking like that about her already, but I still found myself unable to pry my gaze away from her as she found her way to the windows in the left of the class, and opened up one of her notebooks to pay attention.

After class, that girl was still swirling in my head. It seemed really sudden that a new transfer student would just appear in our classroom like that, but still, new transfer students wasn't anything new.

As I was packing away my books into my strap bag, and about to head into the hall, Satoshi approached me with a soft smile.

"What do you think about the new girl?" he asked with a smile as he looked in her general direction "Half of the class already seems to be her friend"

It was definitely true. 10 or maybe 12 people were already crammed around Sakurai, chatting and asking her questions, like how old she were, what she preferred to do, etcetera. I just chuckled quietly as I leaned my head against my arm and onto my desk.

"I guess so" I mumbled quietly "Don't you think she's pretty?"

Satoshi looked down at me with a small smirk. I widened my eyes as I realized what I had just said.

"Hehe, having a crush already huh?" He said with a teasing smirk.

"C-Come on dude, that's not cool" I said with a pout as I looked up at him "It would be insensible to Seiko's memory to think like that already"

His smirk suddenly turned a lot more serious, and he clapped my shoulder comfortingly.

"Come on dude, it's been an entire year" he mumbled as he squeezed my shoulder "Seiko would have wanted you to move on by now. She wouldn't have held anything against you"

"T-That might be so, but…" I mumbled, still protesting "I'm not interested in getting a new partner. I'm not over it"

He nodded quietly.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have joked like that" He mumbled quietly, looking at me apologetically "I should have been more sensitive towards you and your feelings"

"It's okay Satoshi, you couldn't have known" I mumbled quietly.

"Well, anyway, let's go meet the others" He said with a smile as he pulled me up by the arm "We were supposed to plan when to meet for sharing notes, remember?"

I nodded quietly and were about to follow after him into the hall, when we were suddenly called out to from behind.

"Hey! You two there!"

It turned out it was the new girl, who quickly pushed through the crowd that was cramping around her desk and walking over to us as she noticed that we were about to leave. She quickly trudged up to us with a happy smile.

"Hey guys" She said casually, grinning at us as she thrust out her hand for us to shake "Nice to meet you. Ichiko Sakurai at your service"

I smiled quietly and shook her hand.

"Yosuhei Misagara" I said "And this doofy guy over here is Satoshi Mochida"

"Hey, what's that kind of a greeting?!" He said with a grin as he shook Sakurai's hand as well "Did you want anything from us?"

"Well, I just want to meet my classmates is all" She said with a cute smile "And besides, I noticed your friend here, Yosuhei as soon as I stepped into the room"

I widened my eyes quietly as she said that.

"Huh? How come?"

"Well, for one thing, and not to be rude, but," She said with a wry and trying smile "you're the only one in this class with only one arm"

I instinctively found my good arm rush up and brush over the stump of an arm as she mentioned it.

"I was just curious as to what happened, if you don't mind me asking" She said quietly as she looked at me "It's totally okay if you don't want to though"

"No it's okay. I feel okay talking about it"

Of course I wasn't actually going to tell her what happened. If I told her a crazy spirit had cut my arm clean off with a pair of scissors, she and everyone else beside Satoshi would think I had gone completely mental.

So I told her the excuse I had told everyone else. That I had been caught in a car accident with Ms. Yui one day, and that a sharp piece of metal from the crashed car had crushed down on my arm, severing it in the process.

She looked at me pitifully and sorrowfully, as she stared down at the arm stump.

"How long have you been missing your arm?"

"About a year now" I said with a small smile "Ms. Yui luckily got away from it only breaking her arm and getting a lot of smaller injuries"

"I can understand that you guys really like her and her teachings"

"She is one of our favorite teachers, yes" I said with a smile.

Satoshi tapped my shoulder and smiled.

"I'll leave you two alone for a bit" He whispered with a chuckle "I'll go meet with the others, okay?"

And before I could protest and say he couldn't just leave me like that, he quickly disappeared into the hallway, leaving me with Sakurai.

"Where did Mochida suddenly go?"

