Disclaimer – I don't own Another. This was written for Wattpad Romance's 15 challenge, Scary Dates. The goal was to write a scary date for a story with 2,500 words or less.

Death Date

How does one break a curse?

Izumi's pencil twirled around her finger and with each rotation a particular clicking sound occurred. Her brown eyes stared at the notebook in front of her, and her lips pushed together in frustration. Instead of focusing on entering high school class 3-3 of Yomiyama North Middle School found themselves more focused on surviving. Nobody knew who would graduate from the class that year as no one knew who would die.

"What kind of countermeasures can one take to prevent more deaths?" Izumi's brown eyes darted up to scan the room of classmates within the room. She eyed Misaki Mei and Sakibara Kouichi and mentally cursed the fact Kouichi choose to break the rule sand socialize with Misaki Mei thus making Mei a part of the classroom and thus allowing the class number to now include "the other", or the person who wasn't supposed to exist. "If only we knew who that person was."

The teacher's words mumbled on and on when a finger tapped her shoulder. "You all right?"

Izumi looked up to see Junta Nakao watching her carefully. "How can I be all right? Everyone in the class knows class 3-3 is haunted by one of the previous people to die, but nobody knows who that is."

"Sakibara couldn't have known that. Are you still sure not telling him the truth about our class was the best idea?"

Izumi's brown eyes drifted back over to the happy couple, and mentally she cursed their good fortune when everyone else feared their deaths would be tomorrow. "As if he would have believed us."

"True. The blame lies on the school for putting a new student into our class." A silence fell over the room before he spoke in a rather calm voice.

Izumi at first didn't hear what he said, or she thought she misheard what he said. "What did you ask me?" She listened as he repeated what he'd asked – did she want to go to the amusement park with him. "Do we really have time for such things? We never know when the next death is coming. It is the next month, so..."

"You need to relax a bit. Maybe if you had some fun you could think of a solution to our problem. It is after all my job to make sure you don't over do it."

The logic wasn't one she could argue with.

…

Junta felt relief when Izumi said yes. A voice in the back of his head nagged. "The real reason why you want her to go to the amusement park isn't to get her to relax. Don't you think in this situation the entire thing is going to come back and bite you in the butt."

Instead he ignored the voice and found himself at the amusement park with Izumi. The head of the countermeasures smiled, and her mood remained similar to how things were before Kouichi entered the picture. Her thin finger pointed at the ferris wheel. "Let's go on that."

Junta smiled and took her hand so they were in line. Eventually their turn came and they got onto the cart and sat down as the door with it's clear window shut with a snap. Slowly the ferris wheel went started up. He didn't hear the sound of a bolt moving slowly as the ferris wheel went round and round. Eventually they stopped at the top, and Junta's dark eyes watched as Izumi smiled like she'd not done in a long time. Izumi stood up and leaned up against the door as her smile kept glowing.

And then it happened.

The door which was supposed to prevent people from falling suddenly fell away, and Izumi found herself falling forward. Junta quickly moved forward to grasp her hand, and could feel the young girl's shoulder pop from the momentum. The smile on Izumi's face he could no longer see, and she hung from his hand dangling down. Shouts from below told him people down below noticed, and the wheel slowly started around.

"Don't drop her. Don't drop her." His mind kept imaging her dropping if he let go, but finally she was close enough to the ground to let her go safely into the arms of people down below. Which meant Izumi was safe.

A panic filled Junta's mind when he realized the ferris wheel actually hadn't moved, nor had they come closer to the ground. For some reason he's let go of Izumi's hand and she was dropping down to the ground. His eyes snapped shut as her body hit the ground. "Let me wake up from this nightmare."

Instead flashes of Izumi smiling at him despite the sudden loss of the smile she had while riding with him appeared in his head as the events went whirling through his head. His lips felt dry, and a nasty taste touched his tongue. She's smiled at him on the way down despite the slip of the happy smile, and the smile she gave him wasn't the same. The smile said everything – she'd let go so he wasn't pulled over the edge with her.

…

Junta opened his eyes to see himself in his bedroom sitting up. His entire body was covered with a sticky sweat, and a chill shudder ran down his spine. He blinked a couple of times at the nightmare which ran through his head and licked his lips in an attempt to brush away the dryness. His hand reached for his cellphone which lay next to his bed and dialed the number.

The phone rang, and rang without her picking up, and he set the phone down as the dread rushed over him. "She's dead. She's dead and it's my fault. I should never have tried going on a date with her while the curse is in place. I'm such a..."

His phone suddenly range and he reached out quickly. "Hello?"

"Junta... what are you doing calling this late at night? I just got out of the shower."

"Sorry Akazawa-san. I had a nightmare where you died, and had to call."

A silence came from the other side of the phone, and the other middle school student spoke up. "Don't worry about it. I think everyone in our class has those kinds of nightmares. I'll see you in class tomorrow. We'll try to think of something to end this curse."

The phone connection clicked off and Junta set the piece of technology down onto the table. "I can't let my selfishness get in the way."