2025-12-01: Unring the Bell

• Cutscene: Unring the Bell
• Cast: Maria Sakurai
• Where: Sakurai Household
• OOC Date: December 1st, 2025
• IC Date: August 16, 2012
• Summary: Maria makes an important phonecall.

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BGM: (The Warning - Dust to Dust) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_zHZwslwD0

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Carefully closing the door to her room, Maria retreats to the furthest corner, shrinking down into that space. Her attention is on her phone in her hand.

She'd made up her mind before she even got home, but now she finds herself faltering once again. She'd told herself, when she got home. When she got home, she told herself, when everyone else had gone to their rooms. She'd told herself, when the house was quiet.

It's quiet now. She's still staring at her phone.

What he did isn't illegal.

What he did, he'll do again. No-- because she'd hesitated, he'd done it again.

The new girl he was with, earlier, she won't be the last. How many more will come after her?

She should try to talk to Akechi-san. --No. What he did isn't illegal, she thinks again, her phone trembling in her hand. What he did was 'just' wrong. There's nothing that can be done about it legally. So then...

Her thumb slides across the screen, releasing the lock. It's easy from there: tap call. Tap the numbers she knows by heart. Put her phone to her ear. Then there it is, that tiny click.

Maria takes a breath, sucking in air open-mouthed as if she were devouring it whole. ...When did her cheeks get wet?

No voice greets her. It's silent, on the other end. "...Hello?" she whispers, as if expecting someone to answer.

No one does.

"...Takeshi Nakata," she says, the name spilling out of her almost as if she were compelled to say it. "A-at, at Shujin High School, in Tokyo. I--"

The line clicks, and goes dead.

The first breath Maria takes is shallow. The second is deeper. Her hand shakes. Her phone slips from her grasp to clatter against the floor.

No. Wait. No. No, no, no, no--

She snatches up her phone again, as quick as she can. Swipe to unlock, tap to make a call, key in the number, digit after digit. Ah, no, she's made an error-- no, back up, try it again. Hit call.

Fumbling for her phone, she lifts it again to her ear, listening once more for that tiny 'click'.
"I-- I'm sorry!" she whispers into the phone, as loud as she dares in a house that's sleeping. "I want to take it back!"

There's silence on the other end.

The silence lingers, as weighty as a brick as she takes one breath then another, and another. After one deeper breath, she manages to get out, "This is Maria, Maria Sakurai. I-- I just called you! So please. Take it back. I don't want him to actually d--"

The line clicks before she can finish her sentence and goes dead.

"No..."

This time, when the phone slips from her grasp to clatter to the floor, Maria doesn't bother to pick it up again.