"He's… Meeting some friends" I mumbled, internally noting myself to hit him for abandoning me later "Anyway, would you like a tour of the school? I know every little nook and cranny of this place"

"Sure, I'd love that"

And with that, we left the classroom, and proceeded into the hallway, so I could show Sakurai around the school.

~later that day~

I sighed quietly and kicked a small stone on the road. I was depressed. Depressed and guilty of myself. Guilty that I had actually thought about Sakurai like that. That I had admired the beauty of her and the seductiveness of her curves… NO! Now I was doing it again! DAMMIT!

"I'm sorry Seiko" I mumbled quietly "I don't want to forget you, but… Everyone is trying to convince me you're not real… It's not fair…"

I could soon feel heavy tears begin to fall. The whole world was trying to force me and the others to believe that the people that died in Heavenly Host Elementary never actually existed. And I didn't want to forget them. Especially not Seiko. But my shocking behavior earlier that day seemed that I was close to move on from Seiko, and about ready to move on, which was something I didn't feel I was ready for.

I sighed quietly and rubbed my sore eyes as I stepped through the front door of the Shinohara household. Mr. Shinohara was home early for once, not having to rely on me to take care of his kids, so at least I could cry in my room in peace today.

He looked at me worriedly as I stepped inside. I was sure that he could clearly see that I had been crying. I had been doing that a lot lately, if not of frustration that I couldn't find a proper spell, it was because I panicked since my memories from before Heavenly Host seemed to be fading.

Every day I could remember a little less, and little by little, I could feel my memories, my mind and my sanity, being eaten away by that ominous curse that I was still sure was looming over my head ever since I had escaped Heavenly Host.

And that's why I was so desperate to find that damn spell that was supposed to save my beloved girlfriend, before I would completely forget about her forever.

As I stepped into the kitchen, Mr. Shinohara stepped up to me and gripped my shoulder as he looked at me with a serious expression.

"Are you okay, Yosuhei?" he asked quietly "I can see you've been crying again… You've been doing that a lot"

I quickly wiped my eyes and looked at him with a sad expression.

"I'm fine Mr. Shinohara, I'm fine" I mumbled quietly as I looked up at him "I've just been a bit depressed lately. It will take too long and be too hard to explain"

"I have all the time in the world right now" he mumbled quietly as he looked at me worriedly "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I would prefer not, Mr. Shinohara" I mumbled quietly "Don't get me wrong, I appreciate your help but… I don't feel like talking about it"

He nodded quietly and slowly let go of my shoulder.

"Okay. But make sure to talk to me if something comes up, okay?"

I nodded quietly and sighed before looking away and quickly walking to my room, closing and locking the door behind me.

I lied down in my bed with a dead expression. On it was all kinds of saved note with link after link, to website after website, containg several charms and spells that should be able to revive the dead. But I decided to instead of just gloating over how lost I really was, I'd rather just lie down and contemplate why I even existed in the first place, instead of having died in Seiko's place back in Heavenly Host.

As I stared up at the picture of Seiko, or the few remaining bits of it, I realized how quickly my mood had turned around that day. I had gone from pretty normal student behavior and mood, to crippling depression and sadness a few hours later.

This only made me realize how without my girlfriend, without my friends… I would remain unstable. I would remain a complete mess, a trainwreck that was only waiting to happen.

When I was about to roll onto my side and try to fall asleep, I suddenly heard ringing on the door. I looked up as I could hear Mr. Shinohara talk with someone, then shout of the stairs to me.

"Yosuhei! You have a guest!"

I widened my eyes a bit. Who could that be? I knew all my friends had plans, so it couldn't be them.

I trudged down the stairs and up behind Mr. Shinohara, who stepped backwards for me to get a better look at my visitor. I had my gaze casted downwards in a depressed manor the whole way down the stairs and into the entranceway, so I only now raised my gaze. And widened my eyes as I realized who it was.

"S-Sakurai-chan?"

"Hey, Misagara-kun!"

A/N

Hey guys! Welcome to "Do I Want To Move on?" the continuation to Memory Loss and Blood Spill. I've been so excited to publish this first chapter, and now I'm finally doing it!

So, hope you guys are liking what I'm doing with this story. I have a whole lot of drama, romance and comedy planned in the future, so keep your eyes and ears open for any future updates in the future!

See you guys later, and keep reading. Peace out.