“Aah!”
She automatically started to struggle, thinking it was one of those creepy girls.
“Calm down!”
But instead she heard a boy’s voice. On top of that, she recognized it.
Misato turned toward him and saw the boy she had met the day before.
“Help me!” she cried.
She had no idea who he was, but he was the only one she could ask for help. Misato clung to the boy.
“I thought it’d end up like this…,” the boy said without batting an eye.
“What do you mean by that?”
“If this keeps up, you’ll end up killed by the apparitions.”
“A-apparitions?!”
Misato had no idea what the boy was talking about.
“Anyway, we’re in danger if we stay here. C’mon, this way.”
“Hey! Wait!”
The boy pulled Misato down an alley.
Once they were in a side street, Misato took another look at the boy.
“Who were those girls? You called them apparitions…”
“Yeah. Those are the apparitions of the girls who had their hearts broken because someone else’s love spell worked.”
“They had their hearts broken…”
When someone used a love spell, they would gain love, but on the other hand, they would also break someone else’s heart.
“Because you combined two spells, the apparitions manifested in this world. They hate people who have successful relationships, like you. If you’re caught, you’re not escaping with your life.”
“What…?” Misato finally realized how serious her mistake was. “Then what do I do?”
The boy seemed to know a lot about love spells for some reason. So she assumed he’d know how to help her, too, and she started to feel as though her fate depended on him.
The boy let out a small sigh and murmured, “Fine.” Then he added, “I wanted to get this sorted out before the apparitions appeared, though…”
“What?” Misato still had no idea what the boy was talking about, but he launched into an explanation of how to get rid of the apparitions.
“You need to use the phone you sent those e-mails on to send another e-mail to yourself. Send the number 030, then all the apparitions with disappear. It’s kind of like an SOS to get rid of ghosts.”
Then the boy said, “Well, hurry up.”
“Uh, sure, okay!” Misato said, quickly reaching for her phone, only to realize she didn’t have it. “Oh!”
“What’s wrong?”
“I…tossed my phone on the street.”
Misato had been so scared of the phone call from the girl that she’d flung her phone away.
“Ugh! How much more trouble are you going to stir up?” the boy said.
“That’s not helping things…”
“We’re going to go get it right now. Show me where it is!”
Misato nodded and headed out of the alleyway with the boy.
Once they got to the main road, Misato started to run toward where she’d thrown her phone, but along the way, she saw a giant crowd of people up ahead.
✦ ✦ ✦
They were the creepy girls. There were at least ten of them—no, maybe even twenty. All of them staggered toward Misato like zombies.
“There are so many of them…”
“And there’ll be more coming to try to catch you. If we don’t hurry, you won’t be able to get away from them anymore.”
Even though she was scared, Misato kept running down the road. Then she felt uncertain. Why was it that no one else was around?
“Why aren’t there other people around?” Misato asked the boy, who was running ahead of her.
“It’s because of the apparitions. They’re only after you, so they’re making sure that anyone who could get in their way can’t come near you.”
“Is that why Kayo is in bed, too?”
“Yeah, it’s to isolate you. So you can’t ask anyone for help,” the boy responded matter-of-factly.
“But…” Misato suddenly had a new question. “Then how are you still here?!”
If the apparitions were keeping everyone else away from Misato, then how was it that the boy was right by her side?
The boy tilted his face just slightly and peered at Misato from the corners of his eyes.
“They can’t force me away,” he said.
“Why’s that?”
“Well…” The boy started to explain but then trailed off. “That has nothing to do with you,” he said, then he turned to face forward again and eventually stopped in his tracks. “This is it. So your cell phone is somewhere here?”
Misato realized they were at the alley near her house.
She looked around the area and found her phone.
“There it is!”
Misato was still curious about the boy, but she needed to get rid of the apparitions right away. That was more important.
“Hurry up and send a 030 e-mail!”
“Okay!” Misato raced over and reached for her phone.
Snatch!
Right as Misato grabbed her phone, someone had also grabbed her arm.
She looked up to see a creepy girl hiding behind a utility pole.
The girl crawled over and stared her down as she kept a tight hold of Misato’s arm.
“Get off!”
“Darn it! No!”
The boy rushed over to Misato and pried the girl’s hand off.
“Aaaaaaah!!!”
She started to groan.
They looked around to see an uncountable number of creepy girls approaching them.
“Unforgivable…unforgivable…unforgivabllle!!!”
“Hurry up and send that e-mail!” the boy yelled.
“O-okay!”
Misato quickly opened her e-mail on her phone and entered her address and 030 into the message.
“Aaaaaaah!!!”
The girls were closing in around them. Right at the moment they were about to reach her, Misato tapped the send button.
“Ngh…nhh…”
When Misato opened her eyes, the sun had already set a long time ago and it was dark.
She’d fainted at some point.
“Where are the apparitions…?”
She looked around in a panic, but all the girls had disappeared. She turned and saw the boy standing by the utility pole. He was holding a red notebook in his hand and was doing something by the pole.
“You’re awake?”
“Yeah…” Misato stared at the boy. “Who are you?”
He knew all about the love spells and was the only person who could come near Misato while the apparitions had kept her away from everyone else.
The boy looked directly at her and slowly said:
“I’m Fushigi Senno. I travel from town to town, hunting down urban legends.”
“Urban legends?”
Misato thought he would explain, but Fushigi didn’t say another word about it. Instead, he only told her about the love spell that had appeared in her town.
“Someone purposefully brought two love spells to this town in order to get someone here to mix them.”
“What do you mean by that? You mean someone did all this on purpose?” Misato asked, but Fushigi didn’t answer her question.
“Don’t worry. Sending another love spell e-mail won’t work anymore, not in this town. I’ve collected them all.”
“What?”
“If you really want a love life, then you shouldn’t rely on a spell. Sometimes love spells are haunted by girls with broken hearts,” Fushigi said, then he left without another word.
Fushigi Senno…
She had no idea who he really was.
However, just like Fushigi said, after that, no matter how many times anyone sent love spell e-mails in that town, no wish was ever granted again…