The Odd One Out

Chapter 4

Oriella didn't see anything, so naturally, she couldn't understand Summer's gesture. With her eyes wide open, she saw nothing but darkness outside the window. With her head full of questions, she approached Summer, whose materialistic outlook had already been shattered into crumbs by that scene, and said in a small voice, "Summer, what happened? There's nothing out there? What are you trying to show me?"

The noise they made wasn't too loud, and Summer didn't scream in terror or anything, so no one around them noticed anything unusual, and no one else even looked up. This meant that apart from herself, there was a high chance that no one else would notice the white-faced ghost lying in the underground.

What's more, Summer had an inexplicable instinct: although she didn't yet know what it was about, she felt instinctive that it was coming for her. She cautiously approached the window where the white-faced ghost had been lying and looked in the direction where it had disappeared, and rightly saw nothing. There was only the reflection of the lights in the carriage and their reflection in it, not even the handprint she had imagined.

It seemed that the thing had really gone, and Summer let out a long breath that had been stuck in her throat since earlier. She wondered if she should tell Oriella what she had seen and if telling her would involve her.

As she watched her friend's movements, Oriella could not contain her burgeoning curiosity and tugged on Summer's sleeve, asking, "Summer, what are you looking at?"

Summer thought for a moment and attached herself to Oriella's ear to briefly whisper an explanation of what she had just seen, "I just saw a white-faced, red-eyed humanoid monster lying outside this window."

Oriella's face froze, then she covered her mouth and exclaimed, "Huh? But I didn't see anything." She looked out in a panic.

Summer didn't want to scare her by saying too much: "It's gone."

After this frightening episode, Summer was uncomfortable for the rest of the journey and felt a little bit of a wiggle on her body. It was not practical to take the bus instead of the underground, and there was not enough time. The good thing was that the white-faced ghost didn't show up again until they got off. Although the feeling of being watched would occasionally return, Summer could only say that she didn't panic, compared to the white-faced ghost. At least she hadn't seen anything, had she?

If she didn't see it, she could just pretend it didn't exist.

The only thing that worried her was that Oriella had been on edge ever since she heard her say that there was a ghost outside the car window, keeping her head down and not speaking, and not being able to read her expression. It made Summer worry that she hadn't really scared her. Following the crowd of people heading out of the underground station, they arrived at the most crowded area of the city. It had to be said that their company was really rich, having bought an entire building in the heart of a commercial centre where every inch of land was unbelievable expensive. Even though it was still five minutes away from the metro station, the silvery-white building standing under a leaden cloud could be seen through the fine mist of rain.

Summer had just opened the folded umbrella in her hand when she saw Oriella, her smile back on her face, squeeze under her umbrella, pull two candies out of her handbag and stuff them into her hand. Then look at her blearily as she walked away.

Summer raised an eyebrow: "What's that look on your face? If you want to say something, just say it."

Oriella shook her head and looked at her with a strange look in her eyes, pointing to the candy in her hand, "You eat the candy first."